-Head would be improved by being limited and on CD

[Eira]

Also a reminder that descriptions should be used liberally! Not every disguise needs a hood or a helmet, but if you disguise and also have the exact same description as undisguised, details from that also apply in what people see and can put together.

But you can also layer these. Makeup exists in FR, as does ways of changing the voice, walking, etc. And I am sure I'm not the only one who has thought of creative usage of illusion or transmutation to change certain details. After all, mimicking stats is also a tool of this.

This also covers your own back; if someone takes off your PC's hood and goes "Jim Bob! I knew it was you!" then you can easily point at your own description and go "You didn't mechanically break my disguise and this character looks completely different" as a reminder that they should be following the rules.

Is it perfect? No. But if you do all you can to protect your disguise, the harder it will be for people to keep up hood grab rp. And sometimes, things like this aren't malicious, but someone doesn't know better or has seen it done by others.

I personally am in favor of a once per month -head cooldown, but definitely not more than once in the same week.

[Spyre]

Personally I rather see it not tethered to the command (that command depreciated over time) and an in-game solution implemented.

This could be achieved many ways:

1) Barber NPCs - players can pay X gold to have their hair cut and dyed on a cooldown (if in the cooldown, the NPC will reject them).
2) Dye Use - Players can craft dyes as a temporary measure for colouring their hair. This will wash out over X period of time and revert their hair style.
3) Smuggler NPCs - players can pay X gold to a smuggler to have them assist in disguising your appearance with a head modification to let you break into a location.

Honestly there is a lot more options, but these three were my ideas from a long time ago.

[Za-Lord~s Guard]

Honestly I susspect people who were metagaming heads in the disguise rules now, would continue to do so anyway - even if we did allow more common head-changes. If you encounter this please do report this, and we will set the person streight. Unless your PC is particularly distinguishable via appearence (If you've chosen one with neon blue hair, for example) that is something the other pc is specifically looking out for - then unless -disguise is broken, it doesn't matter if you're helmed/hooded or what not - the other PC should not recognise/be susspicious of you.

A solid post under the announcement board from like a community manager or something would probably help to remind people that removing a helmet/hood is not an acceptable way to bypass disguise checks without beating the disguise roll. This would probably make it less necessary to chase down specific offenders (in the short term at least) and spare the DM team having to run people down for individual talking-tos.

[WanderingPoet]

Ultimatly best judgement is what we have to ask for - because whilst indeed you shouldn't be able to recognise someone if they have disguise up (and you don't break that disguise) It's also unfair to say that Bob the Tiefling with the Neon Blue Hair and Horns and Distinctive Purple Outfit should walk in front of the guards and yell 'YES I AM BOB THE TIEFLING! BUT I'M DISGUISED SO YOU CAN'T TELL MWHAHAHA'

So my advice is two fold:

For those trying to Break Disguise: Be kind. Don't Play To Win. Give people leeway. Nine times out of ten, if you havn't 'broken' their disguised you really shouldn't 'susspect' them. If you absolutly have a very good rp reason to be susspicious, then go for it, but honestly I'd always err on the side of caution here.

For Those Disguised: Put some effort into your disguise, recognise that being Very Distinctive has it's drawbacks too. But if you are 'recognised' or treated 'susspiciously' but your disguise hasn't been broken? Please report it and we'll look into it.

Out of curiosity, does the wiki need an update?

The wiki explicitly says that if you can recognize them without their underwear tag (the name over their head) then you're allowed to recognize them without breaking their disguise.

https://wiki.nwnarelith.com/Disguise#Di ... play_notes

Recognizing disguise Situation 1

Mithreas:

"Person A is wanted in town X.
Person A is in town X and is recognized by person B. Person B points out that person A is, in fact, despite appearances, person A. Guards must choose whether to believe person B or not.
i.e. if your source is good, you can trust them. NPCs will by default continue not to respond. (I'm looking forward to someone accusing some random bystander of being Krad in disguise)."

