Something has been a problem for me lately, and maybe there's a written law on this rule somewhere, but I have lately noticed a recent flux of players accounts using or abusing the freedom of alternate characters and joining one or more polarized factions of those they would consider their 'mains', while continuing to play their mains. What this means is that certain players are obtaining a lot of information, faction information, that they then must responsibly neglect a portion of when playing one character versus the next. When this sort of knowledge gets stored, it is easy to make leaps or 'spills' of information that were not entirely in the alternative character's resource. It is easy to pose information as a hypothetical in such a case, or even go to a PC whom another or previous character may have revealed as someone who could inform their character of particulars in information, especially in terms of DM events.

The flip side of this, is that alts can be used on the same 'team' where say the main character may have precluded the ability to speak with certain PCs, the alt can gather information and then bring it to the same faction and recorded as evidence. Your personal characters are not allowed to know or interact with each other in any way, and playing PC Telephone should be something taken into personal awareness.

Lastly, the other problem with Alt-ing is a matter of character importance. If you have a character with a specific faction role, a role of matter such as a rank in a military, a political power, an adviser, noble, instructor, spymaster, or any kind of facilitator for that matter, you essentially neglect that character's role, if you then intend to go on playing another character of consequence: Say you are a baron, and your alt is a spy for the enemy. The margin for a conflict of interest becomes in my opinion way too absurd. If you intend to stop playing one character entirely for another, that is different, but how can you really develop two characters against each other? I don't think you can be two people at once, especially if they're going to be enemies. If those two entities were ever meant to confront each other, you would screw yourself out of an event.

So let's consider solutions, I didn't have to bring this problem to anyone's attention, as it isn't a new problem. It's a very old one.

Alting as a rule: The first option is to simply not alt. Hard, I know. Some people are just making characters until they find the niche they're looking for in their RP. I respect those who are on that search. They may aspire with one character to join a faction, and check it out, and say "Well this faction is right for this character, but isn't right for me." And then go on and try a new PC. Okay... I don't think we can bar any real rules on Alts as a result. But let's talk about multi-factioning.

Multi-Factioning: How not to screw yourself. So maybe you were told it is okay to have two different PC's a part of two factions if the faction leaders or local DM have no quarrels about it, but consider this a more of a plea for personal restraint than by what is 'allowed', because allowed doesn't always mean what is right. I have heard the argument that people feel excluded from fun events if they're not geared to their own faction and towards another, and the common solution people make for this is to create an alt in that environment and live their adventuring campaign as stormchasers, and follow where things are going to be thrilling all the time, harboring perhaps, things meant to be harbored only by that faction, because they wanted to fight the dragon too. Patience my child. A lot of these DMs tend to branch out their events anyway away from one area, and you may very well find that the event your alt bothered getting themselves into, was headed toward your main the whole time. Now your main cannot play or fulfill their role (which may be marginally a more important role) in the event and has to sit the war out because you got your less favorite, advantageous and expendable character involved. I don't think you should be allowed to participate in two factions at once, that doesn't just mean barring access to sub-forums, but even Cross-RPing environments possesses potential dangers and concerns highlighted above.

Boss Is Away On Business: I would also say that characters should not take on lead or heavy roles in factions if they do not intend to play that character with dedication. That means, you should not play a pauper if you are also playing a prince. If you are needed in a faction because you took on a high role, please play that role. Negligence is how factions die in such arenas. Real Life happens yes, and you need to go and live and do things, but I think it is a waste of space if you are roleplaying on an expendable alt character while your main is not being active, especially when your faction friends require your attention. Simply step down if you can't manage your role.


Those are my thoughts on current alt-ing problems in regards to factions and the like. What do you think now as players in regards to this? Do you see this happen a lot too? Am I just a crazy whiner? Comments, Discussions, and Thoughts.

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MuseReader: Aiseth Nosdivan- Master Enchantress

Playing a character who overheard a lot of valuable information that is useful to the other two I currently play, a solution I found was making some text files containing anything "valuable" that may accidentally leak should i play drunk one day and think I'm playing someone else:



Also, the general faction affiliations aren't affecting my characters, which is good as I've seen a few situations as you've described, Muse. You've risen some very valid points which I'd recommend people looking in to Yossarin's stickied thread if they haven't as well!

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I don't think you are a crazy whiner about this, Muse.

