is "Reason" a real person? He wrote Secrets of the Expanse and has a writing credit for Rogue Trader.

Well someone certainly writes his very ornate and gothic posts on RPG.net, so I'm going to go with 'real person'. Do you suspect he's an rogue AI like Wintermute or perhaps a group identity for a circle of guerrilla game-fiction writers?

But as to his or her real name? That would be a secret.

SJE

Yes, yes he is. He used to post on the old boards, made a couple of posts on these boards, did a great write-up of hive Sebillus HERE ... well, I assume he's a person though all I've seen of him is his name and his writings...

Interesting philosphy question here. "Reason" is apparently a name to publish writings under. It is probably a single individual that publishes under that name. It is probably the same person every time. It could be a group of writers, it could be a series of writers. If Reason is just a single person, it is likely, but not guaranteed, that she (or he) publishes other written works under other names.

Now, the philosophy: In what ways does it matter?

It would matter if I wanted to interact with Reason in a way that required her (or him) to be an individual. I guess it would be cool to shake her hand, but it really isn't that important. Maybe the person or group behind Reson publishes other works. But if those works were similar to what Reason do for DH etc, they wouldn't really need a different pen-name. I'm pretty happy to just partake of Reasons creativity in written form, that doesn't require her/him/them to be a single "real" person.

Names should be freely chooseable by each individual, even if that individual is a rogue AI.

Thanks! I seem to have tracked him down with a site and everything.

I'm submitting stuff on rpg.geekdo.com so I was curious.