Upcoming Change - Cover, Disguise and Examine

[Xerah]

The obvious answer to me is, why really care enough to make a law that you can’t be covered up? No one likes that style of RP, guards don’t, because it’s dead boring, bad guys don’t, because it’s just lame, and new players are wtfing.

Let the bad guy in and maybe he actually does something cool instead of trying to shut them down before it starts.

[msterswrdsmn]

I've got mixed feelings on this update.

On the one hand, I do like the idea of being able to cover up things like pirate tattoos, as it makes zero sense for me to be able to see your damn tattoos underneath several layers of clothing.

On the other hand, this makes it way to easy to shoot your ability to disguise through the roof. I can 100% see a regression with settlements going back to the "no helmet" laws of ye olde Baronial Age Cordor (or was that before then?) in response to this.

There are also far more ways to identify someone than just by looking at them (I do this for a living). Distinct speech patterns or slang, gait (the way someone walks/holds themselves), weapons (yes, sometimes people use weapons that stick out), a particular item they're wearing that sticks out, who/what they're with, body type/build, etc.

I've actually had people i've been searching for change clothes mid-pursuit after dropping out of sight for a bit. We still got them, as clothes aren't the only thing that let you pick someone out. Its actually far, far easier to pick out an usually tall/short/fat person than it is than someone wearing different clothes.

Maybe limit the cover-up feature to hiding things like the pirate tattoos or "This persons ring/emblem/etc signifies they're part of XXXX group/faction" with a very, very mild boost to bluff/performance?

[Might-N-Magic]

For actual aliases, we would have disguise kits. Quite large objects

Plz God no. The amount of things that we must stuff our inventories with just to function (especially if you're a Rogue - potions, wands, gonnes, multiple pieces of armor and equipment, bags, trap bag and traps, grenades, etc, etc) is already busting our inventory screens to the point of being unable to loot due to space concerns.

My character carries nothing that isn't necessary as it is and has no space for RP fluff whatsoever and barely space to loot a dungeon's worth of chests as it is. No more.

[ReverentBlade]

+1 to the above, especially with all the new climb gear taking up a whole page.

[Gouge Away]

The obvious answer to me is, why really care enough to make a law that you can’t be covered up? No one likes that style of RP, guards don’t, because it’s dead boring, bad guys don’t, because it’s just lame, and new players are wtfing.

Let the bad guy in and maybe he actually does something cool instead of trying to shut them down before it starts.

I don't think guards like it, but I understand the mentality. When you're a guard suddenly everyone out there seems to be trying to get one over on you (at least, to your perception) and I think something in human nature just makes guards overzealous about enforcement. It's a little bit of a Milgram experiment type deal. And it's a shame because I don't think pre-emptive law enforcement is fun at all. We don't actually live here... it would be okay if Arelith was a more lawless and crime-ridden place than it is.

I really think "helmet laws" might have to be outlawed as a server rule if this update comes to pass. I'd like to think we could all agree to let shady people linger in hoods and disguises in settlements and let them try to pull something... Once they do a posse will form to squash them, it always does. But I don't think that is what will happen, not without a push from the top to RP that way.

[Talvenlapsi]

The obvious answer to me is, why really care enough to make a law that you can’t be covered up? No one likes that style of RP, guards don’t, because it’s dead boring, bad guys don’t, because it’s just lame, and new players are wtfing.

Let the bad guy in and maybe he actually does something cool instead of trying to shut them down before it starts.

I must agree to this. I understand the mentality in a way, people are antsy when bad guys wander around the cities - but they also do real life. If criminal is good at what they do, you won't realize you're passing them on the street untill they pull out something crazy. Ofcourse, this warrants responsibility from bad guys; don't just go murderhobo and then complain because you got caught every time you walk into the city.
I'm not saying "allow all the known-bad-people walk around without problems", i'm saying what Xerah said is.. exactly that. Why do you care if a baddie in disguise walks past you, goes to buy thing from cordor merchantile and walks out? Why does *that* warrant a "SEIZE! TAKE OFF YOUR HOOD AND REVEAL YOURSELF"?
And if something bad happens.. Take it as fun rp? (As long as both sides are responsible and make it fun.)

[chris a gogo]

Xerah wrote.

