Masks, Hoods, Wraps Etc

[Rindan]

What are you are suggesting is that the person who has a main desc that includes such tidbits as: long white hair to the middle of their back, is a hunchback, has nine fingers, has one leg noticeably shorter than the other, has purple skin, and has an obnoxiously foul smell coming from a series of puss ridden boils - would be entirely undescribeable because they wear something that covers part of their face.

I really don't see how you can say that you shouldn't be able to notice any of these traits because of a face wrapped up in sandcloth or covered by a plank of wood.

Obviously you should be able to notice you are dealing with a hideous mutant.  That said, I don't want the games rules built around hideous mutants as they are the very rare exception.  The code should be constructed around your average elven 'rinth or grubby human raider, not six armed mutants that are easily identifiable.  In a city of half of a million, if a guy in a mask robs you, you will never find him again through identification.  Period.  End of story.  Hell, in this day and age people are robbed at point to their face without any masks and are later unable to identify their attacker.  Bank robbers wear masks for a reason why they rob a bank, and it isn't because it looks cool.

Are you really arguing that the game isn't skewed way the hell off in the direction of it being too easy to identify people?  Are you really telling me that the ability to conceal your identity while at the same time basically identifying yourself as being up to no good is less realistic then a world where you can always tell who is who and the list of suspects is never longer then 20 people?  Are you really arguing that the current state of affairs is closer to realism then the alternative?

How would I describe someone if they were a masked crusader wearing green tights... well, after getting past the green tights - I'd point out the incredibly scrawny body that is almost skeletal, that they have reaaaaaally long arms and short legs, and oddly enough, a potbelly.

You just described half of the teenage population of Gotham.  The point isn't that a guy with a mask on can't be described, it is that nothing that distinguishes him from anyone else could described.

The point - a mask does not a concealing costume make.  Therefore a mask should not grant 100% concealment of someone's maindesc - it simply does not make sense.  Partial concealment makes sense but full - I can't find any way to justify that.

Someone better tell the criminals in the real world this, as they tend to use masks and a sweatshirt as their full body concealment costume all the time.  Hell, some of them don't even bother with the mask and just trust in peoples' less then perfect memory and the fact that the suspect list is greater then 20.  The game is wildly skewed in favor of making identification far too easy.  

As it stands, the only way to commit a crime without being identified is to kill the victim.  There is a damn good reason why raiders shoot first and ask questions later.  If the victim gets away even once, you are pretty much banned from civilization forever.

[RunningMountain]

Maybe all zalanthas have photographic memories. Some sort of genetic evolution over the many years of the harsh environment have made your everyday commoner fairly good at remembering things. Much like torture victims.

[jmordetsky]

I just want to take a minute to break down possible disguise scenarios. Because we're lumping them together.

1)   Someone you know sees you with a hood/wrap/bandana/mask

Odds are, depending on the item you are wearing, you will be recognized.
For example: SarahJC comes home from design school and sees someone sitting in a chair wearing a bandana over their face. She knows it's me by eyes. She's seen me 100 times.

2)   Someone you don't know sees you with a hood/wrap/bandana/mask

Odds are, this person will be able to identify certain features about you, but not all. Maybe your eyes, hair, the scar on your hand. Depends.
For example: SarahJC goes to the bank, a dude storms in wearing a bandana over their face and starts yelling. He leaves with money, and luckily no one gets hurt. The police ask SarahJC for a description she says, "hed brown curly hair, brown eyes, and thick eyebrows, that's all I could see with the bandana over the lower face. Though I did notice the shape of his ears were pointed, and that a chunk of one was missing.

A bandana, or a wrap on my face isn't going to completely blank out everything about me, it's just silly. And I completely agree with Marco that the total anonymity would quickly breed complete chaos.

Now, I would *love* the idea of portioned mdescs, as LOD suggested, especially if certain items could only mask my eyes, others my lips, others my whole face, but not my body, and cloaks my body details or scars.

But lets be realistic here, it's not going to happen. To do that, every wearable item would need to be tagged with a an area of your appearance that it could cover, and to be remotely realistic you then need to tag your mdesc with all these locations, your eyes, your nose, your lips, your chin.  It's just not practical, to be fair, it's total overkill.

The beauty of the dashing out certain characters of the mdesc is a) in the simplicity of solution (that's not to say it would be simple to code, but I have to think far more simple then the mdesc break down) and b) the fact that portions of you desc could still be identified, and still (more importantly) left up to RP.

