Disguise Meta

[Inordinate]

I can only hope the people who view these blatant rules violations are reporting them through the Astrolabe.

[AstralUniverse]

These apparent rule violations could also be coincidences. Seem pretty hard to prove and I sure hope we dont take a "guilty until proven otherwise" mindset. Should people avoid using teleport if their disguise was broken, even if they were just about to do it anyway regardless? It's only 10 min cooldown. I know I use it a lot, especially in the middle of cordor, brog, bendir or guldorand to save myself walking 2-3 screens to a portal source. If I were disguised and the disguise happened to be broken, now I'm not allowed to use tp or to feel like I want to move the conversation to another place? That's kinda awkward... I'd rather just not get broken disguise notification in that case. Then I can do whatever I want. Just pointing out the absurdity here.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

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.

I'm kinda with DarkSTORN here. My limited experience with disguise has led to some hysterical moments such as making a speech with a disguised character that prompted half of the 40 people in the room to draw their weapons and start buffing as if I was going to kill them all if they didn't all suddenly have premonition up, and while it was exactly the reaction I came to expect in that sort of situation I also get the frustration of the people who were sending me tells like "holy metagaming batman".

The truth is that the defenses against potential abuse (using a dm name in disguise, or another character) and metagaming (spotted notifications to ensure people actually broke your disguise) are also the same thing that makes the entire system a bit of a joke. And when the cure is actually worse than the disease...

[Darkstorn42]

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

The truth is that the defenses against potential abuse (using a dm name in disguise, or another character) and metagaming (spotted notifications to ensure people actually broke your disguise) are also the same thing that makes the entire system a bit of a joke. And when the cure is actually worse than the disease...

I feel like anyone trying to impersonate a DM would get banned /very/ quickly. The other part, though ... right now its practically impossible for anyone to disguise as another player, unless that other player is a permanent disguised PC. But this was discussed in a different feedback thread from months ago. This topic comes up all the time and my position has been settled into as I said. It solves more problems then it creates, and is much easier to police for the DM team.

[BurntGnome]

I gotta imagine there's some way to get rid of the "disguised" quotes around disguised names. That'd probably help a deal with metagaming. I rather liked the TDN solution of everyone being a stranger until you yourself assign them a name. I feel like that'd be a good starting point in redesigning the system.
At the same time, as someone who does deep investigation rp, building profiles, based off of outfits, behaviors, times observed, and a host of other metrics, Im tired of being told Im metagaming when Im going off of entirely IC information gathered over time. Ofcourse, the other player likely doesnt know the level of research and investigation I go through, so its not exactly their fault they think they are being cheated, its the poorly designed system's fault.
The entire system is silly as implemented and no amount of additional rules are going to fix it when it needs fixed on a design level.

[What Fate Awaits]

It'd likely be too complicated to implement at this point, but I'm personally fond of the system used a couple of places where everyone starts out with a generic name showing to others and then players can name how those PCs appear to them.

For example, I make a PC called Jane Smith, and I choose one of the generic name options, Tall Woman. As this PC mills about, she gives her name as Sarah Jones. The players of the PCs who meet her can use a special command and name her Sarah Jones, which is how she'll appear to them, but not to others - she'll still show as Tall Woman.

Where Disguise comes in is the ability to create more than one generic name. For every five hard ranks, for example, I can choose another option - this time I call myself Hooded Stranger. The PCs who met me as 'Sarah Jones' don't see that name any longer, they see Hooded Stranger. When I give my name as Jane Smith, that's what they name this particular version.

Spot works the same to break the disguise, meaning that if someone who's met and named Sarah Jones examines Hooded Stranger and breaks the disguise, they'll get a message like: "You've broken Hooded Stranger's disguise! They are really Sarah Jones."

Again, probably way too complicated to script for Arelith, but it'd be neat.

[Ruzuke]

I know I have been metagammed several times. I have been told the person assumed I had a fake name because my character wore a hood. Then said my PM message must be IC confirmation.

