A question on disguises

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Elena
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A question on disguises

Post by Elena » Fri Oct 04, 2019 10:49 pm

Something that recently happened ingame:


Cordelia walks up to Jacen and asks him: "Are you Frederick?" Jacen says: "Of course I am, what is it?"

At this point, Cordelia thinks Jacen is Frederick. She has not seen Jacen before, nor Frederick.

Later, Jacen disguises as Garry and visits Cordelia. Because there is some tension in the air, Cordelia tries to assess Jacen and breaks the disguise.

At this point, Cordelia sees Frederick, but she knows, this can't be Frederick. So she knows this man is trying to fool her.

This is how I played it out.


The player of Jacen however tried to play it out otherwise, by asking if there is a breach in his clothing/helmet, suggesting, that the disguise was unbreakable due to the clothes being entirely of different fabric and no skin to be seen.


I am a bit undecided what to do here. While I appreciate the player's reaction to suggest it ingame with a creative reaction, the mechanic of the game rolled bluff vs. spot and gave a result. One could argue, Cordelia noticed it the way he walked, the voice, the scent, etc.

What would you do?
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Re: A question on disguises

Post by Xerah » Fri Oct 04, 2019 11:05 pm

You did it right. Anyone using the clothing/armour etc excuse is just really trying to get around the mechanics.
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Re: A question on disguises

Post by MissEvelyn » Fri Oct 04, 2019 11:18 pm

Disguise is about so much more than just what armor and colors they're wearing. Things like mannerisms, posture, stance, pacing, body language, accents, dialects, tone of voice, speaking patterns, scents, fabric textures, cleanliness or the lack of, hygiene, and much, much more plays a big role in a person's being.

If your character passes a disguise check, the disguise is broken and your character becomes aware that the person in front of them isn't who they claim to be. That is, and has always been, the rule here.


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Re: A question on disguises

Post by Aelryn Bloodmoon » Sat Oct 05, 2019 12:19 am

If the game tells you you recognize someone, and someone demands you ignore it, my response is to go with the mechanics and then avoid that person in the future (or out them out loud every time ic if they somehow make that impossible).

If someone asks/ requests similar and gives a decent narrative reason, I'm usually willing to ignore what my character should know as long as it doesn't derail a narrative I'm already invested in.

Approach is everything- but regardless, you're never wrong for going with what the game tells you. What you see is what you get.
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Re: A question on disguises

Post by satan » Sat Oct 05, 2019 12:49 am

What about pirate tattoos? I once commented on them after my character noticed them and got a serious earfull about how his armor blocked their view so I couldn't see them.

But the game said I could?
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Re: A question on disguises

Post by Xerah » Sat Oct 05, 2019 12:58 am

They’re wrong too.
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Re: A question on disguises

Post by Drowble Oh Seven » Sat Oct 05, 2019 1:21 am

You're fully within your rights to use information your character has access to.

You get the magic text on the bottom of the screen telling you the disguise is broken, it's broken.

You might elect to ignore it, and continue regardless because it makes for an interesting story, but that's wholly at your discretion as a player. A character who does a thing needs to be willing to accept the consequences of the thing. Don't be the one who waves their fingers and goes 'Yes; but I've got IMPENETRABLE CLOTH.' It's like being the kid on the playground with the invincible shield during pretend. No-one likes that guy. Cooperative storytelling's give and take.

That said, if those are actual PC names, it would be best to swap them out. Critiques against individual players are better handled in messages to the team.

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Re: A question on disguises

Post by Archnon » Sat Oct 05, 2019 3:30 am

This all makes sense to me but can I hijack to ask another disguise question:

Let's say there is a character john doe and he regularly disguises as tommy jones (i am just making up names, for the record)

Now, there are a number of scenarios:

1.) You know john, see tommy (but don't know him), break disguise so you know its john --> You get to pick. Out him or not
2.) You know john, see tommy and fail to break --> You should treat it like it is tommy and you don't know him

These two are pretty obvious. It gets complicated when you don't know john! So the following are my questions

3.) You don't know john, see tommy (don't know him) and break the disguise..... If he says hi my name is Tommy, you can't really call him out on it in an RP context right????

