Disguise Meta

[Perplexia]

But the practice of recognizing, example halfling head 18 with hair colour 135 seems like it doesn't break the rules as described.

nah

the rules clearly state: "If you don’t break someone’s disguise, treating them differently is metagaming."

if two non-disguised characters shared the same appearance, nobody would assume with such certainty that they literally are the same person, but that suddenly changes as soon as one of them has quotes around their name

if that's not metagaming then i don't know what is

also, hood checks may be against the rules, but disguised characters are still practically forced to wear a hood/helmet at all times for the reasons stated, which is a problem in itself
although, having the ability to change hair colour, via dye items or an NPC, would probably do something to solve that problem

i get it, it sucks when problematic players abuse these kinds of OOC notifications, but without it, it becomes just as easy to metagame in the other direction, and impossible to report it

but you know what's not impossible to report? those players who you believe are abusing the notification!

[MRFTW]

Having personally played a dedicated spotter with every feat + gifts. I was a bit disappointed to learn I couldn't actually pierce a bunch of disguises because my character was not wisdom based / had racial bonuses. By making the gift of spot not count towards the 50 skill cap could probably go a long way in solving this issue.

Fellow spotter here.

You were probably blowing their god save, which gives them a 10-15 minute window to leave before you can do anything about it.

Good spotbots work in pairs, it's blatant metagaming, but you've gotta fight fire with fire.

[Anomandaris]

Hood checks, as I understand have been largely eliminated as an common practice for RP, because they create a scenario which circumvents the need for suspicion. It's really a different argument of what I hope to get across, and slightly moot because it's been done away with.

But the practice of recognizing, example halfling head 18 with hair colour 135 seems like it doesn't break the rules as described.

I just saw someone pull a "stop for hood check or die" in the last two weeks, and did not honor the emote of "removes hood." It's still very much alive, just less so thankfully. 

The entire  point of the mechanic is the halfling, if their remains disguise unbroken, looks uniquely different, you do not recognize them. It doesn't matter if they share a hair color or facial model. What you are describing here is in fact metagaming and a rule break. Using knowledge OOC of the engine limitations regarding head models etc to get to a desired IC conclusion, in order to come out on top of a RP exchange, is also very "must-win." And at the very least, you can CHOSE to have your character know less, and approach this conflict exchange more graciously, rather than assuming you might know the maximum amount of information possible.

You were probably blowing their god save, which gives them a 10-15 minute window to leave before you can do anything about it.

Good spotbots work in pairs, it's blatant metagaming, but you've gotta fight fire with fire.

What exactly constitutes "fire" needing fighting with "fire" aka metagaming? Is it someone doing RP you don't like? Someone standing around disguised without being discovered? How would you even know if they are "fire" worth fighting in such a manner, they're disguised? I'm not sure any behavior justifies breaking the rules or gives one the moral high ground to do whatever you want. 

I'm not really trying to single you out but your post serves as a good example as you explicitly admit you'll break a rule to get a mechanical advantage in the spot/disguise exchange. In my opinion this is exactly the type of mentality that is the issue and why would we be better off to have no disguise tags. That way people can't target disguised PCs with "strategies" like this, and would force you to use only IC information or inspect everyone rather than that "suspicious person with a disguise tag" when there's no narrative reason to actually be suspicious of them.

Don't get me wrong, ostensibly two sets of eyes are better than one, and there's a perfectly reasonable RP justification for having two spot bots on duty. But that's not what's happening here. It's very clearly an OOC strategy to exploit knowledge of a PC being disguised, as well as the mechanics on how said disguise works. And no matter how you dress it up IC, it's just straight up metagaming. 

If people are willing to state on the public boards "metagame in this way to beat this group of players doing this thing because they deserve it somehow," imagine what else is happening behind closed doors.

I think it's clear that at least a portion of the player base interprets a fair bit of ambiguity in the rules and thus their approach to interacting with disguises, and would likely benefit from an explicit clarification of some of these elements by the team.

[Morto]

Example, Bob the half orc, who is known for donning a pink afro and a rainbow kilt and dual welding cod fish as clubs. If bob turns on his disguise to alter his name to show "Not-Bob", while continuing to present his trademark pink afro, rainbow kilt and double salmon slammers....

It's not metagaming to recognize that notable appearance as something the character may be familiar with.

Even a 0 spot skill character should have the opportunity to say: "Wow you look remarkable like someone I know. Who wears a rainbow kilt, pink afro and double fists fish all day!"

