Shattered Kingdoms

The river is a two way street. Almost all NPCs killed in the game will find new life. Generic NPCs its easy to assume just another one stepped into his place but a shop keeper for example is the same shop keeper thus got new life.

A lot of people on SK do not seem to grasp the fundmentals of the alignment system and I myself struggled with it for a long while being so used to Law vs Chaos, Good vs Evil system. How ever SK is levels of selfishness. A dark aura isnt evil persay they are just more selfish than grey aura to the point where you couldnt call them good. Scrupulous and Aberrant are similar but the reasons behind them are significantly different.

Principle killing grey auras for equipment shouldnt be common place how ever if you stun them for their gear then they go aggressive and not only that they do not re spawn gear. They how ever have request. The issue being that 90% of all good request able gear is gone with in a day of any reboot.

There are many lines of reasoning to why people should do something and it is the reasons behind them which should be judge not the actions themselves. Here is an action with a few different reasons behind it.
Someone was killed for a sword.
I wanted the sword because it was better than mine.
I needed the sword because it was better than mine to defend my home.
The sword was needed by my people for their safety. I didnt want to kill him so I dueled him leaving him stunned on the ground how ever he kept coming and coming at me like a mad man so I was forced to put him out of his misery.

There is no blanket rule. To play the game and follow the help file replacing most likely with must simply isnt going to work. How do you level mode stun but wait taking their coins would be stealing which is against the law ... so no money no killing no levels = no fun. If you see light auras killing grey people for EQ my advice is give them some RP to give them pause. As an Imm an echo of a god your in charge of to make them think twice about it. You feel a swell of pride as the lord of war is pleased with your power. You feel the sorrow of Aludra as you hold XXXX.
As a player speak out about it.

I really don't see this as so hard.

Is it evil to kill a random person for his posessions? Of course. Go look at the alignment descriptions, and you'll see you're at Miscreant if you make a habit of it. (Keep in mind you could just mug them instead...)

How about if your personal need is great? Go look at the alignment descriptions, and you'll see you've described Unprincipled.

How about for the greater good? Doing morally questionable things for that reason is Scrupulous. That's also the best possible light for killing graybies because they're gray; I'd argue for Aberrant.

Principled characters should only be killing when they think it's a righteous act in itself. That can certainly include killing grey auras in certain circumstances. Example: A griffon believes the Druids are plotting to kill his kind. He's not likely to check the aura of Druid X, or even care. But there has to be a real reason why these people are so vile they have to be killed.

If that makes it hard to get certain items, tough. All alignments have benefits and costs. And as for levelling, there are zillions of downright evil NPCs that arguably need killing.

I completely agree with summ on this one. Also, for balance issues I think that principled (and only principled) characters should get a little extra for the loss of NPCs they can't kill. And it should not be gear oriented imo, but more like exp oriented. It is a real pain to level these days if you can't kill gray aura NPCs and it takes out MANY leveling areas of the game, especially in rather high levels (IE: Tribunal grounds, Elisair etc. Let me emphasize on Tribunal Grounds, where whoever imm did it, he has grouped light aura+gray aura+dark aura NPCs together, making it inexcusable for ANY lightie to train there ).

Bad RP. Light is light.

If a principled charector killed anyone, it should be in a circumstance where they can acknowledge the challenge atleast.

If a gray aura charector is a major char though...I can see that.

If Stephanos is grey, I can see lighties attacking him. That is the only way to get some of the best loot in the game. Otherwise it would be ment only for darkies.

So it is really a question about area schemetics vs IC reality.

P.S.

On an unrealted topic. Has anyone noticed the quickness of IMM's forcing people to delete, forcing them to bad RP, or just using the curse command alot more than they need to lately? Has anyone heard of the -hell- command. If you have ever been to jail, it's the same thing. This form of jail, thought, is IMM enforcerced. An IMM can sentence you to hell instead of jail for a limit of time...or forever.

I think that IMM's have been using far more brutal forms of punishment than they need be. This parrellels my belief that HF's have been not inducting people instead of using the blemish command.

Bingo. Its also an integrity thing on how you wish to play your character. If no one sees you, do you pretend it never happend and make it an ooc loot score? Or if you are with a friend who does it, do you ignore it because you don't want to upset him?

Right. I'm certain you're the first and only person that will make this statement or assessment.

It's a very hard alignment to play, and personally I think they should be given some slack. If this was ever enforced it would mean that all items that spawn on a gray aura NPC could never really be handled by a paladin, unless it was gifted or taken in PK. That would remove a lot of EQ from them, and from all other Principled char.

Personally, I don't see why anyone would play a Principled allignment unless they were playing a paladin.

That's how I feel too. Unless you're going for that "paladin-feeling". A stick in the mud would be principled. Ain priests should always be principled too.

A

Ain priests should be principled, alshain priests should be principled, dulrik priests should be principled...

In general, The principled alignment is a very heavy burden. Its most likely that once in a while, most principled characters have stunned a grey aura NPC for an item here or there when noone's watching, and I believe that is within toleratable limits so long as its not done often.
Now, if principled alignment were to be more closely watched, to the point where this sort of thing is not allowed at all, I believe principled characters should get some perk for playing such a strict alignment. Perhaps a better reaction from npcs? Stronger spells vs evil? Whatever. Something to make playing such a strict class more 'balanced'

It's like there's two different camps of players on this issue. There is also the ooc factor to consider and that is 'how much harder are you going to make it for people to play this alignment vs. people who play the diabolic?"

principle and diabolic should be equal in their difficulty. I know that sounds weird, but diabolics should be punished for having any sort of long lasting loyalty to groups/players if principles are being held under this scrutiny.