Contacting

[boog]

I was reading the helpfiles on contacting and was curious:

is it kosher to 'contact' someone you have never met before? what if you know their name? what about briefly seen?

I don't want to ruin any RP because of poor etiquette and lack of understanding. Thank you!

[Lizzie]

I've always roleplayed justifications, or lack thereof. I've built it into my characters' personalities and personal comfort levels with regards to the Way and the purpose of the interaction.

So for example, if my character has never met someone, and that person is in their head, but doesn't identify himself, then my character -might- be capable of responding by image. But probably wouldn't make too much of an effort, because ICly, it -should- be an effort, even if the code doesn't make it so.

If my character is looking for someone by name, but has no idea what that person looks like, she -might- make an occasional attempt but is not likely without at least -some- idea of who it is. Or at least, their race, and what part of the world they'd be in.

If my character is trying to find someone over the way they've seen, but don't know, they would concentrate on the visual and attempt to contact by focusing on that.

If my character has seen someone, has learned their name, but hasn't actually been intruduced, or spoken with this person, she would likely feel comfortable trying.

In ALL cases..my characters would normally identify themselves, IF they are wanting a response. I assume, that ICly, it's easier to way someone if you have *a* name (even if it isnt their real name - if it's a keyword), and some idea of what they look like. Even if the code doesn't require it, I assume this is so from an IC perspective.

[Thunkkin]

is it kosher to 'contact' someone you have never met before? what if you know their name? what about briefly seen?

Yes to all of the above.  If you approach it like calling someone on the phone whom you've never spoken to before, you should be fine.

Also, if you're just starting out ... your contact skill will be AWFUL.  Don't expect good results.  Eventually, it'll be like a psionic cell-phone but until then it's best to rest on beds or comfy couches, etc., while trying to use the Way.  Otherwise you'll pass out and wake up naked.

[brytta.leofa]

Most such etiquette isn't particular to the Way; you can treat psionic conversations much like face-to-face ones.  If you're contacting Lord Fancypants to apply for a job:
- identify yourself immediately,
- explain why you're contacting him, and
- ask if it's a good time.
> psi Lord Fancypants, begging pardon, my name is Amos. I heard tell you were wishful of an assistant-- when it's convenient, might I ask who I could speak to about it so's to not trouble your lordship further?

However, remember that your character doesn't have to have good etiquette.  (If he does, how did he learn it? Innate good sense? Experience dealing with the upper crust?)

I would say that it's impolite to contact someone and wait a long time before communicating.  People get nervous when someone's in their head and they don't know why.

[musashi]

I believe it's totally fine to contact whoever for whatever reason so long as you have an IC to be doing so.

I've had PC's who have on a whim just contacted "man" and struck up a conversation between strangers out of boredom and isolation

[boog]

Okay! I didn't want to randomly do it if it wasn't justifiable and have someone ooc me back and ask, "WTF IS YOUR PROBLEM DOOD?"

<3 thank youp.

[Gunnerblaster]

I've always considered it "rude", ICly and OOCly, to >contact cloaked.figure when you encounter such a PC in the same room with you - For the sole purpose of just knowing what they look like with the hood down.

Otherwise, there isn't much else to worry about.

[musashi]

I've always considered it "rude", ICly and OOCly, to >contact cloaked.figure when you encounter such a PC in the same room with you - For the sole purpose of just knowing what they look like with the hood down.

Otherwise, there isn't much else to worry about.

Yeah ... but rude IC is still IC, and thus, perfectly acceptable behavior for a player.
Train barrier. 

[Agent_137]

I've always considered it "rude", ICly and OOCly, to >contact cloaked.figure when you encounter such a PC in the same room with you - For the sole purpose of just knowing what they look like with the hood down.

Otherwise, there isn't much else to worry about.

Remember when you could do this from outside the room? From any distance?

Yea. It was like that for more than a decade. Quit your bitching, cause like musashi said, there's a skill for that. so I don't think it's rude OOCly.

but i like the idea of taking offense ICly. More power to you. I could definitely see it being kinda rude ICly if it it's done at a distance and as the first interaction.

[Old Kank]

I've always considered it "rude", ICly and OOCly, to >contact cloaked.figure when you encounter such a PC in the same room with you - For the sole purpose of just knowing what they look like with the hood down.

I don't think "rude" is strong enough language for people who do this.

Seeing an sdesc is a purely OOC convention.  If you look at someone with their hood up, you know they're tall and have black hair, you know they have grey eyes, chiseled muscles and a pointy chin, and that they're wearing a leather headband.  Wanting to know that they're ALSO described as "the tall, muscular man" so you can later pick them out of a log of a crowded tavern from two rooms away is purely an OOC desire.  RTFD and work with that.  I don't think contact was ever intended as a psionic scrying ability; the reason you're shown a true sdesc is to prevent mass confusion with the skill.

[brytta.leofa]

I don't think contact was ever intended as a psionic scrying ability; the reason you're shown a true sdesc is to prevent mass confusion with the skill.

I must respectfully disagree.  The playerbase complained about this (the ability to get an sdesc from "contact figure") to high heaven.  The staff modified the behavior, but did not remove the ability altogether.  They could have.  They didn't.  Moreover, have refused to declare this behavior out of bounds.

