Shattered Kingdoms

Alignments are not the only guiding principle in someone's RP. Sure they are the very general framework in which you have to work in but that gets further defined with religion choice and faction choice, background, life experiences etc. In Reinald's case for example, it was really hard to compromise being a lightie and also being in a tribunal of a kingdom that regularly has darkie citizens. I chose to use his lightie morals in a way that would protect darkie citizens even if (in the eyes of a lightie) they were not worthy of any protection. I also put loyalty to the tribunal above lightie prejudice to be able to work with Xiaolian which worked great in the end. The sad thing is that even though we did some nice RP with her induction and all our reservations about it, no one ever saw it and most just went for the superficial "you have darkies in the tribunal, you love them and support them" kind of thing.

As for background or life experiences, even though Reinald had a ton of reservations about an alliance with the harlies and helping Hentera, he had no issues grouping with her and chasing Imperials all day since that was his life's goal. The one time I had the feeling of really stretching the "will work with almost anyone" part of the scrupulous guideline was when he grouped with a necro to defend the manor, about two or three weeks ago. The justification was that he had been fighting necros for so many decades, he could definitely stand in the same room with them without freaking out, plus they were both in the same faith. I wouldn't have done that earlier in his life.

Rodwen,

You want to talk about Ihalo make a thread. I will bury you in it. Otherwise lets stick to Reinald, aight?

Erik,

You were a pain in the [REDACTED], in a good way. You spiced up the game. Was it sometimes an OOC headache? Yes, but when isn't this game? All in all when both sides of the spectrum are talking about a player, either to kill it/promote it/demote it you've done something right. Well played sir.

who is Ihalo? My hammer paladin almost never logs in

All out-of-alignment character call-outs begin here! This seems like a great thread idea. Thanks, Rodwen.

You're welcome. ^_^

Alignment and race are the most important aspects of your character and trump religion, class, faction, and everything else. If you're justifying things that go against your character's core with choices he or she made (which should have been dictated by that core to begin with), you're, quite simply, doing it wrong.

I wasn't a Reinald fan for a number of reasons, mostly those that stemmed from his ability to ignore his center and do things that lighties rightly questioned. His response to their concern and/or disdain cinched him as a self-serving graybie in my book.

I will just say that while I agre with all the criticism of Reinald as a character with regards to playing within alignment, etc...with the benefit of hindsight, I enjoyed having him around. Having folks who are stubborn enough to dust themselves off and come back again and who get into it enough to really work at rallying people against their enemies is important and keeps the action going. So hope you stick around the MUD for another.

I'm not rolling a lighty again, at least for a while. No use dealing with the drama that comes with it
and the risk of eating curses because I don't have OOC connections.
Either enforce the rules for all or don't enforce them at all.

Also, I refuse to get involved in any kind of intentional pk/rpk that actually stems from ooc hate an Imm and a player have for each.

Sorry to derail this thing one post further, Erik.

For the record, I never had any IMM dealings with Reinald. Also, there's no OOC connection issue when it comes to who "gets away" with alignment abuse and who doesn't. We handle what we see as we see it, and right now, I'd venture to say that EVERYONE is getting away with a lot of stuff that they shouldn't. That's because the IMMs think alignment is quite frankly out of control on both sides of the coin, and we're not interested in dealing lopsided punishment -- we are working toward a concrete system that will be applied to everyone with an even hand. Believe me, nothing that's happening now is going unnoticed, nor will it go long unpunished.

Simply speaking, the IMMs are players too. We can't and won't catch everything that every single player does. When something is brought to our attention by our own snooping or your emails, we address it. I personally feel like my time is better spent coordinating events and building new areas and items for your enjoyment rather than babysitting the players, but if you'd like a shift in focus, I can redirect my efforts.

I have personally come down just as hard on dark-aura characters that fail to fill their expectations as light ones. I and other gods have intercepted new players to encourage more thoughtful application of alignments. However, you'll be happy to know that you can probably expect a bit more of a heavy hand in the near future including but not limited to tweaks to help files, curses and, if I have my way, the revoking of certain privileges that are routinely taken for granted.

Please create a new topic, perhaps in the Gameplay forum, for further accusations of IMM favoritism and hatred and/or whining about other players' alignment adherence.

Actually, IMM favortism and abuse led to many of the incidents of this char. They are perfectly valid.

[edit]
I should add not saying you have shown IMM favortism. Afaik, it was mainly just Sargas.