Tweankish Contact

[Zharal]

And by sdesc abuse, I mean any instance where a PC's sdesc is used as their name.  "He's got broad shoulders, and vivid eyes" refers to "the broad-shouldered, vivid-eyed man".  This is worst when it is used in rumors and when reporting someone to an opposing force, but this is just as bad when it's used to descrie anyone for any other purpose.  I'mt not even going to bring up the fact that NOBODY IRL describes people like that, ever.
Just ask yourself this:
How many times have you seen people actually try to describe people (he's about ye tall with so and so many scars on his face, and he's always got a pink hat on his head) and how many times have you seen people use this name system?

Im curious doenst the police use terms such as, white male, mid fortys, short black hair, red shirt with blue jeans, posible scars on his face.  I see this as a very realistic situation. YOu go to a templar to report a white elf mid fourtys, thin,short black hair, wearing a red shirt and blue jeans, posible scars on his face.  I know there may be 30 such elves in the city, that fit the discription but hey its a bad day for them.  I know I wouldn't want to fit the description of a possible criminal that the police are looking for in the area, but then again there could be 30 folks in that area that matches my desc.  Just my opion.

[Linedel]

Larrath,

1) Read my whole post, I already addressed your main criticism.

2) You're right, I used extreme examples.  However, it works equally well for less distinguished people, you just have to give more details and narrow it down:  "Hm.. 40ish guy.. greying hair."  "Scott?"  "No, more tanned than him.."  "Hm.. Dave maybe?"  "No, think he was wearing a hawaiian shirt today." "Oh.. right, that's Skip."

The Armageddon version of using 2 adjectives in a short desc is simply an abstraction of the above, and, as stated previously, is mostly only valid for people that both parties already know - or see frequently.  Tavern regulars, even if they aren't "known", perhaps.


As to whether people go to police with descriptions...

http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20021016.html

Looks like they do!


Generally, a player should take a short description of someone they've never seen with a grain of salt.  Possibly roll a die (real world) to determine whether your characters believe someone that might match a desc is that person, if you don't feel like making the judgement call yourself.  Of course, if they chose to give themself a faded green mohawk level of distinguishment, feel free to make your chance of identification higher.

[joyofdiscord]

Note: And in a hand to hand fight, I don't think most of the sdesc would be invisible for him anyway. I'm telling it for the 237th time, your cloaks are not D&D elven cloaks, everybody still can see your face if they look carefully. Your veils/masks are not covering your eyes. Or you wouldn't see.

And I'll keep mentioning it even if you make it to the 300th or 500th time. This is very misleading.  There are a lot of different cloaks in the game, and some have it mentioned right in their desc that they are good at concealing features.  Others won't be.  Also, when you are wearing a veil, right at an inch from your face, it is much easier to see through the weave of the fabric than when you are several meters back, looking at the person.  It is entirely possible that a veil could conceal your eyes and still allow you to see, although your vision will be somewhat hampered.  Think of the Burqas that used to be worn in Afghanistan.  The most concealing of them all even had a mesh over the eyes, meaning you could not see ANYTHING of the person inside.  Nothing, nil, nit.  That was the whole point.  The person inside could, however, still see out (although with reduced visibility).  Again, however, this depends on the exact veil.  I strongly disagree with the "I can ALWAYS see your eyes, or else you can't see at all" position.  Sunslits will conceal them pretty well, while allowing you to see, along with some veils and cloaks.

[Trenidor]

With my experences of wearing face concealing items and cloaks, I specifically emote what items you'd be able to see depending on the way I wear the stuff.

You'd be able to see someone's shirt underneath a cloak, but your cloak hides that article of clothing from people...I still will RP it if I see it nessicary.

Typicall cloaks, unless specifically held, at a normal resting location, will disclose to anyone looking at them from a front view:
Torso
Face
arms
legs
hands
feet

It will however, at a front view, hide:

Back (of course)
Hair (if you have short hair)
Ears (you'll see them, but not be able to tell if their pointed exactly.)
Shoulders/upper arms

In other words...figure that if they use the look command on you, they caught the things as if from a frontal view. If not, figure they only saw your clothing. And even if they use the look command, it's up to the players responsibilty, to cypher out which things they actually took note of.

I think there's a link somewhere to a theory of this...possibly not an actually armageddon site. I'll try and find it.

[fearwig]

A templar gives you an order to contact Lord soAndSo. You've never met the Lord and certainly don't want to upset the templar. So using this mysterious and purposely undefined Way, you could visualize a web of interconnected thoughts - the interconnected links being the minds holding it all together. By following these strands from you, to the templar, to the shmoe guard sitting outside the Lord's estate you wend your way into the Lord's mind if it is as whorishly open as the Tuluki gates.

