Thread by @Thorin

Imagine life as a game of DnD and your different skills, strengths and weaknesses as abilities that can be quantifed as stats. Similarly, you have an "alignment" that is essentially your paradigm of principles that guide which actions you will take.

Now let's say in this game you know everyone else's stats and alignment, as you do with your party. Doesn't it become easier to anticipate how they will react or how they can help or hinder you?

Now consider that most people aren't in your party. For the sake of your own strategy and success it will benefit you to ensure that different groups make the wrong assumptions about you.

You want your enemies to think of you in one alignment and class and neutral observers to see you in another. Ideally not the ones you are actually.

The script or decision tree they'll expect you to follow can benefit you or throw them off entirely.

The way I've played this game in esports is I allow my enemies, more specifically those who perceive themselves to be my enemies, to see me as unlawful evil. Thus they attempt to catch me out in nefarious deeds and expect me to fall prey to traps.

For the neutral observer, I let them think I am perhaps chaotic neutral. An unpredictable and spontaeous force that can be good or bad depending on the moment and thus a fun character to follow.

I never reveal my true character class, abilities or alignment. Perhaps my closest associates can hazard a guess and observe my actions over a long span of time and deduce them.

Even they will be thrown off if they don't know all of my origin story, as I didn't start with the abilities and stats I have seemingly maxed out now. Thus, they will anticipate what those infer incorrectly.

One of the reasons I give most of my ideas and secrets away for free here on twitter is they aren't actually free. The price is a similar set of philosophies understood. Only those with eyes to see and ears to hear will be able to interpret what I communicate.

Thus the secret is always guarded by the chasm between the exoteric and esoteric understanding of what is said.

None of what I just said was about DnD.