Because THAT is what is being presented by the character in the game. And by its nature, is not meta information being attained outside of the game.

In the example of halfling head 18 with hair colour 135, is less likely as extreme an example, it is however the same concept as information being allowable gathered in game.

Again, the rule wiki states the following: "-disguise means that people should ignore the floaty name over your head, but does NOT let you ignore what your avatar physically looks like."
...
If you have enough information without the floaty name to conclusively recognize someone, then you have enough information.

Meaning while your not certain "Not Bob" duo-dhufish, rainbow kilt', afro-orc is the same "Bob", you saw enter the phone booth minutes ago. It is not against the rules to recognize a connection in their appearance and give rise to suspicion.

[Anomandaris]

Example, Bob the half orc, who is known for donning a pink afro and a rainbow kilt and dual welding cod fish as clubs. If bob turns on his disguise to alter his name to show "Not-Bob", while continuing to present his trademark pink afro, rainbow kilt and double salmon slammers....

It's not metagaming to recognize that notable appearance as something the character may be familiar with.

Even a 0 spot skill character should have the opportunity to say: "Wow you look remarkable like someone I know. Who wears a rainbow kilt, pink afro and double fists fish all day!"

Because THAT is what is being presented by the character in the game. And by its nature, is not meta information being attained outside of the game.

In the example of halfling head 18 with hair colour 135, is less likely as extreme an example, it is however the same concept as information being allowable gathered in game.

Again, the rule wiki states the following: "-disguise means that people should ignore the floaty name over your head, but does NOT let you ignore what your avatar physically looks like."

Meaning while your not certain duo-dhufish, rainbow kilt', afro-orc is the same one you saw before. It is not against the rules to recognize a connection in their appearance and give rise to suspicion.

I agree with your stated example, recognizing Bob is easy. But using an hyperbolic example that represents a character so unique, they're actually the only thing like them in the entire island, to justify a metagaming tactic that is 9/10 times so far from this example, is not productive or healthy IMO.

This isn't what (generally) happens at all in practice. It's someone in a completely different disguise, being metagamed straight up based on the fact they are known to be a in disguise and people know who it "likely is" ooc. It's in no way in the spirit of the rule, and done often to gain advantage.

How do I know this? Years and years and years of personal experience. It would be amusing to remove the disguise tags and see how many of these "obvious" situations are no longer obvious without the disguise tag as freebie meta information.

[Eyeliner]

Common sense should apply, I mean there's a limited number of head options so you can't use that against someone, and it's probably not fair to use non-outllandish hair colors either. We can only do too much to customize our characters.

If you want to be a bright blue haired halfling that should probably work against you though. Basically if you're playing someone who will always be disguising it's probably a very good idea to look as generic as you can.

That said, we could really use temporary hair dyes for disguisers.

[Perplexia]

If you want to be a bright blue haired halfling that should probably work against you though. Basically if you're playing someone who will always be disguising it's probably a very good idea to look as generic as you can.

for clarification, neither halfling head 18 or colour 135 are particularly outlandish (it's a sort of dark, gray-ish blue, in this case it effectively resembles some shade of black hair), yet despite being quite generic, there still may only be one character with that specific combination

i also don't think it's totally unreasonable for a character to recognise such similarities, but too often it is just "Oh, you are literally X", which, as i said before, nobody would ever say were it not for the quotation marks
not to mention, doing so completely ignores any possible information coming from the character's description, they might be wearing heavy makeup, or have their hair styled differently, that sort of thing

the aforementioned quote from the wiki refers only to races attempting to disguise themselves as other races, as well as perhaps the kinds of extreme strawman example given by Morto, in which case WYSIWYG, of course
but it feels unfair to try to extend that logic to the, like, 20 head models some races have (for the longest time, every female gnome used the same one head model), especially when it comes to races with limited skin/hair colours
is it really so hard to suspend one's disbelief for a moment and think, maybe, there could be two characters out there who share such an appearance?

anyway, i went and made a suggestion to implement some way of changing hair colour, so this is really a non-issue
i was only giving an example as to how easily disguises can still be metagamed, considering the original argument was:

If someone's using all the tools they have to disguise, I'm not sure how HOW you could determine the true identity on a meta level.

but apparently this is not seen as doing so "on a meta level", so, uh

i think i've said enough for one thread

[Edens_Fall]

When I read "Disguise Meta" I thought this was going to be coming from a whole different angle. My experience playing a number of PCs that used disguise regularly has shown me the rather unfortunate reality of how disguises are treated in conflict.

