In the interest of making things easier on a small subset of our players, I have decided to provide the following form letter which may be used to protest a change in your character's alignment. It is inspired by a composite of many incidents, and surely no more than half of it was inspired by something that happened in the last 24 hours. Really!

Just check the applicable boxes and e-mail it to me. Easy!

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Dear CF Immortals,

I would like to protest my recent alignment change because:


< > Killing everyone I can really isn't that evil.

< > Killing everyone I can, except evils, isn't that evil.

< > Killing everyone I can, except evils, is actually chaotic and not evil!

< > Evil magic isn't evil! It's just a name. You don't really think parachute pants are made of parachutes!

< > I worked too hard to level this character to see you take that all away because my roleplay is pants.

< > How was I supposed to know that spiffy item that kept saying it was taking part of my soul was going to do something with all those parts. I just figured it was a collector. ####, some people collect Precious Moments. I don't judge.

< > So what if I was trying to kill members of one cabal and it turned out that some of the "confirmed" members of that cabal were applicants to its opposite. You have to break a few eggs to make an omelette!

< > You're clearly Shokai, who is guilty of such aberrant cheating as giving virtues to paladins who follow him.

< > I thought this game was just supposed to be about killing.

< > Everyone else does what I'm doing and they don't get punished for it!

< > Hey, who doesn't love liches. And by love, I mean, you know. This is the naughties, it's all good. Love sees no colors!

< > Look, if I wanted paladins I'm murdering to wrath me, I would have picked evil in the first place.

< > You're singling me out because my reputation of awesomeness preceeds me and you clearly know who my dumb ass is.

< > I just got this great set of gear for my alignment and now I can't wear half of it!

< > Just because I offered to snap the Emperor off doesn't mean I'm soft on evil.

< > Good, evil? Isn't it all relative? From a global viewpoint, murdering orphans is fairly neutral.

< > My roleplay is awesome. The role I didn't write totally justifies this aberrant behavior for my alignment.

< > You're just jealous of my kick-ass skills.

< > This isn't fair. Why didn't this other character who was already of the alignment I just got changed to punished for acting the way I do?!

< > Look, Shokai, I'm serious. No matter how many of your precious Maran I kill this isn't fair!

< > You've just completely wrecked my character because I can't roleplay. What the hell?!

< > I got away with acting like this with another character. That grandfathers me for life.


sincerely,

< > Good, evil? Isn't it all relative? From a global viewpoint, murdering orphans is fairly neutral.

Let's get serious here. A neutral character trying to learn should not align changed. If you were serious about changing alignment/ruining a neutral for levelling on orphans, then you are a nazi.

One point; before you ruin a character that a person may have put 200+ hours into, maybe give them warnings/chances beforehand. Don't just suddenly turn them evil, that just starts the hate game and leads to nothing but arguments that immortals always win because they hold all the cards.

The rest of it was quite amusing :P

A neutral character trying to learn should not align changed. If you were serious about changing alignment/ruining a neutral for levelling on orphans, then you are a nazi.

Ultimately, it's a roleplaying game. Justifying murdering orphans for XP as a neutral isn't very practical. There are games where these considerations aren't important, but CF isn't one.

One point; before you ruin a character that a person may have put 200+ hours into, maybe give them warnings/chances beforehand.

The issue there is players who put no effort in until someone starts bluntly hinting. I'd rather have an incentive system that says you should be roleplaying all the time.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

If you start scrutinizing neutrals who are killing orphans I can see it becoming a very slippery slope. Is the senseless murder of orphans more or less evil than the senseless murder of Akanian dwarves? What about killing monks? Whose rank-ordered list of NPC's purity are we adhering to here? Where is a neutral expected to rank? If he's killing orphans he's doing evil's work and if he's killing zombies he's doing good's work. If you can't base your ranking areas on the preferences of your groupmates (evils want to kill orphans and good wants to kill zombies) what are you basing it on? How easy is it going to be for your neutral to find a ranking group when you have to subject them to some complex thinking process on the relative value of mobs in the world?

should be against the ethics of a neutral person. Neutrals are not extremists. CF's ranking system is for extremists.

>Let's get serious here. A neutral character trying to learn
>should not align changed. If you were serious about changing
>alignment/ruining a neutral for levelling on orphans, then you
>are a nazi.

If I'm not mistaken, there's a law of the Internet going back to Usenet days that declares any thread dead as soon as someone mentions nazis.

That said, that particular comment was more aimed at good characters.

It's called Goodwin's law. It states that as a discussion grows longer, the probability of someone being compared to Hitler or a Nazi approaches one.

It is then generally accepted that the discussion has been going on for too long and should die.

>If I'm not mistaken, there's a law of the Internet going back
>to Usenet days that declares any thread dead as soon as
>someone mentions nazis.
>
>That said, that particular comment was more aimed at good
>characters.

As a neutral are you subject to alignment change for killing goodie npcs? If so how are you really any different than a goodie? I suppose you could kill other neutrals, but that really doesn't seem to add all that much of a distinction, and leaves neutrals as sort of like a second class goodie in my mind.