Situation 2

Person A spends 90% of his/her time in disguise. Person B has recognized them a few times, and sees them yet again, but this time rolls poorly. A is wearing the same clothing A always wears.
Mithreas:

"If A is using the same disguise as always, B can recognize the disguise. If you have enough information without the floaty name to conclusively recognize someone, then you have enough information. A good RPer will occasionally mistake A in disguise for someone other than A who wears similar clothing, if applicable.
In all cases, we have logs that will be used as the ultimate arbiter, if people are playing silly buggers (on either side). Good advice to all players is to try and bias yourself AGAINST your own character in cases like these."

Going by what you said above, the wiki is just plain wrong with the rules you're stating above, as (at least how I read it) is not saying nine times out of ten you should fail to be suspicious, it's saying that you should -occasionally- make mistakes.

Going by the wiki, if you see a tiefling with neon blue hair and horns in a distinctive purple outfit then you're -allowed- to recognize them as Bob regardless of their disguise score. Whether that's good sportsmanship/good rp or not is debatable; but if that's actually against the rules 90% of the time then I think the wiki need an update (especially as this passage is OLD).

[Edens_Fall]

Having to deal with the consequences of a rule break is not exclusive to this kind of metagaming. Same goes for PvP rule breaks, thefts and scrying without IC knowing a name. These can all punch holes in plots, but theres not much we can do but encourage against it and hope the DMs investigate it.

Whether someone knows OOC who your PC actually is, is largely irrelevant. It’s another rule we all must abide by, and do. I get there is the odd case of rule breaking, but for instance I know many people recognise your current PC a lot ooc, but leave him be without the break. Those who don’t are an unfortunate minority and personally do not warrant allowing people to just switch head models.

If it were possible to tie a head model to a disguise? That id be on board for.. but only if it remains for disguise periods only.

I don't see how this is a counterargument to my point though? The point of this feedback was to suggest a change to an existing system to help reduce instances of a particular kind of metagaming.

Because I think giving people control over changing their appearance of the model, at will, without being tied to certain skills/races, is open to more exploitation. The fact is a lot of players don’t even use description as and we have to rely on their model for descriptions. If they can now change every feature, there is zero way to combat this. That is more concerning to me.

I've noticed an increase of PCs without descriptions these days. Is that a new fad or is it a simple way of counter the whole "remove your hood" which breaks cover and exposes descriptions?

Does breaking cover even expose the description of a disguised PC? What if they didn't set a special description to the disguise they are using? Would it show no description OR would it show their normal description but with a disguised name attached? All this of course without the disguise being broken, only the cover by removing the hood.

The way the systems work has always confused me some.

[perseid]

I don't see how this is a counterargument to my point though? The point of this feedback was to suggest a change to an existing system to help reduce instances of a particular kind of metagaming.

Because I think giving people control over changing their appearance of the model, at will, without being tied to certain skills/races, is open to more exploitation. The fact is a lot of players don’t even use description as and we have to rely on their model for descriptions. If they can now change every feature, there is zero way to combat this. That is more concerning to me.

I've noticed an increase of PCs without descriptions these days. Is that a new fad or is it a simple way of counter the whole "remove your hood" which breaks cover and exposes descriptions?

Does breaking cover even expose the description of a disguised PC? What if they didn't set a special description to the disguise they are using? Would it show no description OR would it show their normal description but with a disguised name attached? All this of course without the disguise being broken, only the cover by removing the hood.

The way the systems work has always confused me some.

I like having descriptions since I tend to rp characters who will be around for long periods of time so I like having a description that sort of evolves incrementally with time as the character does. That said, I would 100% say that having a description is generally a "weakness" (I know, not really a good-faith mindset for an rp server) compared to not having one if we're asking the question of why someone might choose not to do it.

As an example, my observation has been that it's "easier" to impersonate characters with bios because people will find it more ambiguous as to whether or not they should recognize you as fake due to your mannerisms if you went through the effort of matching the subject's bio. It's a very unattractive reason imo to not have a bio but I would not be surprised if, aside from being less work, this was a motivation for lacking such in addition to the cover scenario that you noted (though I also find the cover scenario to be a lesser consideration since a lot of people find having seperate covered and uncovered bios to be a lot of work and treat it more as a flavor mechanic while just using the base -description when actually disguising).

