Beware: Big Brother is Watching You!

[Morgenes]

A change will be going in tomorrow that could will drastically change the coded play of characters who live under the radar.  If you play a character who likes to do things unseen, you are going to need to play a bit smarter.

Effective tomorrow, watch will be a skill that everyone gets, but only a few  will be really good at.  You will be able to 'watch <person>' and then you will watch them so long as you can see them.  While watching someone you are more likely to notice when they do discreet activity, and if you are the target of that activity, you will apply a severe penalty to their success chance.

Even if you aren't watching someone, everyone in the room will have the chance to notice discreet activity (albeit a slim one).  There are several factors that are taken into account when determining if you notice things, including the level of success or failure of the discreet activity.

Note that if you succeed at your 'discreet' activity, there is no double jeopardy as far as the watch command goes with your victim, they will not have the chance to notice your success.  However, this does not apply to everyone else in the room.  Be aware though, that your success will impinge on their chances of seeing you.

There are a couple of ways to detect if someone is watching you.  If you're watching someone and they start watching you, you have a chance of noticing this.  If you assess or look at someone, and they are watching you, they get a watch check to see if they can be discreet, keeping you from noticing their gaze.

One of the more notable changes is to the assess command.  Before now there was never an echo with the assess command.  From here on out there will be a chance of noticing people 'glancing' at each other.  This is them using the assess command.  We have also added to 'assess -v' syntax, the ability to see if a character is armed or not.  You won't see specifically what they are wielding, but if they have a weapon in their hands, it will tell you.

You cannot watch a direction and a person, you must choose one.  Just like with watching a direction, you won't be able to scan while watching someone.  

You will also not be able to watch the person you are guarding.   However, if you watch the person who is going against the person you are guarding, you'll have a better chance at maybe stopping them, or at least specifically noting who it was.

One of the most powerful changes that watch brings is the ability to keep watch of people who might otherwise be unseen.  If you are watching someone who hides, you will have a chance to keep watching them if they succeed.  Also, if you through some means are able to notice something strange (say with the scan command), you can 'watch' them and if you succeed, will be able to see that person (and target them with other commands).

Other changes that are coming in with this:

You will now be able to peek at someone who is incapacited for any reason (even if you don't have the skill).

The steal skill will now take into account the difference between someone who is just 'asleep' and someone who is unconscious due to being knocked out or near dying.  How the item is equipped will be taken into account into your chance to be noticed, and so it will no longer be an automatic success even if they're unconscious.  If they're disabled for whatever reason, you will always be able to retrieve what you wanted (you just may be noticed by others in the room anyway).   Also, if you are just asleep and not unconscious and they fail their skill attempt. you will notice a faint tugging, meaning you should probably wake up and see what's going on.