Masks

[Larrath]

I don't want to know whether my Guild boss or whatever has enough karma to play this or that.  I don't want to know that this templar has 1 karma or that the pickpocket over there actually has 6.  And how do you treat this ICly?

You have two elves that probably look the same.  They both wear the same cloaks and masks.  Why should one of them be with mdesc and another without?

Sorry, but I'm going to have to hope this one is shot down.  Karma should effect that guilds/subguilds you can play and absolutely nothing more.

[Forest Junkie]

Extremely unfair to the playerbase wisturbo.

Give me a good ic reason how one person would have a mask cover up their mdesc, but a newb with the same mask worn about their face would not have that perk.

Sounds a bit shitty to me. The issue isn't about responsibility. It's about roleplaying a scene correctly. If people abuse the mask, punish them like you would any other turd who twinks. Don't limit the feature to people who have karma, that is simply unfair to the newer players.

[X-D]

From Bakha, way back on page 1.

An argument could be made for the ability to change or hide people's mdescs. I think, though, that this ability would be better served by making a workable disguise skill than having an item ingame that works for everyone and anyone that happens across it.

Now, Only quoted Bakha because his was the first post in this thread to mention the disguise skill.

Now, I've never argued for or against this skill idea, mostly because the last time it came up there were still many mask flagged items in game:)

But, the biggest problem I have with it is that fact that most people talk about it being a class based skill, and the classes they talk about giving it to need it the least.

What, yes, thats right, this is not a skill that assassin/burgler/pickpocket need. It is a skill magickers/mindbenders/warriors/rangers need, pretty much in that order. Simply because they are the ones working outside the cities, as raiders sometimes, or just helpless magickers trying to make pacts with demons. As a raider, being able to hide my description allows me to leave people alive. It helps allow helpless magickers to live long enough to become not helpless and scary wielders of mysterious powers (A good thing IMO) without having to sit in a cave ISO for 1 real life year practicing spells.

So, if this skill were to come into game, who would get it?

Bakha also brought up the mask flagged items were insconsistant, unrealistic in many cases and had become more valuable then steel and magick items. Yet the staff removed them from the game, and had limited them to begin with, well, they made them even more valuable by doing so, (sorta funny) and possible to get in an even more limited (and probly more unrealistic) fashion. Just like drugs in the states, make something harder to get, the more people want it and the higher the value.

Makes more sense to me to make the items easy to get and realistic, hence the two item mask flag. And if you want to limit the use, do so in an IC manner, Templars and commoners could take a disliking for masks/wraps/hoods inside buildings or whatever, laws could even be put into place, whatever. But at least it would be in game and something more to RP with and around, and would all around increase harshness in a manner most people prefer, with other pc's not pumping the desert full of uber npcs, or turfing skills.

So, I'm not a big fan of a disguise skill if it is to be limited to class or even sub. I actively dislike having to e-mail/wish up for a mask flag item, I mean, how does that go anyway, and who desides if you have a need for it? Or is it just that anybody can get an item but there are rules of use attatched? Must use in realistic fashion (IE cloak and hood up if wearing) Must e-mail mud if you die to have mask item recovered? Or, excuse me staff, my char is an oportunist raider, or would be, if he could disguise himself...yes, I know people are supposed to rp that they did not see the persons features, and maybe they will try, but fact is, they will still know, it will color their actions, and many others simply will not rp it at all, So, I need a mask flag item.

To me, pretty much every reason would be a good one.

[jhunter]

What, yes, thats right, this is not a skill that assassin/burgler/pickpocket need. It is a skill magickers/mindbenders/warriors/rangers need, pretty much in that order.

This I disagree with, why wouldn't assasins/burglars/ pickpockets want to conceal their features as well, hiding isn't a guarantee that you won't be seen.
It seems to me that any criminal type would want to disguise themselves or conceal enough of their features.

Besides, pretty much any guild can be a criminal of sorts and it's really not that hard to put a mask over your face and pull a hood down. I say come up with some way to do it without restricing it to guilds...any guild can be a criminal and any jackass can cover their face up enough not to be recognized.

