I am not sure if this is the right forum for this question and I am sure it has been answered in another thread, but I will ask anyways...

My son saw me playing here the other day and expressed an interest in joining.  What are the rules for multiple accounts from the same family?  Obviously I want to avoid being accused of cheating.  Can he also set up an account or should I just let him use mine?  Using mine would drop my rating, but honestly I don't care about rating.  I play for fun.  Also would we be allowed to play each other in games or is that frowned upon?

Thanks!

There's been tons of posts on this, and I think the general consensus is that multiple accounts for a single person is not allowed, unless one of them is just used for testing (private games).  But two separate accounts for two different people, who both play for their own benefit is perfectly legal, no matter what relation they are in real life.

I think that as long as you don't try to sidestep the rules/accepted policies of fair play (you don't work together when it isn't 100% warranted by a game, no pre-defined alliances in public games, you don't use his account/poor skill to boost your own ranking, you don't use his account to see through fog games), I think that most people here would have no problems bringing in more players.

I know that my brother and my best friend are both on this site, and I do due diligence to kick the crap out of them whenever I can, so I'd be surprised if anyone has any problems with it.

There's no problem with having multiple accounts for family members. What's not allowed is going into games with the intention of forming an alliance. So in other words as long as you beat up on your family members just as much as you do the other players there's no problem!

What boris said.. (EDIT: and after seeing what tom just posted ..what tom said too.)

You may share an account with your son (that would precluded you from playing against or with him on a team), or you could have different accounts, one for each of you. In the case of the latter, you only have to be careful when playing against each other in public games. Specifically, you should be careful there is no appearance of collusion between those two accounts. When accounts play from the same IP addresses, they are (or eventually will be) flagged and more closely scrutinized by the community as well as admin so just be extra careful.

What is expressly verboten is for one person to have duel accounts for the purpose of using one of them to aid the other in climbing the rankings, so you can see how there is a line to be drawn that has a somewhat subjective component to it.  If you are concerned about even arousing suspicion, only play in private games against your son. ..or, when you play in public games, play on the same team.

I think the above warnings are warranted, but I know of many pairs (or groups) of players from the same household that play in public games and there has never been a problem with their play so encourage your son (and all of his friends and their families) to join the site and play lots of games.  Good luck to you and your son in your games.

Yeah. A is right.  I didn't mean to sound so gloom and doom about it.  I play with and against my brother with never a problem.  I guess I might say that you pretty much have to break the spirit of the rule to break the rule.

Sign him up!

...and introduce him to the A&A map. 

Thingol wrote:

...and introduce him to the A&A map. 

Whoaaa now!  As the leading runner-up to falker's top spot on that map I object :)  Can't have falker and falker2.0 both beating on me!

lol  Attila I wish I could beat you...  You definently have the beat on me 60% of the time.