If you can see someone, you can contact him.  If you can contact him, you WILL get an idea of what he looks like.  That's how the code works.  That's how Zalanthas works.

[Gunnerblaster]

It's my own opinion so, as curtly as possible, everyone - Get off my back.

Edited to add:
And I meant I thought it was rude to '>contact figure' the moment you or they entered the same room, before interaction of any sort has begun. Again, my own opinion. No one has to even listen so get off my balls. Everyone's so quick to go fucking apeshit crazy, nowadays.

[Mr.B]

Yep. I agree with Gunnerblaster there. It's been mentioned before that just because the code lets you do it, doesn't mean it's always cool to do so. I remember there was a thread on the GDB where people were throwing in the opinion that backstabbing a single target multiple times was cool, since there were no coded barriers to it. Much later after that, I did exactly that with a character and the staff curtly asked me not to do that. Why? Because they held me to a higher standard. Contacting a cloaked figure in the same room with you is doable, but I think it's pretty uncool when it's for the express purpose of looking at their sdesc.

I think it would be great if some of the old code was plugged in to the current incarnation of contacting hooded figures. Before, you would get "you contact such-and-such cloaked, hooded figure", and receive their sdesc in subsequent communication through the way, if I remember correctly. I think I'd personally like it that way.

Oh, and for the record, I can say that I've never, ever done the whole contact figure; break thing because I think it's lame as hell.
That's my 2 'sid, take it as you will.

[Lithium]

I've always considered it "rude", ICly and OOCly, to >contact cloaked.figure when you encounter such a PC in the same room with you - For the sole purpose of just knowing what they look like with the hood down.

Otherwise, there isn't much else to worry about.

Remember when you could do this from outside the room? From any distance?

You still can.

[musashi]

No. You can't. Now typing contact figure is only good for when you're in the same room as they are.

[BlackMagic0]

No. You can't. Now typing contact figure is only good for when you're in the same room as they are.

Yup! They fixed it!

[Spoon]

I'm with Gunnerblaster & co on this one, I don't like it (whether it's allowed or not). If it is okay, I'd like the contact helpfile to be changed reflect that it can be used to acquire the likeness of a person. I don't think the staff kept the ability to contact a hooded figure in the same room as you so that you could get their sdesc.

[X-D]

Funny, I think they did.

In the past it was asked if it was alright to contact somebody you could not even see for sdesc and the staff response was "Yup."

Not that I agree mind you, but still.

[Spoon]

Seems out of place to me in the context of everything else... If it is okay to do, I find it odd that any character can just go "Hmm, I can't see that person's face clearly because of their hood. No problem, I'll use my psi powers to identify their most notable features!"

[musashi]

Well, it was suggested before that contact could be changed so that when you contact someone you just get a message that says: You contact a foreign presence. And you would not get their sdesc until you psi'd them something, thus givng them your sdesc as well.

But the idea was not taken up by staff. I believe that staff's offical stance on this been, and remains to be, that it's alright to contact someone for the sake of getting their sdesc.

But they did fix it so that unless you were in the same room as them, trying to contact a hooded figure would not work. So the raiders of the world caught a lucky break there.

So despite what your personal opinions on the subject might be, it isn't considered bad form by the people that matter (read: staff) for a character to make psionic contact with another character to glean a better likeness of them.

[AmandaGreathouse]

Seems out of place to me in the context of everything else... If it is okay to do, I find it odd that any character can just go "Hmm, I can't see that person's face clearly because of their hood. No problem, I'll use my psi powers to identify their most notable features!"

Except a HOOD doesn't cover your face. It covers your hair.

And being as you can only contact someone hooded who's in the same room with you and it allows you to see that, well, that seems to say that you can... see who you're seeing already.

Makes a lot of sense to me.

[Thunkkin]

The problem is that the code can't handle all the varieties of hoods in existence.  Some hoods do just cover the top of your head, revealing your features clearly.  Other hoods are voluminous and cover the face in shadow and obscurity.  Consider the hooded figure of Aragorn in the Prancing Pony ... I don't think the hobbits were noting his eye color.  I suspect this is just one of those things that no matter what, a chunk of the player-base won't like the solution.

[musashi]

Forget hoods ... some people in game dress like this:



So what color are his eyes? How about his hair? Wait ... is it even a he?

When people are wearing masks, helms, facewraps, hoods on top of that, with maybe a veil and scarf thrown on top for good measure, you are not going to be able to discern any of their features beyond their basic height and build. And the build is a big maybe depending on how billowy and long their cloak is and if they have it buttoned up to hide all but the vauge outline of their body at the shoulders.

The game's code, sadly, isn't written to take into consideration the entire outfit when deciding what gets concealed and what doesn't. So rather than go on about what their clothing would or would not hide, lets stick to talking about the way, and what psionic contact should or shouldn't reveal.

[Lithium]

No. You can't. Now typing contact figure is only good for when you're in the same room as they are.

You're mistaken. I was riding with my hood up 3 rooms away from someone who I'd never seen before last night and they somehow contacted me...explain.

[X-D]

Just because you have never seen them before does not mean that is true the other way around.

