[Balanor]

Hello everyone. this is meant to be a friendly, non-judgmental, non-threatening reminder about Thay's 3 Active PC-Per-Player limit detailed in this post.

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Each player should have no more than 1 account name and no more 3 active PCs at one time. Actively playing just 1 PC is best, playing 2 PCs is OK, and playing 3 PCs should be the maximum limit. These voluntarily enforced restrictions are to help ensure that separate personalities and IC knowledge for each character is easier to remember and maintain for the player. If concerns are raised or behavior is observed that multiple PCs of one player are 'bleeding' IC knowledge into each other, or a player is metagaming with them (intentional or not), he or she will be asked to delete excess PCs.
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I am placing this here in case anyone has questions or concerns about the policy that you'd like addressed. But also, if you are one of the number of players who is juggling more than 3 PCs, please work to reduce the number of your actively played PCs to 3 or less. It doesn't *have* to mean their deletion or retirement, but it should mean they get pulled out only very rarely, if at all, until you lose interest or retire one of your three main PCs.

[Wids]

If I may, I'd also like to add that for some people, or in some instances, even keeping track of what two or three of your PCs do or do not know can be a bit troublesome at times. That's when it helps to take notes, and that's what the third tab under each character's Journal (accessed with the J key) is for.

I often write new Journal notes for each of my characters whenever meeting someone new, facing some new development, what-have-you. Wyren's Journal might have notes like "Hazlok Thrune, Red Wizard of Tyra, benefactor, owes Wyren approx. 15,000 G" or whatever, while Corella's Journal might have notes like "Djed Setesh, calls himself 'Deathbringer', hostile jerk, ex-Bhaalite/possible Cyricist but hates Cyricists. Knows I'm Leiran. Watch him." So that way, if Wyren runs into Djed, I briefly check Wyren's Journal and I don't see any notes about Djed, then I assume that the two have never met before and that Wyren hasn't yet heard any gossip about Djed, and I roleplay accordingly (while finding time to jot a few new notes about Djed, of course).

It's a good way to ensure that your PCs "don't cross the streams," and it's also useful for leaving notes for yourself about potential quest givers, new contacts, new factions, the cheapest place to buy a diamond, and so on. I highly recommend using this feature. Everyone has it, so we might as well put it to good use, right?

[Animayhem]

Another helpful tip, at least it works for me, try to make each character as different as you can.

Caramiriel is a half-elf Druid
Rimeth a full elf merchant AA
Marister human ranger.

I agree the journal helps as well.

[Wids]

That helps too, but it also helps to assign your characters their own personality quirks, accents, mannerisms, favored figures of speech or similar traits.

Corella almost always lies, exaggerates or says the opposite of what she means, to degrees of furtiveness or blatancy related to how much she favors, trusts and/or respects whomever she's speaking with, she demands that people address her by puffed-up titles and appellatives, she fixes Cyricists with the hairy eyeball, she's liberal with sarcasm, mockery and stealth insults when faced with someone she doesn't like and she has a penchant for fashioning and wearing disguises. Wyren and Vespera don't.

Wyren is similar to the Order of Hermes mages from Mage: The Ascension in that she speaks about magic (her favorite topic) with big words and pepperings of technical and quasi-scientific terms...this physick, that dram of phlogiston, the Fifth Seal of Praxes, a phlegmatic tincture of Aqua Fortis purified by way of a copper crucible, et cetera. She also fusses around with various small tools or vials whenever she's idle, and she's always brewing, building or calculating something if someone catches her in her shop. Corella and Vespera don't.

Vespera frequently invokes or makes oaths to Shar (in her many names and nicknames) or "the Eternal Darkness" or "the Starless Night" or similar things, she refuses to kill defenseless innocents not because she's compassionate or merciful (she's not) but because that would be honorless and beneath her (but has nothing against threatening or tormenting innocents in her usual polite yet sociopathic tone) and takes penance upon herself if she should stoop to such murders, she winces and shies away from bright light and she hums or sings funeral dirges whenever she's idling around. Corella and Wyren don't.

The differences in your characters don't have to be big enough and numerous enough to fill a chapter in a novella; just a quirk or two will do fine. Other people will usually notice (unless they're too wrapped up in their own characters or just plain oblivious to details, perhaps). Besides, you can always add more quirks or change them as campaign events come and go, so there's not so much need to get too intricate with the details.

[FrodoTheFluffy]

I play 4 PC's! I have a Barbarian, Ranger, Rogue and a Gnoll!

I thought that the 3 player limit was only a guideline and not a rule! I went through my Player vault and deleted all the test and non playing PC's the other day!

My Barbarian is a Good character and is going to become a free'er of slaves and most probably join his Temple!
My Ranger is an Evil character and Plays a Mercenary, Slaver - Merchant
My Rogue is a Priador Legionnaire
My Gnoll is just an uncivilised Gnoll who is more for RP than anything else.