[The GrumpyCat]

Going by the wiki, if you see a tiefling with neon blue hair and horns in a distinctive purple outfit then you're -allowed- to recognize them as Bob regardless of their disguise score. Whether that's good sportsmanship/good rp or not is debatable; but if that's actually against the rules 90% of the time then I think the wiki need an update (especially as this passage is OLD).

Putting aside issues of sportsmanship, good roleplay, making sure others have fun too...

Those quotes on the wiki and that point is entirely correct. You ARE, if someone gives you enough other good cues (very distinctive appearence, no attempt to change description, or someone activly telling you) allowed of course to recognise someone without breaking their disguise. The wiki is entirely accurate.

My only suggestion if you're doing that is to make screenshots and notes of the altercation. Our logs tell us clearly when a disguised has been breached. Telling what description a person is using, or what their appearence is in general, takes a lot more digging. So if you're regularly making such calls then make lots of screenshots of your evidence, ready for the day you'll be reported.

[AnselHoenheim]

I don't know if -head is used in an abusive way right now for dodging PC recognition, but what I'm seeing lately in trending, once more, is the "name" targetting, as it was in the old (disguised) days.

Example, Bob the guard searches for people who are concealing their identity, but Bob the guard is smart 101 and will ignore people with hoods and helmet who has no "name", however, he sees "John", he is not doing anything suspicious, he is just walking down the street, but Bob has activated his "name" radar and goes straight to him, there is no OOC notification of disguise broken but he still stops the character demanding: "Remove your hood, or you are arrested/dead/get out of mah city".

So I can see what could be the trending here, if somebody is cheesing the disguise system basically by using the "name" as a way to find targets, remove your hood menace to remove the cover, I can see somebody using the -head command for building a totally fake identity that is completely untrackable unless you beat the disguise check to counter this non-avoidable behavour (unless you want to start a fight, or flee from the situation).

[perseid]

I don't know if -head is used in an abusive way right now for dodging PC recognition, but what I'm seeing lately in trending, once more, is the "name" targetting, as it was in the old (disguised) days.

Example, Bob the guard searches for people who are concealing their identity, but Bob the guard is smart 101 and will ignore people with hoods and helmet who has no "name", however, he sees "John", he is not doing anything suspicious, he is just walking down the street, but Bob has activated his "name" radar and goes straight to him, there is no OOC notification of disguise broken but he still stops the character demanding: "Remove your hood, or you are arrested/dead/get out of mah city".

So I can see what could be the trending here, if somebody is cheesing the disguise system basically by using the "name" as a way to find targets, remove your hood menace to remove the cover, I can see somebody using the -head command for building a totally fake identity that is completely untrackable unless you beat the disguise check to counter this non-avoidable behavour (unless you want to start a fight, or flee from the situation).

-head is currently a one time use command as I understand it. The original reason for specifying it specifically was moreso to be as minimally laborious as possible.

[-XXX-]

Character models are purely cosmetic.
People who metagame disguises use different means to figure out the disguised PC's identity - suddenly having a different head model won't deter them.


TBH, I'm more concerned about the immersion implications of player characters having a different head model each day of the week.

[WanderingPoet]

Going by the wiki, if you see a tiefling with neon blue hair and horns in a distinctive purple outfit then you're -allowed- to recognize them as Bob regardless of their disguise score. Whether that's good sportsmanship/good rp or not is debatable; but if that's actually against the rules 90% of the time then I think the wiki need an update (especially as this passage is OLD).

Putting aside issues of sportsmanship, good roleplay, making sure others have fun too...

Those quotes on the wiki and that point is entirely correct. You ARE, if someone gives you enough other good cues (very distinctive appearence, no attempt to change description, or someone activly telling you) allowed of course to recognise someone without breaking their disguise. The wiki is entirely accurate.

