How many characters per player?

There seems to be this trend on persistent worlds where you are allow you to create an unlimited number of characters. By even allowing 2 characters per player on the same persistent world you automatically open yourself up to forms of cheating like muling or transferring. Rules are put in place to try and prevent this kind of cheating, but none of them are truly effective.

So it begs the question as to why any server would allow multiple characters, what unfulfilled need is being propped up by this decision, and why this trend has developed when it seems to be completely opposite to the way in which normal role-playing games have been played.

The original concept

I like to always take Pen and Paper role-playing as a baseline, even when trying to migrate its philosophies into a computer environment, so the best place to start as to why this trend may have developed is here. With PnP you always had just one character (I will consider being part of multiple groups or DMs making the decision to allow multiple characters as exceptions to the norm), and you kept this character and developed them over a series of adventures. You grew attached to your character as they progressed and the thought of even wanting to have a second or third or twentieth character to choose from (especially in the same game world) just seems absurd.

Action and Consequence

So what would cause a person to lose enough interest in their character and the adventure they are on, that they feel the need to supplement their experience with multiple other characters? The only thing I can come up with is that the translation from PnP to an online Persistent World somehow reduces either the interest a person has for their character, or the adventure they are on is not compelling enough to make them want to see their character through it. This may either be the direct result of the system itself (ie classes in NWN are essentially just ability containers, practically none of the social or related implications of belonging to a class are ever put into the games), or indirectly by the contents of the persistent world and the way it has been designed.

Firstly, adventures in PnP are tailored to the party, to the point where you know that each character is capable of completing the adventure otherwise what is the point playing? On a Persistent World however, the world exists first, and the characters come later. One is not based or tailored on the other and thus it is quite easy for the world to put in place barriers that only certain classes or power levels are able to get through. In this instance, the only choice a player has is to create different characters for different parts of the game world, tailoring each of them for the specific areas where a particular ability or power level is the only thing between life and death.

As is often the case, having too much at your disposal at one time devalues everything, because there is no difficulty in obtaining each choice, and in fact any choice is void of consequences as you can pick from anything at all times. This holds true for multiple characters, as there is nothing stopping a player from creating a whole range of characters at once. What is the value of picking a wizard or a drow when all options are always available. If instead the player had to make a choice about which character to create, and this choice was something they were stuck with until that character died, then they put all of their focus on the one character and the decision brings value to that character.

Sadly this has a secondary consequence in creating characters which are not well rounded, but instead custom built for one task and one task alone. This cycle then self-perpetuates, forcing the developers of the persistent world to beef up the monsters because custom builds are tearing them to shreds easily, which forces more players to create these custom builds, which forces the developers to respond again. Now you end up with a never ending pattern where the only losers are those who have actually created a fully fledged character in their own right, as they can no longer survive in any of these specialty areas due to the super-boosting they have received because of a select few.

Problems eliminated

As was briefly mentioned in the opening, the ability to have multiple characters per player in the same world instantly creates a whole host of problems and makes it possible for a variety of negative actions which all have to be countered or griefing and cheating will run rife.

Muling

With only one character active at a time, you can no longer use one character to be a glorified holder of items. Its impossible to write a script to prevent this without building in some serious overheads in the module (like the name of who owned/dropped every item). This problem is automatically nullified now.

Transferring

This involves building one character up and then transferring the resources of that character to a freshly created character who wouldn't have access to these resources normally. Allowing this basically forces monster development to create more powerful monsters, otherwise those who cheat in this way have the advantage of being able to overcome monsters that characters without this advantage would never get. This in turn indirectly leads more people to do it and a vicious cycle is started again. As before, this problem is automatically nullified.

Uber Griefing

When multiple characters are allowed, a player who wishes to grief others (or seek revenge for being griefed) will naturally want to use the most powerful character to commit the crime, otherwise they risk not being successful in disrupting other peoples enjoyments. Eliminating this automatically eliminates the ability to grief in this way.

Reversing this trend

So it seems logical that by reversing these problems and stopping these cycles it would alleviate the reasons behind players either want to or needing to create additional characters and return things to the way they used to be with PnP.

Value Added Classes and Races

All too often people choose classes and races for their abilities and how they blend with the abilities of other classes they have already chosen. What should be a decision based on "What kind of character do I want them to be", is reduced to "what are the uber-abilities I want and how do I pick classes to get them". NWN indirectly promotes this philosophy by making classes primarily about their abilities and neglecting the social or related aspects of being a member of that class, as well as allowing players to select classes regardless of whether it makes sense or not (penalizing them a few XP at worst).