As controversial or perhaps depressing this is to say, I would argue that in a majority of "conflict" based interactions involving disguise, there is some degree of metagaming "against'' the disguised PC. This ranges from "innocent whoospies" to extremely obvious and deliberate "must-win" metagaming. I have of course had many players engage with disguises gracefully, and seen a ton of healthy conflict narratives. It's just so incredibly common, that when I see someone actually suspend belief and not meta the disguise tag, I am surprised, as its the exception not the rule.

Besides the fact that people don't always use disguise responsibly or even "properly" to great narrative effect (which is fair), it is an essential part of the module. The perception that people playing "disguised PCs" that are difficult or near impossible to uncover are a problem, is in my opinion a bigger problem. Allowing there to be counterpoints to your own narrative is important. Not being able to just know someone's name and exile, pariah or isolate them from RP is a good thing. Often times that disguised PC's entire RP arch and life changes the moment their name gets discovered. Our characters don't need to know everything.

Settlement politics often involve heavy gatekeeping. Playing an evil character or doing anything resembling criminal activity will (almost) always result in you being removed from the RP via mechanical exile, PvP, or simply social exile via extensive IC and OOC networks. On the positive end of the spectrum, this is soundly narrative driven, on the not so positive end of the spectrum, it's done deliberately to stifle a factions ability to recruit, operate and basically "exist" in order to "win the conflict." The same could be said for good aligned PCs operating in Andunor (or generally anyone attempting to shake up or challenge the status quo of the local power base in a given RP area). Disguises are some of the only defense against this.

Even with a 100% unbeatable disguise, and all due caution, you better believe that your name will get out (legitimately or otherwise). And when it does, it's going to get used in every way possible/imaginable, with every mechanical tool available to the opposition to limit your ability to continue whatever it was you were doing. Disguised PCs that are actually trying to drive narratives that run counter to others (in conflict), absolutely need protections afforded by disguise, or their experiences with said RP archs will be even more miserable and short lived.

Ask anyone who's earnestly tried to run a villain arch or do this kind of disguised RP, and I think you'll find a lot of similar stories. If anything, I'd argue its the opposite, and we need to get rid of the disguise tags and treat it as WYSIWYG with some rules to limit the more problematic potential abuses/rulebreaks. And then... enforce the rules!

And yeah, if you want to have an answer to this, there are builds for it, you just have to pay the price and specialize. So use the counterplay available to you rather than nerfing something essential to many PC's rp.

+1

If someone wants to engage in surface evil RP outside the standard UD vs. Surface conflict, they need to make a heavy investment in disguise. That's just the way it is. Even still, a PC's proper name will be determined in time for a variety of reasons, most of which I do not think are intentionally malicious on any player's part. It's just human nature to immediately examine and watch any PC that appears with the disguise tag name floating above their heads. In fact, it takes more effort not to react to subtle meta information/clues subconsciously than simply treat the disguised PC as another passing character.

Simply put, I feel the current disguise and cover mechanics serve the purpose they are meant to, and change isn't really needed.

[MRFTW]

You were probably blowing their god save, which gives them a 10-15 minute window to leave before you can do anything about it.

Good spotbots work in pairs, it's blatant metagaming, but you've gotta fight fire with fire.

What exactly constitutes "fire" needing fighting with "fire" aka metagaming? Is it someone doing RP you don't like? Someone standing around disguised without being discovered? How would you even know if they are "fire" worth fighting in such a manner, they're disguised? I'm not sure any behavior justifies breaking the rules or gives one the moral high ground to do whatever you want. 

I'm not really trying to single you out but your post serves as a good example as you explicitly admit you'll break a rule to get a mechanical advantage in the spot/disguise exchange. In my opinion this is exactly the type of mentality that is the issue and why would we be better off to have no disguise tags. That way people can't target disguised PCs with "strategies" like this, and would force you to use only IC information or inspect everyone rather than that "suspicious person with a disguise tag" when there's no narrative reason to actually be suspicious of them.

I didn't explicitly admit metagaming at all, read it again.

I admitted playing a spotter and informed the thread of the most common metagaming exploits on both sides of this issue.

Perhaps I should've phrased it as 'one must fight fire with fire' instead of 'you've gotta'.

[Richrd]

I never liked the disguise system because it's always been blatantly abused. It just sounds like it's a problem that got worse over time with how focus shifts more and more onto the mechanical aspect of it rather than the RP. Oh well.

