Would anonymity improve the armageddon experience?

[Harmless]

yep. skill. we aren't even mentioning body language yet, or if they speak, then you'd recognize their voice, or their smell, because we all know a rinthi smells differently from a fine bred templar's assassin, right?

I am down with skill.



this image proves a point, but there are some important things to note here. One, this isn't modern society, so all those identically crafted masks and hats and clothes would be the equivalent of a mastercraft to get it the same every time. Two, in this dark fantasy world, there is much more variability in body shape and makeup, in addition to different races and mutations. Allanak is heterogeneous, Tuluk is heterogeneous.. people are more unique. The population of these cities is also less, and so there are simply less faces to see when the biggest city can't beat a milli and there's less than 5 million people (of varying races) total on the whole known planet.

Finally, in the modern world (and even pre-modern thanks to good agriculture), whole populations of people have similar nourishment. In Zalanthas, where scavenging, foraging, horticulture, and herding and hunting are your main means of feeding, people will get various amounts of malnourishment and therefore show even more variability in form and shape due to different degrees of stunting at different points in life.

I don't think it makes sense for people to be that able to blend in that anyone can do it. It doesn't fit the setting to me, which is already off-normal thanks to psionics and other tricks that people will use in this world to know each other.

just my two cents. A new skill is always a plus though! And hell, BARDS should get it! FUCK YEAH

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Currently, a hood being up already disguises race, though it's pretty easy to figure out based on heights and weights.

To make it simple, simply have the code check for the following things:
- closed cloak with hood up
- armwear
- gloves
- legwear
- face-wrap or mask(not sunslits or rings in your nose or translucent veils)
- boots

If you are wearing those four things, you mdesc is automatically hidden. It doesn't matter if you have big feet and spikes for fingers. Your mdesc is hidden.

[Dresan]

I think having change of clothes and/or different types of gear for different situations may become more important as people being trying to identify others by what they are wearing. It would be a realistic tactic, especially in zalanthas where not everyone can afford different sets of clothing after all.  Again investigation might become more important:

You are a militia soldier. You are looking for a very short but thick human who has been attacking people on the street for weeks now. Thanks to high watch skill on some of the victims, they were able to tell you he wasroughly X tall, and about Y heavy when they assess -v <mean motherfucker hurting me>. He was wearing a thick red desert cloak, expensive sallarri black scale mail  gear. More importantly he was using a custom pair of maces. You talk to salarr about the maces, they say they indeed made them but they were for one of their own, a larger burly man who disappeared in the desert one day.  You spread the word and one of your contacts approaches you. They are a burgalar and they have some information for you. They recently robbed the home of a short, thick man. At first the burgalar just thought they were a merchant, always walking around well dressed in linen clothing, but when they opened a chest up, they found maces and armour that match your description. The suspects name is Amos.

You met Amos a few times in the tavern, quiet guy but the bastard has never offered to buy you a drink. Worse of all he has never offered you a bribe like some of the other merchants do. Clearly he is guilty, time to bring him in and righteously torture a confession out of him.  

[number13]

Realism has nothing to do with anything.  The game isn't realistic.  It barely tries to be realistic.

Based on a character's class+time played (and, in the murky past, how much of a pet you were to certain immortals), your character has certain narrative abilities.  I can pop a lock. I can hide under a bed. I can write some words in a book.  I can quit out in a wilderness room, ride a kank with weapons in both hands, and slather poison on a knife.  When you get down to it, with enough dedication, anyone should be able to do any of the above.  But the game "balance", such as it is, is based on narrative permissions, which are mostly assigned at character creation.

The problem with mdesc hiding gear is it subverts this scheme in favor of granting a super power to anyone with the right contacts/enough coins, and it turns the acquisition of the super power into a bidding war that sets a price based on the the potency of the ability rather than whether or not the item would be 'realistically' available.  Anyone with a potato sack should be be able to cover their face, really, just like anyone with the desperate need should be able to quickly find a place to hide themselves.  Or climb a tree.  Or rub some rat poison on a knife without accidentally slicing their own finger off.

Which is why, if disguise exists at all, it should be a skill. A skill that, at Advanced levels, hides your psionic sdec as well as your physical mdesc.  The only qualification is that should have a hood or something else that covers your sdesc before using the skill. Once that sdesc hiding item is removed, your mdesc is revealed.

The mdesc could change into something based on your assess -v stats and race:

"This is a short, fat dwarf -- disguised by a featureless obsidian mask."

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

See, I think that if you make the art of masking yourself a simple process of covering up set areas of the body with items that we all use everyday, and that someone of any class can do it, it makes it not a super power, but a simple reality of the world. It's just like being the hooded figure - everybody can do it. Cloaks don't command great prices because of being able to hood you, they do so because they have neat descriptions or cool materials etc. If someone walks into a tavern, masked, sits at the bar, and has a drink, and it happens all of the time, it becomes normal. And there's no issue with it being normal.

How do you keep everyone from being masked all of the time without criminalizing it? Make it impossible to drink or eat with a mask or facewrap on. Make it socially unacceptable in a civilized place, like walking around with a weapon out.

