First, I'd like to say, I hate to spend my time on this right now... I've got so many things going on in RL that need my attention, dealing with this really should be on the bottom of my list of things to do. That said, I hope you appreciate this concept and the clarification it provides. Obviously, I do feel it is important enough to take the time out of my schedule to provide my thoughts on it or I wouldn't be writing this... after discussing it with Staff, I've decided this view point needed to be provided.

In Distant Lands you are not supposed to use "your characters to benefit one another in any way, shape or form". Doing so is considered "multi-playing". That really covers a lot of ground, and while it draws a very clear line, it would seem many still aren't able to tell when they've stepped over the line or if they are dangerously close to the line. If you are roleplay approved you've got no excuse for this. You should understand character separation and use it to help you avoid multiplaying.

What is character separation? It is the concept that your characters are completely different people. When you enter the game as a character, your character knows only what your character knows... not, for example, where you were in the world or with who you were grouped with while playing your last character. Each character has a "context". This is essentially the environment around that character -- the rooms, characters, items and even conversations and time the character has interaction with. Generally, the closer the two contexts of your characters come, the closer you are to multiplaying. There are some obvious (in my opinion, at least) "common areas" where this does not necessarily apply (the Fountain of Turien, for example), but in general it is a very good rule of thumb. If you are playing and you change characters and then go interact with a room, character, or item that was related to your previous character's playing session you are probably pushing the line -- if only a little. This even applies to Staff members... if you are playing a character and then you logout and login with your Staff member and go interact with the same environment you just left as a player, this is generally considered bad form at best (again, there are situations where it is permissible, but generally it is "pushing the line" and can be just flat out across the line if you aren't careful).

So what does this mean? This means if you treat your characters as completely separate people and you control them as such -- assume they don't know the same things, don't frequent the same places, don't act the same way and generally don't encounter the same characters. Make a habit of taking your character in a different direction each time you login and play. Make sure this direction is more related to the last time you played said character than the previous character you just had in the game. This is especially important when you are switching between characters in the game.

Please feel free to provide thoughts and comments.

Best regards,

--Nezmar

Just for clarification, This is during Roleplay, right? If so, it makes perfect sense.

But say you're out of roleplay, and a friend needs some equipment patched. Would it be acceptable to switch characters for the purpose of providing repairs? And also while out of charather, you die, and your friend goes and gets their cleric (everyones got one, eh? ) to ressurect you?

I'm not trying to poke holes, just establishing boundaries.

Dref

These are precisely the types of situations you should generally try to avoid. They are "pushing the line". Roleplay or not (note that the intent is to avoid multi-playing). It's nearly impossible to really track, but as an example, it is generally not acceptable to give a friend an item and then group with that friend with a different character. The idea being that the friend who you gave the item to would then most likely transfer some preference (perhaps an extra share of gold while grouped) to your new character, thus your characters have benefited from one another. I realize there is a LOT of this type of thing going on in the game and there has been for quite some time, we allow people to "push the line" constantly because it isn't overtly breaking the rules and we can't possibly enforce it everywhere. That's part of the reason for this topic.

Best regards,

--Nezmar

Great, so not only have I made a total donkey of myself in the first post of the day, now I'm reading this..
You've got a valid point on both ends, and something totally worth discussing really quickly.
Own on of them so called warriors, and about eight other little monstrosities on my tips.

Previously, I decided to make an entire 9 count regiment of playing characters,
and to as the will or urge goes by level all of the things slowly at my discression.
The entire motive for this operation was due to the constitutional system and perma-death.
Unlike the general concept of re-rolling the exact same class/name to continue on a past
tradition just really turned my stomach. Thus, the entire chaos of possible loosing one of my
peons just became a forlorn abstract to the whole myth of subjunctive..

And while it's just not the mortal playing characters that are in my possession, it's the
acess to aquired knowledge throughout the entire sessions of roleplay that were endured.
Now then, let us proceed to the subject at hand .

A list of all the things mentioned I'm perfectly guilt of.
*Repairing equipment for people I do at times play with and enter groups with.
Having played both sides of the spectrum sometimes theres a lack thereof an avaliable
source to mend everyones garments. But on the second, when I suffer from the lack thereof
I'm reminded of the fact manipulating your gold funs well is important when there is a slight
misfortune of having a repair class at hand... I'm at the point where it's just a lot more
convienent to pay that fourten thousand coin footnote.
These sorts of situations don't just rest for the repair classes, it'll extend straight on into
the spell bound classes as well. Which will be a circumstantial brooding point for people should
they really consider the following.
*Roleplaying beyond the lines significantly without any ability to distinguish the system at hand.
Had some bad times with the good ones, and have exceeded my boundries on more than one
ocassion. Not saying that any of these things ever went by unresolved, or without warrant of
the problem at hand, nor compensation of the actions that would be definitive and developed
from there within.
The day you realize your delinguent behavior is actually affecting other players abilities within
the game. . Is not priceless, it's one huge dose of responsibility that we all enherit upon
creating our account. Probably not the best thing to forget about being accountable for
upon your stay.

Sooooo we can only take responsibility for ourselves here.
Try to give some good advice, perhaps.
I'm only going to be able to improve my own judgement,
as for everyone elses sure it's pretty obvious when you practice being sorta omniscient
about what we've got to be accountable for.
Atleast that's my promise...

So from someone from the brunt side of all the accusations.
Thanks for putting up with me, and all those chances provided
to keep on learning anew. It's nice consideration about the subject
reaches the surface.

It's nice to have a home that has been very cooperative and succesful.
Better that everyones always trying to make change for what lies ahead.
Even alot more of a gasp that the leniency offered for those attempting to cooperate
and hospitable that the rules are something to guide by for a better environment,
not govern every single action stimulated by people connecting to the game.

Measures were taken to ensure multiplaying was limited.
Those steps taken were actually precise calculations, that didn't just make
items retainable by one player per account. Rather they were designed to
create a circulatory style rotation of equipment as to so one player could
not just trade up-down, back-forth between their own prodigy.
Guess what, that kind act of consideration was discovered,
and even in the stages of innoscense it wasn't obvious to
everyone that such manipulate of code were indeed uneccesary.
What goes around comes around, items are items.

But what you bring forth today implies that it's not just the things in the game
that require our attention, indeed the majority of the problems avaliable now
were things people could make all on their own without any assistance amongst
themselves.

Don't know where you're all wanting to lead with this,
but by my example perhaps it's time for some of the remaining few to
take in these aforementioned doctrines.

Appreciate the idea, most definately shall dwell and try to distinguish
my decissions by the principle from now on.