[Bazelgeuse]

I used to play a character with high stealth and Spot.

The amount of times I examined a disguised person from stealth and then watched them sprint away, use a portal lens, or True Sight was amusingly high.

[Peacewhisper]

I never liked the disguise system because it's always been blatantly abused. It just sounds like it's a problem that got worse over time with how focus shifts more and more onto the mechanical aspect of it rather than the RP. Oh well.

I've seen one instance of someone using disguise to tell a good story in all my years playing here. Every other case it seems like it is a decision made either to win (you can't pariah/exile/scry me because you don't know my real name) or to avoid accountability for what they were doing (pickpocketing, quarter breaking, raiding settlements, shopping in Andunor as a moon elf paladin, etc). Considering it is used almost exclusively for malicious PVP related reasons there should really be more counter play allowed.

[Security_Blanket]

Considering it is used almost exclusively for malicious PVP related reasons there should really be more counter play allowed.

Preferably counter play not in the form of a specific class or build. You need to be a Wisdom-based Ranger Elf if you want to break disguises for Charisma-based characters or beat a Dexterity-based character's Hide. That is just such a weird approach to balance.

[Morto]

I used to play a character with high stealth and Spot.

The amount of times I examined a disguised person from stealth and then watched them sprint away, use a portal lens, or True Sight was amusingly high.

This has been my observation too. I should have specified the thread as "Disguise Notification Abuse", instead of disguise Meta.

On a related note, I may not want a high bluff character to be informed that I have high spot. If someone's is using a "Casual disguise" which is a persona they don often for casual interactions instead of their criminal persona. They are using this no-risk disguise along with the examine notification to learn who they need to avoid when they engage in risky behavior.

[Sincra]

If you aren't wanting to reveal your power level then I did add an option to the rest menu some time ago to let you examine without attempting to break disguises.

The system has the feedback because we have the tags.
So ultimately this is a failsafe because the "name" can prompt people to behave poorly unfortunately.
Without them you can't know if someone is metagaming or not, which leads to issues surrounding reporting bad behaviour.

Also on the rulings,
Poor effort disguises are poor effort roleplay,
A lack of clothing changes that is enough for you to know it's the same person is justifiably enough to break a disguise.
A title for a name "warrior", "dwarf knight", "drow harbinger". These are lazy and low effort, do better.

[silverpheonix]

If you aren't wanting to reveal your power level then I did add an option to the rest menu some time ago to let you examine without attempting to break disguises.

.

A chat command for that might be better, so you aren't constantly toggling through the rest menu every costume party.

I didn't even know that option existed.

[Morto]

A chat command may also be activated when the rest menu isn't. Like from stealth.

Though if I was invested in spot. I'd still want to use that to see through disguise and cover state.

Appreciate that it's an option, but it doesn't feel good.

[Darkstorn42]

If you aren't wanting to reveal your power level then I did add an option to the rest menu some time ago to let you examine without attempting to break disguises.

What about the counter to this? Can disguisers get the option to 'auto fail disguise checks' to hide their skill?

[PhaerimmBane]

One issue I've come across recently, related to disguises and meta involvement, is being attacked by someone in disguise.
I recently engaged in PvP with a LARGE number of people, all of whom were in disguises, in the Hub.
I broke ONE of their disguises on a brief examine. Due to the location, as well as the sheer number of people involved, I now have ZERO idea who I need to be avoiding as per the 24 hour rule, with the exception of one name.

As a result (and being a more cautious player), I've elected to simply stay OUT of what amounts to one of the most heavily trafficked, RP-areas on the entire server for the duration of the 24 hour rule, but that still leaves the possibility of bumping into them and (unknowingly) having further conflict in those 24 hours.

The ultimate issue here is, Disguises can create potential issues as well, by their interaction with other, more notable rules on the server.

Also of note, regarding perpetual disguises.
Several times in the past, I've come across someone who hasn't changed their description, or their character appearance at all between disguises, including very distinguishing marks such as specific tattoos in specific (visible) locations, but only changed their name as per the disguise mechanic.
I feel this is equivalent to trying to say "That wasn't me, that was my identical twin brother who you've never seen or heard of before, and happened to have chosen the identical outfit as me." and, let's be honest, there's only so much suspension of disbelief to be had in these situations, especially when there are so many tools to come up with creative descriptions, and change outfits on a whim.