I have had several alts through my time on Amia. They were all, as you say, me trying to find my niche. Maral became by main by default because she was quickly launched into a leadership position, but I was very rarely inspired by her.

I would have to say that Iim'mur'ss is a prime example of how you can find your way into those big plots IF you are willing to play through. By this I mean play smart and actually jump through the IC hoops to do so. Trust me, few PCs will have a harder time than a drow/shadow dragon/shadowdancer. Immediate gratification doesn't really come from those alts people make to just get involved. Rarely are those new PCs trusted enough to be able to get into the mix they were made for in the first place. Such things take time, RP, and proving yourself to the other PCs. At least from my point of view.

I do my best to keep my characters from crossing paths, or plots. Going so far as to notify DMs of which char I intend to bench (or even perma) if necessary. Recently I was asked to take over leadership of a faction. I thought no big deal... I'm intending to shelve Maral anyway, and it's in the UD so... no real conflict, right? What is the first plot those UD drow push? Something Iim was already involved in that makes me want to gouge my eyes out, because as a leader I occasionally get caught in the discussions and have to /appear/ interested!

We can ask that people refrain from doing these things, we can try to make them aware as Yoss and others have done in the past, but in the end people are going to play how they play. We either work around it, or find something besides this game to occupy our time.

None of this is intended as a slam to those people that like to play concept characters until they get bored and move to something else. If that is their preferred play style, then more power to them. Me, I play for my character's story & journey.

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Iim'mur'ss - Grandmaster Shadowdancer / Aaralyn - Diplomat / Oleander - Toxic Desert Flower

Some people may be old enough to remember that I suffered some heartache over this issue when dealing with the Banite faction as it was ages ago. I became very particular in my opinions on factions, and I still am, but I don't share them often because they're more draconian than most people would have fun with or be comfortable with.

I will say that in my opinion there's a lot of onus on the faction and the faction leader to protect itself in these situations. At the very least, were I leading a faction and inducting a new PC, I would ask the player, "Do you have any alts?"

Now, this player may be honest and then I may decide not to admit them for those concerns. Or they can lie to me and say they have no alts and I might never be the wiser (OOOOR I might doublecheck that with a DM, if they were willing to facilitate.) And should I find out the person lied to me about that, not only would it mean they don't get into my faction, it may also mean that I would warn other faction leaders about the trustworthiness of the player in question. Maybe. Depending upon how good a day I'm having.

Thank ya, Aiseth. I feel very strongly about this, to the point where I've gone to considerable effort to remove the conflict of interest between Luca and Vale, with Luca enduring a great many negative consequences for doing so that would have otherwise been avoided. When Luca held influence in Tarkuul, I made it very clear that I wasn't comfortable with cross-faction players. Now that school is out and my attention is back on Vale, people should expect the same when it comes to Cordor.

Also, to note, as a faction leader, you can deny a character entry into your faction for OOC reasons, including the fact that they have alts in other factions.

Oh, but how vicious the bitching, gossiping and metagaming accusations if you ever make use of the rule.

What I would recommend is to make it a policy for your faction. So you're holding it to all people that make alts for your faction, and have alts in other, opposing factions. If you can point to a policy, instead of a single person, it'll generally go over better.

Maybe its just time to set it in stone.

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Fear is not evil… It tells you what your weakness is. And once you know your weakness, you can become stronger as well as kinder. - Gildarts Clive, Fairy Tail, Hiro Mashima.

It's been on my mind a bit these days too with Nguza and Ruce both being active. The solution I've pencilled in but not actually had to use is just to rely on the fact that Ruce is as unreliable as they get.

He makes 'freelancer' look like the fanatical level of loyalty that would see a Pharoah's servants gladly wall themselves into his tomb so they could serve him in the afterlife. So he can simply not turn up to any secret meeting, or if he does get dragged into a spontaneous one, simply get so drunk he gets turfed out as a liability.

I try to be an honest chap and the result thereof is that when I know something OOCly, my characters are far stupider than they ought to be, which is a little annoying, but I don't fully trust myself to make an accurate judgement on what they'd figure out if left to their own devices. That's actually a problem I've had with low-or-10 WIS/INT characters when the information is 100% legit.

Odd how much mental knot-tying goes into Let's Pretend.

An Opposed Schools list, only for factions and and not Wizard spells?

I would rather see faction leaders encouraged to take greater charge of their factions and given wide berth to police their own factions. Otherwise, we get into some very sticky territory if DMs do not appear to equally defect/protect one faction over another.