The other issue with just blanking out a tagged area of the mdesc is that it penalizes good authors and people who write unique descriptions. You will recognize cool things you recall from a desc more easily then some guy who has a 1 line body desc "This man is muscular."

*shrug*

I'm done.

[jhunter]

When the masked bandit flees, do the VNPC or NPC's that know him/her, witness their attack, see them removing clothing, remember them from a previous day, etc...report in? Not usually. Do they come forward with information about how they've seen this person a few times before and know where his cousin's brother's friend Jojo lives? Not usually.

Do npcs you've gone out of your way to save their lives in the past remember you and cut you a break when you are accused of breaking the law? Nope. Do npc soldiers come forward and put in a good word for you when you have helped out in the past? Nope. Do they recognize you as someone who is actually helping uphold the law by making an attack on someone dangerous in defense of a templar/noble if you are not coded as being a part of those clans? Nope.

This reasoning holds no water in my opinion. And respectfully, I must say that this is the first thing I've ever read that you have stated that I don't feel is valid in the particular discussion, it isn't very good reasoning for a change in this direction not being implemented in the game.

Do I think that full mdesc covering items -could- be abused in some way? Sure. Do I think that not having them is better than the current situation which has more potential for abuse, (and is often done) is better than that? Not by a long shot.

Do your masked attackers have coded wounds on their body for the next few IC weeks showing where they were attacked by you specifically? Does the wound match your particular weapon type, angle and strength of cut? Not usually.

Does everyone roleplay out their wound accordingly in the first place? Nope. Does everyone roleplay out their failures or weaknesses in their pcs? Nope.

These are not good enough reasons to make things harder on those of us who would rp them out to the fullest of our abilities. If the code doesn't make it unreasonably difficult then I would totally rp out those things to give the clues to people and give them a reasonable chance to spot those "odd" things about my pc if there are any.

As it stands, things are most definitely stacked against someone who is trying to rp out something of that sort, no matter how realistically they play it out.

The reason Armageddon is as good as a roleplaying environment is because there is the ability and the trust involved to play out these things realistically. (And the code to back up that realism to an extent.) When you put too much in (or leave it out) to stop the "few" that would abuse it then you hurt the rp of those who would rp it realistically and make that sort of rp "weak" compared to the rp of other character types. Both on the part of the instigator and the victim.

It doesn't necessarily have to be fully one way or the other, my personal preference with the mechanics would be that there is the possibility for someone to make themselves almost wholly unindentifiable, but right now it is skewed way to far in the favor of the victims.

Something really needs to be done about this. This one thing is the biggest flaw in the game IMO. I -love- this game but this is something that has always struck me as out of place and harmful to the rp environment.

Edit: Also, why does it have to be only portioned mdesc or our current mdesc? Why can't it be a combination of both? You write a normal main description, then you write up the portioned parts. Face, build, skin tone, scars, etc... Normally your full main desc would be seen by anyone that looks at you. But when you are wearing certain concealing items...that main desc is covered...and the uncovered portions you wrote are seen.

I'll apologize now if I missed this but from what I did read it appears to me that people are suggesting only one way or the other.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Code Select Expand

The black elf's face is long and drawn, his eyes narrow and slanted. His nose is pierced and hooked, like some great eagle. His body is long and sinewy, fingers like spider legs. A scar runs from his brow to his jaw.

What might work is if you asked the code to be able to -read- a sentence. That means from capitol letter to period, repeat, repeat.

Any word in a sentence that is face-related, such as, using the above desc as an example, would cause that sentence to be deleted. In the above sentence, those words are face, eyes, nose, brow, and jaw.

What the above description would then look like is....

Code Select Expand

His body is long and sinewy, fingers like spider legs.

The code has seperated sentences and evaluated them, then discarded the ones with the forbidden words in them and fed back the end result. All the immortals would have to do is make sure at least one sentence in your description did not include a masking word.

In fact, I think -I'll- implement this idea. I like it even more now.

[LoD]

Do npcs you've gone out of your way to save their lives in the past remember you and cut you a break when you are accused of breaking the law? Nope. Do npc soldiers come forward and put in a good word for you when you have helped out in the past? Nope. Do they recognize you as someone who is actually helping uphold the law by making an attack on someone dangerous in defense of a templar/noble if you are not coded as being a part of those clans? Nope.

This reasoning holds no water in my opinion. And respectfully, I must say that this is the first thing I've ever read that you have stated that I don't feel is valid in the particular discussion, it isn't very good reasoning for a change in this direction not being implemented in the game.

