How Many Alts Would An Alt User Alt If An Alt User Could Use Alts

[Kanye Qwest]

This is an interesting point. I've met a lot of really awesome rpers that couldn't get into the 'meta' plot (IE attend GM events) in MUs because of time zone. Feels bad, man, but I'm not sure how to fix it other than trying to recruit a staffer for that time zone.

[Lotherio]

@Kanye-Qwest said in How Many Alts Would An Alt User Alt If An Alt User Could Use Alts:

This is an interesting point. I've met a lot of really awesome rpers that couldn't get into the 'meta' plot (IE attend GM events) in MUs because of time zone. Feels bad, man, but I'm not sure how to fix it other than trying to recruit a staffer for that time zone.

No worries, I always run PrPs where ever I go, usually sandboxing the story. Its on the player, not having something to do in my mind. I don't think 'having something to do' is a wet blanket to throw at staff, ie, give me stuff to do or I quit. I run my own places, but I still play at others. I don't have a lack of RP (I do have a lack of time to RP lately, another issue that no topic here will bring out a solution to the issue, unless I can start time travel and avoiding paradox thread, and someone has solved all issues with this).

[Haven]

I want to go on record that I did not applaud the one-alt rule because that is the bestest of the bestest rules ever and should rule the universe for all time and if you don't like it eat a dick. I like the rule. It's happening on a game where devoting time and energy to the sphere (Mage) is hugely important for the fabric of the story arc and establishing solid foundations of hierarchy and power.

I don't like having 24 alts I cycle out every two months over the year. Me. So guess what? I don't make 24 alts. I happen to also fall into RP with like-minded people. Hooray for us.

Someone even mentioned that clicking on TR or FC has been difficult due to the alt musical chairs. I see it, that's all I was saying. When I began my one and only character there, I had around 6 people on my Contacts list on the wiki. They are ALL gone.

So, the moral of the story is, I like this rule. It aligns with my playstyle. But I won't NOT play on games with generous alt policies, nor do I want to line up alt-o-holics and slap them with a trout when I am feeling feisty.

[saosmash]

I can usually maintain 2 alts' worth of activity without difficulty. I've got 4 on TLF right now -- this happens when I get really invested in a game and can't make the character concepts in my head go away. Our activity requirements for non-responsibility-having PCs are pretty light, so I manage it without much difficulty. In terms of creating meaningful relationships with that many characters ... well, I conveniently RP each alt more when the players who have meaningful relationships with those characters are available!

Now when I get the character creation urge, I write plot and put NPCs in it. (This backfires -- my fourth alt on TLF was a NPC from a plot I ran that I loved so much I couldn't get over my desire to keep her.)

I see no reason whatsoever to limit people who have the time and attention to spend on a character and aren't creating problems. And if they are creating problems, I don't see how more characters or less characters is going to make a difference. Assholes gonna asshole. If a player's a pain in the ass, how are they less of a pain in the ass if they only have one character? What I do find annoying is when people app a million characters and then idle on all of them, which is why reasonable alt restrictions I'm in favor of, because this slows up the bus and interferes with other people's play. But if that's not happening who cares if someone is playing 2 or 3 instead of 1?

If they're meeting activity requirements and enjoying the story, great. It means there's more variety of characters doing stuff. To be frank, I probably wouldn't even app on a game that required one character only per player, not because I always have the urge to alt immediately (I don't), but because it reflects an attitude that isn't compatible with my playstyle.

But I've never played WoD in my life and as much as I've read about it on these threads I still don't have that clear idea of what all y'all get up to.

[TiredEwok]

I have said numerous times that I will only have one alt but it never works for me. I get too many ideas, plus I get bored with just one alt. I need the variety in RP, I suppose is why. I do, however, try to limit myself to a number of alts, two or three at the max, depending on what the policy is on a particular game is, my current level of motivation and/or creative brain power, etc.

I have seen people who have a lot of alts and I can't help but to think of one specific person who seems bad about it. This was a person who had 15 alts at one point on a game I am on. They seemed to drop alts (when relationships failed or whatever, I'm guessing) only to make more and more and... well, you see what I am getting at. Now I try not to be too judgemental, especially considering I've made characters only to then drop the alt(s) fairly quickly for whatever reason, but holy fuck. I can't even begin to understand why they'd think 15 alts was a good idea.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@Apu said in How Many Alts Would An Alt User Alt If An Alt User Could Use Alts:

I have seen people who have a lot of alts and I can't help but to think of one specific person who seems bad about it. This was a person who had 15 alts at one point on a game I am on. They seemed to drop alts (when relationships failed or whatever, I'm guessing) only to make more and more and... well, you see what I am getting at. Now I try not to be too judgemental, especially considering I've made characters only to then drop the alt(s) fairly quickly for whatever reason, but holy fuck. I can't even begin to understand why they'd think 15 alts was a good idea.

Yeah, This Guy type is the source of every single complaint I have about zero alt limits. I'm ambivalent about whether or not it should be policed. It's dumb as hell, but a lot of things are dumb as hell.

[Arkandel]

@Three-Eyed-Crow But if someone is doing that, can't you just avoid them (like you'd avoid anyone who's doing something stupid) instead of imposing a game-wide limit on everyone?

[Kanye Qwest]

It might be difficult to avoid someone with 15 alts, especially if they are prone to making/dropping them with no notice.

[Lotherio]

@saosmash said in How Many Alts Would An Alt User Alt If An Alt User Could Use Alts:

I see no reason whatsoever to limit people who have the time and attention to spend on a character and aren't creating problems.

