1. It's been historical thing and accepted for a long time

No, it hasn't. Egregious cases have been dealt with for a long time. We obviously don't turn everyone evil the first time they kill a neutral mob, and it's not at the top of the list of bad roleplay, but it's not a trivial problem either.

2. Playability (Tarus bracers)

Plenty of alternatives. If I see a strong example (dwarf paladin killing Tarus for gear, etc), I'll happily thump the person in question. In most cases, I'll just be unimpressed and maybe make a note.

3. Visiting chessmasters and elsewhere (if any)

You've obviously never read that butler's description.

4. Unfair advantage (If Good can't kill neutral for eq, then all things considered, Evil has more access to more equipment. Also because Evil can kill Evil for equipment, and are not bound by the request-within-same-level-region barrier)

- Request is a pretty nice balance. It's much more useful that being able to kill things of your own alignment in a general sense.
- You'll generally have a role reason to kill certain neutrals. A Tribunal would probably feel justified taking the fight to neutral bandits, etc.
- There's a difference between "neutral because of no beliefs" (e.g., a squirrel, a golem) and "neutral because of beliefs" (e.g. that squirrel's protector druid, a wood-elf).

On the same topic, why aren't the imms bearing down more on svirfs who act for all intents and purposes, like mass murderers?

We also regularly turn neutral characters into betrayers if they ignore enough warnings. We've also turned some neutrals good (against their will) for toadying to the Fortress constantly and basically acting "good". You might not see it much because they tend to delete.

It's definitely not the kind of roleplay that gets you noticed or rewarded.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com