My point was made in response to the people that kept bringing up the same arguement that wrapping yourself up in cloth should realistically make you unidentifiable.  Yes, it probably might do a lot for that.  But that isn't the only point to consider.  There are other reasons why this change may or may not be made for "realism" alone.

If you've read my -other- arguements in this thread, you'd see that I do suggest a way for mask objects to affect one's description.  I believe there is an area to shoot for between "instantly identified" and "impossible to identify", which seems to be the case with masks that completely alter your mdesc.

If the code doesn't make it unreasonably difficult then I would totally rp out those things to give the clues to people and give them a reasonable chance to spot those "odd" things about my pc if there are any.

As it stands, things are most definitely stacked against someone who is trying to rp out something of that sort, no matter how realistically they play it out.

Maybe you would RP it out with those people and maybe you wouldn't, only time would tell.  But that's a moot point because changes aren't implemented based on one person's needs.  Quoting good old Spock in Wrath of Khann, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one."  I would go further to say that this can also be applied to potential for abuse, "The abuse of the many warrants changes that outweigh the desire of the few, or the one."

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and unfortunately the Imms must have made the decision that mask objects were too powerful for the playerbase to continue using them.  Don't look at me.  I didn't take them out of the game, nor am I calling for them never to be used.  The people who run game, police the twinks and make those decisions removed them.  You should really ask them why mask objects were removed when people like you are willing to RP it out.

In the hands of many, mask objects were abused.  You claim that victims  now "abuse" situations by memorizing your mdesc even though your character is fully masked/cloaked.  I've played many roles where I was often an attacker, thief or enemy of important people and never had to use a mask object to hide my mdesc.  It's not impossible, but you do have to be smart about things.

-LoD

[RunningMountain]

I recall when contacting someone with the Way when they were hooded or masked or whatever would give you that sdesc instead of their true sdesc. What happend with that? I like that because criminals could get away with a lot more if they could just stop someone from getting their mdesc. Hence the sneak and hide commands. I think it should still be like that, as of right now I can just use 'contact' to get the guys sdesc and say IC I found his mind and saw an image of him in his mindseye or something to that nature.

[Delirium]

Code Select Expand

>wear mask
You fasten a long black obsidian mask over your face.

>contact joebob
You contact the buff, statuesque, hawt blonde guy with the Way.

>psi Joebob... I am your father!

Too easy to masquarade as others, even when they should be intimately familiar with your "mind voice", I say.

[amoeba]

Code Select Expand

The black elf's face is long and drawn, his eyes narrow and slanted. His nose is pierced and hooked, like some great eagle. His body is long and sinewy, fingers like spider legs. A scar runs from his brow to his jaw.

What might work is if you asked the code to be able to -read- a sentence. That means from capitol letter to period, repeat, repeat.

Any word in a sentence that is face-related, such as, using the above desc as an example, would cause that sentence to be deleted. In the above sentence, those words are face, eyes, nose, brow, and jaw.

What the above description would then look like is....

Code Select Expand

His body is long and sinewy, fingers like spider legs.

The code has seperated sentences and evaluated them, then discarded the ones with the forbidden words in them and fed back the end result. All the immortals would have to do is make sure at least one sentence in your description did not include a masking word.

In fact, I think -I'll- implement this idea. I like it even more now.

As a coder I would hate to  have to implement something like this.  Far too much ambiguity possible.  for example:

"His frame was lean and muscular."  
"It is obvious from looking at him that he spends a great deal of time outdoors."
"His face is hollow and sunken, mirroring the gaunt look of his body."

Writing a parser to seperate out sentences based on a database of key words, then figuring out with what is esentially fuzzy logic, how each sentence would be handled is at best diffucult.

[Maybe42or54]

Runningmountain.

When you contact the guy with a mask and get what he looks like, how do you know you got the right one?
Oh sure, only one PC wearing that mask.
But there is more than 30,000 people in Either city, so you shouldn't be able to get the guy unless you are watching him.

And venoms.
I love the idea. Really.

[RunningMountain]

Maybe. I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying people can do it. I liked it better when you couldn't see their sdesc if they had certain things covering them physically.

[Zhaira]

I'm not really advocating this idea one way or another (I think the current system is fine as is, honestly) -- but just for the sake of mechanics discussion, I'd like to put in a few words.

Assuming that players are going to have to be responsible in the first place, it would be -far- easier to use pseudo-html tags to designate portions of the body, as opposed to trying to parse it out.

This woman is tall and lean.  Her face is oval-shaped, with blue eyes and thin, cracked and dry lips.  Her skin is a dark, dusty tan and she has spindly arms and legs.  A long scar runs along her abdomen, leaving a pink, pale line below her navel.  She has a burn mark on her upper thigh.