[X-D]

Right, all I was saying anyway, but even very recently when people talk of the disguise skill/command they state "rogue" classes, that I disagree with strongly. Maybe some should be better at it then others, but they should all have it. And not in the form of a subclass either, that would totally bite.

[wizturbo]

Seems like one of those things, that because there are so many mixed opinions about it, and someone has some arguement against any solution...it'll never happen.

Which is too bad really, though, you can still wish up for such capabilities.

[Armaddict]

There are other things in-game that are easily abuseable, and we are told that if we suspect abuse, to email the staff and let them look into it.

I see no reason this shouldn't apply to masks as well.

Masks are necessary in game.  There are simply some things that some characters are going to do that they will -not- want people knowing they do it.

Sure, there are stealth skills.  But look at how much people complain when you -use- them in the manner needed to be anywhere close to a mask.  You have to flat out abuse them, or close to it.  Well, that's not true, but that's the way it's normally done by those with more limited knowledge of how the -code- works.

Keep them in game.  Taking them out is, as always, dumping shit on those who are -not- the perfect, in-line citizen of a city.  The crim-code is hard enough to deal with as is.

[Angela Christine]

One problem with mdesdc concealing items is the same one we have now with sdesc concealing items; it is difficult to deal with them in public.  Some people choose to keep their hoods up and their facewraps on in the city, or even in taverns.  Some other people find this suspicious, and give the hooded figures a little more attention than they would give people who lower their hoods.  Then the hooded people complain that this is unrealistic, it is dusty and sunny, so it isn't particularily remarkable to keep your hood up.   Even if few NPCs do it in your town, plenty of VNPCs might be doing it, so hassling people wearing hoods and facewraps is bad RP.  Items that conceal your sdesc and your mdesc would get even more attention, and generate more OOC conflict.  


I think that part of the difficulty with these items is that they are all-or-nothing.  In an encounter of less than 10 minutes it should be easy to disguise yourself, but if you interact with someone for hours they ought to start picking up some details because they have a good chance to get a good look at your eyes, notice the colour and texture of a stray lock of hair, to notice if you have facial hair behind that facewrap, and so on.  Pulling a nylon stocking over your head makes a good short-term disguise, but people can decode the distortion and recognise you if they spend enough time with you.  The mental state of the watcher also has a huge affect on the effectiveness of a disguise; if they are freaked out because they are being mugged the disguise will be more effective than if they are calmly peering at you trying to find distinguishing features.  The code can't deal with that, at least not nearly as well as a human referee could.  You could set something like there is a 2% chance half the mdesc will be revealed each time the person is looked at, but that would defeat the purpose of the masks without really addressing the problem.

I'm not necessarily against disguise items, I've had characters that would find them very useful, but it seems like there are a lot of potential problems with them that haven't been addressed in previous incarnations.


AC

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

AC:

>em tugs at ~black
The figure in a heavy fur cloak tugs at his black bandanna.

>Use mask
You attempt to use a black bandanna and a heavy fur cloak to disguise yourself.

>look me
This humanoid is taller than you and much thinner. A black bandanna covers the face and a heavy fur cloak the body. They wield a short grey dagger and a long black sword. Based solely on size and shape, it is probably a human or elf.
The masked person in a heavy fur cloak is in excellent condition.

The masked person in a heavy fur cloak is using:
<worn in left ear>       a tiny black skull
<worn in right ear>      a tiny black skull
<Worn on face>          a black bandanna
<slung over back>       a black greatsword
<worn about body>      a heavy fur cloak
<worn on torso>          an armored shirt of dark black scales
<right shoulder>          a huge tattooed dragon
<worn on legs>           a dark black sandcloth kilt
<worn on right ankle>    a silver-engraved black sheath
<worn on feet>           a pair of black leather sandals


>em looks about before ducking away into the shadows
The masked person in a heavy fur cloack looks about before ducking away into the shadows.

The description tells what they wear over their face and body, what they have in their hands, and bases what they might be upon height and weight. It hides age, sex, actual race, and so on. If the person speaks, then it betrays sex, but oh well. Now I think this is perfectly fine. So, put this in. *grin*

Additionally, kill any way to contact somebody by using the keywords in their cloaks and maskings. Only allow names and keywords such as the ones in their natural short-desc. I am all for just names, but I can understand why that would not be the first choice.

