Is this Ethical?

[71452K]

To write up the premise of a roleplay on one account, then join in your own roleplay with another account.

One of many experiences

...That being said, in the case of a certain roleplay(s) I have joined recently, the 'host' then proceeded to stop moving the roleplay abruptly for a short while the moment his character failed to garner the amount of attention he wanted (due to lackluster writing and his character being a pseudo mary sue, we had no idea it was his till we realized a pattern of silence, promoting his other account to Co-GM out of the blue and log in times.).

Which caused the roleplay to fail horribly before our characters (the players) proceeded to even do anything of measure within the story.

But that is a story I will tell another day.

I've always been wary of hosting a roleplay because it always seems more interesting to me, to discover new worlds rather than write up one I am already farmiliar with. I get bored rather readily if I know everything.

...However, I like seeing how others react to a situation I made. A setting. A connundrum. A persona. Whichever of these, it is always full of intrigue to me to see others react. Then proceed with making up the story based on that.

It's a contest of desires when it comes to writing, the pastures are greener on both sides. If I could join my own roleplay with another account - I could sample the benefits of both sides.

Which brings us to my question. Would any of you consider it inappropriate to join in an anonymous accounrt, an own roleplay? Or is it better to be upfront about placing a character within one's own setting, without regards to the 'special treatment' they might recieve due to being the host's character?

I'd like to hear what you think. :>.

[Dion]

@71452K I would not consider it unethical, because that'd imply there are ethics involved when it comes to writing stories and, as my experience has shown, ethics are something best left out of writing all together. If ethics were involved we would not have stories about things that are taboo, i.e. holocaust, or something.

At the very least I'd consider it a bit strange and a bit rude, but whatever, it's not like that doesn't happen on a permanent basis on this website, and other websites.

However I also believe that if you're not posting something under your own recognizable name, you shouldn't post it at all because it removes credibility and so forth.

[71452K]

I see! @Odin

[Lady Absinthia]

I see no problem with having more than one account. I do. Having said that, I make it clear that my secondary account is an ~alt account~ and she is only used to post ~Death Scenes~ - Lady Luck is the name given for when I have to make rolls or randomization's. Use the account to let people know basically ~the shit has hit the fan~. Started off as a joke and turned into a useful tool that is both fun and helps keeps things more organized for me. Especially if I have to search back for death posts. But again, my Rpers know this.

As far as having one account to Gm and another to RP on? To each their own. Personally, I wouldn't for that. I have my World Narratives for my Gming and then I have my characters. If I am just needing to do an information dump for my Rpers I post a World Narrative. If I am doing my character and they are interacting with other characters, I post as the character. What headers and line breaks are for. You can do both on your account and in the same post. No reason to hide behind one name for one thing and another name for another. (That is unless you really feel you have something to hide and if that is the case, perhaps you need to re-evaluate just why you feel you need to hide behind an alt.)

[71452K]

That is quirky, how you named your alts that roll dice and such.
Nice! Hmm your point makes sense too. Seems it is the general concensus that a second account to roleplay in my own games is unethical at worst and rude, at best. @Lady Amalthea

[ArenaSnow]

It's a little odd I would say. There's no shame or issue to putting your own character in the roleplay with your Gm account, especially if you do it well. I certainly wouldn't blame a GM for holding a face in with the "front line" of roleplayers. You just need to be careful not to go the "protagonist route" where your character is plainly the most important, unless that was the entire premise.

An alternate account adds unnecessary logistics in light of the above, and may present two issues. If you reveal what it is to your players, I'd anticipate the response to be along the lines of "...why?" if you never said it, and someone figured it out, there may be suspicion involved. I'd prefer you to be upfront than throw other accounts in the mix - supposedly, a different person, if you take basic steps to avoid being associated with it.

[Dervish]

Three people already knocked it out of the park, but I'll put in my two pesos.

More or less, whenever I am GMing (read; oh my god I need a break), I have a player character on the go that I treat like any other player's character while also doing the GM thing and moving the story along and creating/ playing NPCs for everyone's benefit. I basically started GMing because I never saw games I wanted to join and I was tired of the ones I did join dying before they got started, which is my least favorite thing about roleplaying. I'd hate not having at least some player writing on my end because I approach roleplaying as collaborative story telling than something like d&d where the GM is just doing the narration and encounters.