The obvious answer to me is, why really care enough to make a law that you can’t be covered up? No one likes that style of RP, guards don’t, because it’s dead boring, bad guys don’t, because it’s just lame, and new players are wtfing.

Let the bad guy in and maybe he actually does something cool instead of trying to shut them down before it starts.

The reason such laws come into being is because systems that allow monster races and known enemies to wander around settlements are introduced.

Having seen in the last few months a large rise in Drow elves wandering around Cordor, they are then killed once spotted but it's becoming kind of common place to the point where when it happens everyone just kind of shrugs as it's nothing unusual.
Now we will have a system that makes it so they can wander around without being spotted without even needing a disguise or any character investment same goes for exiles and enemies.
You can be certain that the good old days of remove helmet or die is going to come back hard and fast, as to make the cover system work it's going to need a good DC and as that will require every opposing player to heavily invest in the spot skill the much simpler option is take the helmet off laws.
This won't be the players fault as they will be left to deal with the fallout of the update.

[-XXX-]

IMHO, the helmet law is just a symptom of a much greater underlying issue and that's the guard RP in general - having a free IC license to bully other characters and then idly loitering in the town just waiting for someone to use said license on to show up is... shall we say, not exactly my idea of what stellar RP is supposed to look like.
The fact that it just rinse repeats itself in the form of the same kind of interactions endlessly isn't helping either.


Other than voicing my personal pet peeves with only vaguely related issues, i think that any disguise/conceal options are great! The alternative would be separating the playerbase forcing each race/alignment/religion group to only ever play on their own turf, which is boring.

[WanderingPoet]

The obvious answer to me is, why really care enough to make a law that you can’t be covered up? No one likes that style of RP, guards don’t, because it’s dead boring, bad guys don’t, because it’s just lame, and new players are wtfing.

Let the bad guy in and maybe he actually does something cool instead of trying to shut them down before it starts.

That's the opposite of an obvious answer actually, as an OOC solution it ignores the IC reasons for doing so. "Why really care enough" - because your people in your settlement blame you (ICly) for not protecting them when that underdarker/evildoer walks into your settlement all dressed in dark covering clothing and kills people/robs the bank/etc. At currently you know who is walking around; you may not be able to pierce the disguise but if you do your IC research then you can learn who the bad guys are and keep an eye on them. You may not ICly know every face that's walking around but there is a far cry between watching a bunch of people walk around and watching a bunch of shady hooded people walk around. As soon as every bad guy can disguise without investment then the guards lose all ability to ensure the streets are safe.

You know, doing their job.

Not doing your IC job has IC consequences; unless you are a more evil leader then you're generally expected to protect your citizens. It will make it less fun to be a guard if you're getting blamed for letting shady folk wander around (especially as this system promotes them being 'suspicious'). So the unfortunate side is that the guards have to make the choice between boring "Reveal or die" RP, or unfun being blamed for being incompetent. After all, even in the real world, town guards wouldn't let someone into a town that refused to reveal their face - as that was their job.

Now, OOCly, it's often much more entertaining for both sides to let the evildoers in so that RP can happen rather than shutting it down at the entrance. But that doesn't change the fact that there will be many that go in just to murder/rob people that the guards/leadership will get blamed for, which will be the cause of a "Reveal yourself or die" law. This creates a conflict between what is fun OOC for all involved vs what makes sense IC; it's best if mechanics support both rather than creating a conflict. Hopefully the worst we'll see if a "If you don't reveal yourself then you're getting a personal guard escort around town." instead of "Reveal or Die".

So I agree, the "reveal or die" laws will suck and shouldn't happen, but people will solve problems with the tools they have. It may be okay to break character a little to let conflict happen and foster RP; but at the same time we also don't want people snuggling up to drow/outcasts and chilling with them in surface settlements.

-----
Also Irongron your idea is really cool and would be great to have!

[NPC Logger Number 2]

I like to play a character, I make decisions ICly based on IC information that character gained ICly. Even an evil settlement leader on the surface would likely not want drow skulking about their city because it would make them look bad. If a settlement leader or town guard or whatever is doing nothing to stop drow from freely wandering the streets because OOCly they think it will create fun RP, then that settlement leader/guard is going to face IC consequences because ICly most surface races want nothing to do with drow. Most likely those IC consequences will include replacing them with someone who wants to play a character.