4.) You don't know john, see tommy and have played with Tommy before and break the disguise .... How do you RP this..... do you accuse him of pretending to be john doe? do you just get confused? What is your reality as a character?????

Finally, how do you RP lazy people who put their name in their description and throw up a disguise but don't change the description???? Is that IC information?

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Re: A question on disguises

Post by Sea Shanties » Sat Oct 05, 2019 4:31 am

Archnon wrote:
Sat Oct 05, 2019 3:30 am

3.) You don't know john, see tommy (don't know him) and break the disguise..... If he says hi my name is Tommy, you can't really call him out on it in an RP context right????

You can can him out for wearing a disguise, you just don't know who he actually is. He must have given some sort of "tell" to allow you to know this. It could be very subtle if your very high spot beat his very high disguise, enough to give you an indication he's being deceitful even if you don't know who he really is or why.
4.) You don't know john, see tommy and have played with Tommy before and break the disguise .... How do you RP this..... do you accuse him of pretending to be john doe? do you just get confused? What is your reality as a character?????

Probably the same thing.. You know Tommy is up to something, you just don't know what. If you want to make a story of it you could ask Tommy's player in a tell what a good giveaway might be. Or after you get the "disguise broken" message you could emote that your character examines "Tommy" suspiciously.

You can just let it go of course too, but if you want to register that your character knows something is up I'd do it right after the "disguise broken" message. If you don't call him on it after you both know you saw the message and bust him for wearing the same disguise on a later date he may think you're metagaming.
Finally, how do you RP lazy people who put their name in their description and throw up a disguise but don't change the description???? Is that IC information?
If you didn't break the disguise you don't technically see the description. I'd give people leeway on this since they may have forgotten to change it. If you go in and out of disguise a lot that is a very easy step to forget, it's not necessarily laziness.

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Re: A question on disguises

Post by Emotionaloverload » Sat Oct 05, 2019 5:20 am

Archnon wrote:
Sat Oct 05, 2019 3:30 am

3.) You don't know john, see tommy (don't know him) and break the disguise..... If he says hi my name is Tommy, you can't really call him out on it in an RP context right????
In this situation, I tend to look at my character's WIS score. This is largely subjective to one's play style but if the WIS isn't reasonable, then the character doesn't really put it together. Instead, he thinks that John is Tommy and that he is a little weird.

However if he sees John later when he isn't trying to be Tommy, then the cat is out of the bag.

If the WIS is reasonable (again, personal preference), then the character can tell that there is something off about Tommy and might investigate further or be mistrustful of Tommy (or not care, depends on the character and alignment type).


I hope that helps a little!
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Re: A question on disguises

Post by Aelryn Bloodmoon » Sat Oct 05, 2019 5:55 am

satan wrote:
Sat Oct 05, 2019 12:49 am
What about pirate tattoos? I once commented on them after my character noticed them and got a serious earfull about how his armor blocked their view so I couldn't see them.

But the game said I could?
Players who do this kind of thing are one of the reasons why all the brand/tattoo/collar mechanics were determined to be necessary to display in your examine description in the first place- if someone comes at you like this with abuse, I recommend taking screenshots, blocking the person from tells, and reporting them. Obviously, give some leeway if they're nice about it and have a misunderstanding of the rules. But no one but a DM should be giving you an earful OOC about anything, much less this.


I think EO's hit the nail on the head for your hypotheticals, Archnon. In this case, it's less impactful that you're breaking the disguise now than the fact that you recognize they are disguising themselves- whether you justify that as realizing they're lying through some tell when they call themselves Tommy (although you still wouldn't know their name), or if they work with you and mention make-up/transmutations/wigs/etc. You don't have another name besides Tommy to call John, until presented with it, but later on when you see "John," you will namelessly recognize him as the "John" you identified when breaking the prior disguise of "Tommy."