My only suggestion if you're doing that is to make screenshots and notes of the altercation. Our logs tell us clearly when a disguised has been breached. Telling what description a person is using, or what their appearence is in general, takes a lot more digging. So if you're regularly making such calls then make lots of screenshots of your evidence, ready for the day you'll be reported.

I want to be clear I'm not advocating for the rule to be one way or another (nor stating my personal opinion on the topic).

However, I think I'm not understanding something here. I'm not sure how someone /could/ 'metagame' someone under the above ruling though. I mean: 'Bob the tiefling has bright blue hair and horns. Make sure you ask all people to take off their hoods and catch him if he tries to come back' or 'Jane is a female human-aasimar with blond hair and often wears dark clothing, she uses a rapier and is very dextrous, drive her out if she enters'. This is something reasonable a guard captain might do (after all, most good intel describes what the person looks like based off their outfit/appearance/description), so when they ask everyone to take off their hood and see blue hair, they have a lot of reason to assume this is Bob and boot him out.

So I guess my question is, how is this metagameable or even reportable? If someone can figure out it is you, be it by mannerisms, your head (which unlike real life, you're likely to have other people look identical to you), your outfit, your description, etc, then isn't just figuring out meaning the disguiser has failed in their disguise.

I could see the argument that utilizing the /head/ only would be metagaming, because there could be a ton of blue hair tieflings with horn in Cordor's NPC populace, or blond haired aasimar, but they could also be hostile to the /wrong person/ by this method.

Again, not that I'm advocating one way or another; just that I feel that the ruling is nebulous on what is and isn't a rulebreak here. It sort of sounds like "There is no rulebreak, but come prepared with evidence that there isn't foul play in case you get reported."

So I can see what could be the trending here, if somebody is cheesing the disguise system basically by using the "name" as a way to find targets, remove your hood menace to remove the cover, I can see somebody using the -head command for building a totally fake identity that is completely untrackable unless you beat the disguise check to counter this non-avoidable behavour (unless you want to start a fight, or flee from the situation).

There was a DM ruling on this recently viewtopic.php?f=13&t=39444&p=309084&hil ... se#p308812

Though in this particular case, IF you break their disguise, then you can tell they're disguised in some way. So it seems that if someone breaks their disguise then it's OK to target them for being in a disguise and ask them to take their hood off, but targeting them without breaking their disguise and ignoring others that are undisguised is a rulebreak.

[The GrumpyCat]

o I guess my question is, how is this metagameable or even reportable? If someone can figure out it is you, be it by mannerisms, your head (which unlike real life, you're likely to have other people look identical to you), your outfit, your description, etc, then isn't just figuring out meaning the disguiser has failed in their disguise.

A metagame example of this is:

I
Tony the Thief is a brown haired human using a standared headset.
Tony was caught undisguised pickpocketing someone.
Tony puts on a hood, disguises himself as Paul, changes his outfit, changes his description.
A guard spots "Paul" And demands that he takes off his helm. He does so. The Guard then sends "Paul" A tell ordering him to drop his disguise as he's removed his helm. - This would be wrong.
If the Guard player somehow knows (and I'm going to admit, I think this is difficult nowadays given the login change ect, but maybe he saw the change in the player log or something) oocly that Tony = Paul - but hasn't breached his disguise, then he should probably be reported.
Likewise if the guard goes 'Ooh you're a brown haired male human. Hrm. Funny there was another brown haired male human who was a thief. I wonder if you are THE SAME PERSON!!!!!!!!'- that's metagaming. No disguise has been breached. The guard - even with the helm removed, should not even recognise the person is in disguise.
Only if there is a really distinctive physical tell should it ever really come into play.

[WanderingPoet]

o I guess my question is, how is this metagameable or even reportable? If someone can figure out it is you, be it by mannerisms, your head (which unlike real life, you're likely to have other people look identical to you), your outfit, your description, etc, then isn't just figuring out meaning the disguiser has failed in their disguise.

