A Name to a Face: What to Do When Metagamed?

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Re: A Name to a Face: What to Do When Metagamed?

Post by MissEvelyn » Tue May 19, 2020 4:02 am

I keep a notepad file for each character I have. Anytime my character learns of a new name (either by overhearing it or from an introduction), I write that name down along with a general appearance description in the notepad file.

My notepad editor has a plug-in thingy that legs me auto order the names in alphabetical order, and that way I can always check to see if my character knows a name or not, and what they know about this person.


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Re: A Name to a Face: What to Do When Metagamed?

Post by Deryliss » Tue May 19, 2020 11:45 am

I do something similar. I have a Trello board for each character so I can keep track of acquaintances and all kinds of IC knowledge, like rumors and such. It helps a lot when playing multiple characters :)
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Re: A Name to a Face: What to Do When Metagamed?

Post by Aodh Lazuli » Tue May 19, 2020 12:56 pm

I've been on both ends of this... Both as the character who has been not-using-their-name only to have it revealed by someone just casually typing it despite not in-character knowing what it is, and as the person who accidentally used some other person's character name despite them not having revealed it.

Only thing to do is shrug. Accidents happen, and sometimes they happen without the person who did it even knowing they made a mistake. Probably wasn't malicious, and for all you know, you've done exactly the same thing to someone else.
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Re: A Name to a Face: What to Do When Metagamed?

Post by monkeywithstick » Wed May 20, 2020 10:35 am

Being disguised and breaking disguise is also an IC thing.

My understanding is that if spot beats disguise and you get that little green text pop up, you can (if you wish) determine that the character in question is attempting to disguise themselves.

There are certainly characters who may treat wandering round disguised as suspicious behaviour.
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Re: A Name to a Face: What to Do When Metagamed?

Post by Morgy » Wed May 20, 2020 11:43 am

My RL memory is poor compared to my characters, so I may have to rely on floating names a lot of the time for characters I have encountered before. It's awkward when this kind of accident occurs, but really a quick tell to any directly engaged in the conversation to politely request it isn't acknowledged is all that is required.

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Re: A Name to a Face: What to Do When Metagamed?

Post by Apokriphos » Wed May 20, 2020 9:00 pm

monkeywithstick wrote:
Wed May 20, 2020 10:35 am
Being disguised and breaking disguise is also an IC thing.

...

There are certainly characters who may treat wandering round disguised as suspicious behaviour.
Just to clarify, a character disguised whose disguise was not beaten by spot (and following the clear wiki guidelines) should be treated as if they are what they are disguised as.

If they are not using stealth mode or otherwise acting obviously suspicious they should not be treated as such.

To act otherwise is metagaming .

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Re: A Name to a Face: What to Do When Metagamed?

Post by AstralUniverse » Thu May 21, 2020 1:29 am

If I'm playing a character that doesnt tell their name often, or at all, I will wear a disguise, to help people not accidentally meta-game me, which can happen innocently to people and I dont blame them. Sometimes you feel you know someone well enough, and you mix up one interaction with another and poof you end up thinking you knew that guy's name when you in fact knew the name of the guy who stood next to him back then in that one time. It can happen. Wear a symbolic disguise with your 0 bluff character to prevent that. It can be something as generic as Wandering Warrior or something more specific to your character that you use at all times and people know you as THAT even if they constantly break your disguise it wont matter. If people want to RP my disguise as 'suspicious behavior' - Well, I aint telling them my name so I cant really blame them here either and I'm alright with that. More often than not, it simply makes a room for the relationship to grow.
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Re: A Name to a Face: What to Do When Metagamed?

Post by monkeywithstick » Thu May 21, 2020 11:22 am

Apokriphos wrote:
Wed May 20, 2020 9:00 pm
monkeywithstick wrote:
Wed May 20, 2020 10:35 am
Being disguised and breaking disguise is also an IC thing.

...

There are certainly characters who may treat wandering round disguised as suspicious behaviour.
Just to clarify, a character disguised whose disguise was not beaten by spot (and following the clear wiki guidelines) should be treated as if they are what they are disguised as.

If they are not using stealth mode or otherwise acting obviously suspicious they should not be treated as such.

