I think staff should be able to play or not play as it pleases them. If they’re open about it, so the people who shit themselves if staff does/doesn’t play (and I’ve seen it go both ways) can make an informed decision.
Staff should also feel free to remove and boot any player who can’t shut up about that. I’m a big fan of staff getting noisy people who can’t accept the policies of the game but for whatever reason can’t leave TO leave so they don’t wreck the environment for others.
Twenty years ago, I often got pretty enraged when I saw staff member PCs (and I agree with Faraday that sorry guys, everyone’s going to know who they are even if you don’t put a tag on it, that’s the way things are) “hogging all the spotlight,” Now, honestly, I’ve gotten to the stage that I just don’t care. If there are things going on that I can participate in, then I will stay and participate until I don’t feel like it anymore. If nothing is available to me but lookyloo, usually I’ll leave sooner. Not with animosity, but just because it’s boring, and I don’t have control over it anymore. I have found that the last case seldom happens, honestly. I’m not in the proper geographic area for prime time for more places, but I can almost always find people to enjoy who at least enjoy me enough to RP with me.
I wish I was better at dual wielding (playing and STing). I could do it pretty well when I was younger, but honestly I just find it super hard to focus that way now for a variety of reasons. So if I ever do do my little glorified tabletop thing, I won’t be having my own “pc” because I’ll have my hands full running STed scenes which involve keeping track of multiple characters even if they aren’t as fleshed out as a PC, and that will max me out. I never assume I am unique in the hobby, so I think that’s why some people also don’t like to have PCs on games that they run (or if they do they are pure flavor side pieces with friends, for funsies).
I think that it’s a good idea for all alts on a game to be public, for avoidance purposes. I don’t think this should have to include all alts in the hobby ever. To some degree there’s some trust involved. I am shit for remembering people’s alts usually. But If I find out that there’s someone who has expressed negative things about me in the past, while I won’t avoid them on another game in the sense of flouncing off on public scenes or crying to friends about how they too should not play with that person (luckily my friends in the hobby would kick my ass if I behaved that shittily, unless the person was a creeper/abuser, but those are rare and usually my friends will spot them before I do), I also don’t seek them out. I also don’t lie if someone asks who I am. I just don’t like broadcasting because I do have two consistent stalkers still in the hobby that will OOCly seek to interact with me if I am publicly known on a game (but they’re both kind of weird and tend to get removed eventually). I wouldn’t be upset if I even interacted with them wittingly on a game (they don’t tend to disclose who they are). I just don’t want the OOC interaction.