A metagame example of this is:

I play Tony the Thief.
Tony the Thief is a brown haired human using a standared headset.
Tony was caught undisguised pickpocketing someone.
Tony puts on a hood, disguises himself as Paul, changes his outfit, changes his description.
A guard spots "Paul" And demands that he takes off his helm. He does so. The Guard then sends "Paul" A tell ordering him to drop his disguise as he's removed his helm. - This would be wrong.
If the Guard player somehow knows (and I'm going to admit, I think this is difficult nowadays given the login change ect, but maybe he saw the change in the player log or something) oocly that Tony = Paul - but hasn't breached his disguise, then he should probably be reported.
Likewise if the guard goes 'Ooh you're a brown haired male human. Hrm. Funny there was another brown haired male human who was a thief. I wonder if you are THE SAME PERSON!!!!!!!!' Then again - that's metagaming. No disguise has been breached. The guard - even with the helm removed, should not even recognise the person is in disguise.
Only if there is a really distinctive physical tell should it ever really come into play.

Oh, thank you. I never knew people sent tells ordering people to drop their disguises, I agree that's very uncool. I forgot that people check playernames too to metagame, blech.

That said, in your last example, why would that be a rulebreak? If the guards are on the lookout for a brown haired male human, without breaking their disguise they're not going to be /sure/ (even OOCly), so they could entirely be wrong on who it is. They could accidentally arrest Sam the brown haired human rather than Paul the brown haired human (especially if it's a different guard going only off a description).

In this particular case, even if the player 110% knows it really is Tony, they have no way of proving it is Tony (and it may not be!) IC without breaking the disguise. Even if others break the disguise, if they've never met Tony, then they can't really confirm it is him either. So in that case the characters ICly would be charging brown haired male human with a crime without even 100% being certain it's the same guy, which seems like an entirely probable thing to do.

After all, how many people in real life get robbed and can even remember what the person looked like? No matter a quick pickpocket that immediately flees. False arrests happen often enough.

------------
Now, my opinion is that it is pretty cheesy to rely entirely on seeing their face, as any reasonable disguise would include a wig or hair dye of some sort. It also isn't very nice to basically ignore their investment into bluff/perform because of mechanical limitations on what you can change; and ultimately shutting down their story/RP from it. Especially in metropolises like Cordor/Guld. It'd make more sense to be on the watch for brown haired human males in the racial settlements and be discriminatory; but there are probably countless unknown NPC human males that the guards wouldn't be arresting in Cordor/Guld, even if we don't see them.

But it /could/ make an interesting story to have say Cordor arrest every brown haired human male while searching for a murderer; as long as they also bring in more than just the one culprit based off their underwear tag. Mass arrests of people that 'look right', questioning them, reporting on it, that sort of thing.

But I guess in that case, it's not a rule break, as they're applying it to ALL brown haired human males, and Tony just happened to show up during that time.

Personally I still bias myself against disguises, and even when I break them and don't know the person; as it's a more fun way to open up stories by being -bad- at something, than succeeding and shutting them out.

[The GrumpyCat]

That said, in your last example, why would that be a rulebreak?

Brown haired human male isn't exactly a rareity. Now don't get me wrong, if the guards began literally grabbing every brown haired human male in and began to question them then that's fine. But if the guard suddenly zones in on one disguised person, who happens to be male and has brown hair and says 'Oh I bet you're the fellow!' Then that's a bit cheesy isn't it?

But under WYSIWYG it's hard to give much leeway with someone who has horns, brillint blue hair, and glowing red eyes (for example.) Sure, he may not be the ONLY guy in the universe with that, but it's not exactly the sort of thing you see every day?

If you have any doubt, then go purely off breaching the disguise.

If you are absolutly, 100% complerely and utterly sure that- were it not for the 'underware tag' as you call it - name. You could DEFINATLY and COMPLETELY recognise someone just by their appearence? Then you can go for it. But Take lots of screenshots and be prepared for a lot of scrutiny.