Don't make it a skill, make it a feature. Suddenly, it's nothing magickal or unusual. It just is life. It's just hoods, on cloaks.

[X-D]

Exactly.

[Kismetic]

Ayup.  I had to laugh at the suggestions of making them rare and costly, as the old masks and wrist razors were.  It quickly becomes a theater of the absurd.  Make any piece of equipment that conceals your sdesc also conceal your mdesc, and keep tdesc to give necessary details.

[James de Monet]

Unfortunately, without some kind of check and balance, I think reinstating masks doesn't represent a fix. It just represents pendulum swing away from the utter lack of anonymity, to utterly impenetrable anonymity. (Yes, you could use contact, but that's twinky nonsense.)

There needs to be some way to counter the inevitable jackassery, like an "accuse" command, or flag-free attack/subdue on people who just committed a crime, whether or not they got flagged for it.

[Kismetic]

So add functionality to the look command for a concealed figure, with contested skill checks from hide and scan.  That way, people who are skilled and capable at being hidden, anonymous types are prone to do just that, whereas Amos P. Warrior doesn't stand a chance without help from a subguild.

[Harmless]

I still think that identifying someone is more than just how they look and what they wear. Surely, even in nations where burkas are commonplace, people will still be able to identify each other in the street. After all, if everybody is wearing burkas, people are still able to tell apart their family.

The difference is as soon as someone in a burka wants to hide or sneak away from you, then yeah, their burka really helps. That's why we have the HIDE and SNEAK skills.

But, what you don't see is a constant confusion of being totally codedly unable to tell apart everyone around you wearing burkas.

This is a MUD, with enough limitations in our ability to sense and tell what is going on in our environment. the coded restriction of not hiding mdescs is a feature, not a bug. If everyone around is wearing the same dark hooded cloak and facewrap, you have to look at them individually to tell them apart, or use other features like height and weight to do it -- when weight is a very basic scale of 6, 7, 8, or 9 ten-stone.

if we add mdesc hiding, without there being a real justification for it.. eh, fuck it. I will be really upset at the change. If this is going to happen, I want it to reflect practice and skill. And like I said, we already have hide and sneak, which are pretty good for staying anonymous.

This is coming from someone who pretty much only plays stealth classes, btw. Many assassins. Many PKs and burglaries etc. I haven't had any trouble staying anonymous. It wasn't handed to me, but I used what is already in the game codedly to pull off many crimes. My fuckups were secondary to my inexperience to the crimcode at first, or just sloppiness that was realistic. If I had the extra barrier of mdesc protection then fuck it. Moreover, I have had my mdesc spilled a few times and it didn't end up being a problem due to the other things I did to cover myself. Finally, when I was busted famously, it was due to framing. None of my other crimes with that PC were ever linked to them.

[Dresan]

I've always thought soldiers should get an arrest command. They are free to subdue anyone who is not resisting arrest. They can op to use that instead of trying subdue them with the skill which can fail and get a person killed. They can hold and question people they find suspicious like that, do what they need to do.  I think contact person is otherwise enough in those situations.

Just playing devil's advocate to my own idea, and somewhat thinking in the lines of James there, but would anominity of that scale just make people be able to grief endlessly and more or less be unstoppable esspecially in combination with hide/sneak? Its pretty easy to flee from fights especially with hide/sneak and without anyway to reveal someone's identity readily, or be able to spot them readily from a crowd then even if you know their identity it might be very hard to catch someone. It might just become too easy to harrass people without much consequence. Again though would that be a problem? A soldiers might instead be a look out for people with certain gear, stopping and questioning concealed people that fit their vague discriptions. The world becomes a far more dangerous place, where being able to fight back and/or have friends to watch your back becomes much more important.

[Lizzie]

I'll keep wishing for two mdescs during chargen.

The first would include a descriptive of the head, face and body. The second would include a descriptive of the head and body only, no face.

And then the code would accommodate the whole thing, everyone can look, everyone can see whatever they see, and if the hood is up or a facewrap is on the face, they'd see all the rest of it; just not the face.

[racurtne]

For the record, PC soldiers can subdue anyone without there being any fear of the criminal or victim being crim-flagged. I'm pretty sure (90% sure I've seen it happen, but it was a long time ago) even a failed subdue (ie the criminal has nosave arrest off) will not incriminate them. You can even flee from the PC soldiers subduing you and not be crim-flagged. That is, of course, as long as you have not already been crim-flagged. If you are crim-flagged and flee while you are subdued or successfully resist a soldier's subdue (with nosave arrest off), then the NPCs are going to be splattering you all over the ground.

Of course, fleeing from soldiers is a crime in itself. It just won't get you crim-flagged. Templars, however, may not be so understanding. With utter anonymity and a lack of means of revealing said person. A lot of people are just going to spam-flee if they haven't been crim-flagged. It's difficult to hold someone and wait for a templar to come crim-flag them or haul them somewhere for questioning when they know all they have to do is press flee until they succeed and then they can run off, change clothes, and laugh. That's why, as I mentioned before, I imagine the natural response would be to order soldiers to kill anyone disguised who attempts to flee. JDM's idea would help combat this, but only the coders know what is feasible.

