Upcoming Change - Cover, Disguise and Examine

[Party in the forest at midnight]

I've been on both sides of this thing, and I agree the surface is too "good". There's shady evil, yeah, but if you're caught, it's game over. And you don't really have many options to go to at that point. There's Sibayad and Dis, or Andunor and Sencliff if you want themepark options that you need tokens to properly exist in.

And you lose a ton of perks if you get exiled. The biggest one being you lose the settlement bank, which is huge. Crafting bags don't hold enough weight, and don't hold enough different items. So those 12 bank slots are extremely important. I'm trying to set Corinne up so if she gets exiled it won't hurt her too bad, but, I have nowhere to store all my ore. My house chest is filled with ingots and other crafting materials.



Good-alignment RP Thoughts:
As for playing "good", what I tried to do when I played Garrett was argue that there needs to be a place where lesser criminals, necromancers, etc are allowed, because otherwise everyone ends up in Andunor or allied to Andunor. And you take a small problem and turn it into a giant problem. Garrett believed in small groups, not giant allied empires.

A lot of information came to him. He knew a lot of peoples' shady activities. But generally he'd only go after people if they gave him reason to, like an abyssalist trying to run for settlement leader. Or people he received many, many reports about over the years. If people stopped being criminals, he stopped caring. Pirates and the like? He only cared if they were affiliated with the group that poisoned Cordor's wells twice.

I also tried to argue for people not hunting in Sibayad. Sibayad's one of the few places criminals can exist on the surface, I don't like seeing violence there. If settlements want to act on things that happen in Sibayad, such as exile prolific Sibayad groups, then sure. But I don't think Sibayad itself should be targeted with war or violence.

With all of this said, cliques at large tend to target people they don't like and ignore anyone else. It's really frustrating to deal with on a character trying to fight evil.
Furthermore, if a clique hates you, they will pre-download that hate on every new character they make and find reasons to go after you, regardless of your alignment. This isn't directed at one specific group because I've seen this behaviour from several, against more than one character. And they all come up with really flimsy excuses to do it. "Oh it's IC for my character because they heard X, and they don't like that."
Ironically people who complain about pre-downloading also do it.


Things I think would help evil RP:
- Fix crafting bags. Let mining bags hold a SIGNIFICANTLY higher amount of weight, allow them to store ingots. Add the fabled herbalism bag. This will take the burden off of losing the bank storage.

- Add somewhere for evil mage RP, or allow animators and warlocks to exist in the Arcane Tower as long as they're not torturing people or scheming the end of the world. Give these people somewhere to go if they're discovered.
"Just go to the Erudite Arcanum" isn't a solution because Andunor requires a token to properly be involved in, and there's frequently a lot of hostility against surfacers. I'd like to see a surface option for evil mages. Surface as in actual surface, not the planes. Characters hold it against other characters for doing things in Baator or the Shadow Plane. A shady mage tower in the freeport in the new city would be cool.

- Improve non-settlement broom closet housing and add more of it. The broom closet rooms in the Whidershin and Dis are great, they're tiny and discourage people from making that a permanent home since people are going to try and find things that are better. But, in the Whidershin specifically, there's too many pre-placed decorations (some might be from the tileset?), which makes it hard to decorate the room to suit RP needs.

- Related to above, add small room housing to Sibayad and the Crow's Nest.

- It's really exhausting having to re-apply my imp invis wand all the time. Add some kind of craftable that acts like -ward, which is in the approved suggestion forum. Alternatively, increase the length that improved invis lasts for. This won't break PvE because tons of monsters cast invisibility purge.


Other thoughts:
Lastly, the concern over an increase of hood check RP is why I suggested a disguise kit that lets you change head for people who invest in epic skill focus bluff or perform. So people who actually invest can avoid using a hood, it's the benefit of investing skill points and a feat into a skill.

I dislike the idea of splitting bluff and perform's functionality, because then anyone who wants to actually disguise will need to take both skills, and there's just not enough skill points and feats to support that.

Superficially I agree with the idea of banning guard RP, but, I'm concerned that the settlements are a quarantine that keeps that RP locked inside settlements. If guard RP is banned, would these people form roving hoodcheck militias?