I don't see anything wrong with that at all.

Dude, that's not his complaint. Is everybody missing this?

His complaint is that once he's being contacted so that the person will know what his sdesc is. Not that he's simply being contacted.

If you see someone in a facewrap, and you contact tall-figure-facewrap, and you get up with them just so you can see the slim, tall figure with the chalky face, you are being a twink. Code abuse, plain and simple. It's just hard to prove. The fact exists there there's no way to prove this was what happened, and in fact that someone didn't contact the original poster entirely by accident.

[fearwig]

The Way shows people sdescs because it's intentional, for whatever reason.  It's completely unclear that the Way is strictly verbal; I've occasionally been sent crude images over the Way, and I never found them to be wrong.  The helpfile doesn't say that the Way is verbal only.
In other words, "when you contact someone you can see them" is not crap.


With all of this said, however, it IS very twinkish to use contact in order to find a former attacker/attackee by their clothes.  Just think about it like this - how would your PC realistically be able to tell that it's the same person?
More importantly, also, this leads to the old sdesc abuse issue, which is separate and far more comprehensive than just this issue.

I will accept your judgement, but I don't particularly say I like the idea of a mental image that's like a little Star Trek viewscreen in your brain. Do you see what they're doing? Do you see their face, regardless of what they're doing (like an "ideal" of their face)? Or do you only see images if they want you to? I think the sdesc is pretty clearly a way of identifying the "caller", not proof that you can see what they look like by touching their mind with yours.

I don't think that's a cohesive explanation. But, of course, I'm sure we'll all accept it, if bemusedly.

[Trenidor]

Oh ya...to answer you're persuasive statement.

Ya, I agree that it's not that smart to do so, however...if you had your hood up...how did they know what keywords to use? I don't think facewrap really works for contact. It might even be they find someone elses mind some of the time.


Anyways...I couldn't find the link so I made my own, heh.
http://www.geocities.com/kyle_oakeson/figures.html

[Trenidor]

I've often thought it would be best that way anyways...like a phone number or a radio address.

I don't like the fact that people can easily use it to communiact across language barriers. And it's deffinately not contributing to know how to talk with someone you don't know...it takes the fun out of stalking in that you dont have to research the person's name before you can send them creapy messages.

It'd be bad for mindbenders however in that they can't find out your life without knowing your name.
It'd also be hard on the people who only know you by a fake name dealing with your keyword.

If however, there was another prompt in the extra keywords section that asks for keyword names...then it might be appropriate.

[Ghost]

I know how to fix this. Just make it possible to contact a person by name instead of sdesc.   I mean you won't be able to contact the person standing infront of you but all ou have to do is ask the name.

No, as mentioned by Staff more than once, contacting someone that you have a clear look is as easy as contacting your grandma that you have lived your entire life with.  So better, contact stay as it already is.

Now, to the original post, forgive me but I think this thread is not adding anything to the game.  Discussing something like this, in my opinion, is nothing but beating a dead horse.  Put that aside.. Now I will just toss my ideas, for once, and I plan not to be in such a discussion.

Someone contacting you using your facewrap/hood:  It is possible.  And I dont think there is anything twinkish/bad RP in it as long as the person gets a good look at you, or stands in the same room, close to your char.  Fighting someone in melee, requires staying close, and even if the guy did not emote looking at you lovingly, he should know who he is fighting with.  So he has the option of contacting you using your hood.

Fighting someone melee, may knock your hood down.  May knock your veil down.  Do you emote adjusting your hood and veil at each adjacent round of combat?  If not, dont blame the other guy assuming that he has seen you.  This does not mean I am putting all the blame on you, but you cant blame the other person as well.

The Way itself is unclear.  It lies in the Grey Area.  Now let me put my idea...

I do believe, psionics work with a "mental image". And those mental images contain information about the person itself. If someone is known to be Amos, say around the commoners of Allanak, and when you try to contact to Amos, your mind is calling for it. And Amos's mind, unconciously replies for your call and that is how you two are contacted.
This is how you can contact someone using his name.
Or if you know someone with piercing azure eyes, you focus your mind to see a mental image that contains information about "azure eyes". Your mind searches through countless minds and picks up a mental image that is fit to what you have focused. And this is how you contact someone using his keywords.

So contacting someone and after you see him IG, thinking the guy you contact and the guy you see, in my opinion is fair.  There is a reason we are receiving the sdesc of the other person after all.

Now, another thing about it:  It is again fair to contact someone with hood-up, because you are never sure if you hit the right target.

