PC/PNPC/NPC in Nova 3

[Blackcat]

Ok, there's a bit of a rant on the Nova 3 part of Anodyne Forums HERE to start it up.

The heart of the matter is that whether using PNPCs is a cheat or not, why don't we clear the air and remove all possibility of doubt?

Currently, the fleet rules limit people to 1 playing character per ship and no more than 5 ships. This is common to just about all the fleets out there and is a "standard" rule.

Now I play on a game that's not in a fleet where they allow you to play more than one character, in fact I play 5 characters there on that game. It's fun, and if 1 character is tied up in one post, I have 4 others to work with. Honestly, it keeps the game active and everyone involved.

So my suggestion is to change our rule.

lets say we keep the no more than 5 ships, but lift the limit on the number of characters per ship from 1 to 5. You would have to try to keep them active, and one would have to be the primary character on each ship. Only Primary characters would be able to hold Department Head positions or above, the rest would have to take lesser roles. That way, there would still be enough juicy chief positions to go around because people wouldn't be able to hog them.

Thoughts? Comments?

[Estabar]

Fine by me. This is merely the natural evolution of what we're already doing with NPC's that can post.

[Terris]

I don't see a problem with this as my CO Character has a son and I tend to play him from time to time.

[FruitLoop]

I see a problem. How would potential players know which char is the primary and which are the secondary?

[Estabar]

It would require some sort of method to mark them as such. Maybe a different type of icon?

[Blackcat]

I see a problem. How would potential players know which char is the primary and which are the secondary?

The easy way would be putting [P] behind the primary. Since only the primary can hold a department head position or above, there isn't really a problem with prime positions being hogged by a single person.

[Fletcher]

I agree completely, I frequently make use of my many PNPCs since it allows me to post for different characters and different storylines which, I think, helps prevent burnouts. To differentiate between primary and secondary, we could always use the suffix field in the NOVA bio page. Simply put or something for the secondary character and just leave the primaries blank. But again, we could just continue to leave them as NPCs.

[Alex]

Wow, I never would have thought that one little change would generate so many emotions. I won't fully weigh in on my thoughts of the change, but I will say this: I think seeing a list showing more PCs than there really are could discourage new people from joining. I know that I would probably look for a middle ground, a ship that's not too big and not too small. Seeing all the secondary characters marked as PCs could be confusing or discouraging.

Now, back to the topic at hand. I honestly either didn't know about or forgot about the one character per sim rule. As far as only having one primary character, I always figured that went without saying. But I've seen people use PNPCs since I started simming. I think it works well for some sims and not as well for others. For the Vesta, for example, I only have the one character. The same goes for a couple of sims I'm in another fleet. Those characters are all either department heads, or int he case of the Vesta, the CO. I have multiple characters on SB332, however. My primary character is the one I mainly associate with and post as. But being a rather large station, and a diverse number of mission types and possibilities, it's nice to be able to have one character to write with on the station while the other is away on a mission. It gives me some options for when I want to write. I think for that reason having secondary characters is helpful. For that reason, I am in full support of easing the restriction on number of characters, as long as we specify that some characters are secondary. And I agree that only the primary character should hold department head positions.

As for making them, I'd rather mark the secondary characters like we did in SMS instead of marking the primary character. Call me weird, but I like keeping main character's name clear on the manifest. As a possibility for marking them, we could probably use the rarely used "suffix" item on the bio. Does anyone know if that shows up on the manifest? I would assume that it does, but I've never tried it.

[Fletcher]

Yeah, it shows up on the manifest.

[FruitLoop]

Oh, yes, it shows up. My former Counselor had a rather lengthy suffix or rather series of suffixes to her name. It was tacked on there every post.