Yes I did send a report for that one.

[Xersaoth]

As someone who only plays characters with relatively high Bluff/Perform, I can say that there is no disguise meta on Arelith in the sense implied by the original thread author.

I can totally see why some people get upset with their inability to break disguises: it requires some substantial Spot investment that has very short-lived application.

In my practical experience, any meaningful roleplaying based on deception will be prevented by someone metagaming, often based on the quotation marks alone.

If you have high Bluff and are disguised:

• People will stalk you for no reason, trying to reroll their Disguise checks or witness disguise changes.
• People will boost their Spot when you are around them, even in public areas visited by everyone.
• People will ask their associates about you, especially those who also have higher Spot.
• People will look for any inconsistencies or similarities in your appearance and behavior.
• People will treat you with undue suspicion just because they might not recognize you later.
• People will force you to remove your hood, question you, detain you or put you in a cell to investigate.
• People will justify their hostility by getting scried recently or news about raids, spies and pickpockets.
• People will ignore your disguise based on your previous "evil" associations or whereabouts (Hub!).
• People will watch the player list and server transition logs to spot any changes in the names.
• People will just try to kill you for any reason if all their attempts at finding out your real name fail.
• People will go through the list of known villains to try scrying you in order to break your disguises.

As soon as your character's real name is known by some consistent player, there will never be a way for you to avoid your disguise getting broken at any second by anyone: Loremaster is among the most popular classes on the server, and mirrors can be used for it by others as well.

Additionally, not having many disguise artists of the same race, gender, and phenotype running around will narrow the player list substantially, and, as Sincra mentioned, recognizing your character out-of-character is a justifying reason for recognizing your character in-character. In practice, this means that even one piece of armor, i.e., a bracer or belt, can be a justification for out-of-character recognition and thus just metagaming your disguise. Based on this, screenshots of your character will be taken too.

Finally, there are substantially more good Wisdom-based characters than evil Charisma-based characters, and Spot negates not only Bluff/Perform but also Stealth overall. That's one single check against three different skills, since Move Silently is normally much harder to boost than Hide.

Keep in mind that even one action from my list can be enough to ruin your plans to deceive someone and prove substantial efforts, potentially many-many hours of disguise customization and roleplaying, totally worthless!

[Sincra]

(Snip)

If you have high Bluff and are disguised:

• People will stalk you for no reason, trying to reroll their Disguise checks or witness disguise changes.
• People will boost their Spot when you are around them, even in public areas visited by everyone.
• People will ask their associates about you, especially those who also have higher Spot.
• People will look for any inconsistencies or similarities in your appearance and behavior.
• People will treat you with undue suspicion just because they might not recognize you later.
• People will force you to remove your hood, question you, detain you or put you in a cell to investigate.
• People will justify their hostility by getting scried recently or news about raids, spies and pickpockets.
• People will ignore your disguise based on your previous "evil" associations or whereabouts (Hub!).
• People will watch the player list and server transition logs to spot any changes in the names.
• People will just try to kill you for any reason if all their attempts at finding out your real name fail.
• People will go through the list of known villains to try scrying you in order to break your disguises.

(Snip)

Keep in mind that even one action from my list can be enough to ruin your plans to deceive someone and prove substantial efforts, potentially many-many hours of disguise customization and roleplaying, totally worthless!

The bits I have quoted there are exactly why I will always err on the side of supporting proper and correct use of disguises over buffing spot.
People that actually put the effort in for disguise and personas will often be outdone by a set of minor actions and a right click if the extra short term effort isn't placed onto the spotter.

People need to do better for disguises, It's telling how many descriptors we see on any given days playerlist as disguise names, rather than just making up a name you can then re-use and attach personality/story to promote continued rp.
I get it, you're causing trouble or doing something you probably shouldn't be, and perhaps don't want to have it follow you into future rp.
But that's how you cultivate an identity. Seeing "Lone Ranger" or "Dark Knight" or similar feels more like pandering to the OOC interpretation of what you're seeing rather than defining it through the rp.