[Mattamue]

This seems like a perfect opportunity for a fence to generate some rp.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

This seems like a perfect opportunity for a fence to generate some rp.

That's the kind of RP I want to do with Corinne and I'm expecting it to go very poorly.

[Xerah]

One thing I would add to your post as an option is to give settlement storage to Sibayad and Sencliff even if there isn't citizenship.

[Irongron]

I must agree with Ork above, banning guard roleplay is not the solution, and to be clear we are talking about a hypothetical here - it may be that the helm police thing doesn't get so out of control.


But if it does? We'll see - but in the meantime I definitely don't want a new shadow rule that it isn't okay.

Also most settlements have alternative, less heavily guarded entry points which make FAR more sense for criminal RP. If some covered PC isn't using them? It's almost certainly either laziness or that they are actually looking for a fight.

That last scenario troubles me far more than blocking of criminal RP. Time and again over the years I've seen lazy PvP factions go out spoiling for any kind of fight, and if it all it takes is for 6 of them to go walking up to a gate with their helmets on to start it? I really worry this will happen, and that they'll defend the action by calling 'we didn't start the fight, it was those heavy handed guards'

I disabled the war mechanic because it too had become a lazy way to start PvP, and I certainly don't want a new Avenue for that.

Once this goes live I will instruct DMs to watch for the above behaviour, and I would advise anyone seeing this is an opening for criminal RP to treat that with the subtlety it deserves. I really want to support shady RP, but so much of what I've seen attempted in the past was simply grieving, with zero fun factor for the other side.

While I'm not on the 'side' of blocking this update, I am a million miles away from telling those with concerns that they are objectively wrong; dealing with a criminal narrative, which ends, can be fun. But dealing with the same few drow raiders, or any kind of murder party day after day, after day is absolute hell, and many, many players have quit Arelith over such dynamics, especially when they feel the staff are deaf to it. I believe those players now panicking are those with prior experience of exactly this. It literally turns what should be a fun game into a stress inducing, thankless chore.

[theCountofMonteCristo]

A little off topic but

once the Cover stuff is debugged and functional, can (and will?) it be expanded upon? Like for instance, allowing a Vampire PC to daywalk if they are completely covered. Or other creative ideas like that?

[Anachorn]

Hi all, update will likely go live soon, some updates (also added in the first post)

• The cover functionality must be enabled using the -cover enable command every time you login, otherwise the clothes you wear will not affect anything.
• The DC for the spot check to pierce the cover now changes with distance, the closer the examiner and examinee are the easier it gets to pierce it. The precise values will be adjusted as we go but for now at least its lowered but a significant margin, so covered individuals should try to stay away from others if they don't want their cover broken even by mediocre spotters.

Also, as I mentioned in the first post please let us know if you find any appearance styles that aren't counted as cover but should be or the other way around, to help with that the -cover state option will now print out the precise clothing styles you wear and whatever or not they count as cover, please add its output to any bug report you make.

Thanks!

[WanderingPoet]

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.

Oh don't get me wrong, I quite enjoy playing incompetent characters; my own Oscar was a 'jack of all trades, terrible at everything' and it's a blast. The unfun part is being blamed/shamed for being incompetent on those times you're just trying to foster RP.
However, if you have chosen to play a competent guard, then you have to make the choice between breaking character for the criminal's fun, or keeping in character. Breaking character needs to be done carefully to keep immersion for all involved. There is little point in playing evil if the good guys always let you win, any more than if the good guys never let you win.

One of the easier approaches is if the competent guard 'makes a mistake', or happens to get distracted just as the evildoer sneaks past; or mechanically you just ignore a piece of information to foster roleplay (like ignoring breaking the disguise). It's a fine line to walk, and not all RPers are AAA stellar enough to walk it well; or walk it well for a good length of time.

One can't fault the guards entirely either, as the onus is also on the evil side as well; if every evildoer that snuck into down was making interesting fun RP for the settlement then it'd be easy to let people in for the fun. But when some of the people are just coming in to no RP rob, or murder people in the settlement then it's a lot harder to not be strict.

Things I think would help evil RP:
- Fix crafting bags. Let mining bags hold a SIGNIFICANTLY higher amount of weight, allow them to store ingots. Add the fabled herbalism bag. This will take the burden off of losing the bank storage.

