UESP Forums

I used to play on a MUD, the text-only multiplayer online games that existed before MMORPGs. We're talking around 15 years ago, but people are people, and human nature hasn't changed that much with newer technology. Everyone was allowed to have multiple characters, but the rule was that you were only allowed one character to be logged on at a time. You could - although it was considered really naughty and a potentially bannable offense - obtain a load of items with your high-level character, drop them somewhere, log off, and then log on with your low-level character and pick them up.

Some people were really open about their characters being the same person (e.g. the status line of each of my characters listed all my other characters, so everyone knew that Astra = Danny = Abigail), others weren't. If people were half-decent roleplayers, you could end up in a situation where you were friends with someone and enemies with someone else, without realising they were the same player in real life. This was actually really freaky. I still remember how Panda, who was my friend and a "good" character, lured me into a trap, logged out, then logged back in as Machoman, who was a ridiculously high level player-killer.

The rule of multiple characters still applied to wizards and coders on the MUD (i.e. people equivalent in status to moderators and admins on a web forum). They were allowed to also have player characters - but of course, their player characters could never be just ordinary players for two reasons. Firstly, because they had secret knowledge of the game code, especially with regard to any new quests that were added. Secondly, because they could see individual player IP addresses - which varied a bit, but not that much, since back then most people with internet were at university. They would know that Astra = Danny = Abigail, even if I hadn't made it obvious in my character descriptions.