True Names?

[evil_erdlu]

I don't know if true names hold some coded importance.. I don't care, too.. My tuluki merchant or Allanaki gemmer will always use their true names, my rogue whiran or d-elf ranger who's forced to speak to a lirathan will always make up a keyword.

[Majikal]

I've always RPed True names as having an importance, whether it be superstition or whatever. It's obvious true names have coded uses whether it be psionic/magickal and in a world as superstitious as Zalanthas with things like sorcerers and witches running around I don't see anything odd at all about guarding your characters birth name for fear of the repercussions of one of those nasty things maybe working some weirdness with it.

Funny enough I sort of guard my true name irl too, not because of a fear of real life voodoo.. but yeah. I got around a lot and had so many people involved in my circles that more often than not I didn't remember folks. My closest friends and the tightest circle knew me by a more personal name while I went by a nickname to everyone else, when I bumped into folks I'd know how they knew me depending on what they called me. I'm weird.

[X-D]

Funny enough I sort of guard my true name irl too, not because of a fear of real life voodoo.. but yeah. I got around a lot and had so many people involved in my circles that more often than not I didn't remember folks. My closest friends and the tightest circle knew me by a more personal name while I went by a nickname to everyone else, when I bumped into folks I'd know how they knew me depending on what they called me. I'm weird.

That makes two of us weird, I've done the same for more then twenty five years.
The number of people that know my full real name can be counted on fingers.
I even managed to get it changed on my SSI card. (having a middle name that is only a letter and a period causes untold entertainment when you are dealing with the cops)

[Dalmeth]

The existence of true names is not a secret, considering there is tidbits of them throughout the documentation. Like many other things in Zalanthas, you simply have to play to find out more. I would suggest playing in some of the tribal clans as a start.

You're not offering a solution to the problem as I see it, you're delineating it clearly.

The scattered tidbits, the selective areas where it is revealed, and the very concept that I need to play more to see something that is staring everyone else in the face is sloppy documentation.  And it is information abuse.   We all do it to some degree.  We all use information gained through play to flesh out our characters.  In there cases, it is not worth calling out people as wrong to correct it.

However, using any knowledge of true names in my characters gained from playing those clans or merely guessing that true names exist because of assumptions in the code, would be information abuse if I were playing an average Allanaki citizen.  Why?  Because there is no documentation detailing that knowledge's place in the world at large.  So it seems to come just from thin air.  That is why we have rules against information abuse, because a character can't really justify having that knowledge in a believable, reasoned fashion.  So things become unbelievable and unreasonable.  It would be rather awkward for me, as an Allanaki citizen all his life, to ask his best bud what his true name is, because that knowledge has no detailed place in the broader societies of the game.

I believe this lends to the awkwardness that ibusoe mentioned at the start of this thread.

We can never have complete documentation, but this concept is prevalent enough that the fix is very, very simple.




Aaaaand that's it.  I'm done with this subject.

[Yseulte]

You're not offering a solution to the problem as I see it, you're delineating it clearly.

There is no solution necessary for there is no problem with the existence of true names. Why fix what isn't broken.

[ibusoe]

As mentioned earlier

During my first character, I knew of 'no' coded benefits about hiding your true name, and yet I still did it. The reason ? Because true names are universally considered something 'special', and so my character adopted it. Due to that I am of strong believe that the concept of hiding true names is 'not' due to code abuse, but very much thematically correct. For the simple reason that I did it instinctively, when I knew 'nothing' of ... anything Arm related, what 'so' evar.

Yeah, this is what I'm talking about.  For me, I began hiding my characters unique-identifying-string when I realized that a lot of players were doing things like cutting and pasting names into text files, or cutting and pasting descriptions into text files, or cutting and pasting entire conversations into text files. 

I had a problem with this sort of players early on, and kept getting into trouble with them.  Part of my strategy for dealing with this sort of player was to make any kind of definition of who my character "actually is" as murky as possible.  I find that I'm better off just not role-playing with people who are seriously confused by ambiguous keywords, etc. 

At any rate, it's been strongly implied that some of the inner-circle of the top gamers use "true-names" for reasons that we're discouraged from discussing.

If that's the case, I think that names, "true-names" and keywords should be separated entirely.  The distinctions seem confusing enough for some players already without using the same character-based c++ string for all of them.