Then there are common keywords.

Race coming first, then gender.

elf
elven
breed
half
dwarf
dwarven
male
man
woman
female

If your riding we can rule out elf and such.

Race is usually pretty easy to figure out.

So, usually you only need to try a couple keywords.

[Lizzie]

No. You can't. Now typing contact figure is only good for when you're in the same room as they are.

You're mistaken. I was riding with my hood up 3 rooms away from someone who I'd never seen before last night and they somehow contacted me...explain.

Anyone can attempt to contact any -single- keyword, such as "man" or "muscled" or "eyed" or "haired" and end up with the wrong person. It could easily be someone who's pal mentioned she was looking for the green-eyed man yesterday, and he wore a brown dustcloak, and was tall. And you, wearing your brown dustcloak, being taller than Amos, walked by. So Amos figured maybe that was you. And he typed "contact tall" and there you were.

[Bluefae]

     Before I ever knew there was a controversy about how and when it was appropriate to Contact others (ah, the "blushing ingénue" days  ), I always thought of first-time, same-room psi-ing as though my character were deliberately concentrating on the object of her curiosity.  As in, it wasn't that she could distinctly see the features of the person (assuming the previously-cited voluminous hood, et al.), but rather was reaching out with her mind via line-of-sight and connecting with another sentient.
    Once "inside", at least on a surface level, she had some sense of what the other's likeness would be.  I'm not certain this is in line with what the Staff has promulgated, but it seems to be.  I'll readily admit this makes more sense with some sdescs vice others.  

[Gunnerblaster]

You know what, after reading Bluefae's post - That does make a good IC excuse why you would try touching minds with someone you just met. It just bugs me, OOCly, how they get your exact sdesc - Even if you are wearing a hood and/or facewrap. It just goes to reinforce how awesome it would be if someone contacted 'dark.cloaked.figure' and actually managed to get 'the image of the dark, ebony-cloaked figure' instead of their sdesc.

And even if you're doing it for a completely different reason, if that other PC could happen to be hostile towards you - You're accepting the handicap of stunning yourself and also putting yourself into a 3-5 second 'lag' in order to try and peer into their 'mind's eye'.

Zalanthians are, after all, telepaths - To some degree.

[brytta.leofa]

What I totally wouldn't feel comfortable doing is matching a person using ONLY the sdesc, however it's acquired.  I need more than an sdesc to be sure that I've caught the right pulchritudinous, coffee-maned lass.

[Spoon]

Seems out of place to me in the context of everything else... If it is okay to do, I find it odd that any character can just go "Hmm, I can't see that person's face clearly because of their hood. No problem, I'll use my psi powers to identify their most notable features!"

Except a HOOD doesn't cover your face. It covers your hair.

And being as you can only contact someone hooded who's in the same room with you and it allows you to see that, well, that seems to say that you can... see who you're seeing already.

Makes a lot of sense to me.

You've inferred than I believe hoods should entirely conceal someone's identity which is not the case .  It makes far more sense that you should get the sdesc from using look or assess, I find that using contact to divulge this is a little absurd when you can just look at them.

[AmandaGreathouse]

Yes and no. I think it's good that hoods (and etc.) hide your sdesc. Because from 2-3 leagues away, people 'won't' be able to see what you look like... and to my knowledge, they also won't be able to 'contact figure' and get it. But if they're in the same room, with a LOOK at you, they ought to be able to divine your sdesc, and so can see it via contact.

I really didn't mean that to come off as snarky as it did in retrospect.

[spicemustflow]

edit: shit, bluefae already said it.

[Agent_137]

also, again, if you don't want your sdesc available to people who contact figure or contact man then there is a very IC way to deal with it:
http://www.armageddon.org/cgi-bin/help_index/show_help?barrier

it's nobody's fault but your own if you don't use it intelligently

[Rogerthat]

Love how the Helper just like. Made you all Shush. Was epic in my eyes.

[Spoon]

I've had PC's who have on a whim just contacted "man" and struck up a conversation between strangers out of boredom and isolation

I missed this first time over. Is there any kind of IC explanation for this or can people simply 'surf' the way?

[Nyr]

also, again, if you don't want your sdesc available to people who contact figure or contact man then there is a very IC way to deal with it:
http://www.armageddon.org/cgi-bin/help_index/show_help?barrier

it's nobody's fault but your own if you don't use it intelligently

Indeed.  Use barrier.

However:

spamming contact figure/contact cloaked/contact etc. when you enter a room full of cloaked people JUST to see their sdescs might be considered abusive by staff.

[X-D]

It should only be seen as abusive by staff if there was some other recourse coded IG.

Which there is not.

Since I see now days 50% or greater PCs that have sdesc words that do NOT match a single word in mdesc.

And as has been stated MANY times in the past, a hood only shadows the face, if my PC is 3 feet away I should be able to pick up just about everything it would show with the hood down. But the only coded method we have to do that is with contact.

So till there is a study skill or other reasonable method then contact is what I WILL use.

And to be honest, if staff finds that abusive then put in a realistic skill to cover it. Put Mdesc masks back in  and make that be the sdesc shown if somebody contacts you.