How you make sense of it all is largely between you and the disguised individual, and it's a much smoother, enjoyable experience for both sides if they cooperate, but at the end of the day once the Disguise Broken text is in your window, if the other player refuses to give you something to work with after you ask, I say you justify it however you see fit.
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Re: A question on disguises

Post by Nitro » Sat Oct 05, 2019 10:07 am

Sea Shanties wrote:
Sat Oct 05, 2019 4:31 am
You can can him out for wearing a disguise, you just don't know who he actually is. He must have given some sort of "tell" to allow you to know this. It could be very subtle if your very high spot beat his very high disguise, enough to give you an indication he's being deceitful even if you don't know who he really is or why.


Probably the same thing.. You know Tommy is up to something, you just don't know what. If you want to make a story of it you could ask Tommy's player in a tell what a good giveaway might be. Or after you get the "disguise broken" message you could emote that your character examines "Tommy" suspiciously.

You can just let it go of course too, but if you want to register that your character knows something is up I'd do it right after the "disguise broken" message. If you don't call him on it after you both know you saw the message and bust him for wearing the same disguise on a later date he may think you're metagaming.


If you didn't break the disguise you don't technically see the description. I'd give people leeway on this since they may have forgotten to change it. If you go in and out of disguise a lot that is a very easy step to forget, it's not necessarily laziness.
There's a lot wrong with this post. For one, descriptions have been confirmed by the DM's again and again to apply whether the disguise is on or not. If someone has a description of "A tall, blonde, blue eyed man with a wicked scar over his mouth" and then disguises without changing it, anyone who reads that description can react to it whether they break the description or not. We even have a lot of tools today for saving and swapping descriptions, heck, if you name a description the same as a disguise it automatically swaps to that description when entering that disguise.
You can can him out for wearing a disguise, you just don't know who he actually is. He must have given some sort of "tell" to allow you to know this. It could be very subtle if your very high spot beat his very high disguise, enough to give you an indication he's being deceitful even if you don't know who he really is or why.
This is borderline meta-powergaming honestly. You've never seen a person before but go "Hey that man is wearing a disguise!" just because you break their bluff check? You have no baseline for that character, no way to tell what's a personality quirk and what's deliberate deception.

If they're trying to pretend to be something they're not on the other hand, like a vampire, rakshasa or drow pretending to be a human, dwarf or elf respectively, then you have something that's clearly wrong when you break the disguise. The same goes with pirate tattoos, slave collar and other mechanics that can be covered with a disguise.

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Re: A question on disguises

Post by The GrumpyCat » Sat Oct 05, 2019 10:41 am

IF you breach a disguise, you breach a disguise, no amount of clothing, description change, ect will make a difference.

Descriptions are a little more iffy... In theory yeah, descriptions if the same (not including blank descriptions) could be used to breach a disguise (if they use the same one twice). But truthfully I'd apply this ruling carefuly, on situation by situation. Using this does sort of encourage people to not bother with descriptions at all if they use disguises.

On the other hand effort should be put in if one is disguisng themselves, and not including descriptions is a bit rough.

So what I'd say is that yes... keeping exactly the same description can, if you want, be used to breach a disguise. But it's one of those rules I'd apply with 'Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.' Consider giving the other player the benefit of the doubt. Ask yourself if by using this to breach the disguise, you're really making more fun for those about you, or just ruining someone elses game.
Cordelia walks up to Jacen and asks him: "Are you Frederick?" Jacen says: "Of course I am, what is it?"

At this point, Cordelia thinks Jacen is Frederick. She has not seen Jacen before, nor Frederick.

Later, Jacen disguises as Garry and visits Cordelia. Because there is some tension in the air, Cordelia tries to assess Jacen and breaks the disguise.

At this point, Cordelia sees Frederick, but she knows, this can't be Frederick. So she knows this man is trying to fool her.

This is how I played it out.
The key question here - is in the first case is Jacen disguised as Frederik? And did she break that disguise.