Or add 12 storage to the Tower/Mayfields/Sencliff/Sibayad and not let people be exiled from there.

Hi all, update will likely go live soon, some updates (also added in the first post)

Thank you Anachorn for all your hard work! Those are great updates; being able to tell who someone is if they're not steering clear will help a lot.

I didn't see an answer to my suggestion (might've missed it) but could races continue to tell their own race? For example elves tell drow and vice versa and dwarves tell duegar and vice versa? They're long standing enemies after all and I suspect they'd not find it hard to tell that it was a friend or a foe of their race.

[Petrifictus]

I wish we monsters could disguise too. Like goblins as halflings/gnomes.

[monkeywithstick]

There is a degree of cause and effect.

People who try to make a less restrictive of roleplay Guard faction, tend to get screwed over by the people who then complain that Guards are too restrictive.
They then burn out and stop playing guards for a while. My experience is they burn out faster than the ones who don't, so we run out of them faster.

Sure, guards do need to give some space for antagonist RP. But the antagonists often do also, else they enable and encourage no space being left for them.

[Gouge Away]

I think the biggest problem is pre-emptive guard RP... the kind that leads them to demanding a hood be removed or die.

Even just toning that down.. Telling someone suspicious "I've got my eye on you" or a passive-aggressive "welcome to Cordor" to let them know they're being watched is much better than an immediate shakedown.

That doesn't make you incompetent, it's actually very competent, but it's a slight adjustment in culture to let criminals show their cards a little instead of canceling them first.

[Kalopsia]

Regarding seeing yourself as Drow, this update will also make all PCs and NPCs have the proper race in their description when they are uncovered and the observer have enough lore (except any bugs I may have introduced, please report them if you find them! :)), this includes the recent approved suggestion for elemental planet touched subraces btw (but not aasimars and tieflings, don't worry your secrets are safe.)

Only issue I can think of that wasn't handled yet are evil races NPCs in the underdark that used to be just "Elf" or "Dwarf" with the proper dark colors will now become the default subrace of that parent race, which is "Moon Elf" and "Shield Dwarf" instead of "Drow" and "Duerger", please report these as NPCs well if you see them so they can be fixed.

Quoting this slightly older message because I've recently tested this with a friend and it doesn't seem to be working as expected.
When examining my elven Fire Genasi, this is what popped up:



I'm quite sure this is supposed to be "Fire Genasi (Elf)" instead of "Moon Elf (Moon Elf)", right? :)

[Anachorn]

Regarding seeing yourself as Drow, this update will also make all PCs and NPCs have the proper race in their description when they are uncovered and the observer have enough lore (except any bugs I may have introduced, please report them if you find them! ), this includes the recent approved suggestion for elemental planet touched subraces btw (but not aasimars and tieflings, don't worry your secrets are safe.)

Only issue I can think of that wasn't handled yet are evil races NPCs in the underdark that used to be just "Elf" or "Dwarf" with the proper dark colors will now become the default subrace of that parent race, which is "Moon Elf" and "Shield Dwarf" instead of "Drow" and "Duerger", please report these as NPCs well if you see them so they can be fixed.

Quoting this slightly older message because I've recently tested this with a friend and it doesn't seem to be working as expected.
When examining my elven Fire Genasi, this is what popped up:



I'm quite sure this is supposed to be "Fire Genasi (Elf)" instead of "Moon Elf (Moon Elf)", right?

Yeah its supposed to be Moon Elf (Fire Genasi), there is a bug there i'll take a look later to see what went wrong, thanks for reporting!

[Anachorn]

I didn't see an answer to my suggestion (might've missed it) but could races continue to tell their own race? For example elves tell drow and vice versa and dwarves tell duegar and vice versa? They're long standing enemies after all and I suspect they'd not find it hard to tell that it was a friend or a foe of their race.

It isn't planned at the moment we want to see what people do with the cover before making adjustments, but if we will give them an advantage it will probably be some sort of increased chance of recognizing their fellow related sub-races, not an outright removal of the cover if they are from the same subrace.

