Masks

[Mr.Camel]

I am completely against desc hiding masks. Someone with say, a hideously burned one-eyed face, four missing fingers and a bent back, is going to have that facewrap seen through when he approaches me.

[SailorMars]

I am completely against desc hiding masks.

I am too. It makes absolutely no sense to me. As many have said, it takes much more than hiding the face to disguise someone. I am in favor of a disguise skill though.

[Quirk]

The vast majority of mdescs chiefly describe the face and then briefly describe the body shape. Even if you could excise the face from the description, the body shape would still be more distinctive than is realistic. Consider:

He has a rangy body, narrow-shouldered and narrow-hipped.

Not one ounce of fat can be found on his lanky frame.

Tall and slim, he is muscled only lightly.

These three descriptions describe exactly the same body shape, highlighting different aspects. There is no point of disagreement between them, no means by which one could be distinguished from another. And yet, people would use them to differentiate and be convinced that they were being sensible in doing so, because they were not using the face.

The face is one of the chief means we have of telling our fellow humans apart. Body shape is not for most people so distinctive that we can use it as reliably. Few of us have not at some point mistaken a stranger, seen from behind, for someone who we know closely, even given the additional information of hair colour and style.

There are very few PCs, percentage-wise, who have the four missing fingers and bent back, or distinguishing features remarkable enough to make them memorable when masked, so memorable that they could not conceal their identity. That small minority, I would hope, would include in their emotes their obvious deformities.

The way I see it, it is those who observe the veiled and hooded PCs that are the greater worry. The people who somehow can see past the opaque veil and determine that the concealed face beneath is horribly burned.  The people who can tell the rangy, lanky and skinny tall people apart. The people who will recognise someone they saw only once before in a stressful moment, hooded and veiled, much later right across a crowded room.

As Dirr pointed out, assess -v gives a very generic description. But that's all you should have when dealing with a hooded and veiled PC or NPC that is not deformed or freakishly mutated - a very generic description. Recognising the same person later in different clothing and different surroundings should be difficult, but currently it codedly is not and so people take advantage and recognise the raiders and the thieves and the magickers anyway. When your PC walks through the streets, he or she passes scores of people who could fit what little you've seen of your elusive foe; but it's never VNPCs who're dragged off as magickers when a PC sees another PC casting, no matter how scant the information that could reasonably be gleaned from the sandcloth-shrouded figure originally seen.

Quirk

[Agent_137]

I don't read mdescs anyway, unless I get into an indepth conversation with them. It makes more sense, to me. So I do it.

It also works 'cause i'm lazy and mdescs bore me.

I agree with quirk, even though he waits to bust out his point in two sentences embedded in his last two paragraphs.

"The way I see it, it is those who observe the veiled and hooded PCs that are the greater worry."

"Recognising the same person later in different clothing and different surroundings should be difficult, but currently it codedly is not and so people take advantage and recognise the raiders and the thieves and the magickers anyway."

[X-D]

First off, I did not vote.

Second, I agree with Quirk.

Third, more to the staff here.

Would it be possible (code wise) To change the mask flag...or make items work together but not apart?

Example, No reason a mask on its own would cover mdesc, but, a big hooded longcloak, combined with a mask/facewrap and maybe something for lower body? Say two to three items min.

[jhunter]

Good idea X-D, instead of a singular item covering main desc...a combination of things would do so...nice...

As Quirk said, the way it is it's abused more by the observers...and the one trying to conceal themselves is the one who always gets screwed in the end by other's unrealistic rp.

[sheep]

The ability to hide a main desc with a mask along with the short desc through a hood is just too much. If you want a mask that can cover your main desc, then email the mud with a good reason.

[jhunter]

Why is it too much? The only reason I can see people being against this is that they want to be able to figure out who a hooded person wearing a mask is...when in reality they wouldn't have shit to go on.

[Agent_137]

Why is it too much? The only reason I can see people being against this is that they want to be able to figure out who a hooded person wearing a mask is...when in reality they wouldn't have shit to go on.

Yea, but then people will cover up both mdesc and sdescs, and then rob somebody, and then the person that got robbed wouldn't be able to recgonize them at all later except by assess -v, and um. . . um. . . that's not FAIR!

:mrgreen:

[Mr.Camel]

Why is it too much? The only reason I can see people being against this is that they want to be able to figure out who a hooded person wearing a mask is...when in reality they wouldn't have shit to go on.

Because if you I saw someone wearing a mask, I'm sure to know more about them than just their clothes and height/weight, which would require me to read the desc and decide what things to notice and what to ignore depending on their clothes, weather, light, position etc. A freedom in my RP that I tend to enjoy.

[EvilRoeSlade]

This has given me an idea.

Why not make it impossible to look at somebody who is fighting, subduing (or being subdued), as well as impossible to look at anybody at night.

[Lazloth]

Eh?  I imagine you're trying to be sarcastic.

To any who have mentioned the idea, disguise would suffer from the same as the mdesc masks, namely, the propensity for abuse.  I don't mind the masks myself, just would keep the number in game low and the possibility for acquisition basically reduced to imm-intervention.  Manage to kill that sorc? Go ahead and claim your prize.

I agree with Quirk's sentiment otherwise.

[Agent_137]

consider this my request for examples of how it could be abused. A lot of people say "it's too much" or "It'd be abused." But I fail to see how.

I'm sure there IS a good reason, since the imms themselves have limited the "hide mdesc masks" but I'd like to know for my own comfort.

[SailorMars]

To any who have mentioned the idea, disguise would suffer from the same as the mdesc masks, namely, the propensity for abuse

That depends entirely on how disguise was treated. If it's a branched skill that requires special equipment (instead of a one single piece of equipment and no skill), that would be less abuseable.

