Letter writing while disguised

[SugarFiend]

Is the tag (Disguised) IG information when a disguised character writes a letter?

[Ork]

(Disguised) tags are OOC information across all mediums.

[Wuthering]

If character A posts a letter when disguised as character B are you obliged to ignore the OOC disguise tag and take the signature at face value? I think most people write those off as forgeries, and probably rightfully because it's usually done to mock the person not actually pretend to be them, but if someone writes a plausible letter I'm wondering what the obligation is. Obviously you can't roll a spot check against a letter, after all.

[Dreams]

Think about it this way:

- Is it going to generate some fun RP if your character doesn't recognize the forgery? Maybe it leads to some misunderstandings that open the story up for other people. Going along with it helps to continue the story, seems like a good idea.

- Is it silly nonsense that doesn't really lead to more interesting RP? Sometimes you can just ignore it. Maybe you've seen it but your character didn't notice the note.

[AstralUniverse]

I remember very hot thread about this a while back. I'm still, honestly, not sure how to react to disguised signature. So far I've just ignored the (disguised) and treated it as a real signature, but on the same note, so far I've not been in a situation where the writer used this mechanic to levels of abuse. I dont know what I think about it entirely but I do see a problem in that there's no roll for whether or not you 'recognize' that the signature is forged. I hope there's a discussion here in the cooking.

[The GrumpyCat]

I'm... for now... going to make a quick rule call on this - but this may change in the future.

In most cases, the (disguised) tag is ooc. So if someone writes their name as Billy Jon (disguised) you can presume that they are Billy Jon.

If someone's has Dark and Shadowy Figure (disguised) however, it's fairly reasonable to presume that the midwife didn't pluck them out of their mum, pass them over and the mother say, in clooing words of delight, 'Oh what a beautiful baby! I think I will name them Dark and Shadowy Figure. After their father!'

The exception I'll make is where someone is trying to pretend to be someone else.

So if someone writes Ghestalt Blimth (disguised) then, if you know that character at all and/or have seen missives by them, you can presume that whomever it is, it isn't Ghestalt Blimth. LIkewise for any other pc whom your character has met, or seen missives written about, or whatever. (Though that said, you are also free to presume it IS them, if you want. But we arn't going to enforce that you think it's them, is what I'm saying.)

Tl;DR: - The (disguise) tag is always ooc and thus not visable, unless the note is trying to impersonate another PC, in which case you can (if you wish) recognise that it is a forgery.

[theCountofMonteCristo]

What about mimicing other disguised names?

A character has created an alter ego of "Fizbinar the Great (Disguised)" and spends 90% of their time as it. They write letters as it, introduce themselves to people as it, etc.

Another character comes by and disguises as "Fizbinar the Great" and starts writing letters as that name. What happens then? Is the real-fake Fizbinar in the hot seat for trying to convince people that isn't them? Or?

[The GrumpyCat]

Well in that case, it's impossible to tell OOC if it's the same person or not, so really there's no metagaming option! And I'm not entirely sure that's a bad thing. There should be a negative to using psudonyms/disguises as an alter ego after all.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

I think the level of clarification given is far enough- the spirit of the idea is obvious, and it really umbrellas under the Be Nice and Stay IC rules, anyway.

Short and sweet- does your character even have a legitimate reason to know or suspect that the hand-writing looks fake or forged in the first place?

Maybe the answer is yes, maybe the answer is no, circumstances will vary. If you suspect foul play, report it. But so long as you keep the previous idea in mind, it should be pretty easy to do things without being a Cheeseball.

The real problem is that the system, as is, doesn't allow any kind of meaningful interplay between the forger and the reader, unless the reader already knows who the forger is somehow beforehand- but I'm not sure how to ameliorate that without some new complicated system of opposed skill checks involving getting handwriting samples off of boards and documents vs. a forged document, which could let you identify someone by their handwriting sample no matter what signature they used.

Bluff and spot would make sense, since there's no forgery skill, but then bluff would be getting lying, disguising, and forgery in one skill point, which seems a bit much. We can add new skills, like Forgery, right?

[Wuthering]

I guess you could introduce craftable seals that could guarantee identity or something?

The ruling sounds fine, I don't particularly want to be obliged to treat all forgeries as the real deal but if someone put in the effort to make it plausible I'd have my character buy into it to some degree (possibly wholehearted, possibly with doubt)

If forgeries actually became a rampant problem I'd also probably treat any message board post, even not with the (disguise) tag, as suspicious. Depending on the character of course.

There's really no obligation to believe anything you read after all and maybe it'd be good if message boards were less reliable. Get people spreading news word-of-mouth more instead of relying on boards as much as we do.