IF she did not, then as far as she is concerned Jacen = Frederick

But she's seen 'Frederik' going around pretending to be Garry. Now you know 'something' is up. Because Frederik is lying about who he is.
This is borderline meta-powergaming honestly. You've never seen a person before but go "Hey that man is wearing a disguise!" just because you break their bluff check? You have no baseline for that character, no way to tell what's a personality quirk and what's deliberate deception.
Metagaming? Definatly not. You've breached their disguise. You've every right to realize that they may be acting in a way that hides/conceals/changes something about themselves. Powergaming?.... maybe? For me it's the same as the whole Description thing. Just because you 'can' doesn't mean you 'should.' Yes, your character can then realize the other guy has a disguise on, even if you've never met them. But Ask yourself 'what good does this do for the narrative? Am I sure my characte rwould call them out on this? Would this make fun rp not just for me, but for the other person?'
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Re: A question on disguises

Post by Emotionaloverload » Sat Oct 05, 2019 12:20 pm

Nitro wrote:
Sat Oct 05, 2019 10:07 am

This is borderline meta-powergaming honestly. You've never seen a person before but go "Hey that man is wearing a disguise!" just because you break their bluff check? You have no baseline for that character, no way to tell what's a personality quirk and what's deliberate deception.
The system is purposely designed to give a prompt to BOTH parties. If you break the disguise, you get a prompt. If your disguise is broken, you get a prompt. This is actionable information which is why it turns up in the battle window. Now, in a perfect situation, both players react to this prompt.

Maybe the disguised character drops their accent for a moment and plays it off as a cough/cold. Maybe their supposedly injured arm causes a delayed reaction when they are bumped. It can be anything. The disguise breaking is not a one sided affair. I know it can be difficult in huge groups to pull this off but the disguised character is not without rp and recourse in this mechanic. The prompt of it breaking is not the end of the world. It shows you that you can still lie your way out of this IG if your character needs to. You can still try.

The important thing is to trust the other player through the process (which I know can be difficult too). Play around with it and have fun.


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Re: A question on disguises

Post by Sea Shanties » Sat Oct 05, 2019 5:48 pm

One, Nitro, I said "I'd give them a pass because it's an easy mistake to make." I didn't say you had to, that's just what I would do if someone obviously forgot to change their description because I know mistakes happen. Nowhere did I say it wasn't in your right to bust someone over it but I'd rather either let it go and see where things went or possibly send a PM asking about the description to point it out. Just seems cooler to me in a general sense but obviously this is something situational.

Two, you can absolutely tell if someone is wearing a disguise even if you don't know them. Disguises involve intentionally altering your appearance. If they have 1 in Bluff that could mean a bad wig and Groucho mask that most people are going to be able to see through. If they have 50 Bluff and you have 70 Spot that might mean you notice something incredibly subtle (which is why I myself would ask them what that might be instead of forcing it on them) but it still goes back to that Groucho mask-- something indicates they're intentionally trying to look like someone else. This is what DMs have said before so if that actually changed and this isn't just your opinion I'd love to hear it.

I'd also say again-- in my opinion busting a disguise doesn't mean you have to shut down their RP, especially if you still don't know their actual identity. You can RP being suspicious but still let them continue if you want. It's all situational so there's no way of saying what anyone ought to do all of the time. All you have with that "you broke a disguise" message is the opportunity do run with it.

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Re: A question on disguises

Post by TheMidsummerStation » Sat Oct 05, 2019 8:13 pm

Something I've run into that I'm curious about is that some players (especially around Cordor) will try and break my disguise and fail but will still emote/rp being suspicious about my character. I'll give an example.

My character acts normal, walks into town and sits down.

Other character tries to break. Fails. Emotes: "*eyes [my character] suspiciously*"

And it happens a lot more than you think. It seems that regardless of breaking the disguise that a lot of people still act as though they have. They can't out me directly, however, because they never get my character's real name due to their failed checks.

What is the best way to deal with this?

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Re: A question on disguises

Post by Aelryn Bloodmoon » Sun Oct 06, 2019 2:15 am

Context is super important here. Cordor has a long and documented history of reasons, for example, to instantly distrust anyone lingering in the city with their faces concealed, and during times of political strife and war it isn't uncommon for the guard to temporarily enact a mandate that you must show yourself if asked.

Before you say that seems cheap, consider how many people most likely (definitely did) get away before that simply by tapping f1 to put a hood on and f2 to disguise for that to become a thing.