To act otherwise is metagaming .
Thanks for the clarification, but I believe the sentence you elected to remove from your quote of my post did mention that it was contingent on beating the bluff check.

http://wiki.nwnarelith.com/Disguise
"Being disguised means that your character is making an active effort to either appear inconspicuous, shroud their identity, or outright pretend to be somebody else."
"-disguise exists for disguising purposes. If your character is not, in any way, trying to disguise, then you should not use -disguise. Some fleeting creativity is okay, but otherwise try to keep those things to a minimum."
"Forbidden - Any situation where your character is not attempting to actually disguise."

Can someone confirm if these rulings are current or does the wiki need updating?

As the wiki stands the symbolic disguise astraluniverse mentions is (again, contingent on breaking the disguise) IC evidence of an attempt to conceal the character's appearance. Which is an action that might be reacted to.
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Re: A Name to a Face: What to Do When Metagamed?

Post by The GrumpyCat » Thu May 21, 2020 12:21 pm

monkeywithstick wrote:
Thu May 21, 2020 11:22 am
Apokriphos wrote:
Wed May 20, 2020 9:00 pm
monkeywithstick wrote:
Wed May 20, 2020 10:35 am
Being disguised and breaking disguise is also an IC thing.

...

There are certainly characters who may treat wandering round disguised as suspicious behaviour.
Just to clarify, a character disguised whose disguise was not beaten by spot (and following the clear wiki guidelines) should be treated as if they are what they are disguised as.

If they are not using stealth mode or otherwise acting obviously suspicious they should not be treated as such.

To act otherwise is metagaming .
Thanks for the clarification, but I believe the sentence you elected to remove from your quote of my post did mention that it was contingent on beating the bluff check.

http://wiki.nwnarelith.com/Disguise
"Being disguised means that your character is making an active effort to either appear inconspicuous, shroud their identity, or outright pretend to be somebody else."
"-disguise exists for disguising purposes. If your character is not, in any way, trying to disguise, then you should not use -disguise. Some fleeting creativity is okay, but otherwise try to keep those things to a minimum."
"Forbidden - Any situation where your character is not attempting to actually disguise."

Can someone confirm if these rulings are current or does the wiki need updating?

As the wiki stands the symbolic disguise astraluniverse mentions is (again, contingent on breaking the disguise) IC evidence of an attempt to conceal the character's appearance. Which is an action that might be reacted to.
Pretty much confirmed - though I'd maybe add 'disguise or concealing their identity'.

If you breach someone in disguise, you can tell that they are in disguise/concealing their identity, even if you've not met them.

Regurading names - if someone is using an 'alias' a lot, then that's not neccesarly a problem. But people shoudl be able to tell, even if they've never met them before- that they are lying about their identity. Think of it as spotting when someones lying in fact.

Sure, (if you pass the spot check) you don't know that Bob's real name is Maximillion, but you know Bob is lying about his name. You can tell by the twitch in his upper eye, and the way he tries to conceal some markings about his person.
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Re: A Name to a Face: What to Do When Metagamed?

Post by Tathkar Eisgrim » Thu May 21, 2020 1:12 pm

The GrumpyCat wrote:
Thu May 21, 2020 12:21 pm

Sure, (if you pass the spot check) you don't know that Bob's real name is Maximillion, but you know Bob is lying about his name. You can tell by the twitch in his upper eye, and the way he tries to conceal some markings about his person.
My emphasis on name.

Are you ruling specifically about *name*? Or did you mean in your reply ...lying about *something*?

(Reading a facial twitch to be a specific lie rather than being able to discern a liar or lie told in a paragraph of text.)

"Hi. I'm Maximllion" (You discern the lie).
"Hi. I'm Maximillion. I am from Cormyr." (?)
"Hi. I'm Maximillion. I am from Cormyr. I am a scout." (All lies) (???)
"Hi. I'm Maximillion. I am from Cormyr. I am a thief." (LLT) (???)

Explicitly breaking a disguise / lie to gain a 100% guaranteed *specific* result has ..implications. Especially if longer text is used / multiple lies are told / lies are said amongst truths.

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Re: A Name to a Face: What to Do When Metagamed?