I think the first question would be 'What is a faction?'

I am not going to kick someone out of Bendir Dale because they have a character in the Cordor guard for one. But I can see a conflict in interest between members of other factions such as Kohlingen and Wiltun or Cordor and Tarkuul.

On the other side, I do expect to see people putting time in characters with a rank above 'resident' or the rank will be removed and given to someone else who is active in the faction. If I see someone consistantly playing alts and neglecting the faction then there will be a warning and subsequent removal if nothing improves.

But some people just have more time to spend on Amia then others and I can understand if people who have more time to spend have more characters because playing one character lets say 4 hours a day gets boring eventually while playing one five hours a week likely won't become boring or not nearly as fast.

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Characters played:

Harold Kendry (Illusionist) -> see avatar
Elloanore (Travelling bard)

My rabid libertarian self agrees with Yoss one thousand percent!

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Iim'mur'ss - Grandmaster Shadowdancer / Aaralyn - Diplomat / Oleander - Toxic Desert Flower

I recently made a rule for myself to only stick with three characters, and all evil characters. I'm glad I did this because I've found the three types of class combos I'm very comfortable with. I know it takes a while to find what you are comfortable with as a player, so I would say that you should at least stick with one side of the good/bad spectrum if you have yet to find the characters you decide to really focus on- that way there is less metagaming to arise, consciously or not.



I'm leaning more towards there being some new rules. I think metagaming with alt characters is too easy, even if a player tries to keep it in check. I'd prefer it if the player didn't know everything going on instead of having all their characters essentially know all the same things (even if it's subconscious). Maybe players can have some sort of status attached to them that identifies them as the casual 'haven't found my niche yet', or a status that identifies a player as someone who focuses on only a few characters that aren't in opposing factions (?).

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What is this "Alts" thing you speak of, the keys next to the wavy window ones?

But really I have never been a fan of alts over all myself, but in factions/groups because you risk meta gaming, and the fact it splits up your groups representation in game and gives you a false sense of how large and active your group is, even more so if they only log on and do stuff if something is going on in regards to said group makes me dislike them even more.

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================-<Cory ShadowFlame>-================
Risenlord-Shifter(OMG a Non-Dragon Shifter that can hold his own in PvE)

I think it's entirely silly to have so little faith in your player base that you don't trust them playing opposing faction characters. Metagaming is something every roleplayer understands, and we all know you don't do it. Very simple. No metagame no problem. I could without batting an eyelash play a cleric of Mask and a cleric of Waukeen both deeply involved in their respective factions and never have an issue, I have full faith that every other player with actual love and reverence for roleplay could do the same.

I have always viewed roleplay as a state of trying to bring something to life, to let your character exist in a world free of 4th wall influence. You aren't the sculpting hand, or the marionette, you're just trying to bring a character to life to the best of your ability.


I think the most reprehensible sort of metagame is to disallow something to happen IC in light of something OOC, for instance disallowing people to play in factions because of their other characters. They're other characters! They have no interaction, and if they did then that's an IC matter that can be dealt with in an IC fashion.

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bad man

I thoroughly disagree with your sentiment and find your attitude disrespectful. Many of us have had negative metagaming experiences and thus cannot realistically place our faith in the playerbase, only to be disappointed over and over again. Just because you have no problems trusting your fellow players out of character doesn't make it "silly" for some of us to feel differently. I echo the thoughts expressed in the original post, and I'm personally more worried about accidental and involuntary metagaming than the intentional, malicious sort.

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Sion of Nimlith
Shadow Disciple

Punish metagaming in all forms, including disallowing people to play in factions based on OOC reasons. I think you're looking at the problem in the wrong lense. If you want to solve metagaming you don't use another metagaming tool. You place harsh penalties on the actual metagaming, and in the sad instance where it does cause damage to a plot/player retcon is a tool that I'm sure has been used before.

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bad man

I can't trust myself 100%, and I think I do better than most when it comes to this. The thing is- it's not always a conscious thing.

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I agree with this. Not all metagaming is voluntary. We are all human beings after all.

By not involving yourself in several factions at once you help minimizing the risks of involuntary metagame occuring.

For me, the problem with retconning is that it kills the RP entirely. If it has gone to that point, I think it is already too late.