[AskRyze]

The bits I have quoted there are exactly why I will always err on the side of supporting proper and correct use of disguises over buffing spot.
People that actually put the effort in for disguise and personas will often be outdone by a set of minor actions and a right click if the extra short term effort isn't placed onto the spotter.

People need to do better for disguises, It's telling how many descriptors we see on any given days playerlist as disguise names, rather than just making up a name you can then re-use and attach personality/story to promote continued rp.
I get it, you're causing trouble or doing something you probably shouldn't be, and perhaps don't want to have it follow you into future rp.
But that's how you cultivate an identity. Seeing "Lone Ranger" or "Dark Knight" or similar feels more like pandering to the OOC interpretation of what you're seeing rather than defining it through the rp.

This x100.

Moreover, it's interesting how many people leave their character descriptions set to the same thing as their default character description - sometimes including their character's actual name - and then act shocked when you are able to identify their character by it. If you aren't fully covered and you have the same description text as someone I already know, am I supposed to assume that "Oh XYZ person that has [features] exactly identical to ABC person, weird I guess they have a twin!", or am I allowed to assume that these are the same people because they look, act, and have the same number of instances of 'voluptuous' in their examine description as each other?

[Morto]

Adding link to a related discussion earlier in the year.

viewtopic.php?f=91&t=46332

[Morto]

Should putting on a disguise require a material component?

5e I think has the precedent of needing a Disguise kit to use effectively.

[Subtext]

The bits I have quoted there are exactly why I will always err on the side of supporting proper and correct use of disguises over buffing spot.
People that actually put the effort in for disguise and personas will often be outdone by a set of minor actions and a right click if the extra short term effort isn't placed onto the spotter.

People need to do better for disguises, It's telling how many descriptors we see on any given days playerlist as disguise names, rather than just making up a name you can then re-use and attach personality/story to promote continued rp.
I get it, you're causing trouble or doing something you probably shouldn't be, and perhaps don't want to have it follow you into future rp.
But that's how you cultivate an identity. Seeing "Lone Ranger" or "Dark Knight" or similar feels more like pandering to the OOC interpretation of what you're seeing rather than defining it through the rp.

Moreover, it's interesting how many people leave their character descriptions set to the same thing as their default character description - sometimes including their character's actual name - and then act shocked when you are able to identify their character by it. If you aren't fully covered and you have the same description text as someone I already know, am I supposed to assume that "Oh XYZ person that has [features] exactly identical to ABC person, weird I guess they have a twin!", or am I allowed to assume that these are the same people because they look, act, and have the same number of instances of 'voluptuous' in their examine description as each other?

This might be unintended. I had it happen a few times now that the description reverted to my normal one after switching servers and definitely didn't catch it every time right away.

[Darkstorn42]

This might be unintended. I had it happen a few times now that the description reverted to my normal one after switching servers and definitely didn't catch it every time right away.

There is definitely some bug I've seen with descriptions and disguises. I always saw my description falling to revert from my disguise description but was unable repeat it on demand, though it happened so frequent I made a shortcut to get my default description back... Someone should probably make a bug report about it.

[Cthuletta]

I sortof chuckle at the example of a halfling with blue hair, as someone who played a disguiser who was a halfling... with bright blue hair.

This was largely before hood checks were a consistent thing, but every so often I would indeed have someone tell her to remove her hood, and... wouldn't you know it. "I heard of this Andunorian who is a halfling with blue hair, it must be you". At the beginning she was the only one around, towards the end there was another halfling with blue hair but a different head model. All of this is to say... yeah, she was pretty uniquely recognizable based on her head model. I really can't be mad, there was TWO characters on the server that could fit mine's description. Factor in they both had wildly different accents, it was easy to tell who was who. That's the risk of playing someone unique in appearance. Why they felt the need to tell her to remove her hood in the first place? Likely those quotation marks.

