I was made aware that even the moderators do not know when a GM is posting for a char that is controlled by some one else or more than one person or the like.

I think there needs to be a line under the name that the GM and moderators can see that shows the RPOL name of the person that made the post.

As a GM you can't always remember what posts you made and others made after all.

And moderators need to know who made posts if moderation is needed.

-1 because it's unnecessary

A character can only be controlled by one player and the GM, so it's not like you have to worry about which player posted for the character.  As for whether or not the GM made the post, I sometimes don't want the other players knowing when I post as a particular character -- when a player ditches the game under hostile circumstances, sometimes the other players don't know it and I get to do some pretty shocking things to the rest of the group because they think the PC that just died horrifically was "one of them".  *evil grin*

As for forgetting whether I or the player posted, I GM a game with over a hundred characters (PCs + NPCs) and I honestly can't say that I have ever forgotten when I posted for a player.  At least not in any time frame where it mattered.

But in the end the GM is responsible for all content in their games, whether they wrote it or not, so there's not much point in making a distinction: the Mods are going to come down on the GM to get them to deal with any TOU violations.  If the Mods really want to, they can see the same information the GMs see to find out which player is responsible for which character, so again the idea is unnecessary.
This message was last edited by the user at 19:45, Sun 06 July 2014.

I always know -- and remember -- when I've NPCed a Character.

Sometimes my players disappear for a couple of days at a time. Sometimes, they notify me they will be away, many times . . . they don't. I will not "stall" a conversation, or hold up a fight scene because someone will be away. That's not fair to the other players.

So I end up NPCing PCs fairly often -- not always the same character, of course. The only promise I make my players is that I will not use their Character as "cannon fodder" while they're away. That just wouldn't be right.

The Player knows when I've NPCed his character; obviously he/she didn't post that! LOL

As for the other Players, why would they need to know? It's not their character.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that the players know when a GM posts for another player.

I guess the concern is that a moderator might catch an offending post and the player could lie, say the GM posted it, and the moderator would not know if they were lying or telling the truth.  Or the GM could post something inappropriate and perhaps the player gets in trouble or the moderator discusses it with the GM and the GM could lie and say it was the player.

Even if there is no identifier when the GM is posting for a player, the moderator could probably look at when the player last logged into the game and this moght often help determine who made the post.

In principal, I can't say I disagree with allowing the GMs to know who a post was written by for whatever reason(s). Something like a secret roll line saying "GM X posted this" (which is probably the best workaround).

However, I seem to recall that this was technically infeasible, since posts were all filtered through the character's "mouth" so to speak. RPOL tracks what character says what, but not what player says what. Often observable when one player takes over the character of another -- you can't tell who did what without something like the Bio/descriptions changing over time.

So GMs taking over the character temporarily or otherwise may not leave any trace behind.

In reply to CosmicGamer (msg # 4):

As far as I know (gleaned from past posts about tracking people's activity on RPOL), the login times aren't stored, so unless the player hasn't logged in since that offending post was written, that wouldn't be a possibility.

Also, if the player lies about the post, then the GM now has two problems: the Mods telling the GM about the offending post and a player he can't trust.  If a GM is posting stuff to get a player in trouble, then there are some serious issues between GM and player and I don't think the Mods will get between them on that.  Best thing the payer can do is bail on that game.

Either way, it's the GM's game and the GM is responsible for making sure it doesn't happen again.

It could happen, but I doubt a GM would run that risk, though he/she well might. But in the overall scheme, I think not. Why risk losing the entire game and your privileges just to "say" something inappropriate?

Those are not the actions of a "grown up."

I think anyone being dishonest about when they're posting as who isn't really a grown-up anyway; but I think that's beside the point.

The GM is responsible for content in their games regardless; doesn't matter if they posted it. Which is why it is expected that they read all PMs, whether addressed to them or not.

Mind you, it's why even when NPCing characters, I post under GM handles; not the character handle, except on very rare occasions.

Absolutely; which is why the GM is responsible for booting such offenders from their game, when necessary, and reporting the offender to the Moderators, as needed. Such action is clearly fitting and appropriate and certainly absolves the GM of any "charges" in the matter.

Speaking only for myself, I'm not getting booted from RPoL because one of my Players decides not to abide by the rules of the site.

And grown ups always act like grown ups?

Actually, yes. Grown-ups act like grown-ups. Whether adults act like grown-ups is a different question entirely.

Point taken, but even grown-ups don't always act grown-up.
This message was last edited by the user at 02:30, Mon 07 July 2014.

Which is why GMs are supposed to ride herd on the masses of players in their games and the Mods ride herd on the GMs.  :)

-1 from me ... as a player I don't want to know which RPoL user posted, I want to believe in Fred the Fighter absolutely.

Personally, I always stick a private line into any player posts I make as GM which simply say "GM ghosting" -> reminds me I did it and also lets the player know when they eventually log back in.  Win-win.  :>

I can see what Azraile is getting at; if someone posts something that's just Bad, Bad, Bad, that the Mods need to be called in for, then it kind of makes sense that Who Is To Blame should be clear, just to them.

But I think if this had ever come up as a problem, it would've been addressed already.  RPoL's rules and Mod powers are almost all reactionary.  They were put in because somebody did something bad, not just because theoretically someday someone might.  And what you're worried about happening here, Azraile, is pretty, well, outright vicious.  Not that nobody might ever do it, but, wow.  I don't see the animosity building up between two people that would lead either one of them to try to frame the other like that without it leaving traces that the mods would find when the victim said they hadn't done it so please investigate further.

In other words, if we ever get a spate of people trying to blame the GM for posts they made, or GMs making incendiary posts under their players' names just to get them into trouble for... reasons I can't really envision... then maybe something like this would become necessary, but until it is, I think it's, you know.  Unnecessary.

And let's hope it stays that way.  Ick.

As an aside, the cast stats show when a character last logged in as well as when they posted. If they've not logged in for a week, but posted yesterday, its a dead sign that the GM has posted for the player.

I'd rather see something done to conceal that, rather than reveal it myself.

Game login times are stored, but I'm pretty sure only GMs can see them. Non-GMs (to my knowledge) can only see the day of the last login.

No, I meant records of past logins. I'm a GM, so I know about the time stamps, but if someone logs in at 2 pm and then again at 2:30, there's no way up know they logged in at 2:00.

Mine would likely crash the servers. I literally check into some of my game every five or ten minutes throughout the day.
This message was last edited by the user at 22:10, Mon 07 July 2014.

Heh. Whoops. My bad.

I still think the 'which player posted this' thing is a bad idea though. Just doesn't seem necessary to differentiate the GM posting from anyone else. Might end up leading to overall higher tensions.

I said that only the gm and mods should be able to see who made the post, as in players wouldn't be able to tell the diff dance between a player post and a gm post unless it was there char

Hmm. Still, I'm leaving my -1 alone, I believe Utsukushi summed up what I was thinking quite nicely already, actually, sorry for repeating thoughts.

FYI - If there was some kind of dispute where the moderators needed to get involved then we have the server logs which will unequivocally tell us who posted.  No need for such things to be tracked from a site moderation point of view.

Carry on.

Yup, my -1 stands too ... as GM I still want to believe in Fred the Fighter. :>