This subject comes up many times over the years, but nothing ever happens to fix them. If anything the trend is to go the other way, with Highlords and overlords in the past stating that everything is working properly and it was not twinky or abusive to get sdescs with contact.

BTW, make rules on these things, "staffers might" No no no...that is unfair to everybody in so many ways.

edit
Meh, decided this part would be in another thread.

[Nyr]

spamming contact figure/contact cloaked/contact etc. when you enter a room full of cloaked people JUST to see their sdescs might be considered abusive by staff.

Enlarged for emphasis--all other legitimate cases and arguments aside, we can definitely tell when someone is doing this.

[Myrdryn]

It's all about intent.  While the way is a powerful tool, for 'normal' people (non-mindbenders), contact isn't intended to function as an information gathering tool.

[AmandaGreathouse]

It should only be seen as abusive by staff if there was some other recourse coded IG.

Which there is not.

Since I see now days 50% or greater PCs that have sdesc words that do NOT match a single word in mdesc.

And as has been stated MANY times in the past, a hood only shadows the face, if my PC is 3 feet away I should be able to pick up just about everything it would show with the hood down. But the only coded method we have to do that is with contact.

So till there is a study skill or other reasonable method then contact is what I WILL use.

And to be honest, if staff finds that abusive then put in a realistic skill to cover it. Put Mdesc masks back in  and make that be the sdesc shown if somebody contacts you.

This subject comes up many times over the years, but nothing ever happens to fix them. If anything the trend is to go the other way, with Highlords and overlords in the past stating that everything is working properly and it was not twinky or abusive to get sdescs with contact.

BTW, make rules on these things, "staffers might" No no no...that is unfair to everybody in so many ways.

edit
Meh, decided this part would be in another thread.

Yeah, I was under the impression that it was alright to do that.

From this:
Quote from Halaster:

I'd agree with this except the situation where... you're in a room with a guy in a white veil. He's standing RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU, but you have no idea any of his keywords, so.. you go with contact white. That'd be ok, since you're staring at the guy, heh.

Another quote from Halaster:

nope, if we thought you shouldn't do it, we wouldn't let you do it via code. It's not twinky.

And one from Morgenes:

A code change is going in that makes it so that you can only use someone's name, keywords and REAL short description when contacting them from any room other than your current room.  Keywords granted from temporary short descriptions (such as from hoods/masks/face-wraps, whatever) will not be usable.

Note that this does not change the way contact works if you are in the same room with someone.  You will be able to use hooded/figure etc... to contact them if they're in the same room.

We (we being the staff of Armageddon) feel this brings the code into line with our vision of how contact targeting should work and at what level it can be used to determine who someone really is.

You know... because if they're in the room with you, you ought to be able to theoretically glean their sdesc from a close look at them, but if they're too far away, you obviously wouldn't be able to tell it by LOOKing at them. As the change in code reflects. Right?

Adding this last part specifically to address your last post, Nyr, if you don't mind me asking: Where's the fine line between doing that and not, if you're LOOKing at all the people you're doing it to? [I just use a LOOK, myself, but I'm inclined to ask out of sheer curiosity.]

[Myrdryn]

I'd like to note to the above post that when this change was made, when contacting a hooded figure, the message someone would receive was something like: 'You contact the hooded figure'.  So it wasn't until this change that it was possible to abuse contact like this.

[brytta.leofa]

I'd like to note to the above post that when this change was made, when contacting a hooded figure, the message someone would receive was something like: 'You contact the hooded figure'.  So it wasn't until this change that it was possible to abuse contact like this.

Dude, are you sure this is accurate?

If you couldn't get someone's sdesc from contacting a hooded figure, why change the code so people couldn't (in general) contact hooded figures?  I don't think anybody was complaining about getting too much Way-spam.

[Nyr]

Yeah, I was under the impression that it was alright to do that.

It is.  Not saying it isn't.

From this:
Quote from Halaster:

I'd agree with this except the situation where... you're in a room with a guy in a white veil. He's standing RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU, but you have no idea any of his keywords, so.. you go with contact white. That'd be ok, since you're staring at the guy, heh.

For some clarity here, this is a slightly different situation than spamming up contact on every cloaked figure in the room with you.  Standing in front of a guy with a white veil.  You contact the guy with the white veil.  You get his sdesc.  At the time this was written, you could do this from anywhere in the world.  Due to the code changes Morgenes made, you can now ONLY reproduce the specific situation quoted by Halaster.

Another quote from Halaster:

nope, if we thought you shouldn't do it, we wouldn't let you do it via code. It's not twinky.

For clarity on this one, the question was this:

Is it twinky to type contact blur, contact shadow?

The code has been changed since then.  At the time, it was possible to contact shadow/contact blur from anywhere in the world (much like any other temporary sdesc change provided by an object like a hood or mask).  You can now only do this from the same room.  The same answer from Halaster then applies now, which works out great.

Adding this last part specifically to address your last post, Nyr, if you don't mind me asking: Where's the fine line between doing that and not, if you're LOOKing at all the people you're doing it to? [I just use a LOOK, myself, but I'm inclined to ask out of sheer curiosity.]

The fine line is the mystery meat.