[Security_Blanket]

As a result (and being a more cautious player), I've elected to simply stay OUT of what amounts to one of the most heavily trafficked, RP-areas on the entire server for the duration of the 24 hour rule, but that still leaves the possibility of bumping into them and (unknowingly) having further conflict in those 24 hours.

The 24 hour rule applies to all parties involved, it's not just you avoiding them but them avoiding you. If they're in a different disguise and they see you again inside of those 24 hours then it's just as much on them to find a reason to be elsewhere.

[Peacewhisper]

As a result (and being a more cautious player), I've elected to simply stay OUT of what amounts to one of the most heavily trafficked, RP-areas on the entire server for the duration of the 24 hour rule, but that still leaves the possibility of bumping into them and (unknowingly) having further conflict in those 24 hours.

The 24 hour rule applies to all parties involved, it's not just you avoiding them but them avoiding you. If they're in a different disguise and they see you again inside of those 24 hours then it's just as much on them to find a reason to be elsewhere.

It's a 48 hour rule now. They changed it. I know, it caught me off guard too.

[D4wN]

It's really simple. The notification exists to allow the disguised person to raise a report when their disguise is (yet again) metagamed. Unfortunately due to the nature of the quotation marks and static head models, the disguise system will always be abused by people. This way it can at least be controlled somewhat. Maybe when they find a way to or agree to get rid of the quotation marks, the notification won't be needed either.

As a player who's played a few disguise characters heavily invested in these skills, I am all too familiar being metagamed time and time again. There's no solution here unless you find a way to have people stop metagaming disguises too.

[Peacewhisper]

I broke a character's disguise by examining him yesterday while casually strolling past him. He immediately casts Greater Spell Focus: Teleport and leaves the area. Funny thing is I didn't know who he was or if he was a bad guy and probably wouldn't have even said anything or tried to fight him, I just wanted to read his description. So the metagaming is going both ways, you can't say it is just spotters or just disguisers. I also ran into an obvious drow who was disguised, I didn't break the disguise but could tell he was a drow because his arms were exposed and he didn't change his description. I wasn't on my elf and my character wouldn't care though so I just minded my own business and watched him carelessly walk into a surface settlement and start openly trying to break into some place. I'm sure if I was on my elf and I PVP'd him he would be on here crying about how I metagamed because I didn't break his disguise, even though it was obvious from both his description and appearance he was a drow.

[Morto]

Examples keep coming.

I witnessed a polarizing example just this weekend. 2 disguised characters chatting in a city.

One disguise was broken, not the other.

It was clear as day the broken disguise was so eager to move their conversation elsewhere, and/or get out of the area themselves. Especially when the local guard caught on to them. This player/character has been around, so they weren't overt about it, but they clearly no longer had the casual confidence to continue their conversation where they had been even before RP about their broken disguise was brought up by other players characters.

The person they were talking about with, maintained their disguise mechanically. They were comfortable if not cocky in their positioning easing themselves closer to the guards to ease drop on conversation. They were acting with immunity.

I feel like calling out players for acting differently based on the disguise notification message is a lot harder than the blaming spotter's may have against players with quoted names. Because most of the encounters, permits the invested disguised character to continue playing on with the mechanical advantage of this system because for a meta offence to occur an RP interaction is necessary. But for the disguised to abuse their notification, they don't need to even give the opportunity to interact.

This likely causes a bais in the reporting in favor of disguised users, because they can report the interaction not the lack of interaction. The bias in reporting has created systematic protections and improvements benefiting disguises over time to where we are today.

I would summarize it as: Easily built and optimized bluff/perform builds, which effectively requires two equal or greater invested spotters to compete with (God save) with near perfect vigilance. With the reporting system provides the disguiser with an interaction bias they can cry foul on when they they disagree with other players autonomy while permitting the disguiser an omniscience they' are allowed to freely abuse.

[Darkstorn42]

I've said it before, I'll say it again.

Get rid of quotes, get rid of disguisers notifications.

I've played spot bots and I've played disguiser villains. I've been meta'd on both. Literally the other day, broke a disguise and instant teleport... Had no clue who they were. Meanwhile, everyone on edge around my permanent disguised character is hilarious.

I've decided that I just don't care anymore about the meta. If people want to meta me away with quotes and a hood to feel like they've 'won' the RP, that's just a shame for them to not get any engagement. I've also intentionally NOT maxed out my disguise so that it CAN be broken at times. I /want/ to be discovered and get that RP.

I understand the frustration, but remember, it's a game, it's stories. You can't force people to want to engage in your story, which is a loss for them.