Post by The GrumpyCat » Thu May 21, 2020 1:28 pm

For ease, I'd say that you can guess someone is... either lying about their identity, or trying to hide some key part of their identity (likely the name). I agree that it's a little odd that ones spider-sense twinges at something so specific, but it's sadly just how it has to be.
If you spot someone is in disguise, you can tell they're acting in a way that suggests they are not what they seem.
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Re: A Name to a Face: What to Do When Metagamed?

Post by Seven Sons of Sin » Thu May 21, 2020 2:24 pm

Tathkar Eisgrim wrote:
Thu May 21, 2020 1:12 pm
The GrumpyCat wrote:
Thu May 21, 2020 12:21 pm

Sure, (if you pass the spot check) you don't know that Bob's real name is Maximillion, but you know Bob is lying about his name. You can tell by the twitch in his upper eye, and the way he tries to conceal some markings about his person.
My emphasis on name.

Are you ruling specifically about *name*? Or did you mean in your reply ...lying about *something*?

(Reading a facial twitch to be a specific lie rather than being able to discern a liar or lie told in a paragraph of text.)

"Hi. I'm Maximllion" (You discern the lie).
"Hi. I'm Maximillion. I am from Cormyr." (?)
"Hi. I'm Maximillion. I am from Cormyr. I am a scout." (All lies) (???)
"Hi. I'm Maximillion. I am from Cormyr. I am a thief." (LLT) (???)

Explicitly breaking a disguise / lie to gain a 100% guaranteed *specific* result has ..implications. Especially if longer text is used / multiple lies are told / lies are said amongst truths.
This seems nitpicky. If I break -disguise of a character, why would I trust a single thing they say?

Bob: disguises as Maximillion
Bob: "Hi I'm Maximillion"
Me: breaks disgusie
Bob: I'm a thief from Cormyr

I don't think any of the surrounding context matters really at all. Breaking a disguise is a clear mechanical acknowledgement you know someone is disguising themselves - they are actively trying to conceal or deceive.

Everything is a grain of salt after a disguise is broken. Disguise gets confusing and needlessly convoluted otherwise.
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Re: A Name to a Face: What to Do When Metagamed?

Post by Tathkar Eisgrim » Fri May 22, 2020 1:40 am

It is absolutely the prerogative of the player / character to distrust everything. I completely agree.

"Spider-sense tingly" does not warn spiderman exactly what the threat *is* and where its coming *from*.

Grumpycat says "either" or "or" which is the point I was trying to make. Careless wording makes it "Detect Lie" akin to "Detect Evil". Do you see the logic?

(Sense Lie --> Logic Trap through extra questions --> Reveals extra lie / truth = Good RP opportunity.)

(Whereas Detect Specific Lie = Immediate result = Poorer RP?)

Surely the perfect example of (Bluff vs Spot) Roll-play as opposed to Roleplay?

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Re: A Name to a Face: What to Do When Metagamed?

Post by monkeywithstick » Fri May 22, 2020 7:35 am

Right.
So mechanically it's possible to detect disguise. Because a character has mechanically disguised.

There is no way to mechanically enforce detecting any of the other lies, there is no way (not should their be) for the mechanics to force a player to tell the truth at any juncture.
I as a player can type anything into that chat box. Even if you assume good faith and inarguable, objective truths, flagging as players what is and isn't true in that manner wouldn't work and currently does not exist in game in any case.

Unlike disguise, which exists and can be detected.
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Re: A Name to a Face: What to Do When Metagamed?

Post by Wuthering » Fri May 22, 2020 11:04 pm

A smart disguiser may mix lies and truth so if they're busted they still have a shot of weaseling out of trouble.

A smart spotter may stay poker-faced while the person who was busted in disguise continues to incriminate themselves. Just because you know something is up doesn't mean you have to act.

Though that does lead to the potential of a busting someone in disguise once then calling them on it later. I'd assume that's a legit tactic if they're using the same disguise later (in which case you'd be wise to screenshot when you bust it in case they complain) but if it's a fresh disguise you have to beat the spot again.

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Re: A Name to a Face: What to Do When Metagamed?

Post by -XXX- » Thu May 28, 2020 7:48 am

IMO it is a good rule of the thumb not to build one's RP on the expectation of a particular mechanic never failing.