[Anachorn]

Update 2

• When -cover is enabled and you are fully covered by clothes and armor, your original / disguised description will no longer be shown.
• It makes it simpler to hide your identity because you don't have to worry about changing your description.
• It further differentiates bluff-disguises and cover, while under a regular disguise you can look however you like, under cover no one sees anything but the cover itself and you are purposely hiding revealing features, so no description is needed beyond the PCs external appearance and the details that are automatically added to the description (mostly just parent race)

Hi, please notice the new update, should be live now or soon, as always your input is welcome

[Exordius]

Im loving this, i managed to stay undetected for hours in two settlements around some of the best spotters there are and i only have a mere 20 bluff. Before my disguises sucked... now they are godlike.

[McPunchins]

Update 2

• When -cover is enabled and you are fully covered by clothes and armor, your original / disguised description will no longer be shown.
• It makes it simpler to hide your identity because you don't have to worry about changing your description.
• It further differentiates bluff-disguises and cover, while under a regular disguise you can look however you like, under cover no one sees anything but the cover itself and you are purposely hiding revealing features, so no description is needed beyond the PCs external appearance and the details that are automatically added to the description (mostly just parent race)

When -cover is enabled and you are fully covered by clothes and armor, your original / disguised description will no longer be shown.

BAD, This limits the ability for players to use descriptions to describe what their disguise looks like to others without emoting it constantly for the sake of babying players too lazy to just save a wysiwyg description. Stop encouraging laziness at the expense of immersion building and creativity.

[The GrumpyCat]

Update 2

• When -cover is enabled and you are fully covered by clothes and armor, your original / disguised description will no longer be shown.
• It makes it simpler to hide your identity because you don't have to worry about changing your description.
• It further differentiates bluff-disguises and cover, while under a regular disguise you can look however you like, under cover no one sees anything but the cover itself and you are purposely hiding revealing features, so no description is needed beyond the PCs external appearance and the details that are automatically added to the description (mostly just parent race)

When -cover is enabled and you are fully covered by clothes and armor, your original / disguised description will no longer be shown.

BAD, This limits the ability for players to use descriptions to describe what their disguise looks like to others without emoting it constantly for the sake of babying players too lazy to just save a wysiwyg description. Stop encouraging laziness at the expense of immersion building and creativity.

I think you are misunderstanding.

Nothing has changed for -disguise. Go wild with your descriptions please!

This is just a matter of if you're using -cover. Which is to say - if your'e covering yourself up to hide as much of your personal appearence as possible.

For that, you loose the ability to have a desciption - but that makes sense honeslty.

Want to keep up a description? Don't use -cover!

[McPunchins]

I think you are misunderstanding.

Nothing has changed for -disguise. Go wild with your descriptions please!

This is just a matter of if you're using -cover. Which is to say - if your'e covering yourself up to hide as much of your personal appearence as possible.

For that, you loose the ability to have a desciption - but that makes sense honeslty.

Want to keep up a description? Don't use -cover!

Except that some of us have indepth descriptions for every disguise we have and some of them we would like to use the cover option with because our character is covered in that specific disguise. This limits our ability to do so and still have that description for players to use in building immersion or reacting to said disguise. Which then means we can't use cover for its primary purpose which is helping to improve our disguises. And all because some players can't manage to type 2 chat commands to make a blank description and save it with their disguise name or an easily recallable name.

I am not misunderstanding the situation Disguise is not the issue here, the fact that cover is removing descriptions. This limits the ability for players to be creative in order to assist them in being lazy about how they play their characters.

Just because someone is wearing a hood doesn't mean that their shirt isn't red or their boots aren't black. It means you can't see their face sure but there are thousands of other things about a persons appearance other than their face and cover shouldn't remove the ability for us to describe those.

[NPC Logger Number 2]

Except that some of us have indepth descriptions for every disguise we have and some of them we would like to use the cover option with because our character is covered in that specific disguise. This limits our ability to do so and still have that description for players to use in building immersion or reacting to said disguise. Which then means we can't use cover for its primary purpose which is helping to improve our disguises. And all because some players can't manage to type 2 chat commands to make a blank description and save it with their disguise name or an easily recallable name.

I am not misunderstanding the situation Disguise is not the issue here, the fact that cover is removing descriptions. This limits the ability for players to be creative in order to assist them in being lazy about how they play their characters.