Not saying this applies to your situation, but it's just one example where someone might genuinely be suspicious ic even if they don't break disguise.
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Re: A question on disguises

Post by NauVaseline » Tue Oct 08, 2019 1:50 am

Mechanics > WYSIWYG

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Re: A question on disguises

Post by aergnist » Tue Oct 08, 2019 7:32 am

Emotionaloverload wrote:
Sat Oct 05, 2019 12:20 pm
The system is purposely designed to give a prompt to BOTH parties. If you break the disguise, you get a prompt. If your disguise is broken, you get a prompt. This is actionable information which is why it turns up in the battle window. Now, in a perfect situation, both players react to this prompt.
I'd love to get some more rulings from a DM on this because I'm preeeetty sure the prompts are not to be treated as IC information on either side. Stuff that pops up in the combat log is not automatically actionable. There's lots of information there ("X has left the party") that has no bearing on IC at all. The following is how I understand it.

Having your disguise broken:
In particular, the disguised person seeing "your disguise has been broken" has little to no reason to react to this text, whether they get it in the middle of a crowd or while (seemingly) alone in the middle of a large field. From what I've heard the prompt was added only to curb accusations of metagaming, by giving the disguised player a confirmation that their disguise was indeed broken.

I'd go as far as saying that you should never react IC to the prompt saying your disguise was broken.

Breaking a disguise:
Reacting to the new information that "you have broken X's disguise! They are in fact Y!" is a bit more context-dependent, but ultimately I'd still say the prompt itself is not what decides whether you react IC or not. If you break a disguise and discover that Bartholomew XVII is in fact Jon, the reasonable reaction comes down to what other information you've got. If "Bartholomew" is not covering themself up with a hood etc and you never knew them as Jon, it seems a stretch to call them out as DISGUISED based on the prompt alone. If you wanna put scrutiny on people who are shady, go after everyone with hoods, not just the ones with disguise + hood. If you break a disguise and recognize the person as someone you know, there might be many reasons you'll ask Jon why he's in that weird new outfit and/or acting different.

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Re: A question on disguises

Post by The GrumpyCat » Tue Oct 08, 2019 9:24 am

'You're disguise has been Broken!'
I... personally always thought this was ooc information? Though EO has a point... I am honestly not comfortable with making a ruling on this. But I will talk to the team. For myself I generally dont' treat the 'Your disguise has been broken!' as IC information. But that may just be me.

'You have broken a Disguise!'
I mostly do treat this is IC information. But that being said, the question then comes about whether you should react to this if you don't know the pc at all. Should you know the pc is disguised, even if you've never met them before?
To me it depends a lot on context, on sitaution, and on the disguise. I think there's certainly situations where it's very reasonable for someone to be susspicious that someone else is hiding their identity, at other situations it reeks of bad sportsmanship. Over all, as I think I've mentioned, I'd say 'Yes you can, but that doesn't always mean you should.'
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Re: A question on disguises

Post by monkeywithstick » Tue Oct 08, 2019 10:06 am

I always took it as passing the spot check means "you can tell that person is disguised" whether you know who they are or not would depend on whether you have met them.
This really comes into meaningful play a lot more with generic disguises. Like "Cordor Guard", passing the spot check means you can tell they are not in fact a Cordor Guard but not neccesarilly who they are.
To my mind it's much the same as the grey text being a prompt that "this person is trying to sneak around"
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Re: A question on disguises

Post by Emotionaloverload » Tue Oct 08, 2019 5:18 pm

aergnist wrote:
Tue Oct 08, 2019 7:32 am
Emotionaloverload wrote:
Sat Oct 05, 2019 12:20 pm
The system is purposely designed to give a prompt to BOTH parties. If you break the disguise, you get a prompt. If your disguise is broken, you get a prompt. This is actionable information which is why it turns up in the battle window. Now, in a perfect situation, both players react to this prompt.
I'd love to get some more rulings from a DM on this because I'm preeeetty sure the prompts are not to be treated as IC information on either side. Stuff that pops up in the combat log is not automatically actionable. There's lots of information there ("X has left the party") that has no bearing on IC at all. The following is how I understand it.

