[MUD-Dev] Re: skill system

[Adam Wiggins]

On Thu, 11 Jun 1998, Dan Shiovitz wrote:
> On Thu, 11 Jun 1998, Adam Wiggins wrote:
> > On Fri, 12 Jun 1998, Richard Woolcock wrote:
> > > ...although unknown to most, Bubba and Lord Kilgoth are one and the same
> > > person...multiple identities, anyone coded such a feature?  It's something
> > > I like the idea of but I'm not sure how well it would work in practice.
> > 
> > We sort of got this by default.  People can introduce themselves to those
> > that don't know them by any name they want.  This results in the 'Silke
> > effect' (cue search URL) of being known by different names in different
> > places.  (Note that you can also name others yourself if they don't
> > introduce themselves directly or if you don't believe/like the name they
> > gave, and you can introduce someone else to a third party as well.)
> > You can fail to recognize people if they look sufficiently different from
> > the last time you saw them, depending on how 'well' you knew them, how
> > long it's been since you last saw them, and so forth.  Thus if Bubba were
> > the master of disguise, he could slip on his false beard and his Kilgoth
> > outfit and everyone could know him by two names, or in fact, as many as he
> > liked.
> 
> Can someone else put on the false beard and the Kilgoth outfit and be
> recognized as Kilgoth also? It seems like if you want to allow
> impersonating other people, you have to allow this sort of thing, but
> gets a little tricky, because different people wearing the same
> disguise may still end up looking different.

Yeah.  We kinda stretched our fantasy theme a little to help cover up the
fact that in reality, two tall young clean-shaved dark-haired green-eyed
men don't always look particularly similar.  Specifically, we have a
fairly large number of races and features, such that an exact match is
fairly rare (note that these features include adjectives such as "ugly",
"square-faced", and "big-nosed", as well as modifiable features such hair
style and length).  So, if there are two people that have identical
features and you only know one of them, you may mistakenly identify the
other.  Note that this only happens if you don't know them well, ie they
are just someone you met once or twice.  You'll never mistake an old
adventuring partner for someone else, even in a room full of near-clones.
Secondly, the list of features is not easy to view in its entirety.  Your
character can access parts of the list (assembled on the fly by the
system) by their description in the room and their description (longer)
when you look at them, but there's no way of knowing if you failed to
duplicate a feature of theirs that you just didn't notice.  "Fake"
features are also noticable as such, depending on the skill with which
they were applied, the quality of the disguise object (ie, fake beard)
used, and your perception.

So, to answer your question:

Yes, anyone can attempt to dress up like Kilgoth and masquerade as him.
This is easier (naturally) if they have more distinct features that are
easy to duplicate.  Think of Santa Claus or Elvis.  Secondly, all the
stuff above ensures that the mix-ups (either on purpose or accidental)
happen rarely, and generally only with people that you don't know too
well.  Also, none of this stuff is explained to the players at the start
of the game, except for how to introduce yourself.  Thus it simply appears
to be a nice introduction system, very similar to that found on many LPs.
It doesn't take long for new players to figure out that they can introduce
themselves by names other than their chosen name.  Later on (although we
haven't actually had this part happen yet, so it's just speculation)
someone may mistake Bubba for Boffo, who both happen to look very
similar...and find themselves thinking, "Hmmm...wait a minute...hey, this
could be fun."

Adam