Generally, I am in the boat where I don't like having several characters active at once under any circumstance, which is why I have played the same one for the past 17 months. I simply don't want to take the risk of screwing someone's RP up, because I know that if it happened to me, I would be incredibly disheartened.

99% of people on Amia do it with alts and don't even think about it.

We all know what monsters are in what zones , what they do....etc. not many people play stupid and die on alts like they did when they were fresh to amia having no idea how strong monsters were and where, people also know what items are in what shops....etc. and that just the victimless metagaming people don't even think as such.

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================-<Cory ShadowFlame>-================
Risenlord-Shifter(OMG a Non-Dragon Shifter that can hold his own in PvE)

I guess we could also go and call all metagaming used to actually meet up with your friends to roleplay with harmful too. There is innocence to be found, it's the destructive metagaming that should be 0 tolerance.

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bad man

I think we're talking about harmful metagaming. OOC cooperation is fine, such as planning for events, gathering people, etc. But there is a lot of metagaming that takes place without people's intent.

Again, some factions won't mind that people are making alts that are in conflict with each other, and the DM's don't have a ruling against it (As long as they don't directly interact). But your faction leader(s) may rightfully get upset if and when you have to choose sides for an event, or if information mysteriously appears in enemy ranks.

Not all of it may be metagamed information-- but most faction leaders tend to take a clearer stance against alts in conflicting factions to prevent this from occurring.

I recommend that if you and your faction feel like this is an issue, to make this a policy. You're not trying to hurt these people, you're trying to keep others safe from being hurt. If you're worried that players will lash back at you, get the DM's to support you. Just send us a small nudge that this is a policy in your faction. We'll help make sure that enforcing it goes smoothly.

As someone who has been part of two opposing factions before, I cannot recommend people doing it. It is difficult to keep track of. I have since retired those opposing forces, and now tend to stick to a guideline of only being involved with a faction that is not in any conflicts or dealing with another faction I'm part of. The easiest way to do this is to just abandon all faction-based characters and focus on one. If you want to play another faction, it's wise to retire the other characters first.

Metagaming is not always intentional, and I do the same as what Kamina does, except using the in game journal notepad because I'm lazy. If you organise it right, you can usually avoid most of the issues, but some may slip through. I'm sure I've accidentally done something along those lines in the past.

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Khaldun Menetnashte Khalfani
Victor Wilkinson

^totally not a lie or anything.

It -does- become more difficult, admittedly, when its not a faction and its a city, instead.

I think this is the current problem. Especially with the ethnic-racial cities. While they might not be a part of a faction, making a hin or an elf while you've also got alts plotting to attack the Dale or Winya might be difficult to manage. Who's the 'city leader' that's going to tell you to stop playing that character, you know?

Hrmm..

The cities in which there are numerous factions, but that they are all generally involved in one direction are the ones that are most vulnerable.

-Kohlingen, for example. You don't need to be a member of the factions inside Kohlingen (Such as the Knights, or the other less obvious ones) to still be receiving a great deal of information, and to be active and involved. No one in Kohlingen can OOCly say, "No, you can't play here because you have alts elsewhere in conflict factions" if that Kohlingen citizen is only a citizen, rather than a Knight, advisor, etc.

Tarkuul, Wiltun (Though Wiltun tends to be almost cohesively a part of a single faction within it), Winya, the Dale. There's a pretty huge vulnerability, because its not a faction, so no PC or 'city leader' can simply deny a character access to all the information and ongoings that could be metagamed.

Perhaps a ruling for these situations might be something to consider.

Deleted.

Er.. that's a pretty poor statement. There's already a lot of controversial stigma and unnecessary generalizations regarding power gamers and those who get into PvP. Let's not lump additional, unwarranted negativity on people that understand and take pleasure in mechanics, as well as those who get into open conflict.

This is in no way, shape, or form connected to the way people build their characters..

As a person who enjoys building, and a person who has been the target of names regarding PvP, I am offended that you think its 'us' (Whether only or mostly) that metagames information. Its a completely normative claim backed by nothing but your own faulty opinion.

I say 'faulty', because the cases I have watched over, ruled on, and witnessed as a DM receiving reports of these kinds of issues, and there is absolutely no definitive connection between someone's willingness to build powerful characters and their affinity for metagaming information against factions.


Furthermore, there is a distinct separation between people who build powerful characters and people who get into PvP 'constantly'. Not all powerfully built characters are people who PvP often. Not even most, dude. There are people who fit both of those categories, but neither are dependent upon the other. There are people that may have fit both of these categories-- and they are also absolutely not metagaming information.