Having your disguise broken:
In particular, the disguised person seeing "your disguise has been broken" has little to no reason to react to this text, whether they get it in the middle of a crowd or while (seemingly) alone in the middle of a large field. From what I've heard the prompt was added only to curb accusations of metagaming, by giving the disguised player a confirmation that their disguise was indeed broken.

I'd go as far as saying that you should never react IC to the prompt saying your disguise was broken.

Breaking a disguise:
Reacting to the new information that "you have broken X's disguise! They are in fact Y!" is a bit more context-dependent, but ultimately I'd still say the prompt itself is not what decides whether you react IC or not. If you break a disguise and discover that Bartholomew XVII is in fact Jon, the reasonable reaction comes down to what other information you've got. If "Bartholomew" is not covering themself up with a hood etc and you never knew them as Jon, it seems a stretch to call them out as DISGUISED based on the prompt alone. If you wanna put scrutiny on people who are shady, go after everyone with hoods, not just the ones with disguise + hood. If you break a disguise and recognize the person as someone you know, there might be many reasons you'll ask Jon why he's in that weird new outfit and/or acting different.
To clarify, I meant that if I see someone broke my disguise, I will give them information they can use. For example, I have Jane Doe pretending to be a snooty noble. The disguise is broken so perhaps she lets slip some less than proper speech (like a compounded contraction). This is me as the player, giving the other player something to work with since I have been prompted.

This then allows them to rp with me on that slip. Perhaps their character becomes more offensive (based on actual information that was given to them due to the mechanic instead of winging it) and then my character can react from there.

I do not mean that the prompt then causes my character to supernaturally understand the thoughts of people looking at them and puts on extra make-up or whatever.

I hope that sorts it out.
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Re: A question on disguises

Post by aergnist » Tue Oct 08, 2019 6:47 pm

Emotionaloverload wrote:
Tue Oct 08, 2019 5:18 pm
To clarify, I meant that if I see someone broke my disguise, I will give them information they can use. For example, I have Jane Doe pretending to be a snooty noble. The disguise is broken so perhaps she lets slip some less than proper speech (like a compounded contraction). This is me as the player, giving the other player something to work with since I have been prompted.

This then allows them to rp with me on that slip. Perhaps their character becomes more offensive (based on actual information that was given to them due to the mechanic instead of winging it) and then my character can react from there.

I do not mean that the prompt then causes my character to supernaturally understand the thoughts of people looking at them and puts on extra make-up or whatever.

I hope that sorts it out.
-S
That makes a lot of sense! Thanks for the clarification and I apologize for jumping the gun on what I thought you meant. :)

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Re: A question on disguises

Post by Huelander » Wed Oct 09, 2019 9:56 am

Hello. Jacen here. I figured I'd comment given I'm the other party in the example, and given how passionate a few of you seem to be about this topic. It also seems that some of you have mistaken the situation entirely.

So, first off. I would ask some of you to calm down, we were just having some fun in game with what's available to us. As far as I know, I made no demands from the other player whatsoever, there was no OOC communication between us, and I did not dispute their character's ability to pierce the disguise in character either.

What I did is that I roleplayed that my character could not fathom this person figuring out who he is, when she so blatantly seemed to mistake him for someone arguably famous, not long before. She just walked up to a random stranger asking them if they were what might as well have been the polar opposite of who they were.

So, when Cordelia hinted that the disguise broke, by addressing Jacen, who was disguised as Garry, that they weren't Frederik as she thought he was, Jacen was then perplexed that she somehow figured this out with what little she had to go on. Bearing in mind that Jacen and Garry are roleplayed practically as two entirely different characters. Different speech patterns, accents, attitudes, mannerisms, decisions, friends, clothes, everything. It is the difference between a disguise using Bluff 10 as opposed to a disguise using Bluff 50. This guy is a professional caught off-guard, in this situation. This previously clueless woman somehow figured out something that Jacens closest friends and colleagues have not, after two chance meetings.