Spamming contact/cease on all cloaked targets in a room because you have an itch to know the sdescs of everyone in the room:  abusive, but really, probably more annoying than abusive because we can tell why you're doing it (we will ask you to stop doing it though)
Spamming contact/cease on any new cloaked targets than enter a room because you have an itch to know the sdesc:  abusive, but really, probably more annoying than abusing because we can tell why you're doing it (we will ask you to stop doing it though)
spamming steal on someone that is shouting "Thief!":  abusive (unrealistic)
spamming peek on someone because your peek skill sucks:  more annoying than abusive (will probably get a sternly worded letter from the UN though)

Spamming anything is usually unrealistic, we generally prefer people not do that.

[AmandaGreathouse]

Wouldn't do it myself, you know, but it's always good to ask. Hope it didn't come off as a dick move due to the wording. Thanks for the examples, though. I was more asking where did contacting, say, someone in a similar cloak to a friend that you're rping as being across the bar and can't see their face so you contact figure cross the line to being considered spamming (especially if, say, you know several bynners and 5 come into the bar, so you contact a few of them 1.figure 2.figure etc to figure out which is which and so forth for targetting, etc). Probably not the same as doing it to each one systematically as a habit though. Anyhow, thanks for the answer.

[Nyr]

That sounds like a great way to eliminate the confusion in that situation.

[Myrdryn]

I'd like to note to the above post that when this change was made, when contacting a hooded figure, the message someone would receive was something like: 'You contact the hooded figure'.  So it wasn't until this change that it was possible to abuse contact like this.

Dude, are you sure this is accurate?

If you couldn't get someone's sdesc from contacting a hooded figure, why change the code so people couldn't (in general) contact hooded figures?  I don't think anybody was complaining about getting too much Way-spam.

The change was made to prevent using contact to discover the identity of a player using a short description concealing device.  For example, if someone had just been robbed by a person wearing a unique mask, it would be possible to contact that person using the keywords of that unique mask.  This wouldn't make much sense.

Conversely, if I contacted my boss, Lord Amos Oash, to tell him that I'd just been robbed, and when I contact him and I get "You contact the figure in an insane laughing clown mask", the same mask that they guy that just robbed me is wearing, suddenly I'm thinking, Hey, this guy just robbed me.  So this was changed also to not give additional information.

To accommodate proximity, when trying to contact people that one might not know that were in the same room wearing sdesc hiding devices, this ability was kept.

My point is the intent wasn't to allow people to gain new information about people using the way, the intention was exactly the opposite.

[X-D]

I still think masks at least should give the mask sdesc even over the way.

The fine line is the mystery meat.

Spamming contact/cease on all cloaked targets in a room because you have an itch to know the sdescs of everyone in the room:  abusive, but really, probably more annoying than abusive because we can tell why you're doing it (we will ask you to stop doing it though)
Spamming contact/cease on any new cloaked targets than enter a room because you have an itch to know the sdesc:  abusive, but really, probably more annoying than abusing because we can tell why you're doing it (we will ask you to stop doing it though)

One problem is that "spamming" Is subjective. If I contact and cease 1 time on 3 PCs, is that spamming? I don't think so.

If my PC is hid or invis and there are 5 hooded PCs in the room which my PC has had time to study, and I then contact/cease on them all is that spamming? Again, I do not think so.

If I get my PC up in somebodies face via emotes and such and then use contact to get the sdesc is that abusive...no, it is not. Because again, we have no other recourse.

Study command/skill and higher barrier caps FTW.
And tighter rules on char creation. Your sdesc and mdesc should share the same words and for the same reasons, No synonyms.

Code Select Expand

Mdesc: This man has black hair and purple eyes.

Sdesc: The onyx tressed violet-orbed male stands here.

Lame, and that is the main reason I use contact...nearly 50% of the PCs I see IG are like that.

[Thunkkin]

If hoods actually hide so little that it's valid to contact someone with a hood in order to learn their s-desc ... why not just have the s-desc be shown along with the mdesc when you look at a hooded person?

After all, since the staff have decided that there is no anonymity in the game, why not just make this information easily available instead of requiring us to use a gimmick?  If looking SHOULD reveal the information contained in the s-desc, why doesn't it?  Making me use contact to acquire information that I will RP as being gained from looking at someone is [self-edited].

Example:

The shadowy cloaked figure has arrived from the east.

> l figure

You look at a shadowy cloaked figure.
The dwarf woman with a giant rack
This small female person is busty and hairless.  She has two eyes, two arms, two legs, two feet, and two hands.  She has a big scar on her left nostril.

[Lizzie]

Thunnnnnkin ponders:

If looking SHOULD reveal the information contained in the s-desc, why doesn't it?

[Huge rant..huge vent. 100% Agreement, plus a bunch of related stuff.]

[/huge rant-vent-100% agreement-related stuff]

[Nyr]

I'm sorry.  I don't understand what it is that people are looking for in this part of the thread.

Posting that staff members might take issue with a subjective, contextual situation results in a call for solid rules.
On the other hand, posting general situations that might prompt a staff email about specific player activity results in several hypothetical situations that (probably) wouldn't fall under those guidelines.

