Would anonymity improve the armageddon experience?

[Dresan]

This isn't a coded discussion because we know the code exsists, its just been removed. Instead I want to ask this question: if  the staff made -all- cloaks hide mdescs when the hood was raised, would it benefit the overall game? I'm not saying anything is bad now, just curious if something like this would further improve things.

Raidings, muggings, and good old fashion murders are risky businesses, mostly because without careful planning all it takes is for the other person to fuck you over is:

1.look person
2.see mdesc
3.flee
4.
5.profit

Right now when you first meet a person or someone is doing an interview, many times they will be asked to lower their hoods, and often times people will lower their hoods automatically. Its common, I don't think anything will change in that regard. Anyone sitting in a corner with their hood up will naturally be regarded with suspision, again nothing changes from that perspective.  On the other hand, I think people will be more inclined to attempt more risky activities like muggings, raiding and assassination. It would mean that friendly guy willing to buy you a drink, and hear your troubles might be the same mean bastard who raided you last week. As more people attempt nefarious deeds, the demand for protection, militia soldiers, proper training and just good old fashion investigating would increase as well.

I don't think anyone minds things going bad and dying, but when it just takes look cloak, flee to fuck the character you might have put alot of effort into training and rping then its not worth trying. Especially when you know it could mean the entire city, and several bored oganizations coming after you for trying to force one of their newbies to try to give you their boots. Before anyone mentions it, going to another city state to commit stuff hasn't been very practical in a long time. The risk vs. reward just isn't there anymore with the currently situation.

I know this has come up before in particular with mdesc hiding masks but its been a while.

[HavokBlue]

You're about to get a bunch of old veteran players telling you that it's super easy to mug and steal just as long as you know how.

[RogueGunslinger]

I'm all for this idea.

[Dresan]

You're about to get a bunch of old veteran players telling you that it's super easy to mug and steal just as long as you know how.

Yeah i know, i'm wondering who thats going to  be though.

In all the years I've been playing its only happened to me twice three times. Always as a fresh newbie out of the tavern, twice by whirans, and once by a d-elf who didn't care if I looked at him or not (that was years and years ago back before d-elves more or less got restricted to pah and many years before the red fang events).

You really have to stretch your imagination for the rewards to be worth the risk and isolation that comes from making a living forcing people to give you things through aggressive interaction and threats.

[Zoan]

"Yes Lady Templar he had a scar on his left buttcheek and his nose was kalan coloured then I ran away and contacted you."

contact scar.buttcheek.kalan.nose

[Kismetic]

Yes, absolutely.

Add a condition to hooded items, with the commands "open/close hood" to toggle showing mdesc or not.  PCs would have to rely on size category, assess and verbose, and equipment.  If you wanna be really fancy, make hide skill increase the effect of the illusion, and scan skill counteract the effect of hide.  Unskilled checks of both being fairly sucky.

Any implementation would be cool, though.

[Reiloth]

Wat

[X-D]

Not from this old vet player. i am all for the idea...always have been. one caveat. to add to the open/close suggestion...contact should continue to work as it does now. nothing should be fullproof...you have novice barrier or did not put it up and your target got your sdesc that way...that is on you.

[Saellyn]

Agree with X-D on this one.

[Kismetic]

to add to the open/close suggestion...contact should continue to work as it does now. nothing should be fullproof...you have novice barrier or did not put it up and your target got your sdesc that way...that is on you.

Oh yeah, for sure.

Wat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPa5oVG-nII

[number13]

Outlaws should be outlaws, not sipping tea five minutes after ganking salt grebbers.

The real problem is that outlaws can have their days ruined too easy by spooky actions from a distance, once their sdesc is known.  These effects are toxic to gameplay in general, ought to be heavily reworked.

If Disguise is a skill, I'd be fine with it.  The game gives your character permission to perform certain actions, via the skill list. Only a burglar has the narrative authority to pop a lock, even though, reasonably, just about anyone should be able to open a primitive lock if they have enough time on their hands.  So only X classes should have the narrative authority to disguise their sdesc.

Perhaps Bandit could be an extended subguild that comes with a new disguise skill?

[racurtne]

I like this idea and I would love to see it in game, but I'm wary of it too. You just know it's going to be abused.

If there was a way to forcefully reveal someone who was under your control (ie subdued), that would be so nice. Of course, it would be nice if you could forcefully remove clothing items from people as well when they were subdued, etc etc.

If there wasn't such a thing, I think law enforcement would be much more inclined to kill on sight. Why? Because if said criminal just decides to struggle and break free without saying a word, you've got next to nothing to go off of, especially if they're smart and change their clothes. (A surprising number of them don't.) The contact thing would go a long way to providing what I'm asking for, but it still FEELS wrong to me. Since the crim-code is how it is, law enforcement generally won't (and shouldn't) kill on sight without a specific Templar order, because killing all the criminals who RP well makes the world pretty boring for the law-enforcement people anyway.

