Playing Multiple Characters

[RogueGunslinger]

I was reading across another RPI mud's FAQ and noticed this:

Can I have more than one character?

Yes, please do. We invite you to create as many personalities as you would like so that you can experience and enjoy all aspects of [other RPI's name redacted].

It made me wonder... Why not allow players with sufficient karma to play more than one character at a time? Obviously there would be a limit to having multiple characters, I think 2 at once is enough. In any case I don't believe it would be that hard to play multiple characters realistically, without letting them interact in any way, and might allow for someone who isn't enjoying their role to step out for a moment, and into another.

Discuss.

[AmandaGreathouse]

I would really enjoy this.

I get bored/fed up/frustrated with some of the things that happen once the PC I love the concept of so much steps from VNPC land into the land of dynamic change also known as being a PC.

I think my characters would tend to live longer because I wouldn't become so frustrated that the concept I loved so much turned out to be a hermit and I WANT some RP, or that my originally cheery bard who's become depressed since 20 people they know have died in a month is depressed.

[Malken]

No.

[Rhyden]

No.

As much as I want to play a 2nd character sometimes, there's just too much room for abuse.

[mattrious]

No.

[number13]

Why not?  In a limited fashion, like the old gladiator system.

[Kalai]

Aside from abuse, there are far too many situations in which it would make much too much sense for 2 of your characters to interact. Unless you're strictly citybound in different cities, which seems to rather narrow your concepts.

So yeah, it'd need limits if at all.

[Sinna]

We used to be able to do this long ago.
It was horribly abused.

It's bad enough now how much IC info gets sent around OOC channels, but with two characters (or more) it would be that much worse.

I'm even thankful that there is a bit of delay during application to prevent some folks from rushing out with their new character and snagging all their old character's gear (some of which would also happen in the 2 character days - I remember some player admitting it).

Got a successful merchant?  Want to start that Sorc off with an advantage - drop off 10k coins and gear, log in with new character, pick it up - done.  

[Little_Cacophony]

I would like the idea more if the two or more PCs do not exist in the same time frame.

Such as, in order to soft store your pc to play another pc, you need to have at least 10000 playing days, and you can only return to your old pc after 1 irl month has past or the pc dies. Or some limitation.

It would be welcome to some people who have long lived pcs.

[IAmJacksOpinion]

I'm gonna go with a no...

As it was said, it's too abusable. And honestly, this type of thing has gone on in Arm, hence this post.

I've played an RPI before that allowed for this kind of thing. (Don't remember which one, honestly.) They limited it so that you could only switch characters once every RL day or week or something.

It would be welcome to some people who have long lived pcs.

Yeah, sounds awesome. I join up clan X because it's got a solid, long-lived, well-connected leader.... only to find out that he's not around because he's running around mudsexxing on another account.  Sometimes OOC boredom is a good motivator to start a plotline, or a series of fun/interesting events.

Why not?  In a limited fashion, like the old gladiator system.

This I would like to see more of. Slaves, clan muls, and gladiators have been ridiculed for being notoriously boring/ unrewarding for the PC involved to the point that they were shut down. It's always been unfortunate (in my mind) that the Allanaki arena sits empty 99% of the time, until some dumb elf / northerner shoots his mouth off to a templar. In a city like Allanak, I personally envision the arena being used for idle entertainment and execution on a near daily basis. (Even if the gladiators just spar in it, and don't actually kill anything that day.)

I think more gladiators would be a practical solution for both: A) a currently lame arena situation, and B) Bored long-lived peoplez.

I think it would be easier to stay locked in long-lived roles if every week or so you got to swagger into the sands with your gladiator (Thropper the Skull-Cropper) and have a little fun maiming shit, and putting on a show. Personally, I can hardly stand to play a fully social role for more than a month, before I get bored and start taking risks for fun. (Which is sad, because I do enjoy them from time to time, but at the end of the day I'm here to play a game, not chit-chat. I got AIM for that.)

[RogueGunslinger]

It would be welcome to some people who have long lived pcs.