I can name 3-4 potential risks for players metagaming against factions in conflict. All have mediocre builds, and do not get into PvP often.

I didn't mean to piss you off, i wasn't even pointing this at you im just stating what i've seen of various people. in this and other servers.


But i have another question, what would happen if someone perma's you? you are then forced to make an alt or just not play?

Forget Illuminati and Stonecutters, forget Rockeffelers and Templars.

It's powerbuilders and pvpers! And the worst - powerbuilding pvpers! They are behind everything!

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Daegan Van'Straaten - Duty to Helm is above all!

okay fine i get it, sorry.

Afaik, if you are perma'd, your character is deleted and you have to start again a new one.

Then again, permadeath is possible only with the player permission (unless you tag along during a badass DM event). Nobody can force you to it.

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Daegan Van'Straaten - Duty to Helm is above all!

issue with that is people do it anyway then firmly complain to a DM when they get up a day later or someone comes across and raises them. And if there are rules against alting, that means you are still barred from factions because you already have information on others.

This basictly becomes a 'if you join a faction, your there forever.' argument.


all in all it would be a 'you are boned if you stay perma'd, you are boned if you make a new character.'
How about just making all factions locked then? Just make it so if you want ina facton you need IC roleplay done and a DM's apporoval.

I'm not meaning to jump on you either, Kalcibone. But as a community, we need to take extra caution about these kinds of things.

I was skeptical that it had real effects, until I made an alternate account, and was the target of rumors and negativity, name calling and assumptions. Especially when I've been nothing but positive to fellow players. It hurts, and if we hold the idea that people who build powerful characters or people who engage in conflict are bad people, or people who are trying to hurt others and detract from Rp, we're just going to push more people away from the server.

There are of course cases when people do harass others with tools such as PvP and other forms of griefing. But in my own personal experience, both as a DM witnessing and an incognito player, people are all too quick to assume the worst from even a single experience.

Also, the faction policies don't apply to characters that were perma'd. I think the only way that factions rule it, is that if you have two active characters in conflict factions, that you should pick one. If your character is perma'd, you don't have him as an active character.

A lot of players I know have shelved or perma'd characters, and ended up swapping sides to the other faction to Rp with new people, from a new angle (Sphinx, I'm looking at you ). Just because you once had characters in a conflict faction, as long as you're no longer actively playing them, then you're fine.

Its actually a really rewarding experience to experience Amia from the other side of the table. I've had the distinct pleasure of playing with both good and evil factions. I work hard to make sure that I don't play them at the same time, but if you're shelving your character and want to experience a brand new take on Amia, I wholeheartedly suggest flopping alignments and trying it out. More often than not, it'll open your eyes to how these other players think and feel, and will make a lot of things suddenly make more sense.

I just caution against playing characters at the same time in these two separate sides.

I understand that concern too. I'll give it some more thought tonight, when I get back from classes.

I have the same experience.

I only wish to mention Dead and Sphinx - these two know who I originally play and never, ever accused me or anything, even though my "alts" are members of completely different factions. So kudos to them - you guys have my utter respect for your sense of decency and your trust.

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Daegan Van'Straaten - Duty to Helm is above all!

Having led a faction that had a lot of players whose mains or alts were often in other, often hostile, factions I can say that most of them handled it extremely well and gave people no reason to complain.

One of those people was jimbono1, who wrote above about if it is actually a good idea, even when done carefully.

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Gagis Silvarna, the Robocop with wings who shoots lasers from his fingertips
Lily Havthorn, the Waukeenar
Silwe, the elf

first of im one of those with to much time on my hand and play between 4 and easy 10 hours a day

I have two alts, but I always tell people then when they need my main for cordor stuff I will make time for it and further I also keep note on toons in my journal with people names and want they are from the toonand in short what that toon thinks of the person, also rather then having the danger of needing to chose between the two or information things I put a lot of effort in avoiding getting in plots/contacts from other toons (so basicly my other toons avoid 99% of al cordor things) and I avoid factions that cross my main to much (like I wil never join kohlingen/whiltun/bane/thay/tarkuul etc. because I'm high in the cordor faction)

I would be against making it a rule to not join other factions because some times you need some other faces and rp to have fun with your main. (atleast this is for me)
but I would not mind if some big factions have a "you cant join if you are also part faction A, B and C"