Utter anonymity would result in a lot of player complaints.


Lizzie's solution is ideal, really, and I've heard it before. It would solve a lot of issues. I'm not certain, but I think the new code-base will make things like that a lot easier. *fingers crossed*

[Bogre]

That's why, as I mentioned before, I imagine the natural response would be to order soldiers to kill anyone disguised who attempts to flee.

I was about to post this myself. There might be a lot more of 'k figure' to trigger crim-code than trying to grab someone. And isn't less insta-death the point of mdesc hiding?

It's already hard enough to try and collar someone who is running/fleeing.

[Delirium]

Honestly, one of the things I think Shadows of Isildur got right is the "study" command.

The way I see it working in armageddon is if you have a cloak with a raised hood, and a veil/facewrap type item worn, your mdesc would be hidden. These things would be cheap and a dime a dozen. No unrealistic price-throttling.

BUT... if you 'study' someone, you get their main description (but NOT their sdesc). This action has a before-delay and echos to the target. If you have 'peek', it lets you roll to study them without them noticing.

That, combined with the assess command for height, weight, age, gender, and the accent code, should be enough to make things uncomfortable for outlaws without completely screwing them over.

It's not a perfect solution - there is no perfect solution for this scenario in a text-based game - but it would be a better compromise than what we have now.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Hmm. Yeah, I remember this. This would work.

[James de Monet]

D's idea could work.

Another possible solution would be to create an "unmask" command.

If could be based off of steal or subdue, but all classes would invisibly have it (basically an opposed str/dex roll), never be crim-flaggable (because its just offensive, clearly not harmful), and could be used against either masked or hooded characters. If someone was wearing both, you'd have to successfully "unmask" them twice.

No idea how hard any of these would be to code.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I'm actually really good with the idea of 'study'. Cloak + facewrap/mask + mdesc hidden. I'd like to see 'study' always reveal the mdesc, but the delay is built on your study skill. Or, make it a simple command that doesn't involve skill, and still invokes a delay, broken by success, failure, or you or the target leaving the area or hiding.

[Reiloth]

Or perhaps utilizing the watch skill?

If you can see someone long enough to 'watch' them, you can then study them. It also echoes to the 'victim' of study that they are being studied. This sort of reminds me of being mugged myself, and was told to keep my eyes on the ground, as to avoid 'studying' the assailant. It may circumvent some of the silliness indicated in the OP with raiders/sneaky types, and so on.

[Delirium]

Ooh, combining it with the watch skill is a good idea. I like that.

[CodeMaster]

The figure in a batmask has arrived from the north.

$ watch figure
You begin watching the figure in a batmask.

You notice: the figure in a batmask tried to steal something from the blue-robed templar.

The figure in a batmask chuckles.

The figure in a batmask sits at a stone bar.

You begin to discern some of the figure in a batmask's details.

$ look figure
It's Bruce Wayne, of course!

[Zoan]

Geez, CodeMaster. Spoilers much?

[Harmless]

Delirium's idea about studying, possibly integrated with watch and with a skill component: awesome. If we're going to inject steroids into anonymity, a tool to fight back is a must.

Unmask: Not sure about this one. For most of my PCs, I think the audacity of having a mask ripped off would be instant grounds for a dagger to the face. So, if it gives you kill rights without activating crimcode, or if we had brawl code that was more sophisticated, that'd be cool. But on its own, it feels out of place. Touching is taboo/undesirable in many cultures, many cultures that also wear masks. If people were suddenly ripping masks off each other without consequence, that'd be uncool. Unless they can be killed for doing such stupid shit, of course, in which case, feel free, dumbass.

The exception to the above is law enforcement, of course. Militia, high-ranking Fist, and Legions should be able to unmask without giving their victims the legal right to fight back.

..Yeah, I'm just not cool with unmasking. Sounds silly. But study perhaps using watch is awesome.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

The study command, using watch as the skill-check, works fine for me.

As far as unmasking goes, I'd be fine with it, but here's my proposal regarding it.

Use the command take. It counts to the crim code in the same way steal does, but allows anybody to do it, and without the delay on steal. There's no hiding with this one. You're plainly seen doing it, both by the target, and by everyone in the vicinity, whether you succeed or fail.

As for skill checks, it checks to see if the target is subdued and applies an auto-fail to the attempt to resist the taking. If the attacker is hiding, they get a small bonus to the attempt, to imply a surprise snatch. The command would check strength and agility and offense for the attacker, and strength and agility and defense for the target.

syntax: take target's item

The burly soldier takes the male wearing a white mask's white mask.

The burly soldier tries to take the male wearing a white mask's white mask, but fails.

[Reiloth]

I think simple is always best. Using the Watch skill (already implemented) and having it feature a new code command that utilizes it (study) seems like the best fix.

If someone is unconscious or subdued, perhaps you can steal the object off them, effectively 'unmasking' them.