Attempting to invent a story in which a character is using a disguise? Sure, by all means! It's probably a good idea to also have a plan on how to tell the story in case the character gets unveiled though!
It is always a concievable eventuality and I'd suggest to just roll with it IC regardless of whether it's been mechanically legitimate or not - it's better for the RP in the end.

It's generally advised to report cases of deliberate metagaming. If there's a suspicion of this being the case, the best way to adress it would probably be just reporting it and focusing on the newly developed scenario. Serious metagaming offenders work in patterns and will be found out.

Honest mistakes happen too however and if a character concept can be straight up undone by a simple honest mistake... there's probably a good chance that it has never been that much good of a concept to begin with (not necessarily because i'd be inherently bad, but simply by the vitue of being overly demanding toward other players).


Slight digressive sidenote:
NEVER EVER EVER attempt to assume a serious false identity by simply giving a fake name without offering any further additional OOC hint of that being the case (disguise, emote, tell, anything...).
A lot of the players (admittely, myself included) can struggle at times to keep track of who even introduced themselves and who didn't.
Expecting fellow players to remember that somebody casually introduced themselves using a fake name during a conversation that took place 2 RL weeks ago is asking too much.

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Re: A Name to a Face: What to Do When Metagamed?

Post by Aelryn Bloodmoon » Thu May 28, 2020 5:40 pm

monkeywithstick wrote:
Fri May 22, 2020 7:35 am
Right.
So mechanically it's possible to detect disguise. Because a character has mechanically disguised.

There is no way to mechanically enforce detecting any of the other lies, there is no way (not should their be) for the mechanics to force a player to tell the truth at any juncture.
I as a player can type anything into that chat box. Even if you assume good faith and inarguable, objective truths, flagging as players what is and isn't true in that manner wouldn't work and currently does not exist in game in any case.

Unlike disguise, which exists and can be detected.
I mean, I agree with your point that mechanically there isn't currently a way to detect. I don't agree that there shouldn't be.

I know it's not tabletop, but disguise is not a NWN skill- we tied it into bluff via a script, and we doubled up sense motive onto spot.

In my perfect world, characters would be able to take bluff and sense motive, and they'd be able to ***-lie "words here"*** and ***-truth "words here"***. This would cause others who overhear them to roll a sense motive against their bluff when -lieing and just a plain sense motive when they -truth, and would display a (false) or (true) output at the end of their statement, allowing each individual character to be correctly acted upon by their player.

Some of you might be saying "we don't need mechanics for that," but I disagree; acquiescing to something you know is a lie IC when your character doesn't often is difficult - while we sometimes have faith in ourselves to do it, many incidences of people being accused of various acts of OOC unkindness get accused for this type of thing.

On a cut and dry mechanical level, you have a Bluff skill that is meant to represent how good you are at lying and be opposed by the skills of other players. Whether or not the lie is obvious to you the player doesn't matter- rolling the bluff skill is the stab at making the unbelievable believable.

In this way, characters could always react to a dubious statement from another character as they were meant to, with a guiding prompt that absolves them of guilt or frustration about one-way giving, where they feel less inclined to work with the lie because what proof do they have that the other person should be getting away with it or not?

You as the player are not meant to determine whether or not your character believes the lies of others- you're supposed to have a skill for that. It's the same thing as not using the name in someone's broken disguise if you don't actually know their name. You can know the character isn't telling the truth as a player, and still be compelled by the story and what your character would believe- and this is often far more interesting than arbitrarily deciding that you are or are not going to believe the liar.
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Re: A Name to a Face: What to Do When Metagamed?

Post by Hanover Fiste » Thu May 28, 2020 9:12 pm

Curious about an opinion re: disguises. If I encounter a character labeled with "Cleric of Bane" or "Paladin of Helm" does that not imply that they are disguising themselves as such? The cleric might have a black hand amulet or the paladin might have a tunic with the staring eye gauntlet symbol. My point is, doesn't the disguise text imply what they are trying to disguise themselves as? I ask since I was accused OOC of metagaming when I asked someone with a "Paladin of Helm" disguise where a Helmite Temple was located. His opinion was - you can't read that. Sure, we don't have little signs above us, but if you're disguising yourself I can see the disguise your trying to achieve and I should be able to interact with the disguise. And, on this same concept, shouldn't the characters make an effort to look like their disguise? The "Paladin" I encountered did have on plate and a helm which went along with the "Paladin of Helm" motif. But, this seems to reinforce my opinion that I should react to him for what he listed as his disguise. Thoughts?