That being said, I know how hard it is to be a long-lived criminal. Those who pull it off deserve some respect. Those who allow them a little leeway deserve respect too. Giving the criminals a chance to survive longer would provide a lot of interesting things for other PCs to do.

Once you get burned a couple of times for being considerate in your RP, it tends to make you resort to code a lot faster the next time. Some people are bound to take this to the limits of believability and realism. I think if contact were the only solution, you would see less RP because people would resort to code so that their sdesc remains hidden. This means they either flee at the first sign of trouble or attack immediately in order to stop the party from contacting them.

Is there another solution aside from contact?

[long live miley cyrus]

It would be nicer than hell for someone who plays like I do to have some more anonymity, but I'm guessing that unless some other things were changed along with this, all the get-every-criminal-at-chargen pcs and half of the normal ones are just going to contact you in that room to get your face anyway, more so if you actually did something serious. Resulting in most criminals and criminals to be to get forgettable sdescs, which then begin receiving their own paranoid surveillance.

Does anyone remember why mdesc hiding masks were banned?

Disguise is a skill

I love this. These words are music to me. Would also be a great way to further distinguish between folks like thieves/burglars and shadow artists/raiders, too. Give them something coded to make their brand of criminality stand out more.

[racurtne]

Does anyone remember why mdesc hiding masks were banned?

If I remember correctly, it was because these items were sought after over-much. They sold for ridiculous OOC prices and people sought them out with such fervor that it defied all IC explanation. I can't remember if that was the only reason, but it was definitely one of them.

[Patuk]

You can already pull the clothes off of people if they're unconscious. For law enforcement purposes and the alike, I think that should do fine.

[racurtne]

You can already pull the clothes off of people if they're unconscious. For law enforcement purposes and the alike, I think that should do fine.

As long as you can get them somewhere where there isn't crimcode before they spam flee.

[Patuk]

Seeing as soldiers are immune to the crimcode, I really think they'll manage.

[spicemustflow]

Anonymity would be awesome. It sucks having to rely on victim's goodwill not to notice the scar on your lips even though you're wearing a facewrap or a mask.

[racurtne]

Seeing as soldiers are immune to the crimcode, I really think they'll manage.

I mean for the criminal's sake....

Did you completely misunderstand me or are you just wanting to be catty?   Because the only question I asked anyhow was if there would be an alternative to contact because I don't like using contact. I think it will hurt this, if it is implemented.

[Patuk]

I.. Am not even sure what you're trying to tell me anymore.

[ShaLeah]

I'd rather see masks come back tbh.

While I don't think the idea is without merit anyone can get a cloak which means any ole schmuck would now be able to hide his mdesc. Cloaks are necessities on Zalanthas.

I've said this for years.  Make the mask exorbitantly expensive and even harder to find and purchase.

[racurtne]

I.. Am not even sure what you're trying to tell me anymore.

Ah, yes, you are confused. Looking back I realized I didn't really provide a good example of what I was talking about. I wasn't very clear, and it's only something you'd think about if you played law enforcement roles a lot. One has to be really responsible with the crimcode without also being entirely ineffective. It's a balancing act and changes here could change how people react on both sides.

What I mean is this...

Criminal PC has his hood up and closed so his mdesc is invisible. He gets subdued by a soldier. If soldier could somehow reveal him then, and the criminal PC decides to flee, it's unlikely he or the Templar he's rolling with will immediately resort to killing the criminal PC before the PC is even brought to jail (or some other location he can be safely beaten into unconsciousness so that you can force that reveal by taking his clothing), because at least they know who it is then. He/she can be hunted down later or chased.

On the other hand, if there is no method other than knocking the PC out, they may just kill him after he tries and fails to flee once because otherwise they will be completely without leads. All said criminal PC would have to do is successfully flee and change clothes.

I'm just trying to avoid situations like the above -without- using contact as a way around it. I think that having contact to reveal sdescs would resort in lost opportunities for RP from people like raiders, who would know that they'll be just fine as long as they type kill before their target can type contact and flee. This situation already exists to some degree, but I think it could be improved.

[racurtne]

Even if it wasn't just any old cloak that could hide your mdesc, but rather a disguise skill, I still fear that it would bring more people to jump to code with increased frequency. Unnecessary PC deaths are bad.

[whitt]

Unnecessary PC deaths are bad.

[slvrmoontiger]

I've always thought how silly it is that someone wearing a hood, a facewrap/mask, gloves, completely every inch of them covered could be crim flagged and then take everything off, change and still have the crim flag, because whoever it is knew exactly who that person was. Frankly its kankshit that this would happen. If I see someone all covered up I RP like I don't know who that person is and anyone doing any differently should get player complaints.

As far as the actual code to fix the mdesc I'm sure that would require a complete code rewrite, which is in no way an easy thing to do.