Additionally, Valg seems to indicate below that role/cabal can never be an excuse for a non-evil character to kill a goodie npc because the IC Imm can override any such considerations with their own IC justifications. So if my chaotic outlander elf is killing orphans to prevent them growing up to be Imperials, some Imm can still decide he/she considers that act evil regardless of my character's motivations and align change me? But this can't be the case or Shokai could (in his discretion) align change every goodie tribunal that ever brought a goodie criminal to justice, or every goodie villager that killed a goodie mage. Certainly the patron Imm of the Fortress would view the evilness of killing another goodie to be more important than the battle between warriors and mages right?

At any rate, I have a current character that I'm afraid could be subject to alignment change so I'm hoping to clear things up before I put my foot in it so to speak. Here are my two questions: (1) As a neutral, is is considered alignment change worthy if you kill indiscriminately between good, evil and neutral npcs; and (2) Does a role affect such a decision at all?

Thanks in advance.

I've never subscribed to the concept of neutrality.

If you are a newt and you kill an orphan for the purpose of making yourself stronger, you are forever evil.

That' just one example.

On the flip side a newt who never leaves the Fort and only battles evil, isn't really anything more than a closet goody.

This is why I never practice the alignment/ethos detections. I make all my assesments off the actions of the characters and the company they keep.

I've been told for years now, that someone that gets align changed gains a vuln to wrath. Now I can understand if you go from good or nuetral to evil for evils get a wrath vuln anyway, but if you happen to be a drow or a fire giant shaman, that is seeking redemption for RP reasons, once you are no longer evil, is that wrath vuln still given to you? as well, if you were to RP a cloud giant into the empire for good reasons as the empires RP could take hold of a nuetral minded race easily, then are you granted an extra wrath vuln, along with loss of things. Just curious.

Thanks ahead of time.
-rulanit-

Wrath just happens to be the most common form of the divine. So if you think of the reason behind the vulnerability (some gods are angry at you and wish you to be punsished), going from evil to good just means you ticked off evil gods instead of going good to evil and ticking off good gods. Either way, you just pissed in someone's pool, and they are going to take it out on you.

Just because paladins have a commune called wrath, there is a natural inclination to think of this as a good vs. evil power, when instead, it is just a heavenly power (notice the fact that there are evil wrath weapons in the game).

Also, since when do evils get a wrath vulnerability? Only duergar have this.

I was pretty sure that all evils are vuln to wrath, I understand the connection with wrath being to the divine. Then if there is no vuln on all evils, then I have been mistaken all the years.

-rulanit-

But am willing to entertain the possibility that I am wrong.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

that the paladin class' wrath commune only functions on evils in the general case.

1) Orcs and Duergar are vulnerable to divine.
2) Fire giants are not RESISTANT to divine, as they are to physical...so they appear to take more damage than normal.

3) This only leaves dark-elves as an "evil" race. So, it appears most evil races are vulnerable to divine (and I've seen enough divine attack mithril weapons to wince at this too)

>1) Orcs and Duergar are vulnerable to divine.

You're half right here.

Well, it says right in the duergar helpfile, so I assume orcs aren't. And while I expect you know for damned sure they're not...having PLAYED the Chieftain, I still woulda sworn I got smacked by wrath attacks....you could have asked me any time and I'd swear up and down orcs were vuln-wrath. So...I have to ask yet. You're *SURE*!? Well, I suppose...

*Straklaw wanders off in a daze, muttering about how these young whippersnappers have it easy.*

This is why I play evils now. PK the world, man.

My character believes his actions are good, he can't be evil.

No relation to the Chewbacca Defense, but roughly as potent.

Your elf is free to roleplay that he or she thinks murderizing orphans is a good and noble act. The observing Immortal is also free to roleplay a divine power who curses elves who murderize orphans, rendering them curiously vulnerable to holy attacks and unable to cast spells.

The Josiah Defense tries to excuse evil deeds in an IC way, but fortunately it runs into the IC problem of a bigger, badder IC entity who doth rain down vengeance, and no one has to put up with orphan-murderizing "good" characters for very long.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

n/t

Have you ever thought of going into writing comedy? I can see your name on the big screen.

Especially the Precious Moments bit.

>Especially the Precious Moments bit.

An ode to spike toed boots.
http://www.preciousmoments.com/shopping/product_details/?product_number=120121&cat_id=136

Binder thieves
http://www.preciousmoments.com/shopping/product_details/?product_number=520918&cat_id=136

Marans
http://www.preciousmoments.com/shopping/product_details/?product_number=100277&cat_id=136

Defensive Shifters
http://www.preciousmoments.com/shopping/product_details/?product_number=15970&cat_id=136

..Offensive Shifters..
http://www.preciousmoments.com/shopping/product_details/?product_number=15989&cat_id=136

Air shifters?
http://www.preciousmoments.com/shopping/product_details/?product_number=110260&cat_id=136

Yeah I am really ####ing bored. Sue me