[Is Friday]

For me, I began hiding my characters unique-identifying-string when I realized that a lot of players were doing things like cutting and pasting names into text files, or cutting and pasting descriptions into text files, or cutting and pasting entire conversations into text files. 

As a player who does this in nearly every play session since I had the idea some time ago--I think that you're being a bit too paranoid. I once had a similar concern and e-mailed the staff about it--only to be told "you should have more faith in your fellow players". I'm fairly paranoid for a number of reasons, but I try to exercise the faith.

I copy/paste mdescs and item lists for good reason--I need to be able to know what my character is interacting with, and I just can't be fucked enough to separate the mdesc from the worn things on the fly. If all I'm basing my roleplay with Amos the blue eyed, muscular man is his eyes--what the fuck do I do if he's wearing sunslits, has his hood up and I can't see his eyes, and/or his form is otherwise ambiguous because of darkness? If I copy/paste your mdesc into a notepad file I have open it's so that I can include those things in my emotes when I interact with people, think, feel, and otherwise color the scene better.

It really, really helps when I want to do more than "nod faintly", provides easy conversation material, and otherwise enhances what could be a mediocre interaction.

[Lizzie]

Not only what IsFriday says, but the staff -asks- people to log certain events..and many MANY players auto-log them. No cutting and pasting needed, the entire hour's session, from login to logout, every LOOK you did on every PC, NPC, and object in the game, is captured in text files.

If you're intentionally hiding your character's name because you're worried about someone capturing it on a text file, then it sounds like you have some really serious issues that don't have much to do with the game at all. Copying/pasting events, snippets of gaming experiences, mdescs, sdescs..it's all part of mudding. Really - that's a bit over the top, having any kind of concern about it.

[Dalmeth]

There is no solution necessary for there is no problem with the existence of true names. Why fix what isn't broken.

If I didn't know better, I'd say you were attempting to divert my point.   It's changed since I started, so let me state it more clearly :

Currently, the average character starting in one of the standard starting location only knows about true names because the player knows how the code works, and they assume their character knows how the code works, it being a representation of the reality of the game world.  Without any clear documentation of its place in the societies of those starting locations, it will only remain a note in the back of the mind of characters played by players who know how the code works, and it will not become the cultural element that it probably should be.

[Dar]

There is no solution necessary for there is no problem with the existence of true names. Why fix what isn't broken.

Currently, the average character starting in one of the standard starting location only knows about true names because the player knows how the code works, and they assume their character knows how the code works, it being a representation of the reality of the game world.  

And this is where you're wrong completely and utterly. As was stated, people hid their true names 'without' knowing of their role in the code. Therefore your statement is wrong. No, people do 'not' hide their true names because they know of their role in code, they do so because it is thematically correct for them to do it.

[Jingo]

There is no solution necessary for there is no problem with the existence of true names. Why fix what isn't broken.

Currently, the average character starting in one of the standard starting location only knows about true names because the player knows how the code works, and they assume their character knows how the code works, it being a representation of the reality of the game world.  

And this is where you're wrong completely and utterly. As was stated, people hid their true names 'without' knowing of their role in the code. Therefore your statement is wrong. No, people do 'not' hide their true names because they know of their role in code, they do so because it is thematically correct for them to do it.

That was before this thread.

[Yseulte]

Currently, the average character starting in one of the standard starting location only knows about true names because the player knows how the code works, and they assume their character knows how the code works, it being a representation of the reality of the game world.  Without any clear documentation of its place in the societies of those starting locations, it will only remain a note in the back of the mind of characters played by players who know how the code works, and it will not become the cultural element that it probably should be.

What is meant to be available to players in terms of documentation on true names is already available. The cultural stigmas of true names and their code purpose, if not readily meant to be known by your character, should be learned IC.

[ibusoe]

As a player who does this in nearly every play session since I had the idea some time ago--I think that you're being a bit too paranoid. I once had a similar concern and e-mailed the staff about it--only to be told "you should have more faith in your fellow players". I'm fairly paranoid for a number of reasons, but I try to exercise the faith.

I copy/paste mdescs and item lists for good reason--I need to be able to know what my character is interacting with, and I just can't be fucked enough to separate the mdesc from the worn things on the fly. If all I'm basing my roleplay with Amos the blue eyed, muscular man is his eyes--what the fuck do I do if he's wearing sunslits, has his hood up and I can't see his eyes, and/or his form is otherwise ambiguous because of darkness? If I copy/paste your mdesc into a notepad file I have open it's so that I can include those things in my emotes when I interact with people, think, feel, and otherwise color the scene better.