Blah blah blah.  Not a good description, but it works, you know?  So, when you're in character generation, you could easily do this:

[general]This woman is tall and lean.[/general] [face]Her face is oval-shaped, with [eyes]blue eyes[/eyes]and thin, cracked and dry lips.[/face]  [general]Her skin is a dark, dusty tan[/general] [arms OR legs]and she has spindly[/arms OR legs] [arms]arms[/arms] [arms AND legs] and [/arms AND legs] [legs]legs.[/legs] [torso]A long s car runs along hre abdomen, leaving a pink, pale line below her navel.[/torso] [waist]She has a burn mark on her upper thigh.[/waist]

Blah blah, etc.  I didn't really try to do a good job with this example or anything, and I'm not saying it's a good idea, but I just kind of wanted to toss it in there as food for thought.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

As a coder I would hate to  have to implement something like this.  Far too much ambiguity possible.  for example:

"His frame was lean and muscular."  
"It is obvious from looking at him that he spends a great deal of time outdoors."
"His face is hollow and sunken, mirroring the gaunt look of his body."

Writing a parser to seperate out sentences based on a database of key words, then figuring out with what is esentially fuzzy logic, how each sentence would be handled is at best diffucult.

As a deviant from the norm, I'll avoid arguing with you and ask you to further explain the flaw. Not to catch you slipping, persay, but rather to better understand your dislike for it. I don't see why it matters if the sentence does not just include facial features or not. Why the problem with ambiguity when that's what we're trying to accomplish anyway with masks?

I can understand the point about coding it. I can understand it might be hard. But, wouldn't it, at the player's end, allow masking AND allow easy descripting, as we enjoy now?

Plus, at the coder's end, defining the first capitol letter and the first period as the beginning and end of the first sentence and so forth should make it easy to parse the entire discription. The ability to recognize sentence structure already exists in game, if I remember right, since certian things end your output to screen at your last period.

[amoeba]

As a deviant from the norm, I'll avoid arguing with you and ask you to further explain the flaw. Not to catch you slipping, persay, but rather to better understand your dislike for it. I don't see why it matters if the sentence does not just include facial features or not. Why the problem with ambiguity when that's what we're trying to accomplish anyway with masks?

I can understand the point about coding it. I can understand it might be hard. But, wouldn't it, at the player's end, allow masking AND allow easy descripting, as we enjoy now?

Plus, at the coder's end, defining the first capitol letter and the first period as the beginning and end of the first sentence and so forth should make it easy to parse the entire discription. The ability to recognize sentence structure already exists in game, if I remember right, since certian things end your output to screen at your last period.

So am I the deviant, or are you?

Okay, the problem is in coding ambiguity into non ambiguous terms.

Some crappy examples, but they illustrate the point.
"His physique was one of cross between a half-giant and a halfling."
So what does this refer to? As humans it's obvious, the body or general.  A computer would have to parse it via keywords. in this case "physique".   So does this mean every time we hit "physique" we classify it as a body descriptor? A general descriptor?  

Another example:
His sunken eyes, hollow chest, and whip-thin legs gave him the physique of a cadaver on a crash diet."  
So, what is this? A face description, Legs, body(chest), or does the previosly defined keyword of physique denote it as a general descriptor?

Another Example:
"His eyes glowed like the fires of Suk-Krath.  
Yes a rule could be written to say only the first Capital letter is the started, until we hit a period, but the point here is that the parser would have to could for every possible boundry case.  The english language is rife with oddball exceptions.  The parser would grow in size and have to do many checks.

Ideally to do a modular desription, You would have to do something along the lines of what Zhaira mentioned and predefine each portion ahead of time.   Although I would use XML and simply the entry to the user.  The big problem I have with modular descriptions is that they look and feel modular. Plus you can have some really odd things happen. For instance I saw a person IG who only had a body description, no face, no hair. In this case wearing clothes would make them always masked.

[Tamarin]

I see what you're saying about descriptions ending up modular.  The thing is, I tend to write my descs in modules -anyway-, and then use connective phrases and sentences to link everything together.  I definitely agree that modules would be handy, but stupid looking, but I think there's a way to have the best of both worlds.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I see where you're at. I was not really concerning myself with other masking things, just facial features. The parse could be simple in terms of the list ... I mean, you'll not really need to mask the eyes, since they're almost always gonna be visible. Really, I was just thinking about facial stuff.

I also didn't think of words like Suk-Krath or the like.

So, I guess, NM.