Editing Midnight RPG - Alignment Conversations (section)

==Andrew==

Re-reading some of my responses here, I realize that they do come off as kind of angry-sounding. This isn't intentional. If the "voice" of these posts reads as seems angry to you, replace the "angriness" with "extreme confusion". Maybe I've misunderstood a lot of your statements; maybe you're just playing devil's advocate to an extreme. But when I hear what I THINK is an argument that manslaughter is inherently and automatically worse than turning over hundreds of lives to a secret self-interested shadow regime, or when it SOUNDS like you're saying that this stuff is only worthy of consideration because we FOUND OUT about it, or when you keep making defenses for Adam's character that are DIRECTLY CONTRADICTED by things Adam has told us himself ... do you understand why my reaction might be along the lines of "what? Wait ... huh? What? WHAT?" 

<br>Maybe you have information that I don't. Maybe Zal is evil already, as you pointed out. Maybe he's actually setting up his secret police to smuggle food and medicine to sick orphans all over Eredane, and just hasn't told us yet. Obviously, I don't have any idea what all we're dealing with here. But IF something like that is the case, I wish you'd just say what I suggested you say to Bill. Tell me that there's stuff at play here that I don't know about yet, and that this stuff has some bearing on the topic at hand, and I'll drop it and trust that you know what you're doing. Seriously, I will. But when you start making arguments that seem (to me) completely untenable, without any indication that there's anything going on other than what we've been made aware of, it is in my nature to SAY so if I think those arguments don't hold water.

<br>There's another factor at work here, and it was touched on when I mentioned GM consistency. Reading just how hard you seem to be fighting AGAINST the notion that subverting democracy is inherently evil, while repeatedly bringing up by way of comparison that what amounts to manslaughter IS inherently evil, I can't help but ask myself "What the hell? Did you argue this hard when it was MY character's alignment on the line? ARE you making special allowances for one PC over another because you feel that the PC in question (and/or his player) is being unfairly "ganged up on" by the other PCs and/or players? When you say that 'you wish Adam hadn't told us that', are you implying that the only reason you're entertaining the possibility that this is an alignment-buster is that someone FOUND OUT about it?" And another point: you say you just want to hear everyone's thoughts before you "take this to Adam". But you didn't "take it to me" when you changed Durgaz's alignment; the first I learned of it was when a good-aligned outsider sniffed it out and threatened to kill him over it. I didn't get a chance to argue MY case. What gives?

<br>Honestly, if I was having this discussion with ADAM, I'd be a lot more open to HIS rationalization of why what Zal did wasn't evil (if, in fact, he DOESN'T consider it evil.) I think Adam is a smart guy, a good roleplayer and an honest player, and if he thinks he has a genuine case against the evil-ness of election-fixing, sure, I'll listen to that. But you, being the GM, are supposed to be impartial, so when I see you acting like Zal'Kazzir's defense attorney, it bugs me. I'm not out to get Adam OR his character; I never have been, although I obviously HAVE had more quibbles about things he's done in and out of game than I have had with any other player/PC. Nonetheless - and you can choose to believe this, or not - these prior quibbles, and the resolution thereof, have NOTHING whatsoever to do with my approach to this debate. I just wanted to be sure they weren't influencing yours, either.

<br>
:: ''Hope that clears up the misunderstanding.  I don't want you (or anyone) to think I'm disagreeing or arguing here.  This has been a good and enlightening discussion.  I'm glad we're having it.  I hope it will happen as needed in the future.  ''
::''But I also hope that (as you suggested to Bill)  you won't assume the worst.''
::''I don't think you did completely,  but I can feel a little aggravation.  ''
::''I don't want to insight that.''
::''Since we're both ACTUALLY in total agreement on this.  I just had questions to aid my decision process.''
::''Cool?''

<br>Yes. Totally.

<br>Please don't read those last few paragraphs as antagonistic or angry, and don't take them to mean I'm accusing you of anything, because I'm not. What I AM doing there is giving you some insight into where my reaction to some of your previous responses was coming from. I get that we're in agreement, NOW, but there was a lot of in-between there when I was absolutely baffled by what seemed to be utterly specious reasoning.

<br>But I get it now. So yeah, cool.