I had a hard choice on choosing what to delete and what to keep but i can't bring myself to delete any of these as i intend on playing them all but some won't all be played regularly i will focus each one every now and then but myself i do understand the reasoning as to why! If this is a major issue for you it will be a hard decision but i guess one will have to go!

[Wids]

Oh, you don't have to delete a fourth character; you just need to backburner the character. Thayan's only asking us to stick to three active characters, not three characters period. Zelis is still in my vault, even if I have her on mothballs; that way, if I retire one of my three active PCs (or get one of them slapped with permadeath somehow), I can just dust off Zelis and bring her back out to play. Or I may get tired of playing one of my active PCs, so I send that character on an extended vacation and bring Zelis out to take that PC's place on the active roster. No deletion required.

[FrodoTheFluffy]

Ah i see now! Well i generally focus on one toon at a time because i don't like to jump between characters :P My characters are like Action men :P you play with one till you break it or get bored then move onto the next for a while etc etc!

[Balanor]

Unfortunately, this is a less-friendly, more threatening reminder that people actively playing more than 3 PCs need to figure out who are your main PCs and stop playing the rest. I was recently looking into the server vaults for something unrelated to this, but when I checked a number of our long(er)-term player’s vaults and the server logs I saw people who have played 4, 5, or even 6 PCs all within the last 2 days. So despite knowing about the 3-PC-limit, several people are deliberately ignoring it. That is upsetting.

So that brings me to the threat.

It appears I’ll be forced to make this an involuntary restriction, so I will begin the necessary script work to track the three PCs a player has active, at which point any beyond those three will not be able to login to the playable gameworld. I suggest that those of you with 4 or more active PCs begin to figure out which three you are going to keep and tie up the loose ends of your 4+ PCs. I don’t intend for this enforced restriction to go into effect anytime soon, so there is not a big need to rush. But once it occurs, players with more than 3 PCs will not be able to login to the playable gameworld with a 4th PC unless you delete one of the 3 others that are considered active.

Why am I being such a huge dick about this? I'll try to more clearly explain my reasons.
First, without some type of limit, long-term players could possibly have very powerful/notorious PCs that they really don’t play across various factions. Then if someone pisses them off OOCly or ICly, they may go back to one of these old PCs to exact vengeance on an offending player’s characters. In other words, it gives players leverage over situations that they really shouldn’t have if their old PC is no longer one they primarily play or have involved in-game.

Second, it’s difficult enough to keep the IC knowledge of two people (PCs) separate. Trying to maintain and remember 3 personalities, along with who they like or dislike, where they have adventured or not, or who knows where the questgiver is for that special item they want makes it even more difficult. It is my opinion that even the 3 PC limit is too high for a person to really keep all that information straight about their PCs. Although notes and using the journal may help...if someone does actually use them. But metagaming is rampant enough without spreading it over 4+ PCs per player.

Third, I want to encourage people to try new things here wholeheartedly and not with the attitude of "Well, I can go back to X if Y doesn't work out". Once your PC has risen to the highest ranks of a faction, smirks in amusement when someone mentions a Hood of Disguise or Cloak of Invisibly with awe, has walked alongside a god, or met with Szass Tam...what else does he/she really hope to accomplish? At that point it’s maybe time to figure out the ending to the story of your PC’s career. With some help you could use it to get something/someone/someplace added or changed within the gameworld itself. There are a bunch of PCs-turned-NPCs, even some areas, and even smaller tributes like gravestones and items that all came to be because of the players. If you want a lasting monument for a long-term PC before you retire it, work with the DMs to make it happen. Give them something to do by letting them know your plans and see if they can help with events to bring the story of a PC to a close. Then retire/delete the PC so you can create that new character concept.

Again though, I want to state that the enforced 3-PC-Per-Player limit will not be going into effect for some time (at least a couple months). Use that time to figure out which PCs you really want and whittle them down to at least three to be prepared for that day before it happens. Finally, I want to give my apologies to those players who have done a fair/good/excellent job keeping your active PCs to 3, yet may have more than that in your vault. I’m sorry it has come to this.

[Animayhem]

So the limit is three? What if you have a character just for a campaign? What about future campaigns dms may set up and maybe your current characters not qualified?

[Balanor]

So the limit is three?

When the limit is three, yes; the limit is three.

What if you have a character just for a campaign?

I am anticipating current DM campaign(s) which may have required special PCs created just for them should be completed before this goes into effect. But as far as I know we have only one going that specially required PCs of a certain type for it.

What about future campaigns dms may set up and maybe your current characters not qualified?

If you must have 2 other characters, then keep the 3rd slot open for a rotating character that wouldn't be completely devastating for you to retire so you could replace it with another PC specifically needed for a campaign.