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Current on active duty:
-Main-Lanerd Mc Stone-Fists - Go Feck yerself ya bloody crap face
Elisa Fryar - proude MageGaurd of Cor... guldorand. (Not relatet)
Maruz Blackfeet - Go team evil GO

Starter of the Mage revolution

To begin I would like to say constructing metagamey rules to combat metagame is cutting off your nose to spite your face, you can erect a thousand obstacles, if someone wants to metagame they will do so. The tools are always there, I can log into your account, check your build, read your green floating name, and your character description. If there's metagame to be done it cannot be stopped. Now I understand that is surface level but even more involved metagame such as factional undermining isn't going to be avoidable, everyone talks OOC (Heck there's even a built in server function for it!). What you know I could learn from a brief conversation, given we are chummy enough.

I would also like to point out the weakness in the rules, you lose too much for what you try to avoid in a futile effort to mitigate the damage. Take for example the very controversial Patriot Act (For the US) or programs such as Prism, you can only go so far before your architecture hinders the rights and interests of others. Metagame isn't avoidable, but it is punishable, even accidental metagame is unacceptable, it is willful negligence. If you find it difficult to differentiate between two characters you should create an external system to assist you (IE the character's thoughts documents). Take some responsibility. Don't try and inhibit the environment that could very well benefit from having more people involved in all matters than polarizing them. If you limited factional loyalty you'd create a divide between the players, we're a community, and all communities benefit from the interaction and cooperation of all involved.

I believe that the only respectable policy for metagame is to have 0 tolerance for it, and to reactively punish those who engage in the acts of metagaming. Sure it might be tedious to undo a roleplay here and there, but the damage was already done at that point because it came to fruition due to metagame. And with strict enough punishment eventually the offenders would either be barred from the equation or learn and conform.

To disallow other players from playing things that engage them solely based on the OOC notion that they also play a different character is weak, and I would say one of the most blatant offenders of harmful metagame.

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bad man

Rift, when you are in a faction and you have invested a great deal of time and energy into its success, only to see it fall due to IC actions that are revealed to have occurred from either wilful or ignorant metagaming, with the damage done too great to retcon, on whom do you place the responsibility for the failure?

Not a provocative question. Thus exact situation has occurred before.

The person who leaked it, it would be considered willful negligence and punishable under the full brunt of metagame, if you are given such power you need to wield it responsibly. As I said, taking responsibility is important.

Also what caused it to fully undermine an entire faction? Why wasn't it retconned and then watched adamantly by the DM team to allow for it to progress naturally as it would've without the metagame?

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bad man

Catching small hints of metagaming is actually very difficult to do after its happened. We have to trace one person to the next, trying to figure out the source. Meanwhile, informing everyone involved that the situation has to be retconned, and then trying to figure out how exactly to play the scene.

It turns into a -huge- OOC mess. From experience, dealing with these metagaming issues is really quite difficult once its happened. Preventative measures are much preferred, even if they seem to stymie Rp.

I think Yoss is trying to put it this way: If you, as a faction leader, could have stopped the incidental or intentional metagaming by simply refusing the player access to your faction because he had too many fingers dipped in all the pies-- would you regret that you didn't? If the intelligence leak was so severe, and all the Rp you had worked hard for was sullied by an OOC slip, would you wish you had simply not granted him access?

This is the quandary that people face. It might sound over-dramatized, but when an accidental metagaming event occurs, it might go unnoticed for days. If it was important information, it'll blossom into hours and hours of Rp in seventeen different directions. It could involve the Rp of over half the server, including people we don't even know about. How do we effectively retcon that?

The best way to prevent this kind of metagaming is to do as much as one can do to stop it before it's even possible. Perhaps no rule can be made to really counter this, but players need to be extra cautious of this, be it as a faction leader recruiting a new member, or just a character not at all associated with a faction. Your characters do not have the collective knowledge of Amia.

I would say the best way to counter this would be to only play one character, but that's not a solution at all, because not everyone wants to play just one character. We all need to just keep ourselves in check.

Also, I wanted to point out that sometimes your character knows things you do not. Not sure if there is a term for that, but the best way to counter that sort of thing is to wade through all the lore and backstory of your character. Not really rule breaking, but that happens too.