[Ork]

So the unfortunate side is that the guards have to make the choice between boring "Reveal or die" RP, or unfun being blamed for being incompetent.

I'm sorry to pick on you, Wandering, but this line is exactly the reason why surface villain roleplay is diminishing (or already diminished). It can be fun to be found incompetent, and it can be fun to allow evil to exist. There are a thousand IC reasons why a character might not immediately halt criminal behavior, but often the only response I've seen has been hostile PvP. While your character can have the belief that evil must be halted before it can fester- you as a player could find a multitude of reasons to build suspense. IC actions should have IC consequences, but a good roleplayer provides a lot more nuance than "get out", "remove that hood or die!" or every other iteration of lazy roleplay.

[Xerah]

I certainly have a different view. Helmet laws are certainly an "I win" mentality and even worse are the players who make IC complaints about "not doing enough" (I saw 3 people in helmets yesterday!) or about things you can't mechanically change (can't even clear the farmlands of undead lol).

You can walk around in most free cities with a hood up and you certainly don't get arrested for it or murdered. Helmet laws really are what you'd expect in a tyrannical style government and really should be treated as such, which is fine if that is what your character is trying to create in the city.

NPC Logger wrote a great example of someone so extremely past the mark of the type of environment that Arelith is trying to create. If the only thing PC guards can do is attack people for wearing hoods because they might get called incompetent, then don't play that type of character.

[Drowboy]

This thread is really reinforcing my opinion that player guards/governments need to get out of the 'I am a miniature DM' mindset, or just straight up get mothballed.

[NPC Logger Number 2]

I do not think it is unreasonable for guards to ask suspicious looking people to lower their hood or take off their helmet. And there are things you can do besides out right killing them. But if they are not willing to go along with you and let you escort them out of the city or whatever and they resist then you have no choice but to at least try and -subdual them. Identity concealing wards are already illegal in most settlements. So there is IC precedent to not let people walk around fully covered head to toe where you cannot even tell what race they are.

Also, shaming people for playing competent characters and not purposefully losing seems kind of manipulative and like gas-lighting to me. Not very nice. The fact remains that any settlement leader who ICly fails to protect their constituents for whatever reason will likely be replaced. Same goes for any guards or local authorities serving under them. Anti-hood/helmet laws and their enforcement are inevitable since not doing so will pretty much guarantee the end of a character's career. So I do not think it is fair to call anyone whose character actually does their job IC a "lazy RPer" just because it stops you from doing whatever you want.

This thread is really reinforcing my opinion that player guards/governments need to get out of the 'I am a miniature DM' mindset, or just straight up get mothballed.

I dislike settlement mechanics entirely and wouldn't mind if they were nuked from orbit. But that deserves its own topic.

[The GrumpyCat]

This thread is really reinforcing my opinion that player guards/governments need to get out of the 'I am a miniature DM' mindset, or just straight up get mothballed.

I don't think that's quite fair. Because if it was a 'I am a miniture dm' mindset, then what they should be doing is 'Ok yes, I could kill this guy for wearing a helmet, or I could try and make something interesting out of it for them. Like interrogating them, but then turning away and letting them escape. Or just believing an excuse. Or just even ignoring it entirely.'

A DM doesn't look for ways to end a characters story right off the bat. They may place challenges in front of the other person, but they don't grab on something and go OH OK NOW UR DEAD! That's called 'adversarial DMing' and it's rarely a good thing. DMs exist to challenge, not to 'win' against the players.

If it seems I'm being vecisious picking this comment up, I do apologise, but it sort of culminates on my own thoughts reguarding helm/hood laws.

On the one hand I quite like them. It's an excuse for a bit of rp, it makes a lot of sense (I mean, if a guy utterly covered up wanders into a town on high alert, it does make sense people would be susspicious). But on the other hand, it can be very irritating, and no one likes the idea of 'UNCOVER NOW OR I WILL KILL U!'

So yeah, it's... complex.

[Drowboy]

Yeah, I didn't mean they were pretending to be good dms, necessarily.

[Xerah]

Also, shaming people for playing competent characters and not purposefully losing seems kind of manipulative and like gas-lighting to me. Not very nice.

