A Wild, name Idea

[Nobs]

I honestly think all this thought going into an OOC tag is more than necessary. It's a visual aid to help us understand who is who, not a "hi my name is" badge. While on paper ideas like this seem cool, some of the examples made are from games with starkly different gameplay. What might work for a MUD may not work for a visual isometric CRPG. I realize my comment is probably not very helpful, I'm attempting to play devil's advocate. I think the system is fine as is, but the concern is certainly valid. Metagaming will never be completely absent, and trying to script around player behavior may be a bandage job at best.

We could try though.

[Nitro]

We could try though.

We could also not try though.

[Terenfel]

i am not talking about a OOC tag, i am talking about leaving all new characters without a name, but add a command where you can name them yourself.

[Nobs]

i am not talking about a OOC tag, i am talking about leaving all new characters without a name, but add a command where you can name them yourself.

Think this sounds like good fun tbh , and it would for sure help vs meta gaming.

[Terenfel]

or maybe leave it as a option on creation, if you want your character to be known by all.. or want their name secret.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

I honestly will not care too much if it does get removed, i just don't agree the system needs to prevent meta gaming. As and actor, more knowledge allows me to act better. So if the system is to ironclad, id view it as an actor not being trusted to act in good faith. A closed system also reinforces an us versus them in regards to faction conflict when all should OOC be on the same side.

We should be vigilant agaisnt Arelith must win mentality, not embrace is. Story telling is give and take and we are not obliged to give meaning to victories that have not respected a healthy story telling process.

[Terenfel]

I honestly will not care too much if it does get removed, i just don't agree the system needs to prevent meta gaming. As and actor, more knowledge allows me to act better. So if the system is to ironclad, id view it as an actor not being trusted to act in good faith. A closed system also reinforces an us versus them in regards to faction conflict when all should OOC be on the same side.

We should be vigilant agaisnt Arelith must win mentality, not embrace is. Story telling is give and take and we are not obliged to give meaning to victories that have not respected a healthy story telling process.

i dont understand why my suggestion is not working towards the same?

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

I honestly will not care too much if it does get removed, i just don't agree the system needs to prevent meta gaming. As and actor, more knowledge allows me to act better. So if the system is to ironclad, id view it as an actor not being trusted to act in good faith. A closed system also reinforces an us versus them in regards to faction conflict when all should OOC be on the same side.

We should be vigilant agaisnt Arelith must win mentality, not embrace is. Story telling is give and take and we are not obliged to give meaning to victories that have not respected a healthy story telling process.

i dont understand why my suggestion is not working towards the same?

Arelith has proper naming etiquette for a reason and has always trusted the players to not harmfully metagame. A whatever name suggestion nullifies disguise skills while also making it harder for players to track who is who which is useful for initiating RP especially when a character's perception of the world is not a player's perception of the world. Your OOC abilities/info should not determine your ability to create roleplay around you? I definitely don't think models from 2005, or any year, should determine our character's ability to recognise people. Roleplay is close to acting where OOC info can be helpful to work with; roleplay is not an immersion simulator where we have to first guees who everyone is OOC.

[Terenfel]

why you should name them with the command that should follow the suggestion.. so you dont have to remember them by their outfit but the name floating over their head.. just a name you given them, must likely the name they shared with you when they interduced themself.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

why you should name them with the command that should follow the suggestion.. so you dont have to remember them by their outfit but the name floating over their head.. just a name you given them, must likely the name they shared with you when they interduced themself.

We has significant troubles getting disguises to work again as is with EE; it be up to developers to decide if it is worth it

Sounds like a cool feature, but also a lot of headaches. Like I have to relabel everyone around me on every character and put devs through how much headache making it work to get destroyed in a single EE update?

Also how would you make disguises work in this system? Genuinely asking, not criticizing.

[The Kriv]

my 2 coppers... I think it's an awesome idea, the whole blank name thing.

However.. I think the main hamper for me are characters with ZERO descriptions.. or things like "WYSIWYG" or "RP FOR MORE"

those are absolutely unhelpful.

If this went forward (and I hope it does) i think it would require a small amount of physical description that is hardwritten into your character's description. This would be in addition to whatever custom info you wanted, but there would ALWAYS be basic info put into the character description that would never change UNLESS a high skill in 'BLUFF' is attained, which allows you to alter the info, but not remove it... because even then, there will be a minimum of information that can never be changed (with perhaps only someone who invests in the feat, "Epic Skill Focus: Bluff" -such as eye color, height and basic build (tall, short, stout, slender)

this information hardwritten could be offered as an optional conversation tree... that if you choose not to add custom info either generic info goes into your character description, or random information goes in.. and you live with it... forever... or.. through some FOIG manner to modify it... at a much later level.. and something that should not be allowed willy-nilly.