[Lazloth]

How?  By being limited to older chars or powergamers?
..moreover as CRW pointed out, it's magickers who stand the most to gain by clouding features, whereas this skill as earlier proposed would be (exclusively) available to rogue-types.

[edit] : Of course, you could tie it into craft code..

[Quirk]

The idea of a "disguise" skill discussed previously on this board is a very different animal. It referred to a skill that altered the person's appearance, not concealed it. As discussed, it seemed a somewhat flawed idea to me. Given that Zalanthas' simple technologies would not provide any convincing way of changing facial shape or eye colour, recognition of the bewigged and made up person by someone who knew them should not be all that hard. Recognition of the same person with their face completely concealed by a mesh sandcloth wrap would be orders of magnitude more difficult, though of course anyone wearing such a wrap would instantly look suspicious.

And yes, I'm curious to know what the potential for abuse is, compared to the abuse of the mdescs of people which should be concealed by veil or facewrap and hood and which people somehow see in full anyway. Could I have some examples of potential abuse situations?

Quirk

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

NOTE: I do not play a suspisious character, nor a shady type. This does not affect my current character in any way, and would have only affected one of my characters over the years that I have been here.

I am firmly in support of desc hiding, keyword-changing, or otherwise concealing masks, hoods, etc. I do NOT see the point in not being able to hide yourself. There are arguments that doing so is unrealistic. It is not. The opposite, in fact, is true. It is unrealistic to NOT be able to do so.

The whole point of masking yourself IS to be able to get away with dirt. And I completely beleive that when you were a hood, mask, or what have you, it should change you keywords. THe Way should only be useable by name.

[jhunter]

*applauds Venomz*

[EvilRoeSlade]

I agree, The7DeadlyVenomz.

[Armaddict]

Yep.  I'm with Venomz too.

[Forest Junkie]

Uber.

[Delirium]

I, too, have seen how things have worked in another RPI that hides Mdescs when characters are hooded or masked.

The result? Very little discernable difference, except that it is more difficult to capture criminals and characters are forced to rely more on IC manners of identifying said criminal.

On the flip side, it is possible to identify a cloaked character with careful scrutiny - a 'study' command that has a percentage chance of succeeding and showing you their mdesc.

Relying on build, height, mannerisms, gender, and the clothing they wore is a lot more realistic than relying on the fact that it was a 'gangly man with eyes like emeralds'.

If the criminal is careful enough to change his clothes and perhaps affect a manner of speaking, why shouldn't they be more difficult to catch?

We need MORE avenues for well RP'd crime, not less. If you don't want to put your character at risk, then.. sorry, but some of the most enjoyable experiences I had with my first character were when she was being robbed or threatened in some way, and hell, that's a big part of what got me hooked. Conflict is good, it's what generates some fabulous RP. If your character is the type to worry about meeting a criminal, well, then take precautions any sane person ingame would - don't go places you're likely to be mugged, don't travel alone, etc, etc.

I do not, however, think there should only be certain types of objects that cover mdescs. That makes it too OOC, and I agree with the absurdity of people chasing after a scrap of sandcloth because it's a mask item.

I think all hoods, facewraps, and like items should obscure the mdesc - and there should be a percentage chance to be able to pick out their mdesc when you 'look' at them, perhaps tied in with scan and peek.

[Xan]

Good call Venomz.

I'm against the Way only being used by name because there are instances when a character will not give out their true names.  If there were a keywords and a nickname option in char-gen that would fix that.

But yes, I believe it would in reality be so easy to cover up your face and specific body form by a heavy cloak and mask.  Try picking out a guy in a trenchcoat, gloves, boots and a mask a second time when he's not in that garb.  Would there be any distinguishing features you could make out with close examination in a bright environment, let alone a stressful situation with the potential to also be dark, in a sandstorm, drunk, etc.  But right now you can just use look and in no uncertain terms find out who it is OOCly, even if you have the restraint to keep that from IC knowledge.

[Trenidor]

I've been holding off speaking untill I see a lot more pros and cons about this, but I did vote for no.

I'm passive right now actually, but I see one thing that might be used to consider things more....


Why don't -most- cloaks cover up mdesc? I can see why capes wouldn't, but when you have your hood up, you have it up for a reason....to keep sand out or hide yourself. So, wouldn't you be pulling your cloak in front of you as well? That would mean they get more coverage, and they would be less visible to see. Capes on the other hand could still do that, but IMO capes are smaller than cloaks, sometimes lacking a hood, but generally they don't have the extra size that a cloak would have.


Talking about masks: No. I don't think keywords or even descriptions should be covered up because of this. The reason I voted No on this poll was because I don't believe that someone could wear -just- a mask, and cover up that much description about them. Even if they just covered up the description, the keywords would still be avalible for when you try looking closer at their features. You look once, don't see something, but you think you know the person, so you check their eyes which are avalible through the slits. Then you realize you do know the person.

If there were code that if you had a mask, and a cloak on, then I might consider the whole mdesc cover up and keywords.

I think the topic has turned more towards all mdesc coverings though, so I commented more towards that.

Just my opinion. *shrug*

[sacac]

Xan, when it gives you the option of extra keywords, add in your nickname (Add into your history how you got that name)


Just so everyone knows:
cape [ kayp ]

1. loose outer garment: a sleeveless outer garment that is fastened at the neck and hangs loosely from the shoulders

2. coat part like cape: a piece of material like a cape that forms part of a coat or other garment


cloak [ klōk ]

1. clothes outer garment: a loose sleeveless outer garment that fastens at the neck

2. enshrouding object or force: something that covers or conceals things ( literary )