[sarahjc]

Honestly it all just seems like a lot of effort for little pay off. I think that people can choose what they should see and not see..

Example:

A while back I was with a certain elf who had a hood up and a face mask on.. So.. I looked at the elf..

Lets say he was the black skinned, blue-eyed elf.

Now said elf had everything covered but his hands.. and I needed to hunt down said elf.  So when I was asked what he looked like I said.

Well, I could not see his face at all, but I noticed that he wasn't wearing any gloves and he had this pitch black skin. He was also wearing a pair of pink boots, and an orange pair of pants. Answers to the name poopy pants.. And he held a slim rapier to my throat.

Now if he had no description I would not have been able to say that he had black skin.. I know that black skin isn't really a good example, in fact the skin color was a bit more odd than that.. But I am using black as the example. Thing is there are subtle things that you can say about a cloaked person or a person wearing a face mask.. and I think it is up to players what they would or would not see..

I mean if you have in your Description that you have wild stark white hair, some of that might peek out your hood. Or if you claim to have translucent white eyes, that might catch the light even under your cloak. I think it can go without saying that if you are covered from head to toe with a fcae wrap, hooded cloak, and the full nine.. yeah... People should not know you.. However, I really don't see the need to have it coded. All that is needed is common sense.

[Xan]

Maybe in character creation we should have a simple set of criteria (hair, skin, eye color) of very general criteria that would show up in assess -v.  The biggest problem with mdescs is that the rangy/lanky/wiry folk are all unique by mdesc, but in reality how would a character pick them out of a crowd?

This way assess -v will always give that general info, people can decide if their chars would notice it if the person was masked or not.  Thats my take at least.

[Kauket]

I think we need to just deal with it the way it is now and try to make the best of things.

[X-D]

Venomz has it, and it really can't be hard to do code wise.

What, at most an additional item flag...or..hhhmm, no, easier, I'm betting hooded items already have a flag and script, change the mask flag to only work if the hood flag is active, then add the mask flag to most face coverings (not sunslits).

Simple, realistic and fun.

[mansa]

Just a side note...

I played a Kadian Merchant, one time.

Almost all the nobles asked me for a 'mask' item.
I would beg and beg for my immortal to load up one, and when it finally came, the noble was all 'happy' when I gave them the object.

But then they would put it on, and then they would frown, and say, "no, this isn't what I want."

Now, that happened a bunch of times.

They were upset IN GAME because it didn't hide their mdesc.  EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM.

I'm -glad- that they were all removed.  At least, I hope they are.

I heard a rumour that there's still one in game.

[Armaddict]

That's because they were wanted for a specific purpose or function, and it didn't suit that purpose.

Quite simply, if we can't trust people to emote while they raid us, or we can't trust half-giants not to run in and subdue us, how the hell are we supposed to trust people to look at our masked character and decide that they don't see any of those features they just saw?

[Agent_137]

That's because they were wanted for a specific purpose or function, and it didn't suit that purpose.

Quite simply, if we can't trust people to emote while they raid us, or we can't trust half-giants not to run in and subdue us, how the hell are we supposed to trust people to look at our masked character and decide that they don't see any of those features they just saw?

be the change you want to see in the world.
(yes, i stole the quote)

[Armaddict]

I already did.

My character was recognized and killed.

[sacac]

what about having to code this?

emote studies ~maskedman before nodding to !sameman.

you get: The sacac studies the masked man before nodding to him.

You would have to do that a lot and recode a bunch *shrug* Just my penny

[Agent_137]

I already did.

My character was recognized and killed.

email the mud. Ask for an official response if it was bad RP or not, and expectations, and such. Let them handle those who you feel over stepped the   proper bounds, or let them tell you that what the other people did was fair.  

At least you'll know.


p.s. Zalanthas is harsh. You never know who's a mindmender in secret who can see right through your mask and heavy cloak.