[Terenfel]

why you should name them with the command that should follow the suggestion.. so you dont have to remember them by their outfit but the name floating over their head.. just a name you given them, must likely the name they shared with you when they interduced themself.

We has significant troubles getting disguises to work again as is with EE; it be up to developers to decide if it is worth it

Sounds like a cool feature, but also a lot of headaches. Like I have to relabel everyone around me on every character and put devs through how much headache making it work to get destroyed in a single EE update?

Also how would you make disguises work in this system? Genuinely asking, not criticizing.

would have disguise as it is, if you see though the disguise you would get the name you have given to the character sometime before, if you never given them a name, it makes no sense you would even notice they are disguised as you have never meet them as anyone else then the disguise you just meet. but seeing though it you would still be able to name them with the command so you know it is the same person as the one with the disguise if you ever meet them again.. hope it makes as much sense as i think it does both mechanic wise as story wise.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

FYI


I am one of those what you see is what you get blank description people.

So idea seems cool, i just have these three main concerns, two which i mentioned earlier but I did not feel properly addressed:

1) how will this impact screenshot reporting. Like if killed without rp in middle of forest by 'Edward Silverarms" with no disguise tag. DMs going back to real event and fishing through all the logs seems more work than players reporting true seeing abuse (which players more often don't).

2) I as a player do not appreciate the chore of having to label all the characters i come across because i can't be trusted to no metagame and others can't be bothered to report meta gaming.

3) even if the two previous points had no value, is the value worth it only to have a patch later to break the whole disguise system? By relying on the system to stop meta gaming, we fail to build the character/ethic/honour in players to not metagame when there is a lack of a system like when disguises were not working. I imagine this blank name coding would create a massive mess if it got bugged out too.

I would conclude that because of said points, the devs and DMs would have to be super positive and passionate about said change to put the work behind it and I would be surprised if they would be due to the 3 said reasons.

[Terenfel]

i can only answer to the second part, i have no understanding of coding other then knowing a similar thing has been done on other servers.

how much of a chore would it really be if it is only a single quick command used when you are roleplaying with someone for the first time? i dont think it would be much of a problem.

[Arigard]

I think something like this would be a great idea. Especially if perhaps the system only showed up the names of those you actively had met somehow. (i.e the player had introduced themselves by typing their name, or what they wanted to be known as) and from that point on you could see what they had introduced themselves as and if they were disguised, it would then show you the name you had knowledge of. Or perhaps there would be levels, where you could see characters you had interacted with before (recognise their appearence) and those that had actively given you their name.

The fact is, whether people claim meta-gaming isn't happening, or isn't important, it is. People build up a lot of RP around trying to keep identities secret and go to a lot of lengths to build their characters to be obscure and then out of nowhere someone accidentally meta-games that they know your name (whether it's intentional, or not [most of the time]). That then has a direct influence on RP that has knock on effects that in an actual RP world simply wouldn't happen. I've seen it happen so many times where characters have never interacted before and then suddenly someone is typing the name floating above the head, or scrying someone they've never actually interacted with, simply due to OOC information. Sometimes as said above, this is simply an accident (i.e someone forgets they don't know your name and just types it without thinking) but then, from that point onwards the game is up, all that RP effort you've built is now out in the open & worthless because it takes a seed in the larger world. If you're not a discreet character then, it's not a big deal for you, but for some people that's what they want to play and to have it ruined simply because of a slip of the tongue, or because someone blurs the OOC/IC lines is a real bummer for those players. Even something as small as people deciding to conveniently cast true seeing because some disguised characters show up, even though they've been in an area for hours without doing so, can be, I'm sure very annoying for players. These are the small, but ultimately harmless meta-gaming events that eventually end up in IC behavior being influenced by information a character wouldn't necessarily know, or react to otherwise.

Is it a little more effort for people? Yes, does it make the world a little more dangerous potentially? Sure, but both of those are potentially good things that add a lot more creative RP into the world:

1. You are forced to actively work to RP with others who might have information you don't about people.

2. Stealthy/information gathering characters suddenly have a lot more meaningful value and information becomes more valuable which is a positive social RP change.

