That's probably because the nefarious deeds are meant to breed conflict IG and IG/IC conflict is all that keeps this game going. Whether you can actually pass gold to someone in person isn't really something to get rattle the swords over. The ambiguity of who actually stabbed King Kepler, on the other hand, is an excellent source of conflict and even more so if there is actually some ambiguity to it. As it is now, you ALWAYS know who it is who stabbed you or someone else. It zaps all of the fun, intrigue, and conflict out of the class.
That's not at all true. There can be plenty of ambiguity,
if you don't try to treat an infiltrator like a ninja who's supposed to slip invisibly behind enemy lines and kill their leader, then slip invisibly back without a trace.
Furthermore, it's not like Vellos is even picking battles that make any sense. Frankly, when Galen auto da fe-ed Sigrún, it would have been hard for him to make more of a hash of it if he'd tried. The evil-overlord-ish message preceding the auto da fe, and the barrage of confused, contradictory attempts to disclaim responsibility afterwards, are so far from the kind of mastermind you're advocating for it's really not even amusing.
If, instead, you had built up to it with days of RP, establishing the peasantry of (IIRC) Razrpot as unruly, under the influence of a more radical school of your religion, and Galen as trying in vain to quiet them, that would have been one thing. I think it would still be borderline at best as far as the conflict between RP and game mechanics goes (after all, if you can claim that you performing an auto da fe is actually completely contrary to your character's intentions, why not claim that executing your character was also completely contrary to the Judge's intentions? She tried to have you released, but the guards all revolted against her and killed you to spite her!), but it would at least have been better than what happened.
So...yeah, if Vellos is trying to promote "good gameplay and RP," he's not picking examples to support that.
Seems to me he's just crying "metagaming" when it happens to suit his IC interests. Which is far worse metagaming than what any character believes.
