Disguise: How it can be better

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Rooshi49
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Disguise: How it can be better

Post by Rooshi49 » Tue Dec 04, 2018 9:41 pm

First off does anyone know when it might eventually get fixed?

But regardless, when it does get fixed, I feel there are a myriad of ways to improve it from its current stat, especially if Haks are being considered.

First off It would be nice to get some more QoL with the current system and instead of having to go through and make another outfit and write its name down somewhere and a disguise / description name and write it down somewhere, it would be amazing if there was some sort of streamlining it all.

It would be nice if there was a way through magic to change your face and body structure as well.

The biggest thing that needs to be changed in my opinion is that there needs to be no room left for being able to metagame that someone is disguised. Even when it was working properly you could (if I remember correctly) still tell someone was disguised, and therefore you would have to take it upon other people's honor that they would RP that you were that other disguised person. I think that if the system gets fixed it should be changed so that the characters AND the players playing those characters both cannot know that the person is disguised unless they break the disguise. That's the only way to get genuine interactions as if you're a completely different person. This could be done by changing the name and giving absolutely no mechanical way of knowing that the person you're speaking to is infact someone else. They could by all your knowledge be a completely new character or someone you've never met before.

Specifically this can be done in the following ways:
  • When you go and examine someone, get rid of the message that says that you're not able to break that person's disguise.
  • Get rid of the Disguised tag that is in someone's description.
  • Only send a message to the player's examining the disguised person saying that they've broken it when they've broken it.
The frustrating thing with disguise right now is that people will (even if not maliciously or intentionally) metagame that the person disguised is somehow fishy or suspicious for some reason. You can come up with a ton of reasons why to justify that train of thought. Maybe that person is wearing a helmet you've never seen, or you've never seen them before. Maybe they're acting in a certain way you say is suspicious.

I guarantee that if you were to make a completely new character from scratch and interact with someone that they would interact with you differently than if you interact with them as a disguised person they've never interacted with before. Theres no way around it, its just going to happen on some level.

Therefore my only conclusion is to make it so you cannot tell the difference between a new character being made and a disguised person. Mechanically reinforce it with ways to stop meta-gaming. Don't leave it to honor or trust. Even if the other person has all the honor in the world and doesn't metagame ever I claim that they would still act differently around a disguised person than a non-disguised person.

Apart from those points, does anyone else have any ideas on how the disguise system could be improved, either with or without haks?

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Re: Disguise: How it can be better

Post by boggle99 » Sat Dec 08, 2018 2:59 am

I also hope the name changing gets put back in soon, though I know it isn't in our devs hands and yes in theory I agree with the removal of the disguise tag, the problem I see however is people with only a few ranks in it pretending to be other chars and the chaos and possible trolling that would create. Also it fits with the argument its much easier to break a disguise if someone is pretending to be someone you know.

I would instead suggest a threshold, say if someone has twenty or thirty more bluff than someone elses spot (just random figures off the top of my head) that the tag doesn't appear to that person. This means a really good bluffer/performer could even pretend to be your own mother or anyone else without you suspecting at first look if you where bad at spotting these things but if you are good then you can tell if someone is not the real person.

Also, what is the position of the team on not being able to break a disguise but knowing someone is disguised, such as looking, not breaking it, then forcing someone to lower their hood so that you can get "a better look at your face and hair colour". In short, if you can see a (disguised) tag is that ever allowed to be part of wysiwyg?

Oh speaking of hair colour a consumable hair dye to change its colour without needing porting to the character creation area would be brilliant, especially when constructing a new disguise and working out its description.

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Re: Disguise: How it can be better

Post by Dragonfyre » Sat Dec 08, 2018 5:40 am

There's also a bug (exploit?) which allows a character with access to another system to remove the (Disguised) tag from the character, so that their floaty name shows up as their -disguised name (when -disguise works properly as implemented, that is). All of the other mechanical stuff still works as intended, however - as in, on examining, the messages about breaking, or failing to break, said disguise still trigger. I can give further details to those interested in fixing the issue, if needed.
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Re: Disguise: How it can be better

Post by Orian_666 » Sat Dec 08, 2018 5:58 am

I've always been of the opinion that the (Disguised) Tag is a bad thing. It's basically a big "Hey guys, Meta-game me" sign.
And if not that then it's inviting others to send for their friends with high spot.

