Editing Midnight RPG - Alignment Conversations (section)

==Andrew==

::''The only negative about all this talk is the fact that RIGHT NOW all our player-to-player out-of-game talk is great but ultimately its all meaningless.  The fact is that until someone learns that the election was fixed (through some sort of investigation)  its all only out-of-character talk.''

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Huh? How is it meaningless? A ruling on whether a random PC's alignment should change HAS to take place out of game, by definition. We're not discussing how our CHARACTERS would react to Zal's deception. Honestly, I have no idea. In character, I'm not sure that Durgaz has enough understanding of how democracy is supposed to work to determine that any wrongdoing was done. The WORST thing we might figure out that he's done was lie to the townspeople, and since we haven't figured that out, we're not going to be making any in-character decisions any time soon.

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Also, you keep mentioning the fact that nobody knows the election was fixed, as if that automatically makes it any less evil. Putting aside for a minute that, well, it doesn't, I'd like to point out that unless I'm remembering wrong, none of the PCs witnessed Durgaz murdering the three sailors. So I guess that makes it OK, right? Even if there WERE PCs present, are you implying that it wouldn't have been evil if there weren't? It sounds like you are.

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::''I feel that's the consistency. The situations are obviously different.
::''Durgaz's situation was a little more cut and dry. He killed three people in cold blood who offered him no real danger at all. They were neither anywhere near his power level and they were only coming to "arrest" and remove him as ordered by the dock manager.''
::''Zal'Kazzir altered the results of an election. One that he thought (via his "supreme" ability of Diplomacy and Nobility Knowledge) would be the best option for the new government.''
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I don't know whether you're just playing devil's advocate to an extreme, or whether you've just forgotten or just haven't been paying attention to a few things, so let me recap them here:

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1) Durgaz killed three people in cold blood, '''while insane,''' whom he had no way of knowing in character were "nowhere near his power level." They outnumbered him three to one. They were armed. They were '''openly discussing their plans to torture and kill him.''' Was there a better, less-evil way to deal with this problem? Absolutely. Is it the cut-and-dried, obvious situation you make it out to be? You'd have a much stronger case for that if you weren't trying to argue that it's inherently more evil than selling out the futures of hundreds of people for personal gain.

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2) Zal'Kazzir altered the results of an election. I don't know where you're getting this whole "He thought it would be best for the townspeople due to his supreme Nobility Knowledge and Diplomacy", because '''Adam himself told us, right there in game, out loud, that he was doing it solely to consolidate his own power.''' NOT for the benefit of the townsfolk. NOT because he thought Wilhelm would be the best leader of First-Hold. For Zal'Kazzir. You can keep saying that his motives were pure, but '''the player behind the character explicitly told us otherwise.''' I can keep repeating ad nauseam that Ardherin is probably just orchestrating these situations to test us, so that once he's convinced we're strong enough he can appoint us all his magic guardians of goodness and send us riding around outer space on flying unicorns, helping the unfortunate, but I seriously doubt that will make it true.

I should note here that if Adam HAD told us that Zal was doing this out of genuine concern for the townpeople, I could have been convinced that the act was pretty Chaotic, but not inherently Evil, even if it DID result in badness for First-Hold (the same way Eranon's decision to free the dragon was Chaotic, not Evil, even if the dragon ends up killing a lot of people.) He didn't, though. He did it for himself. There's no question in my mind that it's Evil under those circumstances.

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And before you say that you wish Adam had kept his mouth shut and not told us that, whether we know doesn't have any bearing on how evil something is. If Durgaz decides to start sneaking into First-Hold and eating babies every night, but he does it all via bluebook so nobody knows, it's still fucking evil.

:: ''Afterall those situations exemplify the character for which they are based! Its martial action vs. political motivation.''

So ... what ... mugging someone is totally worse than being, or enabling, a dictator? Stabbing someone is always worse than bilking dozens or even hundreds of people out of their livelihood? I don't see what "martial action vs. political motivation" has to do with the inherent wrongness of an act.

:: ''The only caviate I would add is that this is the way Adam has demonstrated Zal to be over many many games. Its despicable. But that's why we LOVE to hate Zal'Kazzir.''

I'm not arguing that. It's totally within Zal'Kazzir's character, just as it is within Durgaz's character to lash out violently when he feels he's being threatened. Acting "according to character" isn't a free pass to do whatever we want, UNLESS the character in question is chaotic or neutral evil. In fact, doesn't the very statement "this is the way Adam has demonstrated Zal to be over many many games" describe EXACTLY the sort of "pattern of behavior" that we determined would be grounds for alignment change?

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Look, when all's said and done, you are the GM and you can make whatever ruling you want, even if I disagree with it (and, with all due respect, most of your reasoning doesn't make a lot of sense to me.) I really don't understand your apparent feeling that we shouldn't be discussing this as PLAYERS because our characters don't know about it. Whether our characters know about it, and what they would do (if anything) upon finding out should have no bearing whatsoever on our ability to discuss its ramifications as players ... we obviously wouldn't be discussing "Alignment" IN character, so either it's discussed here or not at all. 

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It also occurs to me that you may also be making special allowances for Adam here, either because you think the rest of us have been "unfair" to him OR because you think that his turning evil would force the group to kill him, thereby causing problems you don't want to deal with. If that is the case, I can understand why you might want to do that, but I certainly hope you wouldn't actually go through with it. First of all, as I've stated already, I'm NOT arguing that the group needs to kill Zal, or that he should become an NPC. I AM arguing that he's done something bad enough to warrant an alignment change. Whatever comes after that is up to Adam and all of the rest of us, '''exactly as it was when you alignment-shifted Durgaz.''' When I talk about wanting consistency, that's what I mean.