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I agree, no amount of rules can stop metagaming, preventive measures are obviously futile, and the drastic measures proposed only tighten the noose around the freedom that exists in having so many different pies in the community. To disallow people to play in factions stymies more RP than a retconned metagame roleplay "destroys" (It's more like removing a tumor before it becomes cancerous in my eyes, it was already a problem and any action taken in lieu of it isn't anything of quality, merely a continuation of the corruption.). The argument that it's work sounds lazy, being a DM is work. The first line of defense should be the players, they should be held accountable for leaks and also given the freedom to play in multiple factions. Why shouldn't your average responsible player be allowed to play in all factions? If they metagame then that's their mistake, they should be punished accordingly.



I would work tirelessly to have the damage undone and the offenders brought to justice as they should be, no amount of damage can't be reverted with enough work. I adamantly believe you gain more from not limiting your player base than by placing harsh rigid restrictions. Earlier in the thread someone stated that more power to the faction leaders was a desirable thing, and I agree in the same way I agree that more power to your average player would be beneficial. Let them go out and tinker, 10 DMs (Especially when half of them seem busy with modular work) can't produce the content of 300 players with unbridled and unbound potential.



To my knowledge the server has a log function, and additionally bringing the offenders in for their input would help unveil the mystery very quickly, each might've spoken to another but a broadcast post is always possible to gather as much information as quickly as possible in efforts to rectify the situation. Sure it's work, but that's what administration is for.

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bad man

If I remember right, it was a faction whose members were unknown to the playerbase, and this metagamer suddenly had another one of his alts start accusing these characters and presented actual documents that were on that faction's forum. When the player was questioned by the DMs, the story was, "my PC got cold feet about this faction and decided to betray them by giving their documents to an intermediary PC. Then that PC told my alt and so he did what he would do, IC." So the intermediary player is questioned and sticks to that story, even though the DMs could see right through the bulls hit and knew it was a setup. But we had no solid evidence to prove it, just intuition. So nothing could be done and no one punished.

A retcon was out of the question because doing so would have been asking over a third of the playerbase to do something that doesn't come naturally to anyone: forget you know that a PC is secretly X. Even though players can do that, it asks them to do something that would constantly make them anxious and walk on eggshells around said PC, because then any action they might take that could be construed as abusing their OOC knowledge, even innocently, and could be held against them.

I cannot say whether or not the faction leader would have seen it coming or not. I would have at the time, but I try to be discerning. Not everyone is.

I both agree with you and disagree with you, Rift. You make me feel jaded. I want to have that much faith, but once bitten twice shy, I guess. I do agree, though, that faction leaders need to hold your ideal in mind. To make an effort to trust. The wise faction leader establishes ways of letting interested players get involved in the faction in ways that mitigate the potential damage they might cause due to metagaming (circles of trust). They need to be as compassionate as you are about acknowledging what everyone is here for and what they want. But I also think they need to be in charge of their factions and ultimately responsible for protecting it. Because the minute you start having DMs regulate and police factions is the minute they open themselves to this headache: "those damn DMs always defend X faction, and never our faction." Facts of the cases be damned, the damage is done.

Each faction is different, besides, and has its own unique needs where anti metagaming measurements are concerned. DMs are too occupied with other things to really do a faction justice as their peace officer. Especially when the faction leader can fill that role and be subject to the democratic whims of the faction players. If they don't like it, the faction leader can take a hike.

Don't think I am some paragon of faction badassery, though. There is a reason I declined a faction leadership position in the Monolith and even left it, and also never acknowledged myself as a faction leader for the ACTF, wanting the faction to operate mostly without one. Way too much heartache for me to have to decide who I am going to trust OOCly or not in defense of the players in my faction.

Too democratic, and also feels like there are pieces missing. What I see you say is that you knew the offender did it but they were not punished because some sense of "probable doubt" existed, do you or do you not believe the deed was done, did the administration see the problem? If the shoe fits... From what I can see in your description of the even it was very cut and dry case of metagame, even if you add a middle wheel into the equation they are simply an accessory.



You have too little faith in the ability of people to separate themselves from the roleplay which is evident in all the rules that you have endorsed, has trust even been attempted here? I don't know. Players can create that disconnect, it's the same disconnect that makes it hard to actually be satisfied with your portrayal of a character. I have seen to the contrary, I have seen entire communities know the wolf hidden in the sheep and never blink an eye, never let it effect their roleplay. If your character doesn't know.. They don't know, that's that. People understand what there character does and does not legitimately know.