Yeah, sounds awesome. I join up clan X because it's got a solid, long-lived, well-connected leader.... only to find out that he's not around because he's running around mudsexxing on another account.  Sometimes OOC boredom is a good motivator to start a plotline, or a series of fun/interesting events.

Seriously? I'd rather him/her still be playing the game then simply not logging in because they're bored.

[IAmJacksOpinion]

Quote from: IAmJacksOpinion on Today at 03:12:05 PM


Quote
It would be welcome to some people who have long lived pcs.
Yeah, sounds awesome. I join up clan X because it's got a solid, long-lived, well-connected leader.... only to find out that he's not around because he's running around mudsexxing on another account.  Sometimes OOC boredom is a good motivator to start a plotline, or a series of fun/interesting events.

Seriously? I'd rather him/her still be playing the game then simply not logging in because they're bored.

His choices are:
A) Not play Armageddon, because he's stuck in a role he's no longer having fun with, and go do other non-Arm things.
OR
B) Chose between his boring old character, or his exciting new character.

Honestly, I think old Sargeant Who-ever is gonna get about the same amount of play time either way. (Which is to say, very little at all.)

Why log on at peak and be bored, when you can log on at peak and work on the advancement of a fresh, exciting character??

---- -

I would hate to see this simply because there are people who play this game and do nothing BUT socially network. - Build connections, make friends, fuck people in power. I'm really less worried about someone who has a 20 day Byn Warrior, and a 20 day maxed Skullfuck Elementalist, than I am about someone who is a Templar's Aide in the South, and everyone's favorite piece of ass up in Tuluk. --Nothing would escape you, and many things would come up.

-One PC might be entrusted with details about an assassination plot against their other PC
-One PC might be close friends with Malik and know his ins and outs, strengths and weaknesses, while the other is Malik's sworn enemy.
-One Lirathan PC might secretly know Sargeant Joe is really a Nilazi from their days spent in Undertuluk with their assassin PC.

Info overlap, and interaction is inevitable. Making decisions, or showing mercy based on forces of OOC persuasion is inevitable no matter how good the player, or how closely the staff regulation.

Two accounts - NO
Limited and regulated gladiator accounts - FUCK YES.

[Pantoufle]

It would be nice to hear an argument against allowing multiple characters besides "it can be abused". I can abuse the cooking skill too for that matter.

The only argument I can think of is that it might risk diluting the population of the playerbase further. But then again, it might not.

[RogueGunslinger]

The problem iamjacksopinion. Is that with your option the player is bored and not playing no matter what. With mine at least he's playing someone else to interact with. As it stands your argument is "If people play more characters we'd see less long lived characters"

But he's already not playing and around because he's bored of his role, so i'd rather interact with a fresh new character than interact with no character at all.

[RogueGunslinger]

And.. with a limit on how often you can switch between players I'm thinking abuse would be pretty limited. And met with obvious swift and brutal punishment when found.

[Synthesis]

It would be nice to hear an argument against allowing multiple characters besides "it can be abused". I can abuse the cooking skill too for that matter.

The only argument I can think of is that it might risk diluting the population of the playerbase further. But then again, it might not.

There's a huge difference between say, spam-crafting a thousand steaks and using one character to figure out the secret plot to ambush the 'nakki gemmers on their top secret mission, and using your 'nakki gemmer to thwart said ambush.

[RogueGunslinger]

I think his point though, was that 'it can be abused' is an obscure blanket statement used by people who want to be negative, but can only manage to repeat what five people already said.

Wait... Wait no. That's my point.


In any case, I think it's the idea that plotlines could to easily be ruined by people unable to control themselves; Such that limitations on keeping you character in the same city, ability to log back and forth between the characters too easilly , and other such things would become too much of a hassle for the staff to put in . On top of that, now keeping track of if the characters interactions would probably incite a good deal more scrutiny than the staff probably should be bothered with. Also, it would foster people to be more paranoid when things do go wrong with their plotlines, people would blame the ability to make multiple characters because of the nature of it. Not to mention the nature of the people on these forums to see and assume the absolute worst in/about each other. (yeah, you guys totally do this)

All in all it's a lot of work for something that could be avoided by just storing with a request to un-store later.