[sacac]

While we are on it..
I'm sorry for buying my stolen items from that one elf I OOC knew who took it and just offered to buy them back if they got them from someother elf

On the topic though.. Rp'ing out not knowing who did what can be fun.. so try it.
you know the green-eyed uber-raider robbed you?
And you know that lady is an uber-fancy pants?
Cool.. so what?

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Zalanthas is harsh. You never know who's a mindmender in secret who can see right through your mask and heavy cloak.

Yes, well, right now, apparently everyone is.

[Vettrock]

Yes there are things that you could get from the main desc that you would be able to see if masked, but I have to agree that there should be a way to mask your mdesc, because there is much more potential for abuse that way.  Right now there is no way raid, cast magick, or other activities as long as someone can just get in a look at you, they can recognize you 100% of the time.  Most mugging victims have a hard time recognizing an unmasked mugger out of a line up, due to the stress, panic involved.  Right now as a raider or magicker, your only option to prevent recognition is to kill whoever sees you.  I think the game could better be advanced by allowing your victims to escape without worring about them fingering you out of a crowd later.  If there was a way to pass only a few generic features etc. Then I would be in favor of that.  Perhaps the ass -v could give more infomation, Like right now it will only say if they are shorter, heaver etc.  Maybe you should be able to say, he looks like he is between 70 and 75 inches tall and 7 or 8 ten-stone.  That would give you some more info, in addition to perhaps his race and sex.  Or maybe there being a 10% chance of your mdesc begin seen when looking at a masked, hooded figure.  That would mean that if someone looked at you, you wouldn't know if they could recognise you later, but they probably wouldn't.

It has been pointed out that if the masks covered mdescs, that we would have masked mages and raiders running around everywhere in the wastes.  I, for one, think this is a good thing.  Its a lot more fun to encounter raider and magickers in the wild, than make the trip from Tuluk to allanak, either without incident, or running into an NPC gith or Raptor.

[Boggis]

Think most things have already been said on this matter. I'd definitely like to see this come in whereby wearing a fair-sized hooded cloak / duster with an object the covers your entire face (not just a portion of it) results in your character being masked and their mdesc hidden. I like the way Venomz proposed how this would work back on pg.6 of this thread. Also, I didn't even know that you could use the Way to contact the "tall figure in a dark hooded cloak" or whatever - this makes no sense to me and I think it should be done away with.

Permitting true masking opens up all sorts of possibilities for improved thief / raider / rogue magicker RP. Players won't have to kill just to avoid being recognised. "Your money or your life!" could actually be successfully employed by muggers or raiders. Players would have to rely on more realistic details such as what clothes they wore, weapons they used, tattoos, how they spoke, mannerisms, etc. Yes we'll be dependent on raiders actually supplying these emotes but I'd far prefer that to having the 100% recognition that occurs way too often at the moment which is far more unbalancing I feel. A study skill, like Delirium mentioned, could also be implemented but I think it should take quite a while to be successful at if its going to unlock a mdesc and it probably should be fairly obvious that you're doing it too as you'd have to look at them quite intensely I'd imagine.

I think that wearing a combination of items that mask your mdesc should be illegal within the cities as neither the militia nor the templarate would appreciate such an action. Walk, masked, into a room with soldiers and there should be a reasonable potential for some trouble for your character. Wearing a hood or a veil if its sunny or storming should be enough when in a city and something like this would mean that crimes in a city would have to be fairly well-planned if they're not in some out of the way place.

I'd love to see this in the game and think the pros far outweigh the cons. There's nothing especially wrong not being able to see the mdesc of people who've made a good effort to not be recognisable - its simply realistic. At the moment the Imms have left it up to the players what they want to see and what they don't want to see. I think that most players would agree that we shouldn't really remember details about a well-covered raider / thief / magicker yet the temptation seems to be too much for many - Arm is competitive and some people will take this OOC knowledge and use it to their advantage. Lets do away with it and make everybody play off the same level.

[Kauket]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!   :x

[Forest Junkie]

Zalanthas is harsh. You never know who's a mindmender in secret who can see right through your mask and heavy cloak.

Yes, well, right now, apparently everyone is.

ahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Fucking uber, I salute Dedlee.