Can't there be some middle ground?  And is it really so bad to get an e-mail from staff asking why you're doing what you're doing?  The only reason I'm chiming in on this thread is to clarify that this is a situation that can't be easily resolved in a quick rule posting, since a player asked via e-mail about this sort of thing.  With the codebase the way it currently is, there is no way to please every single person.  Even if it were changed, people would still be pissed off.  I swear--if we had a magick-only Arm MUD clone and added a spell that did nothing but make people fart rainbows, we'd have half of the GDB playerbase clamoring for its removal on the basis that it was too whimsical and nutty, a quarter claiming that it had a detrimental effect on the game's economy, an eighth pointing out how some people do nothing but spamcast this spell up to mon so that they could abuse it, and the remaining minority taking issue with the fact that we used a Zalanthan word to substitute for "indigo."

More than half of the time that staff members view a player doing something out of the ordinary, communication with the player results in contextual information that we wouldn't have had otherwise.  It's not like an instance of you doing this once will get you banned for life.  Let's keep everything in perspective.

[Rogerthat]

Edited to take out what I previously said:
Uh, no way to delete anything so don't mind me, sigh. sorry.

[X-D]

The problem is not so much staff side Nyr.

More player side, but it is a problem player side because staff does not have a good set of rules on the matter.

Which leaves the players up in the air and in contention.


For instance.

I once shadowed a PC about for a while, I looked at the PC several times and tried to pick a keyword out of the mdesc, and was unable because the player of said PC used obscure words in his sdesc and those words were not even a synonym of any on the mdesc, instead the mdesc describes one of the obscure words in the sdesc. Lame IMO, but while still nicely out of sight I contact said PC. Who then OOCs a complaint on sdesc fishing with the way. Also lame IMO.

Now, I think that the mdesc sdesc were staff side failings. But more importantly, since there is nothing clear on the matter from staff rulings, people, get to decide one way or another themselves..

Then, one staffer says it is fine, another says well, it is not really fine but not really bad, then another says that is what it is meant for and another says it depends on the situation. Then the players check the docs and find there is NO ruling on the matter in print at all.

And if they are players like me, if it is not in the main docs I only consider it that staffers opinion not a rule, and unless that staffer is an overlord...well, I will pretty much ignore the opinion.

And the GDB is not posted docs...hell, many players don't even read it, I did not for several years.

Understand what I am getting at here?

[Dar]

My personal opinion is that I dislike sdesc sniffing via psi. Barrier is easily "easily" breached in many many cases. So whenever I play identity conscious people (a le RF and criminals), if a person psi sniffs me, the chances of my character not killing him decrease instantly. If they mask the psi sniff with a bit of a mention via the way. I'm just fine with it, my character assumes that the person contacted mine to relay the sentence. But when it's an obvious psi sniff, the respect for their life just ... plummets. Any possible arrangements that "could've" been achieved dont, any kind of trust that could've been built, does not.

So yeah, maybe it's legal to do it, maybe it's not. But it's a decision each person has to make.

[Nyr]

I can see how that would be confusing. I see what you mean.

I don't see an easy solution.

[X-D]

Well, we are both in the same boat on that point then.

Though I really think that once barrier is maxed it should be VERY hard for a non-psi PC to break it.

As it sits max contact breaks max barrier 50% of the time, and every player knows it. So you know that 2-4 tries will get you past the barrier. If maxed contact only broke maxed barrier 10% of the time you could not do so all casual like, IE, spamming to get the sdescs of the 5 hooded PCs in the room.

OR make it so that breaking a barrier with contact cost a LOT more stun.

Then put in a rule on char gen that your sdesc needs to match your mdesc with at least 50% of the words and no synonyms.

That would lower the need to psi sniff sdescs.

[Nahara]

...parts of your post are inaccurate, X-D.

[Lizzie]

Easy way to address (not a solution - nothing is foolproof but anything is better than the status quo):

Better enforce the docs, and add to them. I did a search of the help files and the regular docs, and couldn't find -any- indication that the sdesc had to even be remotely related to the mdesc. That should be changed. It should be an actual rule, that the sdesc, MUST reflect the mdesc. And, the mdesc, MUST contain within it a description of the sdesc (if not the exact words, which I personally feel could be optional as long as the descriptions are clearly written)

However, I -did- find this:

http://www.armageddon.org/intro/intro.html#sdesc

And right at the very beginning of this section, isolated from the rest of this section:

Creating a Short Description:
Keep in mind is that your short description should contain the most significant features of your character's appearance.

This is -often- completely disregarded by players, and by extension, the staff. Since the players cannot enter the game with those sdescs, unless the staff has approved them. And clearly, the staff is disregarding the "should" and assuming it means "doesn't have to." The "should" should be changed to a "must" and be enforced across the board for newly generated PCs. Obviously with tdesc, there might be new features on a character that have replaced the original as being significant. However people should -start- with whatever is most significant, in their sdesc. There should be no exceptions. The tall dark man should NOT be allowed to show up out of the hall of kings with a missing arm, or an extra leg, or womanly curves, or green skin. Conversely, the womanly-curved man MUST have those curves described as somehow feminine, in his mdesc. And the green-skinned elf MUST present in his mdesc some description of green skin (whether green, or emerald, or reminiscent of the leaves on a citron tree in full spring splendour or whatever else).