In this particular case, even if the player 110% knows it really is Tony, they have no way of proving it is Tony (and it may not be!) IC without breaking the disguise. Even if others break the disguise, if they've never met Tony, then they can't really confirm it is him either. So in that case the characters ICly would be charging brown haired male human with a crime without even 100% being certain it's the same guy, which seems like an entirely probable thing to do.

If someone breaches the disguise, but has never met Tony, they could go 'Well, he is a brown haired human... and he is... susspicious. There's something about him. Extra makeup maybe? I think he's concealing his identity...' - and then you could certainly roleplay susspicion and so on, sure.

I can't really give you absolutly hard core, iron clad, A + B + C rules with this, because there are a lot of permiatations. I think I've covered this as well as I can honestly? Really this comes down to common sense.

[Morgy]

I think I've covered this as well as I can honestly? Really this comes down to common sense.

I think this is truly what it boils down to. If this were a more prolific issue, I'm sure things could be set in stone more, but then that would also impact on common sense/creative RP. It's about striking a balance, and currently I personally do not see enough evidence to change from 'spirit of the law', to 'letter of the law' regarding this aspect of disguise.

[WanderingPoet]

That said, in your last example, why would that be a rulebreak?

Brown haired human male isn't exactly a rareity. Now don't get me wrong, if the guards began literally grabbing every brown haired human male in and began to question them then that's fine. But if the guard suddenly zones in on one disguised person, who happens to be male and has brown hair and says 'Oh I bet you're the fellow!' Then that's a bit cheesy isn't it?

But under WYSIWYG it's hard to give much leeway with someone who has horns, brillint blue hair, and glowing red eyes (for example.) Sure, he may not be the ONLY guy in the universe with that, but it's not exactly the sort of thing you see every day?

If you have any doubt, then go purely off breaching the disguise.

If you are absolutly, 100% complerely and utterly sure that- were it not for the 'underware tag' as you call it - name. You could DEFINATLY and COMPLETELY recognise someone just by their appearence? Then you can go for it. But Take lots of screenshots and be prepared for a lot of scrutiny.

In this particular case, even if the player 110% knows it really is Tony, they have no way of proving it is Tony (and it may not be!) IC without breaking the disguise. Even if others break the disguise, if they've never met Tony, then they can't really confirm it is him either. So in that case the characters ICly would be charging brown haired male human with a crime without even 100% being certain it's the same guy, which seems like an entirely probable thing to do.

If someone breaches the disguise, but has never met Tony, they could go 'Well, he is a brown haired human... and he is... susspicious. There's something about him. Extra makeup maybe? I think he's concealing his identity...' - and then you could certainly roleplay susspicion and so on, sure.

I can't really give you absolutly hard core, iron clad, A + B + C rules with this, because there are a lot of permiatations. I think I've covered this as well as I can honestly? Really this comes down to common sense.

From reading your response, I think you're mistaking my questions for an attempt to find loopholes or find some way to cheese the DM ruling or something. Quite the opposite, they're to understand what it is properly cement the /intent/ behind your ruling so that reports can be done properly. The original question was in reference to the wiki contradicting what was said, and whether it should see an update; and for further clarification because there was ambiguity. All of what you've said agrees with what I've said.

So, thank you for the clarification and clearing the ambiguity!

[Scylon]

I struggle to understand the disguise system, to the point using it seems to hinder more then help at times.

I can walk around with hood/helm, fully covered all I want, no problem. The second I use the disguise system, doing all the same activities (EG nothing) I will get accosted. The act of having the quotation marks around your name makes everyone hone in on you, question you, examine etc etc. It is by far the BIGGEST meta problem on the server, and this is because using it paints a big Snuggybear flag over your head saying "LOOK AT ME!!!".

And the fix is so simple, it boggles the mind that the staff are so resistant to it. You need to remove the quotation marks and make it so it only triggers a notification on the examiners side if it is breached. Otherwise why should they get something telling them they are failing to break a disguise if they are not skilled enough to see through it. This won't make guard RP go away, in fact it makes them actually have to work at being a guard and talk to EVERYONE, not just the ones with a tag saying "I'm in a disguise".