I've always just used my single account for it all. It's actually the norm for GMs to have a player character, and sure it kinda sucks that you're never going to get surprised by a story you're plotting out, I'd argue it's more rewarding to actually come up with something that your players react strongly to. I personally don't use alt accounts because A) I'd rather just stay logged in rather than logging in and out to use different accounts, and B) There's always a slim chance that I'd end up taking a name that some new user wanted for an account that seldom gets used. I'm not saying people shouldn't do it, I'd just personally feel kind of bad if I ran across someone who had a crappy variant of the name of the alt account that I was mothballing. Your user name is your long term identity and all that, you kind of try to pick something you're happy with.

[71452K]

So basically, I will play a game of Catch-The-Spy with myself all the way. That's ...it's an idea. I think I ahree with you!
@ArenaSnow

The ball is so far, the park cannot be seen! Indeed, I think everyone has put forth convincing points. @Dervish

I don't feel on the fence anymore, cheers guys, a round of medals on the house!

[Little Bill]

Pretty sure that's why they banned @Raptorman

[DeadDrop]

Just rp because altings to rp on your own rp makes no sense because you can rp on your main like a normal roleplayer...

[Ellri]

we'd like to think that having two accounts like the OP example can by many be interpreted as dishonest to the players. But we can also see a reason someone might do it, simply to make it look like their RP has gathered interest than it technically does. But that is more of a false cushion than a true benefit, as it gives false safety to the GM.

If the GM also favors his (or her) alternate account character in the story, then it is first and foremost poor GMing. If the players have to discover that the two accounts belong to the same individual, then that will feel like a betrayal when they do. That the GM lied to them, an act which could break the RP.

However, having multiple accounts that are labeled as such with unique purposes can work, like in the example by @Lady Amalthea. That's one way to do multi-accounting right. For most people its unnecessary, but still valid.

[NuttsnBolts]

An alt account isn't necessarily a problem and many people do have one. Most of the time I see them as Pen Name for those who either wanna join a Free RP and not be bothered on their original account, or for 1x1 situations where they can remain anonymous (mostly for smut I gather).

In regards to joining your own roleplay, I can see that playing both positively and negatively depending on what the intention is.

Positive:
- You can play a character in your own RP without others guessing it's you. This could work well for mystery RPs where you, the GM, can work with yourself to kill off a character or make a character look like the villain and it will appear as a brilliantly planned moment with a player.
- You can use it as a combined account between GMs.
- It can make your RP feel bigger than what it is, eg: 5 players instead of 4.

Negative:
- Difficult to keep up with multiple accounts.
- Some players may not like the GM artificially inflating their own RP.
- A good GM can work with multiple characters anyway and it's their RP, so any characters should work just fine under the GMs name.

It's odd cause I'm looking at it and I don't really see any positives, but at the same time I don't see any negatives. The only thing it does is just use up time in remembering which character to post as and under which account, plus you'll need to ensure you post regularly or others will think you dropped.

[BrokenPromise]

In regards to being a player in an RP as a GM, it is perfectly normal and encouraged. It's typically frowned upon to make yourself the main protagonist and use the other players as sidekicks, but having a model player character in the RP that other players can choose to follow and take cues from is a good idea. I've never seen someone call out the GM for giving his character special privileges. I have seen people call out the GM for treating a player more favorably than everyone else.

As a GM player character, more people will want to interact with your character. You are the one moving the story along after all. But I have noticed a reluctance for other characters to form deeper bonds with my characters when I'm the GM, such as friendship and romance. That could just be my experience though, but I suspect it's because GMs are also very secretive. we don't want to reveal too much to the players, and so they don't trust us as much with deeper relationships.

If you want to be surprised, you need only give your players the freedom to do such things. An example where I was a player, one of my characters were attacked by a vampire-thing. I fled from the attack, and my character said a flirty line towards the attacker, because he's a jerk like that. Turns out that while the monster is nigh-immortal, it is weakened by words of love. So instead of someone stepping in to save my character from this creature, someone stepped in to save the creature. Long term nothing really changed, but it was something the GM didn't expect, but was able to adjust for. Other examples of surprising the GM are hidden backstories. Don't force your players to write everything on the character sheet.

[71452K]

I had my doubts about making an alt and like you said, it did feel dishonest. It's just that I've seen so many people pull it off without anyone else noticing, that the idea of inflating my own roleplay seemed normal.

Of course, I had fortunately, the conscience to realize how much I disliked it when I found out those roleplays were pretty much played by and for the host in multiple accounts.

Hence this conflicted feeling was born and I thought it best to seek advice from other roleplayers. :).

...I got the advice in the end and suffice to say I choose not to have multiple accounts because of the reasons you all gave me. Cheers!

@Ellri@NuttsnBolts

Edit: @BrokenPromise too.

[Ellri]

'twas a good thing to bring up, @71452K.