Oh, and this has nothing to do with the game mechanic of breaking disguise. This is purely an RP query.

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Re: A Name to a Face: What to Do When Metagamed?

Post by darthkitteh » Thu May 28, 2020 10:09 pm

I do agree that if someone is disguising with the name: "Travelling Elf" then its assumed you are making yourself look like a traveller who happens to have elven features (even if your a human). So like your example of "paladin of helm" it would be safe to assume they LOOK like what they say.

Now if someone diguises as: "Bob Burgerton" its IMPOSSIBLE for your to know "Oh hey, hows your brother of the burgerton dynasty?" to try and call them out.
A good disguise would be to have a name, and then update your description with what the disguise is. (I beleive both change together when you set it up correctly.. i managed it somehow).

Also, the wiki does explain a good detail on what is good form for disguises. Worth a read.
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Re: A Name to a Face: What to Do When Metagamed?

Post by -XXX- » Fri May 29, 2020 7:43 am

IMO a disguise should always read as a name.
We do have character descriptions for, well... descriptons.

But this is just my opinion.

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Re: A Name to a Face: What to Do When Metagamed?

Post by The GrumpyCat » Fri May 29, 2020 11:55 am

-XXX- wrote:
Thu May 28, 2020 7:48 am
IMO it is a good rule of the thumb not to build one's RP on the expectation of a particular mechanic never failing.

Attempting to invent a story in which a character is using a disguise? Sure, by all means! It's probably a good idea to also have a plan on how to tell the story in case the character gets unveiled though!
It is always a concievable eventuality and I'd suggest to just roll with it IC regardless of whether it's been mechanically legitimate or not - it's better for the RP in the end.

It's generally advised to report cases of deliberate metagaming. If there's a suspicion of this being the case, the best way to adress it would probably be just reporting it and focusing on the newly developed scenario. Serious metagaming offenders work in patterns and will be found out.

Honest mistakes happen too however and if a character concept can be straight up undone by a simple honest mistake... there's probably a good chance that it has never been that much good of a concept to begin with (not necessarily because i'd be inherently bad, but simply by the vitue of being overly demanding toward other players).


Slight digressive sidenote:
NEVER EVER EVER attempt to assume a serious false identity by simply giving a fake name without offering any further additional OOC hint of that being the case (disguise, emote, tell, anything...).
A lot of the players (admittely, myself included) can struggle at times to keep track of who even introduced themselves and who didn't.
Expecting fellow players to remember that somebody casually introduced themselves using a fake name during a conversation that took place 2 RL weeks ago is asking too much.
Basicaly exactly what she said. Some good advice here.
This too shall pass.

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Re: A Name to a Face: What to Do When Metagamed?

Post by Tarkus the dog » Fri May 29, 2020 1:21 pm

One time an orog walked up to my character and went "Are you X?" ( entirely metagaming the name unless I'm missing something here ), she went "no", because rogue. 5 minutes letter I get a runner "You've been evicted from Y".

I reported it to the DMs but nothing came out of in the long run ( to my knowledge ).

I don't know if it's related to the topic but I felt like sharing.

I think as a good rule of thumb that everyone should practice is to simply not use another's toon's name whatsoever unless they are 100 percent sure they know it ( or better yet, if they can scroll up and see it being used by them or someone else ). It has worked semi-decently for me so far.

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Re: A Name to a Face: What to Do When Metagamed?

Post by -XXX- » Fri May 29, 2020 3:57 pm

It's also possible that (for example) an organised group knew exactly who they were looking for and with the help of a diviner they knew precisely where to look.

Point being, there's always a lot of other things going on that we as players aren't aware of and immediately assuming the worst possible scenario isn't very helpful. There is usually a number of plausible explanations other than 'cheating'.

Furthermore, just because the DMs don't share their findings doesn't mean that they aren't dealing with the situation.

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