To alleviate this classes are no longer something that you simply select when levelling up and instantly gaining all of the required abilities, nor are they something you can pick on a whim. The only class you are able to do this with is your starting class where any required training is considered to have been done prior to you starting your adventuring life at level 1. Gaining levels from this point onward now has additional requirements on top of the pre-requisites which confirms that you have the knowledge necessary to gain the level of the class you require. You are still free to join any class that is available to you, but only if you have done the ground work first. This means that progressing your character is now something you do throughout your adventure, not just during the levelling screen, and as a result an additional interface is provided to show you the progress towards your desired next level, as well as what classes are available for them to multi-class in (some combinations are simply not allowed due to not being appropriate like Paladins and Rogues)

In addition to this, certain classes have social aspects which form part of their definition. Clerics obviously must belong to a church, monks belong to an order, to become a shadow dancer you will probably have to join a guild that has a shadow branch who can teach you those specialist abilities. Some classes may find it beneficial to be part of a group or guild, such as a wizard who joins a guild in order to gain access to the guilds resources. Certain classes like Paladins or Divine Champions pride themselves on their professions and outwardly display who they are to the world. They are recognized as such and people may react differently to them as a result. Thus choosing a class is more than simply choosing what package of abilities you want, it brings with it some form of presence in the world and connects them to various aspects in the world which are used to generate future adventure for them.

The idea here is also that certain features of the persistent world are only available to members of certain races or classes, as well as the ability to select certain races and classes being restricted via Character Points. Classes and races therefore bring with them unique play possibilities which help in keeping things fresh and less "repetitive" between characters.

Variety is the spice of life

Another problem often comes by the lower levels being very boring to progress through, and there only being a finite number of epic level adventures to complete which are build specific due to the uber cycle we have discussed previously. Thus players see less value in individual characters because they do not reflect a concept or a personality they want to play, but are instead a "tool" that is used to overcome a specific obstacle. Now they are considered a tool, you want to have a variety of tools that you can use in specific situations... after all you only use the right tool for the job.

By making the journey through levels more interesting, with more non-combat options, and goals other than simply gaining experience and gold, it shouldn't matter to the player what character, class or level they are playing because the enjoyment gained is just as high for all combinations and levels. By shifting the focus in this way, its the interaction with the persistent world, its variety and its depth which keeps people coming back, not getting their 12th character to epic so they can put them on the shelf and start a new one.

Increasing Difficulty without creating Uber-Creatures

Classes are not the only ones who suffer from not being connected to the world, monsters are also turned into nothing more than a collection of combat abilities and thrown at the characters with a certain CR which serves no other purpose than indicating how much XP to dish out. With this being the case, monsters simply gain more abilities and counters to characters uber-abilities instead of actually making them more difficult to overcome. What this does is simply make the monster only beatable by a custom build that is made for no other reason than to overcome them. What is the point of even having feats like devastating critical if every major monster in the world is immune to critical hits? Or immune to Missile Storm or the bigby spells? Isn't it better to make the acquiring of those uber-abilities more difficult than nerfing them by making anything of consequence immune to their effects?

So monsters too bring with them more than just their abilities and powers. They have an intelligence and use certain tactics, and they use them because those tactics are suited to their nature and have allowed them to survive for so long in the world. Why would a dragon who has been seriously injured stay on the ground and continue to fight in a melee when they could simply fly away to lick their wounds? Why would a wizard who has the ability to teleport put themselves in harms way unless they have to? The CR (and thus the reward) of the monster should not strictly relate to the difficulty in beating it in combat directly, but also in the difficulty of actually overcoming the tactics that it generally uses to protect itself. Major monsters usually have their own followers, underlings or minions, and having to overcome a horde of these before even getting to take on the antagonist should all be part of how challenging they are.

By making monsters "smarter" rather than "harder", it doesn't come down to the one with the greater power or the right combination of abilities that wins, and opens it up for a greater variety of characters and classes to be able to overcome.

Countering Character Loss

Of course by increasing the value and attachment a player has to a character, we are also increasing the potential for loss and suffering when a character actually does die. This is another reason why various other mechanics that have already been discussed are put in place. Things like Escaping Death and gaining Character Points for retiring characters are all there to counter any negative reaction caused by restricting players from only having one active character.

In addition to this, a character who has died and passed to the afterlife, or one who has reached the maximum level and been retired still have the opportunity to be played by the character even while they have an active character. This of course is by invitation only, or in special circumstances where a deity has sent a dead character back to the world of the living to perform a specific task.