This causes a HUGE amount of contention, and way-sniffing. If the sdesc and the mdesc correlate to each other, AND the sdesc complies with the docs, AND the staff enforces both, then you will reduce the amount of griping from both sides of this issue: the people who are being way-sniffed won't get way-sniffed as often, and the people don't the sniffing won't have to sniff as often.

[Rogerthat]

Lets see this in ARM 2, or if that is not coming out anytime soon, arm 1.. Please?

Also should have some type of fix in arm one IMO.
Just saying. 

[AmandaGreathouse]

A bunch of stuff I couldn't agree with more.

Sounds like a good way to help the situation, and one I'd be all for. To use an example, I know a lot of people like to use thesaurus-requiring words for their sdescs, but with multiple keyword contact, it's really unnecessary. Good rule of thumb for an sdesc, I think: How you would be described in 5 words or less.

Examples of hilarious keywords that make you think 'How would I ever, EVER use this to describe this person as an obvious trait of what they physically look like?': blousy, zaftig, poised, japuar-breasted, sheened, august, atramentous, badious, razor, willowy (like a willow? That's as zalanthan as a cupid's bow mouth), urbane, and more.

Do you really think that those sound like word choices that would at ALL be used? I mean, if we're treating SDESC as though it's a completely IC thing rather than an OOC way of targetting your pc for coded interaction, shouldn't we be using sdescs that make IC sense?

[X-D]

Really Nahara, which parts?

How weak barrier is compared to contact?

If so, your right, it is actually much easier then I stated, but 50% was a good number.

[Synthesis]

Once you have barrier at (master), it is pretty hard for a non-psi to break it.

I have contact at (master), and I've sat directly across from people trying to break their barrier and was unable to do it after 10+ attempts.

I'd speculate that your wisdom stat gives a significant bonus to psionics, so that if you're a dwarf with poor wisdom, you might be (master) at barrier but still suck at it, because the elf with very good wisdom who has contact at (master) will have a significant stat-based bonus that will overcome it.

I think that's fair, personally (if it's even the case).

[X-D]

You can flip a coin 10 times and have all heads.

[Nahara]

The part that every player knows it. 

[Synthesis]

You can flip a coin 10 times and have all heads.

I really don't need a lecture on probability and inference.

The anecdote is a rhetorical device intended to convey a main idea concisely, when full presentation of the available data would be unwieldy or impossible (or against the rules, in this case).

[Armaddict]

Wisdom has a very LARGE part to do with psionics if they've remained the same, but I won't go into detail about just as to how.

[X-D]

Oh, like you never do it.

And sure it does, hell it has been posted before.

But even all thinks being relatively equal, barrier is still too easy to break.

And the last tweak to it only made it easier.

[Majikal]

barrier is still too easy to break.

This is my only beef with contact, fixing this would solve sdesc sniffing and many other issues.

[Armaddict]

It's not easy to break if one practices it with the tenacity that they do contact.  Which is pretty much a must for anyone who -doesn't want people in their head-.

[Majikal]

It's not easy to break if one practices it with the tenacity that they do contact.  Which is pretty much a must for anyone who -doesn't want people in their head-.

You're wrong. Sorry.

[Old Kank]

I'm not trying to troll or anything, but why do people need to fish for sdescs?  If it's a targeting issue, the 'key' command will solve your problems in most cases.

My character doesn't like having people in his head, but his stun points are so low that keeping up a barrier puts him at an extreme risk of passing out.  Why do I have to risk the IC consequences of my character passing out to prevent your character from contacting mine to obtain an OOC short-hand reference for my character?

[Synthesis]

Maintaining a barrier is a negligible nuisance for anyone who's good at it.

And no, they aren't easy to break...when you're good at it.

(Unless Majikal and X-D are referring to a specific circumstance that causes it to go down...in which case if you're -really- good, you can even put it back up afterward.)

[Majikal]

Maintaining a barrier is a negligible nuisance for anyone who's good at it.

True.

And no, they aren't easy to break...when you're good at it.

False.

[Cutthroat]

I suggest those that believe barrier is easy to break consider whether their PC's barrier was at master level when they had bad experiences with barrier and throw out their experiences with barrier before we could see rough skill levels, because gauging barrier's ability is pretty difficult otherwise. We could go for days saying "barrier is easy to break", "barrier is hard to break", "no, it's easy!" etc. but we should accept that there are a variety of factors that affect barrier's ability to be broken, and that we should look at barrier at its best.

I think all players' barrier experiences are invalid unless they were very recent (after the skill level addition).

[Geryon]

I'm not trying to troll or anything, but why do people need to fish for sdescs?  If it's a targeting issue, the 'key' command will solve your problems in most cases.

This is what I find myself continuously thinking as I read through this thread.

[Rogerthat]

I want that SDESC so i can see if I know that person, cause i remember better by SDESC not MDESC. Thats why for me anyways.

[X-D]

I'm really failing to see how the key command is supposed to solve anything.

three short PCs in dark hooded cloaks stand here.