This.

Alt policy needs to correlate with activity policy. When will a character be reaped?

Activity is a reason to applaud one alt. What is considered active? Are players that can only play once in a two week cycle discouraged from play there, do they miss out on lots of important development by only being on once every two weeks? Usually I see other places say, if you haven't logged in within x timeframe, nuked.

That may be confusing, but its leading to ... if all the players that only play once a week only need to log on once a week ... why couldn't someone play someone different every day of the week?

I can only handle one or two chars these days. I'm only curious why a limit to some is better?

[saosmash]

Oh man, I totally forgot that there are games who don't have a public alts policy.

[Arkandel]

@Kanye-Qwest said in How Many Alts Would An Alt User Alt If An Alt User Could Use Alts:

It might be difficult to avoid someone with 15 alts, especially if they are prone to making/dropping them with no notice.

On the other hand 15 alts will not have either the social capital or XP to matter as much as someone who plays 1. It's just a matter of activity.

[Sunny]

Making a rule to deal with a single (or a few) problem player(s) rather than actually dealing with the issue itself is bad staffing.

I have not yet seen a problem with 'alts' presented that is not just a symptom of some other issue that people are too fucking lazy to bother addressing.

[faraday]

@Sunny said in How Many Alts Would An Alt User Alt If An Alt User Could Use Alts:

Making a rule to deal with a single (or a few) problem player(s) rather than actually dealing with the issue itself is bad staffing.

I have not yet seen a problem with 'alts' presented that is not just a symptom of some other issue that people are too fucking lazy to bother addressing.

Um.... how is "people leaving a game and abandoning a half-dozen characters" a consequence of bad staffing? People leaving games without warning is a universal constant among MUSHers. Players go, and when they do, it affects a bunch of other players.

[Thenomain]

@Kanye-Qwest said in How Many Alts Would An Alt User Alt If An Alt User Could Use Alts:

This is an interesting point. I've met a lot of really awesome rpers that couldn't get into the 'meta' plot (IE attend GM events) in MUs because of time zone. Feels bad, man, but I'm not sure how to fix it other than trying to recruit a staffer for that time zone.

If a metaplot needs GM run scenes to participate, then it's just a plot, and if it's meant to affect everyone then it's pretty ill thought out.

[Arkandel]

@faraday I think @Sunny meant bad staffing is making a lazy choice ('let's ban alts from happening!') instead of dealing with a very small minority of players engaged in a certain behavior ('hey, dude, this is the 14th alt you've made this month... we should have a chat').

[Sunny]

@faraday

And it's not an actual problem, either. Again, if you have people ditching all of their characters and leaving a game, rather than switching alts around? And it's happening regularly enough that it is causing actual disruption?

There is a big problem with your game and it's not alts.

[faraday]

@Sunny It doesn't have to happen often for it to be a big disruption. I've seen just one person leave and abandon 6 characters and have it completely derail a whole bunch of plots and leave a whole bunch of other players hanging because their boss/BFF/SO/frenemy/whatever is no longer there. It's a legitimate problem that can strike at any time without warning. And it's very easily prevented with an alt limit.

If folks don't think it's a big enough deal to have a policy? Fine. Your game, your headache. But I reject the assertion that someone quitting due to RL issues or getting bored or finding a new game is somehow the result of bad staffing, or the blanket statement that alt policies solve nothing. This particular problem? They solve.

[Thenomain]

@Sunny

I think you're putting "babysitting" in the lap of staff. I believe the #1 goal of staff is to facilitate the fun-having, with a stress on facilitate. Staff is capable of reacting to problems that they know about, but it's not uncommon that "this person has 15 alts" is first known when they all hit super-idle at the same time. You think it's easy to track alts? Sure, if you stay on top of it, it's possible, but enough groups of friends and housemates game together to hit a fair share of false-positives, enough people game from multiple locations to make tracking harder.

The easiest way for staff to resolve issues like this is not to set up a complex alt-tracking system and threaten banning anyone caught not using it (which I've seen), but to put an alt limit on it first and if that doesn't work then upgrading the staff-running resources when it becomes a problem.

---

I'll admit, I don't know how we got to this particular argument, but I don't see the problem with saying, "Hey, three characters per player, and no rotating characters once per month." New character creation is taxing on staff too, you know, and responding to a response of yours in another thread, both staff and players have to work together to make the game run smoothly.

[Sunny]

No, I just find it heavy handed, using a sledgehammer to swat a fly. Having an alt limit? Sure. Not allowing them at all? It is a preference, not a solution.

[Thenomain]

@Sunny

To be briefly pedantic to make a broader point: "One" is an alt limit. Sometimes it's the right limit. I'll agree that often it's not, but there's a Mage game coming up that I believe would only benefit from a one alt limit. Games like BitN are broad enough that I felt comfortable with two, but more felt to me like a grab at numbers. Maybe it works, but it feels like ... whatever the opposite of the fly/sledgehammer analogy is. Smoke and mirrors? Anyhow.

And yes, I'm aware of the abuse of the word "alt" here, as you can't have an singular be an alternative. It's the way this hobby has changed the meaning of the word. Call me Humpty Dumpty.

I'll also agree that if players were responsible for the games they played on, we wouldn't be having these arguments about "what's fine for me is bad for others" (aka "one man's trash"), and even then players would have to be responsible enough to calmly deal with things they disagreed with.