I agree that to get the most genuine response to a disguise that you shouldn't know about it unless you break it!!
As stated above this means no more: (Disguised) tag, no more "You failed to break a disguise" message when examining someone, no more little note at the end of the description stating that the person is disguised and you didn't break it.

If someone is disguised, you examine them and you don't break it then you should see them exactly as you see someone else, this is the only sure way to get legitimate RP from disguising. Even if it's something as simple as "Old Man", or something like that.

I also like the idea of some function in place that sets up different disguises, an item or ability that with a simple click will change your Name, Description, and clothing to a pre saved set up. As it stands we do have the description one in place. If you make a description and save that description under the disguise name, once you enter that disguise eg. "-disguise John Smith" then the description named "John Smith" will also activate. Having it also activate a clothing setting named the same thing would be great.

All in all though my main priority, or want, would be for the fact that when you're disguised everyone knows it anyway, regardless of your skill at it. I trust that the vast majority of players here are mature and will try their hardest not to meta it or be a prat about it, but unfortunately it still happens even if only subconsciously, I know i've done it before without intending to. Been more "suspicious" of someone with a big obvious (Disguised) above their heads. It'd be nice if that was avoided in the future.

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Re: Disguise: How it can be better

Post by Liareth » Sat Dec 08, 2018 8:53 am

Removing the (Disguised) tag could work, but only if the opposed roll was changed to work automatically (rather than on examine) in a hidden way which only provided feedback on a success. Removing the tag but keeping the requirement to examine will result in players not noticing and missing their roll to break the disguise. As the examine roll is intended to reflect passive observation (rather than active), this would make more sense anyway.

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Re: Disguise: How it can be better

Post by The GrumpyCat » Sat Dec 08, 2018 10:27 am

The only danger with removing that tag is that it means pcs can disguise themselves as other pcs, and that can result in some propblems OOCly too.

E.g. - Bob disguises himself as Joe, does something rules breaking with Joe (pvp without rp, breaking rating rules ect) and it requires a little more time/effort on our part to uncover that it was in fact not Bob, but Joe.

And worse still, player side, people might not be able to tell as clearly. So that people start going on discord 'Oh wow, yeah Joe broke the pvp rules and is a total ******!' When in fact Joe did no such thing, it was Bob.

Without wanting to give too much away, I'm currently playing a character playerside that does use -disguise heavily, and I hope one day funcionality will be returned to it, though I understand such may be a while coming. The only aspect I think that I would kinda like to see changed, (but I understand if it can't be changed, as this would in a way allow for a lot more metagaming) is that in the little notification of 'your disguise has been breached!' It would be nice to know -WHO- breached your disguised, at least if it was a player. Right now if someone breaches it and remarks IC, I sort of have to take it on faith that it was them, not some random NPC. Which is fine. But I feel it'd be nice to know for sure, and I think it'd cut down on some reports we have about such.
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Re: Disguise: How it can be better

Post by Skibbles » Sat Dec 08, 2018 12:00 pm

I would very much like to see a near flawless disguise system when it comes to the easiest meta systems like seeing the obvious disguise tag or clicking on a character’s portrait to see their account.

I’ve always preferred to remain ignorant as a player to best preserve the great amounts of intrigue that can be in Arelith.

Grumpycat brings up a worrying point about character impersonation, and hurdling that seems important first.

I feel like the best way to address concerns like that is to rebuild the spirit and intention of the disguise mechanic from the ground up as it has always been very nebulous and poorly enforced due to the sheer number of players with access to it.

Defining what is acceptable practice and what is not seems like a good first step. IE: disguises are for aliases or alter egos, or for blending into a crowd as a nameless cloaked figure.
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Re: Disguise: How it can be better

Post by Nitro » Sat Dec 08, 2018 4:29 pm

Yeah I wouldn't want to see the disguise tag removed. It'd be way to easy to drag a players reputation into the mud OOC'ly if that were the case. Just imagine if someone takes your characters name and starts doing hairtrigger pvp, stalking or any other number of nasty things with your name on it. Sure they'll probably get caught but by then the damage is already done, people will form an OOC bias against you for the awful things someone else did, and a number of OOC cliques will likely have spread the rumors whether through ignorance, malevolence or just wanting to warn others away from the creepy guy.

