[DGD] Relative Naming Problems

[Noah Gibbs]

--- Steve Wooster <swdgd at intergate.com> wrote:
> So I got to thinking about how such a system might look to the
> player. One way to do 
> relative naming might be commands like "nickname human 2 Joe". But
> that poses a 
> problem... What if somebody mugs you in broad daylight and runs off
> or kills you 
> before you have a chance to nickname them?

  There's actually a really easy way to solve basically all of these problems. 
Imagine that you *don't* show the facial string to the player (but maybe you
generate it and store it internally - it's not a bad system to use underneath).
 Instead, you give the player a good idea of how *well* he has seen somebody,
and tell characteristics based on that...  For instance, "a bald, scarred orc"
versus "an orc you can barely recognize" versus "a man-shaped figure" or "a
player".

  However, you have an "identity cache" of everybody you've seen just recently
(say in the last five minutes).  You have some way to refer to items in the
cache, whether by number or by using a contrived phrase like "that same", as in
"call that same bald, scarred orc Bobo".  Or maybe your "call" or "nickname"
command just knows to look in the cache to disambiguate rather than your
immediate surroundings.  "call orc Bobo" might respond with "do you mean the
bald, scarred orc in this room or the green-skinned orc you saw vaguely in the
Carousel Room about two minutes ago?"  Note that that's a pretty good way to
disambiguate stuff in the cache to the player - tell them how long ago he saw
the person, how well he saw them, and where he saw them.  So that should go in
your cache.

  By having facial strings or something like them, you can also make it
possible to narrow things down but not make them definite - if you only get a
bit of the facial string (maybe the first few letters represent nose and hair,
or each letter represents something different) you could determine that a given
orc has a nose and eyebrows like the orc you saw, but only get a match that's
about 40% definite.  Do you accuse the orc?  If another, similar orc has been
seen around regularly, is that sufficient reason to consider the accused orc to
be innocent?  These are questions you'll get if your recognition system can
give back results like "60% likely" rather than "yes".

  By the way - I'd *highly* recommend that your cache store the full facial
string as well as the partially-recognized one.  This helps debugging, but also
lets immorts sort out problems.  If a player has a problem with a character and
they can't easily identify the intruder, the player can nickname them
something, and then tell the immort about it.  The player may not have seen the
character clearly enough to ever again identify them, but their cache now
contains information that an immortal can use to uniquely identify the
troublemaker.

> If two players had the same face [...] and one could disguise as
> the other's race, that one could perhaps 
> masquerade as the other player, maybe leading to some interesting
> events. (imagine 
> the mischeif if the Magistrate's doppleganger was ever found!) Of
> course, it would be 
> a good idea to restrict how often a player can create new characters
> to make it 
> impractical to create characters until you get the face you want.

  My system makes this a bit harder by not showing the players everybody's
facial strings.

> Where things start to get tricky for me, is in-game
> systems... If you have very low 
> awareness, and attack an orc which flees, then a very similar
> looking orc (has the 
> same first 3 facial letters) enters the room, do you attempt
> to continue combat? I 
> think the answer should be yes... Though what your character
> does if the original orc 
> then reenters while you're fighting is less clear.

  Attack again?  Your systems will have to be robust to misunderstandings if
you allow partial recognition that can match multiple people.  In such cases,
you'll need good (or at least consistent) AI for this stuff.  Thus, your AI
won't remember one specific entity that attacked you, but judge how likely an
entity is when it enters to be one that attacked you (or otherwise hostile).

  You could also allow some kind of accusation system for NPCs - "hey!  You're
the guy that attacked me on Tuesday!" "What?  What are you smoking?  I've never
seen you before in my life!".  So a character could attack if he was 90% sure
it was the same character who attacked him, or accuse if he was 50% sure, or
squint suspiciously if he was 20% sure.

  That'd be more for NPC versus NPC interactions, though.

> What if villians always use hoods to obscure their face during
> neferious 
> activities so law officials don't recognize them when they waltz
> uncloaked into the 
> local barracks and buy a sword?

  That's a feature and you celebrate it.  Either hoods shouldn't offer perfect
anonymity so there's still a chance of being recognized, or hoods *do* offer
perfect anonymity and they can be removed during a crime by a guardsman - and
you can't wear one when buying equipment.  'Barlow the Innkeeper squints at you
suspiciously.  He says, "take that hood off, boy.  What are you hiding?"'

  In that case, disguises help thieves and criminals during a heist, but will
be harder to use once the character has been recognized as a criminal.  And
that's exactly how it should be.

> Another big question, is how to do things like send mail to
> other players if they don't 
> have a unique ID. (well, not one that's visible to players at least)

  You may choose to allow sending to an identity that isn't perfectly known (to
the player).  This is another reason to keep the full and original identity in
the cache entry.

> message long-fingered elf
Subj: Was that you, Bob?
Body: Hey, I saw you up on the mountaintop from a distance, but I couldn't get
a good look or introduce myself.  Are you Bob?

  Presumably the recipient would get some sort of disclaimer that the person
messaging them doesn't actually know who they are, so they shouldn't
necessarily respond.  That prevents sending a message to a vague man-shaped
blob with the message "I know it was you!" and bluffing that you know perfectly
who they are.

  You can use this system for tells, as well.





		
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