You don't know any of the sdescs and the mdescs don;t share any keywords with the sdesc...well, maybe they do, but they are 10-20 line mdescs....have fun.

[Majikal]

Definitely ran into this problem as well.

Twice this week I've held a conversation with someone IG for 20+ minutes, all the while I'm disecting their mdesc and playing the keyword game. Okay, he's skinny with long black hair.. skinny doesn't work, lithe, slender, wiry, scrawny, narrow, damnit.. okay... fuck it.

>contact dude-sitting-right-across-from-me
You contact the rawboned, atramental-haired man with the Way.

You send a telepathic message to the rawboned, atramental-haired man with the Way.
     "You sneaky sdesc having sonva bitch.."

This is definitely not as farfetched as I made it out to be. Lots of folks make their sdesc not sync up with their mdesc, most do it unintentionally (I think). So in these cases, I sniff the shit out of some sdesc's.

[Fathi]

if a person psi sniffs me, the chances of my character not killing him decrease instantly. If they mask the psi sniff with a bit of a mention via the way. I'm just fine with it, my character assumes that the person contacted mine to relay the sentence. But when it's an obvious psi sniff, the respect for their life just ... plummets. Any possible arrangements that "could've" been achieved dont, any kind of trust that could've been built, does not.

This is a pretty dumb, negative-nancy way of looking at things.

Unless you're playing a mindbender, how do you know who contacted you? How do you know what's an "obvious psi sniff?"

[Agent_137]

if a person psi sniffs me, the chances of my character not killing him decrease instantly. If they mask the psi sniff with a bit of a mention via the way. I'm just fine with it, my character assumes that the person contacted mine to relay the sentence. But when it's an obvious psi sniff, the respect for their life just ... plummets. Any possible arrangements that "could've" been achieved dont, any kind of trust that could've been built, does not.

I assume you mean all that ICly, because it's possible ICly to reach out and touch the mind of someone nearby and get a vague picture their person. So if one is hooded and barriered and someone breaks through all that to his face, the character should be mad, not the player. The character should assume it's the person nearby and that it's not just a coincidence. Keep it IC.

[brytta.leofa]

If you're trying to conceal your identity (raiding whilst wrapped in swaddling cloths, say), I guess it's reasonable to be offended if you think your victim has just contacted you.  Of course you can't TELL who the contacter was unless he sends something, but...

If you gain a certain amount of identifying information from the Way, the consequences cut both ways.  But it should be an in-character offense, not an OOC one.

[Dar]

if a person psi sniffs me, the chances of my character not killing him decrease instantly. If they mask the psi sniff with a bit of a mention via the way. I'm just fine with it, my character assumes that the person contacted mine to relay the sentence. But when it's an obvious psi sniff, the respect for their life just ... plummets. Any possible arrangements that "could've" been achieved dont, any kind of trust that could've been built, does not.

I assume you mean all that ICly, because it's possible ICly to reach out and touch the mind of someone nearby and get a vague picture their person. So if one is hooded and barriered and someone breaks through all that to his face, the character should be mad, not the player. The character should assume it's the person nearby and that it's not just a coincidence. Keep it IC.

That's why I said "identity conscious people" like RF or criminals?

And to reply to Fathi, most of the time it's obvious, it just is. Sure it's not a 100% certainty, but Zalanthas isnt much for criminal law and assumed innocence.

[Twilight]

• I've seen non-psi's that I couldn't contact, at all, ever, with a character that had maxed, or near maxed contact.  I have had people I could vary rarely contact, while they where sitting in the same room even.  Barrier is fine, it just might not be fine for your character.
• I don't see why one would usually bother to psi sniff.  Stop writing down people's sdesc and use your memory...you may find that you have far less use for sdesc that you might otherwise believe if you constantly forget people's.
• I really don't get the deal with raiders and such who then want to go live in polite society or civilization.  Maybe my vision of a post-apocalyptic wasteland is different than yours, but if you are an outlaw, 99% of the time you should live like one (unless you are say, preying only on the citizens of the other citystate) rather than try to live some dual identity lifestyle.

[Saellyn]

Yep. I agree with Gunnerblaster there. It's been mentioned before that just because the code lets you do it, doesn't mean it's always cool to do so. I remember there was a thread on the GDB where people were throwing in the opinion that backstabbing a single target multiple times was cool, since there were no coded barriers to it. Much later after that, I did exactly that with a character and the staff curtly asked me not to do that. Why? Because they held me to a higher standard. Contacting a cloaked figure in the same room with you is doable, but I think it's pretty uncool when it's for the express purpose of looking at their sdesc.

I think it would be great if some of the old code was plugged in to the current incarnation of contacting hooded figures. Before, you would get "you contact such-and-such cloaked, hooded figure", and receive their sdesc in subsequent communication through the way, if I remember correctly. I think I'd personally like it that way.

Oh, and for the record, I can say that I've never, ever done the whole contact figure; break thing because I think it's lame as hell.
That's my 2 'sid, take it as you will.

I like this.  If you contact a Raider, believe me, you shouldn't get the guys SDesc and then run to Lord Templar OMGI'mawesomesauce and go "Yeah, the ragged, filthy elf raided me last week." That's dumb.