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Re: Disguise: How it can be better

Post by MissEvelyn » Sun Dec 09, 2018 1:19 am

Nitro wrote:
Sat Dec 08, 2018 4:29 pm
Yeah I wouldn't want to see the disguise tag removed. It'd be way to easy to drag a players reputation into the mud OOC'ly if that were the case. Just imagine if someone takes your characters name and starts doing hairtrigger pvp, stalking or any other number of nasty things with your name on it. Sure they'll probably get caught but by then the damage is already done, people will form an OOC bias against you for the awful things someone else did, and a number of OOC cliques will likely have spread the rumors whether through ignorance, malevolence or just wanting to warn others away from the creepy guy.
Isn't this, however, an OOC problem? And are we really going to expect that people act out of character on something that happens in-character? Barring rule-breaches, of course.


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Re: Disguise: How it can be better

Post by Nitro » Sun Dec 09, 2018 11:11 am

MissEvelyn wrote:
Sun Dec 09, 2018 1:19 am
Isn't this, however, an OOC problem? And are we really going to expect that people act out of character on something that happens in-character? Barring rule-breaches, of course.
To pretend stuff like it isn't already happening is just turning a blind eye to the problem. In most discord groups I've seen, even the big Arelith 3.0 discord, there's occasions when someone feels the need to let off steam and rant about someone else because of something that happened in-game.

EDIT: Arguably, seeing or not seeing the disguise tag is also an OOC problem and the very sentence you just wrote can be used to question removing the (disguised) tag.

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Re: Disguise: How it can be better

Post by flower » Sun Dec 09, 2018 1:53 pm

I would prefer if names were not visible at all and you had to name the people.

That is how it worked on Czech uo server.

Every unknown elf was just Elf for you.

You could pull his HP bar and type in name. You would never know his name unless you would learn it IC.

Disguise there worked to add various alternative egoes. How many everyone had was depending on bluff skill. It also forced people to use disguises smart and prevent them being ruined and known.

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naturaly
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Re: Disguise: How it can be better

Post by naturaly » Sun Dec 09, 2018 4:22 pm

That would be amazing! If only nwn allowed that.

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Re: Disguise: How it can be better

Post by magistrasa » Sun Dec 09, 2018 4:34 pm

It would certainly get rid of the minor annoyance I constantly have, where I make characters who make a point of not telling people their names, but those people just happen to know their names anyways. Seriously, I wish more people kept notes on this stuff!

Anyways, on-topic. I think it would be cool to remove the tag, but maybe only if you took Epic Skill Focus: Bluff/Perform. Even in such cases, for the sake of curtailing those OOC imitation issues, I think it might be best to still notify observers that they failed to break a disguise. I think people are more likely to examine someone they don't know than some average Joe, sure, but if they see someone who's disguised? They'll examine probably 90% of the time, out of curiosity if nothing else.

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Re: Disguise: How it can be better

Post by flower » Sun Dec 09, 2018 5:25 pm

I examine each person nearby just my characters never have enough skill points for spot. If they had I would keep checking double time :)

Because if you invest in the skill why not use it then.

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Re: Disguise: How it can be better

Post by Kaeldre » Sun Dec 09, 2018 6:43 pm

I like the idea of making all other characters you have not met unknown to you. It would definitely increase immersion and create more interesting RP opportunities, or at least it would from my point of view. Maybe set up a separate post in the suggestion thread?
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Re: Disguise: How it can be better

Post by flower » Sun Dec 09, 2018 6:50 pm

It could be issue to figure out how to adjust scry and yoink.

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Re: Disguise: How it can be better

Post by Zed » Mon Dec 10, 2018 11:04 am

That sounds amazing.

You could probably set up a system when the blue name change is a thing. And force introductions with a character by having them say a key phrase or phrases within proximity.


For example

Joe six pack meets Stan the man


Joe walks up to Stan and his name is labeled "Human"

This indicates to Joe that hes never met Stan

Says "hello [my name is joe]"

Replies [my name is stan]

Code cross references the character name with the introduction and then reveals that name to anyone within hearing range.