I don't think this can extend to every red headed human, blonde elf and so on, however. Taking away the quotation marks around a name, you're more than likely still going to be suspicious about that blue-haired halfling if you know of her. But Maximoot Jennersonny over here (who's actually Dread Pirate Doodlebob) with standard brown hair might also look a little familiar to the player's eyes.... but not to the character's. In that instance, if you were to take away the notification of disguise being broken, how is Dread Pirate Doodlebob going to know his disguise was actually broken as compared to someone thinking that head model is a wee bit too familiar? There's tons of brunettes around, after all.

Summing up, I think taking away the quotation marks around a disguise name is a good idea if viable, it creates less of a blaring sign above someone's head that they should be looked at. I DON'T think removing the notification is a good idea. While there are 'bad faith' actors on each side, it's so easy to tell who is skirting that line to report it and to know if there's potential metagaming being done. Ideally you'd get a notification if you BROKE a disguise, but not if you didn't as the spotter. That way there's no combat log 'heads up' about someone being disguised even without the " "
Ideal world, and all that.

[Joe46]

I'll say it once and I'll say it again: Disguise has all the advantage, it's active. Spotting has a disadvantage, it's reactive

You as a disguiser CHOOSE when to start disguising, when to don your disguise kits to hit insane number.

You as a spotter must always wear your spotting kit or you'll be out of luck. You must ALWAYS be on the lookout.

[Sincra]

That's an interesting perspective, because I'd argue that the way you've explained it is inverse to actual.

Disguise is passive/reactive, because you're using it in reaction to something else being done to you, not actively.
Spot is (pro-)active because you have to be wearing the gear, as you outlined, and then also use an action to inspect someone.

Disguise should have the advantage as I've outlined because it's harder to keep up a persistent identity than it is to swap some gear out. Long term effort vs short term effort deals.
The issue tends to be inappropriate use of disguise as a system, which is up to DM's to coach people on.

[Joe46]

Way I see it, if you are Mr guard spotter you must always wear your gear as swapping gear is meta/heavily frowned upon. If you're then caught out of your combat gear thought luck

As a disguiser, you decide WHEN to enter town, when to disguise. As a spotter you can't decide when to spot and when not to. It's a similar interaction to stealth/hide. Stealthers/disguisers only ever do their thing when they want to, spotters must always do their thing or risk the former getting away

[Eyeliner]

I don't know if the probabilities are in the best possible place but breaking disguises should be more difficult than wearing one. Breaking it ends whatever scheme the disguiser has going. It's just better for story if the disguiser has time and chance to get away with something more often than not, though they do need that threat of some super-spotter busting them too so it's not foolproof.

[Definately Not A Mimic]

It would probably be too difficult to accomplish but what if there was a 'you can tell this person is disguised' and a 'you break this disguise'. Two levels of the spot. I think it might lead to worse reactions from people but at least it wouldn't be pure metagaming now. I find it insane the amount of times people are either casting true seeing just cause and it assumed it is because someone in disguise walked by.

Personally I try to just play in good faith and hope that people will give the "evil doer" a chance to do something fun instead of just breaking the disguise and outing them to everyone they can. But that is the same with spotters seeing someone stealthing and feeling the need to point them out to the public when all they are doing is walking by trying to quickly get somewhere without needing to stop and rp. Or pvp subdual hoping that the person will rp and not jump up and heal then attack or insta lense or what have you. Give people a chance. You can always make a note of the names who don't and give the next person a chance of good faith. Not everyone will take advantage or is "bad".

[Morto]

It would probably be too difficult to accomplish but what if there was a 'you can tell this person is disguised' and a 'you break this disguise'. Two levels of the spot. I think it might lead to worse reactions from people but at least it wouldn't be pure metagaming now. I find it insane the amount of times people are either casting true seeing just cause and it assumed it is because someone in disguise walked by.

True seeing actually does not aid in most disguise-breaking. Only negating an extra bonus of polymorphed disguisers. The in game spell description does not include this exception.

Reference: https://wiki.nwnarelith.com/True_Seeing_(spell)