Re: Mechanisms to combat multiple-entry by a player

From: madcentral@aol.com (MadCentral)

Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2003 11:20:58 +0000

>>That inhibits the game far too much, in my opinion. For example, I
usually want players to make hard but meaningful choices. Specialize one
way or another, not both. If a player can chose to do both, just because
he plays two factions, this becomes a pretty futile excercise.<<

They are going to do it and you *cannot* stop them.  Your best bet is to stop
wasting time trying to second-guess the cheaters, because you just *cant*.  You
can expend a lot of wasted energy into this but it will achieve nothing.

There are only two genuine approaches that  work, and these certainly dont
*stop* the problem, they just control it.  The first has already been
suggested, simply let everybody do it.  The second, and in my opinion the best,
is to make your players care enough about the game to feel guilty about it.
The latter is tricky, but it does work if you have the knack.

>>Also, good PBEMs should encourage cooperation. <<

What is this "sweeping statement day" <g>  This is nonsense, but i'll assume
you were generalising, and meant something like "cooperation does a lot to
improve the playability and enjoyment of a PBEM."

>>But no means of
cooperation can be as good as when I'm cooperating with myself, so if
two factions are played by the same player, he's got an advantage over
two players that need to synchronize and communicate.<<

You're a power-gamer, right?  Listen, Enno, there are two schools of player out
there.  Power-Gamers and Role-Players.  All the others are just variations of
those two.  Maybe you think that because your game isn't an RPG that
roleplayers don't join it.  You'd be wrong, im sure.  Role-Players *do* join
games like yours, many of them in fact, and they don't get any pleasure from
"communicating with themselves" in general.

The whole point of a game for a roleplayer is interaction with other real
people.  The actual strategy doesn't matter a hoot.  But that's always a very
hard thing for power-gamers to grasp.  I'm sure that the power fraternity don't
even believe roleplayers exist.  They just think its a clever plot to hide
their power machinations. <g>

>>Cookies? I've told my browser to trash any cookie whenever I close the
browser session. However, you can detect a lot of people that way,
especiylly if they don't know that you're doing it.<<

You can alienate a lot of people doing that too.  Of course you could say "I
don't care, if they cheat I WANT to alienate them".  But the school of thought
on what is and isnt cheating varies across the board, and a bad rep is a tough
thing to lose if you get one.

>>IP Addresses? A lot of people have dynamic IPs. However, you could make
it a rule to only allow one signup per subnet, and even redialing won't
get them in - unless they have multiple providers, which is possible <<

This all sounds like an incredible waste of time and effort to me.  Why bother?
 Build a strong game and the cheats will wither away over time.  What's left
won't cause you any problems as long as you are "hands on" with your GMing.

Steve T.

References

Re: Mechanisms to combat multiple-entry by a player
Enno Rehling <enno@despammed.com>
Mon, 09 Jun 2003 16:01:22 +0000

Referenced By

Re: Mechanisms to combat multiple-entry by a player
Enno Rehling <enno@despammed.com>
Mon, 09 Jun 2003 16:01:22 +0000