The whole idea is to tell cooperative stories. You keep bringing up this competent character thing which further illustrates an inability to provide an environment for this. I wouldn't say I've played incompetent characters and I've found ways to let evil do their thing too. If one message on a messageboard is causing you to play in such a way that is to ruin the fun of a large majority of player, then perhaps rethinking that is better; you can just ignore the message. You could say "Just being IC, dude" but that would also break a lot of explicit rules of Arelith, so you already make concessions on this.

[Diegovog]

It's not the guards fault. It can be really boring to be one. Most will jump at the opportunity for any actual guard rp

[Drowboy]

If it's boring, bail. Hit da bricks. Quit on it.

It's a video game

[Xerah]

If it's boring, bail. Hit da bricks. Quit on it.

It's a video game

Pretty much why so few of my characters are ever guards (or for very long)

[Ork]

Squashing characters because you want to play competently is a very selfish way to play this game. That should be shamed.

[-XXX-]

I believe that the character concept of a town guard ought to be straight up disallowed by a blanket policy (the same way a friendly neighbourhood sp~ *cough* drow is, or your domesticated surface-dwelling kobold would be).

players seem to struggle with the concept's execution. The concept in general tends to be a "fun killer" and brings nothing to the table to make up for it. That's been always the case.

you could choose to be a soldier, a marine, a spy, an explorer, a politician, a merchant, a diplomat or a myriad of other things! Who chooses to be a policeman under such circumstances?! I'd hazard a guess that not the type of player who'd go out of their way to make things more interesting under any given circumstances.

no more donuts! Get out there and make things happen rather than wait for the things to happen to you! Characters should not be allowed to assert authority and take control over situations that their player has not even bothered to be an architect of. When that happens, it tends to spoil the fun for everyone involved in an overwhelming majority of cases.


All things considered, the general notion behind this would not be very much unlike the myriad of reasons why most RL civilized democratic countries have their military separated from their domestic law-enforcement.
Along a similar line of thinking, RPing the former as a character concept in a makebelief fantasy world works just great, the latter... not so much.

[wulfburk]

Then we should disallow evil guys to begin with as well, because from my experience observing, guard characters struggle with guard roleplay just as much as evil characters struggle with disguising and infiltrating. About as many times that i've seen a guard character do poor roleplay, i've seen a disguised character do worse (oh, this guard approached me, he is clearly metagaming my disguise tag. Its certainly not because i've got this gigantic acid scythe on my hand/ oh, a player emoted *eyes him*, he must be metagaming my disguise tag while failing to break it. So i'll cast true seeing and clairvoyance on everyone in the room, OOC daring them to break my disguise, while they wont be able to respond to that IC because they havent broken the disguise, eh?!).

Being a guard is boring and tiring. Not because of your roleplay or your characters peers, but because of the amount of OOC salt that comes your way from people you interact with. Unfortunately, people mostly assume the worse from other players. Nowadays you cant examine a disguise character without being assumed to be metagaming. its not like one has no other reason to examine people (check their attunements, stats, charisma, oh, and their description..). Asking people to simply sheath a wepon creates a huge amount of salt as people generally dislike acknowledging IC authority (whatever that is).

In this sense i am all for irongron's suggestion as it would remove the disguise tag. Just as it would remove potential guard metagamers, it would remove the OOC paranoid disguisers that accuse everyone of metagaming just because you've looked on their general direction.

[Xerah]

Nowadays you cant examine a disguise character without being assumed to be metagaming.

This is completely incorrect. It's been stated may time that examining someone represents the passive perception of your character onto theirs. If someone starts doing this to you, -notells them an let them try to report you to the DMs.

I hear this from other people but I've never encountered it, even as someone who had 100+ spot character once upon a time.

[Ork]

We shouldn't ban avenues of roleplay, but encourage others to do better. If you're seeking to be a guard, know there are ways you can increase suspense. I played a high level paladin on Skal for awhile, and while I could've easily killed any burgeoning evil-doer, I never did. My character's knee would give out mid-chase, or he would ask another more equally leveled individual to survey their deeds, or he would engage them under a banner of truce & since he was lawful he would always abide those rules despite his opponents not.

It can be done. You can make it fun. The responsibility falls on you and you alone to make it so. You can only effect your own behavior, and if you're really aiming to be a great roleplayer- you'll find ways to make it much more interesting than some linear "us vs. them".