[Morgy]

This won't make guard RP go away, in fact it makes them actually have to work at being a guard and talk to EVERYONE, not just the ones with a tag saying "I'm in a disguise".

I would just like to point out the biggest guard faction around currently is likely Cordor. Having a PC there who watches the guard a lot, I can say they actually hood-check anyone unfamiliar, disguise-tag or not. I feel this is a bit unfair to single out people doing guard RP are not currently being honest about it.

Personally, I think removing the quotes would be fine as long as you're not impersonating another player. As a player, what if I decided to make a max perform bard, with unbeatable disguise (quite do-able to be unbreakable), then just spent most of my hours disguising as a settlement leader whenever that person was offline? The potential of that person to go-unchecked and undo months worth of work by changing laws/firing people/making damaging statements, just by min-maxing a skill, is a bit daft. I guarantee a lot of players would begin being quite paranoid ooc.. and I suspect we would get a -lot- of max-disguisers dressing as other players, just because it would be the easiest, most powerful way to destroy another PC's life/reputation.. not even by good RP, just because you maxed a skill with items/feats/gits/etc.

I'm not suggesting people acknowledge the "" tag and respond IC to it, but it reminds people to EXAMINE ooc. Do I examine the PCs I interact with several times a day, EVERY time I meet them? No. But my PC would be, in reality, looking at their face and mannerisms when they speak and hearing any change in voice/phrases of this very familiar person. If I examine this person, dressed as say, the Chancellor that my PC works with every day, and still fail the disguise check? Then I'll go along with believing its them IC. I believe that's how it should be done, but it requires faith and honesty for sure.

[riffraff]

Regarding the hood checks, as someone playing a character who often wears a hood and who routinely sighs when she sees a Cordor checkpoint, I can also confirm it isn't only disguised characters getting stopped.

Personally, I think removing the quotes would be fine as long as you're not impersonating another player. As a player, what if I decided to make a max perform bard, with unbeatable disguise (quite do-able to be unbreakable), then just spent most of my hours disguising as a settlement leader whenever that person was offline? The potential of that person to go-unchecked and undo months worth of work by changing laws/firing people/making damaging statements, just by min-maxing a skill, is a bit daft. I guarantee a lot of players would begin being quite paranoid ooc.. and I suspect we would get a -lot- of max-disguisers dressing as other players, just because it would be the easiest, most powerful way to destroy another PC's life/reputation.. not even by good RP, just because you maxed a skill with items/feats/gits/etc.

Whilst that would frankly suck to be specifically targeted that way (and seems like metagaming to me), OOC if people know it's doable and IC in a world where people can magically alter their appearance with a level 1 spell, nevermind mind control being a thing, as much as there likely would be some fallout, it seems fairly reasonable for people to accept "it was a disguised evil-doer/a shapeshifter, not me, fear not! Everything is back to normal now!"

I have to say, across so many of these threads I see a lot of fear about people deliberately and vindictively metagaming (I'm personally more concerned with people accidentally metagaming, myself included) and maybe I'm just a naive newbie, but does this sort of thing really happen that often?

[The GrumpyCat]

It doesn't happen at present, because mostly people recognise the "" involved. Consider though that the reputation isn't just IC, but could also be OOC. For example if someone disguised themself as your pc and went around doing some no RP PVP or terrible roleplay in general.
Now - in terms of rule breaks we could be on that, sure. But that wouldn't save your OOC reputation in otherwise.
Lets use the following makeup example.

I'm going to use Aldros Rivondir because the pc is well known as an example.

