Character Race on Death

[Griefmaker]

I as an elf player would love to be able to tell humans and half-elves apart. Often times though, people can't even be bothered to give the vaguest of description, and I have no idea other than "I see some hideous polygons from technology 20 years ago".

I have played a few spotters and high lore characters, two of which were elven and VERY concerned about the differences amongst the various races and especially within the races. Take elves, my haughty sun elf who sees everyone as less than him but by a differing scale based on their heritage. Before he would have seen when he *looks* at another their specific brand of elf, be it sun elf, moon elf, wild elf, etc. Regrettably that information is usually left out of a description (which in itself is more a rarity nowadays with the disguise system) and after a while, sending tells for basic information which should be IC anyway gets cumbersome.

I am with Lorkas 100% in which I wish the racial information of creatures was still available. Make the requirements to view it greater if need be, but little details like that make a big difference in RP. It also makes skills such as spot more valuable in an RP sense, and making any skill more valuable outside of combat makes the server better all around.

[yellowcateyes]

There's already plenty of reasons to take Bluff, Perform, etc., which are much more compelling than avoiding the possibility of a sun elf looking down on you. And while I do think it's bad form for unskilled characters to simply strip off their description and apply a crappy -disguise, that's more an issue with disguise mechanics than anything else.

Dealing with people who don't roleplay their race in any identifiable or reasonable way tends to be an annoyance at most. Better roleplayers will put in effort in their disguises, work cooperatively to provide information to those that pierce their disguises, and add racial hints to both their description and their roleplay.

On the other hand, having a powerful *looks* that can unearth your race can heavily impact a character's career and storyline with even random and inconsequential encounters. Again, while I found it entertaining that a paladin could light up evil characters like Christmas trees, it was clear that *detect evil* in its original incarnation was not good for the server as the mechanics replaced roleplay.

Given that, I lean towards safeguarding character identity over full and open identification. I'll grant that there's likely a balance between the two that can account for both considerations. But given the IC (and OOC) grapevine and the past behavior of PCs who had access to such information, I'm wary of steps towards disclosure.

[Yma23]

Entirely Agree with YellowCatEyes here.

Also, most people are actually pretty chilled out when it comes to this sort of thing - if you're realy in doubt and want some 'clues' or such to a characters race (if not immedatly obvious) then you can ask someone in tells? You'll be suprised by how often people are happy to either out and out tell you (if it should be obvious, such as a halfelf not pretending to be anytihng other than such) or willing to give little hints (drow being elf, vica versa) especialy if you work then to make the rp fun for them after.

[Sab1]

Someone with a huge amount of lore might know some behavioral tendencies that rakshasas typically have, though, so I don't see why it's a problem if someone with both enough spot (noticing those tendencies) and lore (recognizing them for what they indicate) would be able to tell (or at least guess) that the person was a rakshasa in disguise.

The trick is getting people who will RP responsibly with that information instead of shouting through the streets. Requiring both a high lore and a high spot at least reduces the chances of it happening, and you can always boost your own bluff to prevent it (though that's hard as a low level).

I feel like the best answer isn't to completely remove the ability for any character to recognize any other race (apart from the model and description) though.

This is what I always wanted. A elf or drow walking around disguised as the other would need a pretty good lore to pull it off under close observation. After all how much does a drow really know about elf behavior or your average elf know about how to pass in drow society. A lot of what drow and elves know about each other is from stories and such so someone trying to impersonate one might act a bit strange if someone was watching them. IMO it should be hard to pull off a disguise like these perfectly or to "stay in character" when in disguise. Which is why I think lore should come into play during *looks*.