This would still allow people to have nicknames as I dont think the code should require a full name. It should allow partials of a name. So if Stan decided to say hey I am "the man" or "My nickname is "the man" it should be able to recognize that.


It would make for interesting assassin gameplay as well. Having to go off of description and having to wait for confirmation of a characters name before taking them down.

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Re: Disguise: How it can be better

Post by Kaeldre » Mon Dec 10, 2018 5:52 pm

Hm, I'd personally prefer a system where I get to set the name on others I meet. I just feel like having certain very specific key phrases limits the available room to RP your personal introduction. I for one would feel that it would become repetitive if there were only a select few ways I could introduce myself, and just as few ways others will introduce themselves to me.

Granted, it is very possible to expand the many ways of greetings, but it seems far too tedious than the alternative of just letting the players give other people a name. Most likely the one you offered them on meeting, if they want to remember it.
Last edited by Kaeldre on Mon Dec 10, 2018 6:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Disguise: How it can be better

Post by The GrumpyCat » Mon Dec 10, 2018 6:06 pm

This would make reporting griefing/issues much more difficult for players however, and would likely depend on you guys either obtaining the login name of the person involved, or else being able to give some accurate information (e.g. things said, exact time and dates, so on) of the infraction. It would certainly make our searching information a lot harder.

But curious how this would interact also with banking, speedies, -yoink, -scry and all other name-linked issues.

Also what about shop/quarter names? Would they all be blank? Would the name on them be the 'true' name of the owner or the 'false' name? How can you tell which is which? Is there a true name or false name? If anyone can be any name isn't there a risk of a lot of confusion In Game?
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Re: Disguise: How it can be better

Post by Kaeldre » Mon Dec 10, 2018 7:30 pm

Griefing is definitively a big concern when this idea is concerned. We wouldn't want to make life harder for you guys investigating these matters. In my mind, I would have reports on griefing handled through the new naming system. The naming system I am talking about is the one where each and every player gets to name others as they please, in order to remember who they are.

As time passes, each individual character would name the other people they come in contact with. These names would have to be stored in some sort of register, so the game can remember the names next time they log in. I would suggest that each given name in this register would be stored in conjunction with the true name of said character. Thus, when someone takes note of griefing done by a character they know, then they can refer to the DM's with the given name. And the DM's would in turn be able to view the true name of this individual. Conversely, if someone observes another character griefing that they have yet to name, then they can merely give the character a temporary name, for instance 'griefer', and then refer to the DM's with this newly given name. And again, the DM's would be able to view the true name of this individual. This register would only be viewable by staff.

Does this sound feasible or am I not making any sense at all?
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Re: Disguise: How it can be better

Post by magistrasa » Mon Dec 10, 2018 8:12 pm

Okay, now it's getting over-complicated, and I can't help but feel like it's completely forgotten the original point because I don't know how it'll function alongside disguises! What happens when that custom-named person then disguises themselves? Does the name get erased while they have a disguise up? What if they got named while disguised, and the disguise goes down? What if they regularly walk around in the same disguise - does the name get attached to that disguise, or the character? What happens if the disguise gets dropped at some point and reapplied later? It's well past the realm of silliness when all the variables get counted.

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Re: Disguise: How it can be better

Post by Kaeldre » Mon Dec 10, 2018 8:41 pm

It is still suggestion on how the disguise mechanic can be improved. Although, one which comes with a change to the entire name system. Which might warrant a new post to be issued as to not divert from the main subject too much.

As for your question on how this change would relate to disguises, I'm still basing this off Flower's reply:
flower wrote:
Sun Dec 09, 2018 1:53 pm
Disguise there worked to add various alternative egoes. How many everyone had was depending on bluff skill. It also forced people to use disguises smart and prevent them being ruined and known.
Personally, I would interpret that as following. Each character get one 'ego'. This 'ego' is the shape and form those you have met know you by, which they have given a certain name. As you increase your bluff skill you would be able to create a 'new ego', which you may swap back and forth to. Should you swap to the 'new ego' then all people who previously knew you by a certain name would see you as a stranger again, who can be given a new name. Should you switch back to your original 'ego' then they would see you by the name they had previously given you.

