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It would be great if there was a game access level that's basically a player, but can post as one off characters like the the GM, but doesn't have all the other GM powers. Is that possible, or is anything like that in the works??
This message was last edited by the user at 21:30, Tue 30 Jan.

I can see the use case (changeling/illusion), but I wonder if the technicalities of it might be quite difficult to implement. Posting as a character would need you to effectively use the same user account to post, otherwise the other players would easily know that the account with 2 posts is definitely not the original character.

That would have serious implications, because you would potentially be able to post things in OOC that were rude/discriminatory/offensive. Not only that, but if you had access to the players character sheet, there may well be private information regarding that character that they wouldn't want to share with other players.

Given that you can mimic existing characters utilizing the one-off option (yes, their names won't be highlighted to contain a link to their description, but...characters that don't have descriptions don't get that highlight link anyway, and some games don't require people to have descriptions...), I think giving that ability to players is a bad idea. Being able to spoof someone else in the game, even if only the people who don't pay close attention would be fooled, feels like an unnecessary risk.

What you could do, though, if you have a player that needs to post as someone else without the other players realizing it (like a shapeshifted persona) is either have that player write up their post and send it to you (as GM) for you to post under the one-off name (if you need 100% obfuscation from your other players as to whom is controlling the 'shapeshift' identity), OR if you have players that you trust not to metagame, you could provide the player that needs the ability to post as "other" personas with a secondary character named something like 'Other' or 'Shapeshift' or whatever, and let them edit the portrait and description to provide the secondary identities as necessary when they post.

I was just thinking of a cooperative game where all the player could participate in adding color by assuming the roles of NPCs. It's more immersive if the posting character isn't a PC. We don't want all the contributors to have GM access though, because GM can read all the Private and secret messages and posts. I don't know how easy or hard it would be but to me it looks like it could be an Editor with the added permission.

One issue I can see with it is that if every player in the game can take control of an NPC "invisibly", and one of the players then posts something which breaches the site's ToU using that NPC (potentially resulting in the closure of the game, or site bans depending on the severity of the incident) there needs to be some way to identify which player is responsible.  The current system where characters are tied to specific players already makes it very clear who posted what.

Couldn't you just put the actual poster in a tag. The tag wouldn't show on the post, ideally, but if it had to that wouldn't be the end of the world. And If there is more than one GM, you have the same problem, right? The GM has the discretion to grant these access levels, if nothing else, just make sure the GM knows they're responsible for all posts

Currently, tags do show on posts, and if the actual poster's name was put in a tag...wouldn't that just be like the actual poster had posted for an NPC in the first place? If you're not worried about the other players knowing who is making one-off posts, then the players could just make the one-off posts using their own character (or an assigned secondary character) in the first place.

It's less about knowing the identity of the actual writer and more about the immersion of seeing the NPC name as the poster. It helps to orient how you read the post. Honestly, I never even look at the tag. I just see the poster's name. I honestly didn't think this would be so controversial an idea. Yes, of course there are ways to play NPCs without having this, but having the Post As: one off Character would be better. It was just an idea I had that I thought would make it easier for more players to write for NPCs without the distraction/confusion of them posting as their Main Character and it would be more immersive than using some generic NPC character named NPC1 or whatever.

If you only want to see a name (maybe picture) you can also start your comment like this

<picture> John Doe:

You can't use pictures here, but could insert an avatar from the gallery...
I sometimes use this option even as a GM to provide a picture as well not just a name for a one shot NPC

That's fantastic idea if the powers that be decline to add the feature. Thank you very much.

If there was a specific "Non-de-plume" level that PCs could use to post as an NPC using the <quote NPC Name> write as the NPC here </quote NPC Name> mechanism, the it would be obvious that the GM hadn't posted but one of the players had posted as an NPC.
Potentially adding a specific "Non-de-plume" group so that NPCs could be assigned to the group by the GM might be worthwhile as well.

The more I think about it, the less the concern about knowing the poster's identity makes sense as a concern. The same problem would exist if there was more than one GM. And that concern is worse for the Editor access level, because they can change anyone's post contents. So that situation already exists. Obviously it hasn't been much of a concern.

I would say that the difference is that every GM in a game is as responsible for the game as the GM-owner is, so if they screw something up, they're all equally responsible. There is no 'well, the co-GM did it' argument when it comes to the rules. A GM is a GM is a GM. (Historically, if one GM of a game broke a rule, for instance, all GMs of the game were punished the same...this may no longer be the case, but it certainly used to be.)

GMs are responsible for policing their own game/players, and if their players have the ability to essentially write posts using One-Off names and the GM then can't tell which one of their players authored a problematic post, they don't know who to come down on/remove so that they and their entire game as a whole doesn't get modded.

Since GMs are responsible for all content within their games, they need to be able to tell who wrote that content. (Presumably, if you have a co-GM, it's someone you trust explicitly in a way you probably don't your players, and if they wrote one-off posts, you should know it - if just because it wasn't YOU.)

Which comes back around to somehow tagging One-Off posts with the actual author so that GMs could tell who wrote what, and if you don't mind knowing who the actual author of a post is, there have been several suggestions above that would allow players to post "NPC posts" using their actual characters. Equally, there have been several suggestions that would allow your players to write "NPC posts" using a character that other players wouldn't know was theirs by giving them a secondary (or even tertiary) character to control for that purpose, while still allowing the GM to be 100% aware of who authored what.

The same problem DOES exist if there is more than one GM ... but assumedly the GM has a certain level of trust in their co-GMs (through long association either in RL or from gaming with them) and can rely on them not to do anything stupid.

I think you're underestimating the average player ... if we can suspend disbelief enough to accept dragons and fireballs, then I don't think seeing a player name there in place of the shared character¹ is going to detract in even the slightest from the immersion.  I barely pay attention to the info on the left hand side (seen it once, seen it a thousand times - literally in some of the longer running games) - I'm just interested in the post itself.

Flip that about ... sure the GM can use the one-off identity for that NPC, but do players lose it if the GM just posts the NPC's response as the GM ?


¹ I'm loathe to call it an NPC - if the players are posting, then it's a shared player character; if the GM is posting then it's an NPC.

The idea for this came to me because we're playing a cooperative game. All the players are known to each other and that trust is there. We discussed having all of us be GMs, but we didn't want to all be reading the PMs and SMs. All we wanted was the ability to post as one off identities, whatever you call them. There are other ways to do it, but this would be cooler. The GM still has the sole authority to grant or not grant any access level, so again, this concern about attribution seems minor to me. Like I said, if the concern is that a player might write something against the rules, then the Editor access is every bit as bad, Probably worse, because they can go change another player's post

If an Editor (or a GM, or the player himself) changes a post, then the post is tagged with that person's name.

Okay, so it is doable. But, it sounds like everyone's against it. Oh well... Win some, lose some

Sounds like the way you're playing is different to the way everyone else is playing.  That's good and it's cool.  That's how we grow as a roleplaying community: by pushing boundaries.

In this case, it seems like the potential risks (in allowing players to impersonate other players) outweigh the benefits -- certainly not enough to make a system-wide change.  But I salute you for pushing the envelope of what can be done.

Give everyone a second character named "so-and-so's NPC" that they can use for making PNPC posts.  Existing posts don't change the associated portrait when you change it for new ones, so you can use multiple portraits to post as multiple PNPCs.

Pros

• Correct "whodunnit" attribution remains intact
• Immersion improves since the wrong name isn't on the post
• You can still have multiple portraits for multiple PNPCs

Cons

• Changing portraits all the time is a hassle.  Saving a list of the portrait numbers helps, but it's still not perfect.
• The name is a little awkward