THIS is more of a problem than potential metagame ever will be. It eats away at the unity we share as a community. Too much OOC influence on obvious IC matters.



It's a faction leader's job to lead the faction IC, and as far as OOC goes perhaps a little bit of organization such as creating lists of potentially relevant RP information. OOC matters like metagame can't be resolved by players because they need harsh actions that only a DM might enforce (Bans, be they temporary or permanent)



Those who make those claims shouldn't have a leg to stand on, a DM requires impartiality to function, favoritism is tossed out the door the moment you put on the administration shorts, it's about resolving problems and creating a better community, of which resolving problems like this is a part of. Again, it is not a democracy, democracies are too inefficient. And if people cry about the ruling of a DM that's too bad, there job is to make the tough decisions to keep the cogs spinning.



The problem here isn't that DMs shouldn't be involved because they have more pressing matters, it's that they're understaffed to deal with things that are important like this.

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bad man

Mainly, I'm concerned with the element of surprise. If a character is known to be a spy or something OOC, it WILL have an effect IC because the player knows OOC. This ties in with what I said about a lot of this metagaming being subconscious.

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Frugdar has probably been metagamed before and is probably actively being metagamed, based on all the incorrect assumptions and OOC rumors I hear flying around about him lately. I don't mean IC claims, I mean people saying OOC things and then it becomes so popular to spread around that it gets back to me OOCly, and people start taking it as fact IC.

The nice thing about this, is that it both improved Frugdar's infamy, and means that I sometimes get to kill more people ICly, thus improving his infamy more and possibly having more rumors spread about me. Frugdar is on a fast-track spiral to the #1 spot on the island's most-wanted list, and it makes me laugh inside, because I don't mind.

Seriously though, guys, if you can ICly counteract an OOC act of metagaming, it's pretty awesome of you to try and do. Documents of your secret faction were "released". OK. Time to cast "discern location" on the documents, go on a witch hunt to erase anyone's minds of those documents, and burn them (the documents and/or the characters that had their memories erased). That sounds like -fun- to me. If you feel an OOC action is required, but a situation like the above (somewhere a post or two above me) happens, luckily there's a rule that your PC's can't be actively pitted against each other, and posting documents of a faction that one of your PC's is in, on an alt, is violating that. Your characters cannot role play with each other, and having one alt go against your other alt's faction is instigating self-roleplay. The DM's that oversaw that should've spanked the offender for -that-, if they couldn't pin outright metagaming on him. But there may be a technicality I'm unaware of, or the rule might have been invented after that situation. Either way, they unfortunately outsmarted the system.

Other than that, there's three paths you can choose.

1. The DM's still spank the other person for suspected metagaming, and the community learns that an alibi does not, a globe of invulnerability make. Also, DM's don't necessarily play 100% by the rules, and can use their gut feelings on rulings. A bit dangerous.

2. The DM's abide by the rules that are being abused, and they might have to let someone go even though it's obvious they've done something dubious - almost. It's a complicated situation because there's that 1% chance the guy's innocent, and that's because what he did is technically by the book, or so it seems, and so there's the possibility that it IS by the book. We don't definitively know, and thus, thanks to modern western civilization, he is innocent until proven guilty.

3. MORE RULES. We start creating the Amian version of the US legal system, because we need more technicalities and rules and guidelines to try and catch every single clever cheater.

So you either deal with it, or open a can of worms called "the rules are more like DM guidelines, and they can punish you for whatever they want, real or fake". That sucks and it's not helpful to fixing the situation, I know. That's because any situation involving human rules is inherently broken and can't be fixed. It can be abused and it can be broken. There's no fix. What I suggest you do is foster an environment where we get creative, and overall, kind, to metagaming. Someone appears where they shouldn't have. Imprison them and interrogate them! Someone has an ability they shouldn't have. Harness the energy of that ability, DC request an item based on it, and cut off whatever body part they used for the ability to begin with after you're done. Honestly, the possibilities are endless. Someone is evil, but has lead chainmail (thus blocking detect evil, or so Order of the Stick would have us believe)? I hear that lead is not a great flotation device, and Kohlingen has a river next to it. Throw them in, and once they're free of their chainmail, detect evil again.

Get creative, and have fun with out-playing the metagamers ^_^


Oh, and if they log out in the middle of RP or pvp in which they are losing, that is actually OOCly punishable I think, so you can get them for that too.

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Osiris Masud