Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
"Behaving Chaotic Evilly" and griefing are not at all the same thing. Again, this is the "it's what my character would do" defense - 90% of the time, the murderers only give into their impulses once they've metagamed some info on their target to know they'd have a good chance of winning. (e.g. "I saw his attack bonus in the chat window - he can't be higher than level 3, I can take him.") Moreover, many of them attack first and try to RP it later, or do so without considering if that would be fun for you too or just fun for them.

The reverse is true too. The folks who "out" evil characters' alignment don't care if that means said player now needs to reroll, since nobody will group with them ever again.
First of all, "caring about what happens to the real person" is, by definition, allowing out-of-character information to influence in-character decisions. In other words, just another form of metagaming. So... is metagaming inherently bad, or not inherently bad?

Secondly, picking on the defenceless when their guard is down, with no consideration for their enjoyment, and protesting one's innocence after the fact would seem 100% consistent with Evil conduct. Even if metagaming is a factor here, one has to consider the possibility that the kind of person who naturally gravitates to this pattern of misbehaviour might also be inclined to pick a Chaotic Evil character as their cover. I mean, I'm hearing two principle complaints here that I find rather difficult to reconcile:

(1) Nobody wants to team-up with Evil characters who stab you in the back, because they stab you in the back... To the point where 'outed' specimens are shunned like the plague.
(2) Nobody wants to play with Good characters who give you advance warning about the Evil PC's potential stabbiness, which is now somehow also bad. (Apparently, the "real" Paladin must move in mysterious and highly inefficient ways.)

Of course, you could do both groups a favour by simply banning Evil PCs in the first place. And then you won't need Detect Evil.

They allow it for the same reason they allow PvP at all - for immersion. Both are tools for roleplaying, but they're extremely easy to abuse - moreso when the watchdogs aren't online to enforce things.
I don't particularly understand how this is enhancing immersion. It's leading to situations that you apparently don't find conducive to an enjoyable role-play experience. Loaded shotguns are useful tools for hunting geese, but that doesn't mean you leave them lying around on the living room sofa when the kids come home.