<![CDATA[Should You Play Your Own Game?]]>Should game runners have active pcs of their own on their own games?

]]>https://brandmu.day/topic/700/should-you-play-your-own-gameRSS for NodeFri, 02 Oct 2026 22:51:03 GMTFri, 02 Oct 2026 06:12:37 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to Should You Play Your Own Game? on Fri, 02 Oct 2026 22:29:15 GMT]]>I’ve seen plenty examples of both extreme ends of the scale – where staff doesn’t play and stays uninvolved but winds up treating PCs as dolls they mess around with like…I dunno, Sid from Toy Story, and on the other end staff who center the entire plot around their personal characters and expect everyone to constantly gas them up and give them the spotlight.

I think choosing to play or not choosing to play are just different ways to engage with a game you make, each with their own unique challenges and pitfalls, and aren’t inherently problematic or better on their own.

]]>https://brandmu.day/post/32259https://brandmu.day/post/32259Fri, 02 Oct 2026 22:29:15 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Should You Play Your Own Game? on Fri, 02 Oct 2026 18:20:10 GMT]]>@Meg Not necessarily. I mean, it entirely depends on the staffer. I feel like my best example of this would be the people who have done MU* coding over the years but didn’t engage other than with the codebase.

I know there’ve been both good and bad apples there, so…

]]>https://brandmu.day/post/32258https://brandmu.day/post/32258Fri, 02 Oct 2026 18:20:10 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Should You Play Your Own Game? on Fri, 02 Oct 2026 17:30:19 GMT]]>So, what do you guys think about staff not playing the game? Would that raise any red flags? I know the immediate thought is from people saying ‘oh, staff shouldn’t play’! But if staff legitimately did not want to play any characters, would you find that a warning sign or anything?

]]>https://brandmu.day/post/32257https://brandmu.day/post/32257Fri, 02 Oct 2026 17:30:19 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Should You Play Your Own Game? on Fri, 02 Oct 2026 14:41:42 GMT]]>Sure.

I can’t imagine having the motivation to staff if I didn’t like playing what I was running, but also I think not playing your own game as a PC doesn’t really accomplish anything and is performance/optics rather than an indication of anything. I’ve seen staffers who technically don’t play do far more abusive things on NPCs than they could’ve done on PCs.

]]>https://brandmu.day/post/32256https://brandmu.day/post/32256Fri, 02 Oct 2026 14:41:42 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Should You Play Your Own Game? on Fri, 02 Oct 2026 11:13:17 GMT]]>As long as staff characters are marked as such, absolutely they deserve to play!

]]>https://brandmu.day/post/32255https://brandmu.day/post/32255Fri, 02 Oct 2026 11:13:17 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Should You Play Your Own Game? on Fri, 02 Oct 2026 10:52:14 GMT]]>Yes, because we made the game we wanted to play. If it had already existed, we’d be playing over there. But it didn’t, and now it does, so why should we be punished for making it happen?

Also Kestrel’s reasons above.

]]>https://brandmu.day/post/32254https://brandmu.day/post/32254Fri, 02 Oct 2026 10:52:14 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Should You Play Your Own Game? on Fri, 02 Oct 2026 09:38:23 GMT]]>Yes because:

  1. This isn’t a paid job, you deserve to have fun on the labour of love you built.
  2. It’s very easy for game admins to grow out of touch with what the actual day-to-day experience of the game is like. This especially matters on crunchy games. You need to have the experience of someone stomping you into the dirt in the least fun way possible, in order to appreciate just how unfun it is for everyone else (and realise it needs fixing).

It’s good to have some boundaries and separation between staff and players, but this isn’t one IMO.

]]>https://brandmu.day/post/32253https://brandmu.day/post/32253Fri, 02 Oct 2026 09:38:23 GMT