Tony The Thief disguises himself as Aldros Rivondir, even copying the login perhaps.
Tony then emotes grabbing female pcs bums/booms ect, and saying rather nasty things to them.
Female pcs tell him - IC and OOC to stop - but Tony does not. Jane, Penny, and Bill (playing a female character) are the ones involved.
He is reported by Penny. The other two do not report, even though they are angry. Perhaps they consider it against the rules? Perhaps they lack faith in the team? Perhaps they do report but are angry anyway. Whatever the case - they spread it round discord and other ooc methods how awful Aldros is, how he's an assaulter ect...
We of course would swiftly work out that that this is Tony, not Aldros. We talk to Tony and likely assure that he is banned perminently from the server.
We'd tell Penny (the reporter) that it wasn't Aldrous, but another player.
We don't however know about the other people the disguiser dealt with. They go on to spread rumours that Aldrous Rivondier's player enjoys rping sexual assault. This is obvious pretty awful for Aldrous player, and means we would have to take yet more action to intervene, put up awkward notes ect.

This is of course a very extreme example of what would happen. More likely we'd see examples of frankly awful PvP that are well disguised, and still work to ruin repuations.
We'd end up with a higher case load - because we'd have to take time to work out who somone REALLY is, and deal with any ramifications from that. And as I said, ooc reputations might end up tarnished in the grander community too. And honestly that's not the first time this has happened - as community manager several times I've had situations where people have spread frankly vile rumours about people and I'd rather not provide a tool to do it further.

[riffraff]

Consider though that the reputation isn't just IC, but could also be OOC. For example if someone disguised themself as your pc and went around doing some no RP PVP or terrible roleplay in general.
Now - in terms of rule breaks we could be on that, sure. But that wouldn't save your OOC reputation in otherwise.

You're right, I hadn't thought it about it from that angle. That's a very fair point. Whilst I hope that sort of behaviour would be very rare as well, it makes much more sense to me why that needs to be prevented.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

Character models are purely cosmetic.
People who metagame disguises use different means to figure out the disguised PC's identity - suddenly having a different head model won't deter them.


TBH, I'm more concerned about the immersion implications of player characters having a different head model each day of the week.

So because other players having metagaming techniques, my hands are tied to using common sense if I don't know why I can recognize they are the same PC if their face reveal sealed the deal for me? I'm not trying to win or out people I just don't want to feel like I can't bother interacting with people who liberally uses disguises all the time for constant 'aliases'. because unless i did this unknown mysterios metagamed, if I guess who you are without breaking your disguise then something was too recognizable. And it cant be your face alone because other people could have the same face model. PCs are allowed to just guess on hunches as well.

[Scylon]

Thought occurs, a happy middle ground.

-disguise could randomly generate a name for you. Take the choice away from the player to put the name in there and the issues listed by grumpy would no longer be a thing. Players get full creative control over their own character name, appearances, description etc however if they choose to go incognito the name part would be random. Also, if a character is unhappy with the name generated or their cover is blown, they could use a new command (-disguise_new) to reset their name. You can even have a list of names that are blacklisted and not a possible combination as to prevent someone accidentality getting the same names as an actual prominent player.

You could even expand this as well so for example -disguise_generic creates a no name one off disguise that like Human Knight or Elven Female or some such. With the name and even bio generated by the characters race, class and equipped armour. This would be useful for players who don't want to take on a new persona and just want to be incognito while out in the wilderness.

[JustMonika]

My two cents is that Prisoners of the Mist has a similar disguise system but without the ""'s, (The only way you can tell, and it's not 100% is that a disguised characters login name is auto changed to the name of their disguise) and we didn't experience any problems suggested by GrumpyCat above with people intentionally trying to grief other peoples reputations.

A random new griefer isn't likely to take this tactic. They might PvP people, but they won't know anything about the disguise system, much less the usernames and logins of other players whose reputation they could damage.

Existing players are very unlikely to perform such obvious and easily catchable griefing, knowing they'd be facing a lifetime ban, and that everyone would catch on in about 30 seconds flat.

Do remember, given the low graphical quality of NWN the most obvious thing about a head is not actually anything about the head itself, (except perhaps the ears) but the hairstyle. I don't think it's super immersion breaking for people to routinely change their hairstyle, and it's a particularly nice RP touch to be able to go out of your way to change your hair for something like a ball or a special event, where someone might take the effort to do their hair differently.

That's my two cents.