Another point:

You used contact for an OOC purpose, which I find offensive and abusive.

Eh.  I can see your point here, I just don't agree.  I mean, you could also argue that the person was wearing their hood up in order to conceal their sdesc.  Not their appearance, but their sdesc, and therefore keywords.  I'm not accusing anyone of that, just saying that both things can be used (or perceived) in different ways.

Usual disclaimer: This is only my opinion and does not necessarily reflect those of the rest of the staff.

..And this I completely agree with.  Veil/facewrap/hood gives you cheap invisibility by concealing your sdesc.  And using them as an excuse for someone not knowing who you are does not seem fair to me.
Remember, not all the hoods really give you a good cover.  Not all veils are actually giving you a good cover.  And a veil only covers your face.  But you can be recognised bby how you move, how tall you are, your shoulder width, your muscle build body.. etc..  So just because someone is wearing a facewrap does not mean he is the invisible guy there.
Though I can hear now saying "you can read the main desc and try those words" it does not go as easy.  Because people often use the synonims of the words in their main descs.  And lets say you have to contact the guy in the facewrap/veil/hood, for anything (whatever..) and it is just silly for trying to find which synonim you have to use to get there.  After all it is not anything RP-sensitive.

So... Once we get over the justification of contacting "hood/veil/facewrap" here is the part to avoid the twinkage:

Contacting someone to get their sdesc so that you can contact them later I don't see as a problem.

Contacting someone to get their sdesc so you can tell the Templar that the yadda yadda man did something I do see as a problem.

It depends on how you use the information, not that you have the information, that is twinkish.

Xamminy puts it well here.  You use the exact s-desc words to bitch about the hooded person, you are walking at the edge of bad-RP (arguably).  
Considering there was a fight involved, each other combatant might have the right to assume they know each other.

Another EDIT:  Well...  added something but then decided to delete it.  I may add it, if I feel like it.

[Maybe42or54]

How about, just fix the whole problem and create a few more by..
Not letting the facewrap conceal the sdesc? I don't suggest making cloaks do this, because they cover the bulk of your body and facewraps cover your face.

And since they cover your face, how is it that you can't see that they are bulky, hair going to their ankle, a few million scars across their bare chest just from a glance?

[Ghost]

Well actually, I vote it to stay as it is now, and just trust the other person RPing it in a reasonable way.  Sometimes things happen in a way that looks a little annoying at first.  But there is not a way to put it under a control and what not.  Even if you make the facewraps not concealing sdesc, there will be arguements like "The desc of my facewrap says it covers my eyes.. Now how did you know I have a scar over my blue eyes" and such.
I think, not making too much of a deal about this, and going around and RPing it in a reasonable way on your own is the best solution.  No code change will make it any better.

[jhunter]

Fighting someone melee, may knock your hood down. May knock your veil down. Do you emote adjusting your hood and veil at each adjacent round of combat? If not, dont blame the other guy assuming that he has seen you. This does not mean I am putting all the blame on you, but you cant blame the other person as well.

It may, but it's not up to you to decide for another character in my opinion.

How'd he get a perfect view of my pc when I was wearing a hood?
Oh your hood fell down.
Uhmm, no it didn't. I had it up codedly the whole time and I did not emote to the effect of it coming down.
So, it may have fallen down during the fight so I'm saying that it did so I can have an excuse for knowing exactly what you look like.

See what I'm saying? It's sort of abusive to decide that for someone else's pc just so you can get information you may or may not be able to.

[Forest Junkie]

See what I'm saying? It's sort of abusive to decide that for someone else's pc just so you can get information you may or may not be able to.

Yeah, they call that powergaming. Anyone who uses that excuse is a cheater.

[Ghost]

It may, but it's not up to you to decide for another character in my opinion.

And it is not up to you to decide whether your opponent got a good look at you or not.

That is my opinion.

[Forest Junkie]

And it is not up to you to decide whether your opponent got a good look at you or not.

That is my opinion.

If anybody forces their roleplay on me which deals with something specific that I am wearing, that is powergaming and illegal.

If this happened to me I would:

1) Report them to the immortals with a mud mail.
2) Kill them for being such a turd.

[Trenidor]

Actually...

Powergameing (v) : To consistently do something in order to get gains, regardless of weather or not it is realistic to do so.

You mean the rule of infringment

Rule of infringment: to forcefully cause a PC to do something against the player's wishes.

And I hate to say it, but I don't like the rule out of all rules we have (both writen and not) What it really does is force people to find other evidences to do things to PCs.

And the orgininal poster doesn't even know weather or not there is alterior motive behind the using of psi on said character.

