Numetal/Retromux

Juniper

@Juniper Do you think that helps compared to just alt transparency? (I really mean it alt-transparency, the name of every PC you play or have played on that MU is in your +finger, no exceptions.)

Yea.

People are busy and can’t be online 24/7. Splitting time between characters means that they are online even less 24/7. Gameplay slows to a crawl because the people you are waiting on have plots on 4 other characters to get through or simply aren’t willing to admit they’ve lost interest in half their characters. Leaders don’t lead because they are on their alts.
Making judgements on whether something is metagaming or a conflict of interest between alts is complicated. It takes up gamerunner time. You don’t have to spend time and energy on this if there are no alts.
Even if you determine no abuse occurred, the perception that abuse occurred is almost as bad. It stresses the fuck out of players. Good luck convincing them that thing you cleared wasn’t favouritism.
I have seen people plant an alt in every organisation just to keep tabs on what is happening and it gives an advantage even if they are careful not to blatantly act on it. I have seen people plant multiple alts in the SAME organisation to sway opinions in the direction they want. IMO no matter where the alts are distributed, it gives an unfair advantage.
If a player wants to avoid another player, it’s way easier if everyone only has one character and isn’t spread across the whole game.
Limiting to one character results in a more equitable distribution of roles in plots & leadership positions.

Also I fully admit I am lazy and don’t want to process and familiarise myself with 3x the quantity of half-baked characters. I feel more willing to give people my full attention when I know they are giving me theirs.

Gashlycrumb

@Juniper all excellent points

Juniper

I forgot 7.

It’s kind of lame thinking your organisation has 6 people able to contribute to a plot only to find out that 4 of them are sitting it out and doing nothing because they cannot interfere with stuff they are doing on their main.

Pavel

@Gashlycrumb said in Numetal/Retromux:

@Pavel You have to enforce it, yes.

That’s the bare minimum interpretation of what I said, yes.

Hobbie

I reckon two to three characters is good, even if three is pushing it. Five is right out. Similar reasons to @Juniper but I err on allowing people to have a bit of flexibility with character ideas. I’ve seen games where twenty-five connections were all the same person, and artificial WHO inflation grates on me.

I’m also big on alt transparency, to the point where it’s not only a rule, but it’s code-enforced on games I build (but not run, because none of them ever launch because I have scope creep issues lol). Alts get an entry in everyone’s +finger that cannot be hidden. I’ve seen people attempt to abuse alt obfuscation too many times to think anything other than “this is public for everyone else’s sake”.

EDIT: The above goes for staff as well.

Probably worth forking this discussion into its own thread as well.

Muscle Car

@Juniper I feel this in my fossils. Watching people take over a Mage plot with their Werewolf alts is something I’ll never forget. Lots of points of failure led to it but it was universally avoidable if any one of the balances had worked. So to the other point, unenforced policy is possibly worse than no policy.

Pavel

@Muscle-Car said in Numetal/Retromux:

Watching people take over a Mage plot with their Werewolf alts is something I’ll never forget.

It’s so often the opposite that it’s basically a meme – not that either direction makes it okay.

If it happens frequently enough, or has historically done so, that we can all think of a different example perhaps rethinking the whole “massively multi-sphere” approach to WoD MUing should be a serious consideration for the future.

Gashlycrumb

@Hobbie Yes. Artificial WHO inflation grates on me. I usually want to play just one character per game. But a lot of people do fine with it, I think.

I’d like to see an alt system that has you rank them – you have one ‘Main’ PC and any alts are ‘Supporting’ or ‘Extra’. (Quark is a main character. Rom is a supporting, mostly he just does shit for Quark but once in a while it’s about him. Morn is an extra, but sure, he has whole life of his own off-camera, he’s important to plot once in six years.) But this does not seem to be a popular idea.

Pavel

@Gashlycrumb I quite like the idea, at least in the abstract. It might be a bit clunky in practice unless it’s taken as read to be an approximation, and can change relatively easily. Like that whole bit where Rom becomes Negus, that might warrant a switchup.

And +who could just list mains, with a little + next to the name if they have alts on as well, and you could do +who/all to list everyone.

Jenn

@Juniper said in Numetal/Retromux:

I forgot 7.

It’s kind of lame

We rehashed this way up higher in the thread. Gently requested, could we please try to not? Thank you!

Gashlycrumb

@Pavel It’s pretty difficult to find a firm line between ‘Main’ and ‘Supporting’ etc. (Cirroc Lofton appeared as a “main cast” member on the opening credits every episode but was in a lot fewer episodes than others, and Jake Sisko was not very important compared to a number of “Special Guests” like Garak.)

You would have to be able to change it easily, bit not frequently – You can’t just switch your “Main” from Sven the Sorcerer to Dennis the Dung Gatherer the minute the big sorcerer plot-line wraps up and the dung-gatherer plotline launches, etc.

I think when Rom becomes Nagus he becomes a “Special Guest Star” if he’s like Zek – he’s powerful, and when he’s there it’s likely to be all about him, but he’s mostly not there. (This doesn’t change your point, just an observation.)

The objection is that if you go around telling players they can have a main character they’ll act ‘entitled’ and think their character should have main-character opportunities. I think that they actually should, and that situations where one person is playing three characters who all have major roles while other players are wallflowering are bad, so.