It really, really helps when I want to do more than "nod faintly", provides easy conversation material, and otherwise enhances what could be a mediocre interaction.

No, you have a good point there, and that's good advice.  For what it's worth, I tend to have a lot of faith in fellow players who pass through a simple screening process.  You might question the need for such a process but if you spend much time with people who don't emote, or don't separate in-game from oog knowledge, or have similar problems it's not hard to recognize the difference between mature players and players who have not yet learned maturity. 

Also, I've had trouble with players who believe that there is only one correct way to play, and take it as their appointed duty to subtly (or overtly) grief people who don't rapidly fall into line with their pet paradigm. 

Anyways, you're welcome to app a character with me sometime, there's probably a lot that I could learn from RPing with you.

[Krath]

Your PC's TrueName has a purpose ICly. There it is answered

[ibusoe]

Oh yeah, but I'd like to do a little more to support my original point.

In many books of fiction (Read the wizard of earthsea series sometime).

You know, I did read this book about eighteen years ago.  It did not compare favorably with the Teen Age Mutant Ninja Turtles or the Pirates of Darkwater, other fiction which interested me at approximately the same time.  I think that the whole concept underlying the True Name thing bothered me because it was so hoakey.  I say that without meaning to undermine your taste in literature, and I'm happy that you got a lot of enjoyment out of the book.

At what point did "true name" creep into Game Documents?  Was this something that's been in there that I've been (accidentally) ignoring for the past five years or is this something that was added with the last few rounds of code changes?

Maybe we can try to figure out why the True Name thing bothers me so much?  After all, there's a serious possibility that True Names can become more important than they are in Arm 2 and in that case the mature thing to do would be to try to accept my fellow player's (and staff?) interest or insistence on their inclusion.

[Delstro]

Funny enough I sort of guard my true name irl too, not because of a fear of real life voodoo.. but yeah. I got around a lot and had so many people involved in my circles that more often than not I didn't remember folks. My closest friends and the tightest circle knew me by a more personal name while I went by a nickname to everyone else, when I bumped into folks I'd know how they knew me depending on what they called me. I'm weird.

That makes two of us weird, I've done the same for more then twenty five years.
The number of people that know my full real name can be counted on fingers.
I even managed to get it changed on my SSI card. (having a middle name that is only a letter and a period causes untold entertainment when you are dealing with the cops)

That makes three of us. I even pronounce my first name wrong to people I don't like so that they will say my name wrong and remind me I don't like them.

[X-D]

At what point did "true name" creep into Game Documents?  Was this something that's been in there that I've been (accidentally) ignoring for the past five years or is this something that was added with the last few rounds of code changes?

Been there as long as I can remember...which means, as long as the game has been running.

Also, I was just giving Earthsea as example of literature having the truename concept.

Though I admit, I like it as a basis for magick, simple=beauty in my book.

[Cutthroat]

"True name" is a phrase that's been in several magick documents for as long as I can remember reading about them when I started playing, and has been added to help contact recently. In the documentation there are references to the true names of characters, elements, spheres, and moods.

However, how we should treat that is sort of like how we should treat help_gather, which pretty much explains the basics of defiling and preserving.
Does every average Amos know everything about defiling and preserving? No.
Does every average Amos know everything about true names? No.
Is it possible some people do, or certain cultures IG will know more about them? Sure.
Is it possible to play with that knowledge in a way that is not abusive? Definitely.

Would a new character named Amos, who has no knowledge of true names, is mundane, and has no reason to hide his name, be considered twinky if his first command in-game is 'addkeyword Malik' and he goes around introducing himself as Malik, never even mentioning Amos ever? Possibly, but is that really a concern?

Should we try to change the current standing of true names? Perhaps when we have more information about the magick and psionics system in 2.Arm,  we can decide on that. Right now, however, they fit into the world, and a vast majority of the players use them responsibly, from what I can tell.

[Dalmeth]

What is meant to be available to players in terms of documentation on true names is already available.

The current tidbit about true names is a recent addition.  The fact is that the documentation expands over time because it is not complete.  What I'm suggesting is that the mention of true names in the contact help file at least be expanded to explain what a true name is.

I think that the average character should know at least the psionic nature of true names, since it is something that they deal with daily.