It might seem or even be overly complicated, I dont know. It is an interesting suggestion nonetheless.
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Re: Disguise: How it can be better

Post by Zed » Mon Dec 10, 2018 8:47 pm

DM GrumpyCat wrote:
Mon Dec 10, 2018 6:06 pm
This would make reporting griefing/issues much more difficult for players however, and would likely depend on you guys either obtaining the login name of the person involved, or else being able to give some accurate information (e.g. things said, exact time and dates, so on) of the infraction. It would certainly make our searching information a lot harder.

But curious how this would interact also with banking, speedies, -yoink, -scry and all other name-linked issues.

Also what about shop/quarter names? Would they all be blank? Would the name on them be the 'true' name of the owner or the 'false' name? How can you tell which is which? Is there a true name or false name? If anyone can be any name isn't there a risk of a lot of confusion In Game?

I believe if the name is required then they would show on shops and whatnot...

This is also why I am in favor of the characters being required to say their true name or part of their true name.

IF a player wishes to have a Nickname it should be included in their true name with quotations as a number of players do.

For example a paladin drow i met by the name of Yaster Theldron or somthing like that wished to go by "Thel"

Having their name be Yaster "Thel" Theldron and allowing that name change to persist would go a long way if people wanted.

This could also be implemented in a system menu "Change your nickname"

And it would just add this nickname automatically to your character name, and work off of the introduction system.

And yes It does seem pretty complicated, Ill conceed that, but it would be a very, very interesting advance in RP capability.

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Re: Disguise: How it can be better

Post by Marsi » Mon Dec 10, 2018 10:14 pm

I've never found the idea of hardening disguise through obfuscation to be convincing. I think some innovations such as the genericized disguise portrait are effective because they make it easier to suspend OOC understanding of identity without robbing the player of their ability to determine who they are interacting with. It isn't necessary to actually fool the player, only the character. All that's required is to cloak the most immediate information so the player isn't confused or liable to slip-up. Problem players who metagame soon develop a reputation for dishonesty and its clear they would use any information available to cheat. The best policy is a harsh punishment for metagaming.

I'll put those thoughts aside and humour the idea for the sake of discussion. This is an all-or-nothing idea. Either everything is obfuscated, or, by the logic behind the idea, nothing is, and it is therefore incomplete. For it to work, when sending a tell to a player, their login handle would have to be aliased always to the character name, as it is when initiating a tell via the player list. Similarly, the portal would have to be stripped of usernames. Perhaps a player can be assigned a session ID every time they log in that is created from their account name and can be easily coupled by DMs in their logs. That way in order to report John Smith, who could be anyone, including an imposter, you'd see by prompting a tell that he has a unique ID and can supply the DMs with this information. The DMs would be able to tell the difference between the griefer John Smith and the John Smith who is played by a reputable member of the community. The only vector for metagaming then, is if both John Smiths are logged in at the same time and one was able to confirm the ID of the real John Smith before coming across the fake one.

It's clear though that this seriously hampers the ability of the players to OOC co-ordinate, which is an important and necessary part of roleplaying. Experienced roleplayers understand that there is more to effective storytelling than complete and utter immersion. A lot of what fuels good storytelling actually involves metagaming of a benign form. Perhaps on a more ideologically pure, experimental, "hardcore" server this design choice would make sense, but this has never really been the case on Arelith.

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Re: Disguise: How it can be better

Post by Kaeldre » Tue Dec 11, 2018 5:01 pm

Marsi wrote:
Mon Dec 10, 2018 10:14 pm
It's clear though that this seriously hampers the ability of the players to OOC co-ordinate, which is an important and necessary part of roleplaying. Experienced roleplayers understand that there is more to effective storytelling than complete and utter immersion. A lot of what fuels good storytelling actually involves metagaming of a benign form. Perhaps on a more ideologically pure, experimental, "hardcore" server this design choice would make sense, but this has never really been the case on Arelith.
I agree with the point you have made. This change would offer greater immersion at the cost of good player-driven stories. Considering your post I believe that this change would be too radical for Arelith, even though it certainly is an interesting one.
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