So, I roleplayed my character being perplexed. Asking Antonia, who was standing nearby, if there was a crack in the mask. He was grasping at straws. I thought it was a comical way of going about the situation. It allowed me to express the in-character emotion of doubting oneself.

As for Cordelia: You are the one that has to decide on the interpretation of the Spot check. You have, however, made this incredibly difficult for yourself. Because to crack a disguise at that level is a borderline supernatural feat on its own. The mechanics in this instance do not translate very well into roleplay, what could have possibly given it away?

Nevertheless you are granted, by the system, to decide what part of the disguise gave it away. It certainly wasn't the accent, but perhaps the pitch of the voice (although that'd arguably be a listen check). It certainly wasn't the clothes, but perhaps the build of the body. Rolling a Spot check as high as you did? Beats me, it's almost magic.

For someone so perceptive, however, I would urge you to not mistake strangers for famous people. There is a name above everyone's head, that's also meta-information you can use to identify who someone looks like. You deliberately did not use this information when your character was looking for Fredrick. It seems a little strange that your character can be both clueless and highly perceptive at the same time, which I believe is what ultimately got you into this situation. Given their initial conversation would have clued her in that she was not talking to Fredrick, were she as perceptive back then.

But. I do have a built-in safety measure for situations like this. After all, your character noticed something that you as a player probably didn't (no offense meant, of course). I will PM you what about the costume gave it away.

Cheers, everyone.

Aelryn Bloodmoon
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Re: A question on disguises

Post by Aelryn Bloodmoon » Wed Oct 09, 2019 7:47 pm

So, when Cordelia hinted that the disguise broke, by addressing Jacen, who was disguised as Garry, that they weren't Frederik as she thought he was, Jacen was then perplexed that she somehow figured this out with what little she had to go on. Bearing in mind that Jacen and Garry are roleplayed practically as two entirely different characters. Different speech patterns, accents, attitudes, mannerisms, decisions, friends, clothes, everything. It is the difference between a disguise using Bluff 10 as opposed to a disguise using Bluff 50. This guy is a professional caught off-guard, in this situation. This previously clueless woman somehow figured out something that Jacens closest friends and colleagues have not, after two chance meetings.

So, I roleplayed my character being perplexed. Asking Antonia, who was standing nearby, if there was a crack in the mask. He was grasping at straws. I thought it was a comical way of going about the situation. It allowed me to express the in-character emotion of doubting oneself.

As for Cordelia: You are the one that has to decide on the interpretation of the Spot check. You have, however, made this incredibly difficult for yourself. Because to crack a disguise at that level is a borderline supernatural feat on its own. The mechanics in this instance do not translate very well into roleplay, what could have possibly given it away?
The difference between a 10 disguise and a 50 disguise is nothing to do with how much effort you put into your disguise text-wise- it's whether you have 10 disguise or 50 disguise. If you have 50 disguise, and they break it, then they are more professional than you, at least in that instance - it is on you to make sense of why your disguise is broken, not them. If you RP'd having a mask that wasn't easily noticeable, then they (not so easily) noticed that there was in fact a mask- because all your emoting about your disguise is what you're attempting to do, successfully, until someone beats your disguise check.

I disagree with the perspective you're coming at it from. You're saying that you put a bunch of effort into RP'ing a carefully crafted disguise, and I respect that- but no matter how much RP you put in, if someone else breaks that disguise, then you are compelled, in that moment, to accept that something in that disguise either wasn't as flawless as you tried to make it, or it was so flawless it drew attention. That's what breaking a disguise really means, whether you know their identity or not.

Cordelia did not make this situation difficult for themselves - they should have been furnished with information relevant to a broken disguise to make it make sense, if there was any inherent confusion in the first place - if the justification doesn't come from the owner of the broken disguise at that point, then Cordelia is forced to make some kind of assumption and play around it on the other player's behalf, rather than the narrative shifting smoothly in response to the broken disguise. Forcing Cordelia to abandon the narrative of the broken disguise by refusing to furnish information is functionally little different than going afk in the middle of RP to avoid PvP.
Bane's tyranny is known throughout the continent, and his is the image most seen as the face of evil.
-Faiths and Pantheons (c)2002

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