[MUD-Dev] Re: skill system

[Adam Wiggins]

On Sun, 14 Jun 1998, Richard Woolcock wrote:
> Adam Wiggins wrote:
> > Yes, anyone can attempt to dress up like Kilgoth and masquerade as him.
> 
> Interesting, but it wasn't quite the point I was aiming at.  What I originally
> mean't was multiple identities each with their own reputations as well as
> appearances.

This, of course, depends on how much reputation you store on the
individual memory and how much you leave to the players behind the
characters.

We *do* store reputation, as a matter of fact (for both NPCs and PCs,
although it has a lot more effect on NPCs, since that's the only way they
have to judge someone).

If someone identifies you as Kilgoth, you *are* Kilgoth for all intents
and purposes.  Thus if you attack someone who believes your are Kilgoth,
it is one and the same with the "real" Kilgoth doing it.  One thing we do
not currently have, and this may be a rather major shortcoming, is
retroactive modifications.  That is, Bubba, who is masquerading as
Kilgoth, attacks Boffo.  Boffo now thinks that Kilgoth is a big jerk, but
has an unchanged oppinion of Bubba.  Should Buffy emerge and yank off
Bubba's false beard, by all rights Boffo's oppinion of Kilgoth should
return to what it was before the attack, and he should transfer those bad
vibes over to his oppinion of Bubba.  This situation shouldn't be *too*
difficult to handle (just modifying the "id" field of a few memory nodes
is no big deal), but actually determining *when* Bubba's masquerade began
could be tough.  Sure, if Bubba (disguised as Kilgoth) leapt out of
nowhere and you hadn't seen either Bubba or Kilgoth for a week, it should
be fairly straightforward - modify all memories starting from when you
first saw faux-Kilgoth/Bubba today.  But what if you were chatting with
Kilgoth in the local pub when he excused himself for a moment, and then
Bubba showed up in his Kilgoth outfit?  Players may well sort this out
(Kilgoth would reveal that Bubba knocked him on the head when he was in
the toliet), but it's a bit difficult to extract this from the
conversation and then apply this to the memories.

> I know your system allows labels to be set on individuals, but
> might you label someone twice, once for each 'identity', not knowing that they
> were in fact two separate people?

Yes.  Identities and people have a many-to-many relationship.  Each player
has a list of identities.  There may be 50 identities mapping to one
player just in different outfits, but they would also identify Bubba and
his 49 "children" from the cloning vat as the same person, as long as they
were never seen together.  Generally a identities enjoy a one-to-one
relationship with the character they identify, but this isn't always true.

> When you dress up like Kilgoth, do you gain his reputation?

His local reputation.  We have no "global" reputation, persay, although
people may carry many memories and identities of people they've never met
but heard about or seen on wanted posters or seen on TV.  Once someone
identifies you as someone, you *are* that person as far as they are
concerned.  Note that this is always on an individual basis.  Ie, Bubba in
the guise of Kilgoth could be having lunch with two people.  One person
knows both Kilgoth and Bubba, but is aware that they are speaking with
Bubba in a funny disguise.  The other knows them both, as well, but is
fooled by the disguise and believes they are speaking to Kilgoth.  The
"real" Kilgoth here is irrelevant; in theory the real Kilgoth could be
dead and Bubba could masquerade as him forever without anyone ever
knowing.  (perfect example is Princess Bride and the Dread Pirate
Roberts)

>  If, while dressed up as him, you acted like a complete idiot,
> would this effect Kilgoth next time he logged on?

Absolutely.  Again: once you are identified as someone, you become them
completely as far as the person doing the identifying is concerned.

>I'm not just talking about
> two people looking similar, I'm talking about potentially perfect disguises.

A perfect disguise and the "real item" are completely identical under our
system.  In fact, there is no such thing as a "real" identity; they are
all just arbitrary labels applied to some person (or anything, actually).

Consider: Bubba, dressed as Kilgoth, introduces himself to Buffy as
Kilgoth.  She believes him, never having met either Bubba or Kilgoth.
Later on she meets the "original" Kilgoth.  She may think they are the
same person, or she may note the differences and identify Kilgoth as a
fake.  Or, she may just chalk it up to luck, saying, "That's funny, I know
another guy named Kilgoth that dresses just like you...are you some kind
of groupie?"

Adam W.