3. Players who are good at building and keeping their identity secret can actually benefit for doing so.

4. The whole situation around knowing information about people becomes much more black and white. If the only way you can know who someone is, is literally by understanding that through IG mechanics, then there is no confusion around "How did they get my name, know who I am to scry me etc". You are given peace of mind that however it was done, was an IG action.

5. Magical focuses such as divination could be tweaked to have more meaning in the world than simply just reading auras and 1 minute scrys which are mainly used just to find out where someone is during conflict situations.

6. Characters that you don't know, actually give you a good IC reasons for investigating & raising suspicion, if you are on high alert, or are simply being thorough. It works both ways. If you know IG exactly who you know, then by default, you also know who you don't know.

Something like this would be a clear social change that would offer a lot to the players who are interested in being the politicians, infiltrators, gossips and general informants of the world because it's all about social interaction and information gathering, which right now is RPed through in a lot of cases, but it doesn't really hold the true weight it should do and would do in a proper RP world.

[Nobs]

I think something like this would be a great idea. Especially if perhaps the system only showed up the names of those you actively had met somehow. (i.e the player had introduced themselves by typing their name, or what they wanted to be known as) and from that point on you could see what they had introduced themselves as and if they were disguised, it would then show you the name you had knowledge of. Or perhaps there would be levels, where you could see characters you had interacted with before (recognise their appearence) and those that had actively given you their name.

The fact is, whether people claim meta-gaming isn't happening, or isn't important, it is. People build up a lot of RP around trying to keep identities secret and go to a lot of lengths to build their characters to be obscure and then out of nowhere someone accidentally meta-games that they know your name (whether it's intentional, or not [most of the time]). That then has a direct influence on RP that has knock on effects that in an actual RP world simply wouldn't happen. I've seen it happen so many times where characters have never interacted before and then suddenly someone is typing the name floating above the head, or scrying someone they've never actually interacted with, simply due to OOC information. Sometimes as said above, this is simply an accident (i.e someone forgets they don't know your name and just types it without thinking) but then, from that point onwards the game is up, all that RP effort you've built is now out in the open & worthless because it takes a seed in the larger world. If you're not a discreet character then, it's not a big deal for you, but for some people that's what they want to play and to have it ruined simply because of a slip of the tongue, or because someone blurs the OOC/IC lines is a real bummer for those players. Even something as small as people deciding to conveniently cast true seeing because some disguised characters show up, even though they've been in an area for hours without doing so, can be, I'm sure very annoying for players. These are the small, but ultimately harmless meta-gaming events that eventually end up in IC behavior being influenced by information a character wouldn't necessarily know, or react to otherwise.

Is it a little more effort for people? Yes, does it make the world a little more dangerous potentially? Sure, but both of those are potentially good things that add a lot more creative RP into the world:

1. You are forced to actively work to RP with others who might have information you don't about people.

2. Stealthy/information gathering characters suddenly have a lot more meaningful value and information becomes more valuable which is a positive social RP change.

3. Players who are good at building and keeping their identity secret can actually benefit for doing so.

4. The whole situation around knowing information about people becomes much more black and white. If the only way you can know who someone is, is literally by understanding that through IG mechanics, then there is no confusion around "How did they get my name, know who I am to scry me etc". You are given peace of mind that however it was done, was an IG action.

5. Magical focuses such as divination could be tweaked to have more meaning in the world than simply just reading auras and 1 minute scrys which are mainly used just to find out where someone is during conflict situations.

6. Characters that you don't know, actually give you a good IC reasons for investigating & raising suspicion, if you are on high alert, or are simply being thorough. It works both ways. If you know IG exactly who you know, then by default, you also know who you don't know.

Something like this would be a clear social change that would offer a lot to the players who are interested in being the politicians, infiltrators, gossips and general informants of the world because it's all about social interaction and information gathering, which right now is RPed through in a lot of cases, but it doesn't really hold the true weight it should do and would do in a proper RP world.

+1

[Cybren]

On at least the subject of the (disguise) tag and people metagaming it: why not add reminders to the blurb in the description?
If you see someone who is disguised and don't pierce it: "Scrutinizing their appearance has not given you any reason to doubt so-and-so's identity", and if you do pass the check and see through their disguise: "[blah blah blah], so-and-so is actually Whomst, but you may not know who that is if you haven't met them."

It won't stop deliberate bad actors, but it will frame that mechanic in particular at least in a way that gives people acting in good faith a nudge in the right direction