@Lisse24 said in Fallen World MUX!:
@Arkandel
I've also never been able to mentally support more than one active PC on a game, and though I have PCs on many games
A fellow one-alter! We should have a club (and only allow one account per person in it).
I'm usually only focused on one at a time, and letting my others idle. So here is why I like a restrictive alt-policy: It means that the players I see on the grid are as invested in their characters as I am in mine. I think it cuts down on having alts idle away in bedrooms and apartments because people who want RP only have one char to do it in. It cuts down on conflicts where a PC with one char is ducking me because they want to play with me on another alt. It stops PC-churn, because people are less likely to create a neat concept just because when they know they'll have to give up on their other concept.
But that's what I meant before - I'm not convinced mandates on the number of alts achieve the goal of people investing in their characters like we do simply because that's not how other people necessarily like to do it. Not everyone is enlightened like we are.
I mean I know people who want to try a couple of different things - they like say, Demon but they also like Werewolf. They have friends in one sphere but they also have buddies in another who're looking for a packmate. So either way they'd need to give something up or they'll scratch the extra itch somewhere else as well; does it truly matter to you if the awesome RP partner you ran into is distracted because they're playing another character on the same MU* or on a different one? Hell, the character you ran into might be their second alt - meaning if the game didn't allow for it you wouldn't have met them in the first place.
Like Theno, I've seen games start with a restrictive alt policy and then have players start to ask for more alts. In my experience and perception, this happens when there are other, underlying reasons causing a games player base to flag and increasing alt limits is often seen as a panacea, under the reasoning if there are more charbits on grid then surely, RP must follow. It's also an easy fix to make, and typically much easier than finding underlying causes of disengagement and directing a fix at them.
That's also true - spheres stagnate, important people stop logging on causing momentum to die, folks roll characters into a different faction and suddenly there're exciting things happening there... but artificially restricting people from playing what they want doesn't solve these issues, it compounds them. You can't force life into a sphere if their roster is tired and their players want something new over the summer when things are slow or whatever, so letting some new stories to be told somewhere else in the mean time is a good thing. It sure beats people walking off to find a different MU* - that sure as hell won't help activity on the first MU*, you know?
For the record, when I speak of a restrictive alt limit, I don't necessarily mean a 1-alt limit. I would count this as any game with a limit of three or under.
Oh, three alts should be fine. People who need more are monsters.