Just because someone is wearing a hood doesn't mean that their shirt isn't red or their boots aren't black. It means you can't see their face sure but there are thousands of other things about a persons appearance other than their face and cover shouldn't remove the ability for us to describe those.

I suspect the reason cover hides your description is so that disguised people will stop running around with blank descriptions. Right now about half the disguised folks I see have a blank description because they are afraid someone will metagame them. This means even if I have 120 spot and break their disguise there is no useful information I gain because they've done went and blanked their description. Hopefully now with cover people will no longer have an excuse for blank descriptions when disguised, but, I suspect it will just be another mechanical roadblock to spotters with no benefit as people who want to steal, pickpocket, grief, and murderhobo will naturally continue running around with blank descriptions anyways to avoid IC consequences....

[chris a gogo]

I would love to know what the DC is so my character with active true seeing and clairvoyance, that is standing directly next to the covered person and can't pierce there "cover" need to ask for a relevel to put points into a skill they never really needed until now.

[McPunchins]

I suspect the reason cover hides your description is so that disguised people will stop running around with blank descriptions. Right now about half the disguised folks I see have a blank description because they are afraid someone will metagame them. This means even if I have 120 spot and break their disguise there is no useful information I gain because they've done went and blanked their description. Hopefully now with cover people will no longer have an excuse for blank descriptions when disguised, but, I suspect it will just be another mechanical roadblock to spotters with no benefit as people who want to steal, pickpocket, grief, and murderhobo will naturally continue running around with blank descriptions anyways to avoid IC consequences....

"We want people to use descriptions when disguised so lets give them a new system to improve disguises that conceal their faces... oh but lets also make sure it hides their descriptions" makes no sense. Also if they are afraid of people metagaming them that is a legitimate fear, I constantly tell people they shouldn't put things about their character that aren't visually available in their descriptions specifically because people meta that shit. Like there is no reason someone should even know your characters background and history unless they ask you and you tell them. And there are plenty of people with blank descriptions on both sides of this fence so don't act like people who play shady characters are the only ones doing so. The issue here is that this limits peoples ability to be creative and describe their disguises, it hinders the better roleplayers of the server in favor of the lazy ones.

If anything this encourages blank descriptions because why would I spend an hour or more writing a clear and detailed description about a disguise I'm wearing for the benefit and enjoyment of other people if it denies me the ability to use a mechanic designed to help supplement disguises that conceal my face?

Why would I not just instead make my description blank so then it doesn't matter how much you see through the cover at that point because the majority of people don't have the spot to see it anyway?

[Ork]

If you got a bomb description, don't use cover.

[McPunchins]

If you got a bomb description, don't use cover.

Except that cover from everything that seems to be written was designed to help people supplement disguise when they have a disguise that hides their face and body.

Telling people "Don't use that thing made to make your disguises better because you want to be creative" is a terrible way to go about creating mechanics when the alternative is people not being lazy and literally just saving a blank description or even just typing "-description " with 2 spaces when they want to hide their description.

[Anomandaris]

I don't see any purpose to use cover if you have good bluff/perform. It just raises the level of suspicion (beyond the meta suspicion prevalent from having the tag). A small but reasonable buff to the disguise skill would make sense.

And in a rp context where someone can't pierce your cover or disguise but confronts you (let's say a guard in Cordor) there's no risk to the interloper to not just say, "yah sure I'll remove my cover, sorry about that the sun was in my eyes." Now my disguise score is the same despite having my hood off and no problem for me complying with the guard. If I had a +5-10 bluff/perform boost from cover I'd be a bit more nervous about pulling that hood back when asked because the chance of them now piecing my disguise would increase.

Seems to make sense thematically that cover would "enhance" disguise. I see a pending response that there's risk of overpowering disguise but if it's small (5 pts or so) I don't see a big risk there. Right now dedicated spotters spot out any disguises that aren't dedicated disguisers (if you're below 60-70+ disguise). The ability to boost that spot score by 20 easily or swap out gear in dialogue (happens all the time) leaves a pretty good swing to beat out the equal skill invested PC presently. That's not likely to change much with a buff given from cover but it could add more variance in the "casual investment" range depending on gear/active utilizations for a bit more counterplay.

The other interesting idea would be to have cover remove the disguise tag unless pierced. You still have the baseline suspicion of oh this person is covered.