[Angela Christine]

Hmm, seems like powergaming on both sides to me.  Deciding that your cloak and hood were jostled enough durring a fight that they could have gotten a good look at you, despite the fact that you did not drop your hood or emote any hood-related problems, could be powergaming.  Deciding that your hood was immoveably super-glued to your skull yet still loose enough that it hung over your face in a concealing maner without in getting in your way or obscuring your vision in the slightest, so that there is no need for you to emote any hood-related problems, could also be powergaming.

Fighting in loose, billowing cloathing should be difficult.  Ok for a backstab, but a little much for an extended fight.  Ideally people would take off large cloaks and cumbersome full-lenth skirts before fighting, in our world some people often take off fairly unencumbering jackets before getting into a fist fight.  But messing around with equpment is a pain in the ass, so everybody fights in their cloaks, skirts, and with 100 pound packs on their backs.  Unfortunately, that leaves the details of what is reasonable up to the imaginations of the players involved, and those imaginations do not always agree.  If the fight lasted less than a minute, then it would certainly have been difficult to see through eachothers disguises and fixate on defining characteristics while fighting for your life, so it would be unreasonable to assume you could see everything.  If the fight lasted more than 10 minutes (real time, which is much more than 10 minutes IC time) then there would have been a lot of shifting and jostling and plenty of time to size eachother up, so it would be unreasonable to assume you could see nothing.

In very brief encounters a cloak, hood and veil should be a good disguise, because you only have a few moments to make an impression.  In very long encounters a cloak, hood and veil should be a poor disguise, because you have plenty of time to take note of voice, diction, carriage, details, and get peeks under the cloak as the cloaked one moves around.


Angela Christine

[Trenidor]

Ya know...it might just be best to forget about the whole ordeal, and when the conflict comes that you get turned in, you can show off your RP skills to everyone...

That's what I call a hero. Too bad there's only a few of them willing to take life by the horns however.

[Maybe42or54]

How about.. With a hood up, it gives a negative to defense, along with any other thing that limits what you can see? Such as a veil that covers the eyes, a hood, etc..

[Rhyden]

How about.. With a hood up, it gives a negative to defense, along with any other thing that limits what you can see? Such as a veil that covers the eyes, a hood, etc..

I'd say that its a cool idea, but everybody else is just gonna say that the players will have to be relied on instead of coding it, which is almost always the response given for minor code change ideas.

(I'm pretty bitter today)

[Blue_Static]

Don't worry Triplex it wouldn't matter if they were doing it like that....There are other ways to find people -trust me-.

[Xamminy]

Rhyden, be bitter, but I'm not going to disagree for the reason you and 527orPi think.

You're saying that all hoods should give a penalty?  Should they all give the same amount?  I don't think so.  This means that EVERY hooded item in the database would have to be gone through and given the appropriate penalty/penalties for that hood.  This would most likely NOT be a minor code change for something that would probably result in a minor modification to stats/skills.

I say live with it the way it is because it's most likely too much work for too little a problem.

[Maybe42or54]

Hell, I can go through all the cloaks and hooded items and suggest them.

I say live with it the way it is because it's most likely too much work for too little a problem.

Is that why we have "look mirror"?
Or.. Some clothes offer very visible bonuses to your HP, Stamina, and Stun?
Or why we have many of the coded commands that add very little to the game, but every time I see them I go, "Wow, arm is such a great game."

If I got permission, I would starts the little project of going through items and suggesting defense negatives.

[Bestatte]

When I know what someone looks like, but I don't know their name, and haven't met them, and need to way them...

I'll try waying them anyway. Often that comes with a "think" or two about how I'm trying to place their image in my mind - or place what I -think- is their image in my mind. Often I end up being wrong and way the wrong person, since it's easy to mix up keywords. So I "think" - "Bah, stop focusing so much on their big nose...it's the hair, think about the hair..." and I'll try again, using the color of their hair or their dredlocks as the keyword this time.

If I know the name, but not the description, I'll try that - focusing on the "resonance" of the name in my mind, again often using the think command to explain to myself what I'm doing.

If I saw the person with their hood up or a facewrap, I didn't get the sdesc - but I did get their eyes if we were up close..and possibly some other facial features (though not necessarily).. and a general idea of their build, and if they're missing a leg, or a finger, or an arm..I'd notice that as well. And I'd try those things with keywords, hoping to get the right person.

So to the guy in the facewrap in the first post...it doesn't mean anyone was targetting you. It could VERY easily be some random error made by some random player looking for someone completely different from you.

[Maybe42or54]

Wow Bestatte. That is an awesome idea. I do hope you don't mind me jacking it like I was a cocain addict and you just got a pound.