Like there's a small army of them just chomping at the bit waiting to see when they'll be allowed to run something that they'll abide by any requirements from above.@Arkandel said in Fallen World MUX!:
Ah, but now we're getting into the 'a good player won't have a problem with that' argument. You know better than to create a character you're not excited about but others would, and have; I've had people come to me in the past a few short weeks into a PC going 'well, I was told/promised by that pack/coterie they needed this but I never see them and now there's no point in it, I just wanted to play it for them'. This is a thing that happens!
Oh, sure. But I was talking about asking STAFF that question. Never ask PLAYERS that question. Rule One of MU*s is that players are flaky as hell, and you should never, ever make a PC that depends on another PC being around or interacting with you in order to remain viable. But directing that question towards staff should get a useful response. Even something like, "Right now, it's pretty open for a lot of concepts and characters. This game is oriented towards investigating Mysteries in an urban setting, so it's going to be easiest to get involved with characters who are high on the Mental skills, and now that I think about it, we could really use a dedicated technowizard or three for stuff that's in the works." That's a response that tells me that staff is open to diverse concepts, knows what their game is about and what sort of play they're angling for, AND has plots and events in the works that are fun to get involved with.
To get back to the matter of alts though, my one issue with them (past the ever-existent one where people in my scene are taking forever to pose because they're playing three of them at once and argh) is that more or less the same group, rather than just one player, can monopolise +events. By showing up for them (which isn't difficult, especially if they are being ran by the same ST) they take up 'spots' that could have gone to legitimately disconnected, idle players looking for something to do, which is a tricky thing to fix without extensive hardcoding or strict policies. That's because it's far easier to +event/signup and be online at 20:30ET than to show up on the grid with your third alt consistently enough to have a strong presence.
On this, though, we agree entirely. And I wish more STs were willing to say, "Hey, I'd like to give other people a chance to get involved with plots. Please don't sign up for this one unless you haven't been in an ST'd scene in a week or two - if we get up to time, and all the slots aren't filled, then I'll put out an open call."