There's a frackin' argument, guys. Try harder next time, please.

[Synthesis]

When someone says, "It can be abused," it generally means "it can be abused in a way that would seriously detract from the quality of the game."

Thus, when someone says "Oh, I can abuse dropdescs, so 'it can be abused' is not a valid argument," they are committing a fallacy of equivocation, or the dreaded "straw man...." I.e. they're attempting to refute a position that probably nobody is committed to.

The implied position is "I don't believe any code should be implemented that can be used in any other way than that for which it was intended."  This is the strict interpretation of: "if x can be abused, then x should not be implemented."  Of course, nobody is holding this position.

"It can be abused" is merely short-hand.  Is it a little lazy? Yes.  But this is a post on the internet, not a thesis.

[Jdr]

I approve of this. This way you might have more special apps sticking around. I think if they go play something else, they'll be able to come back to their special role with a refreshed aplomb.

[Akaramu]

It could create difficult situations even for players who don't mean to abuse it. What if character A was paid for an assassination contract on character B? Or if the two characters had to communicate IC to solve some sort of political issue? They would never even be online at the same time.

I would totally support strictly limited arena gladiator roles as secondary characters, though.

[Cutthroat]

My concern with playing multiple characters is that clashing plots will be inevitable. Eventually, someone with two characters will experience a point where character 1 can benefit from 2's detriment, or character 1 can benefit from 2's information. Don't think of this as "abuse" so much as a consequence of what happens when a player (not a PC) knows something. I think that if we were allowed to have two characters, I would like to see it best implemented as this:

Character 1 is the player's Main character. This is the kind of character we have now for the most part.

Character 2 is strictly
- A gladiator, perpetually stuck in the Arena and training areas.
- An animal, perhaps. You wouldn't get a unique desc (as in, if you want to be a gortok, you have to pick a gortok NPC's description).
And there would be a limit to how many of these you can make, by nature of the fact that accounts can't have 2 characters unless they're set up that way, so each app would be special (but not necessarily a special application).

And both characters can never possibly be in contact with the other. If Character 1 is one of those travels-around-the-world types... they might not have a Character 2. If Character 1 is bound to Allanak for some reason, they can't play a scrab, but they could play a tregil. If you screw up and take your scrab on a trip to the Grey Forest... no more Character 2 for you. Abuse is easily fixed.

[Qzzrbl]

Even animal characters could be abused....

Say you're big bad scrab, and you're scuttling around.... You happen to find Spicy McAsshole out in the wastes, that guy who always hassles your main character at the Gaj....

Oh my! He's injured too....

You see where I'm going.... And that's just an example of things that could happen. Sure, you could say it probably would have happened even if the scrab were an NPC, but you know what I'm getting at.

What would be the point of playing an animal anyhow? Other than trying to kill other PC's that is?

[Malken]

Also, the problem with Armageddon is that it is way too small to say that we could only allow people to play another character in a different 'zone'.

It would become a nightmare for Staff to monitor who plays where and make sure that they truly stick to that zone.

I could see something like this working on a RPI mud like Shadows of Isildur where you have very defined areas of play, like, say, Mordor and Minas Tirith, and you can be assured that 99% of the time, no one from Mordor would end up in MT and vice versa, but like I said, you can't count on these type of boundaries with Armageddon, where cities are only a few minutes apart.

Otherwise, let's say you play an assassin, and you have a mate, and only your mate knows what you do.. Then your mate's player also plays another character, and you end up with a contract on her head.. Oops?

So your plan is to seduce that character and lead her to a private area.. But that character knows that your character is an assassin.. Bah, I won't even go further with that example, you can easily see how much of a huge mess it would create in the end!

[Qzzrbl]

I could dig gladiator roles though.

[Delstro]

Abuse far out weighs the potential for benefit.

Abuse as a blanket statement? Maybe, but... If this happens once, it could directly affect 10+ pcs. If you abuse the cooking skill, it only affects you.

I am supportive of the gladiator as a second role though. The gladiators have always been neccessary to reinforce the true Allanaki spirit.