[MUD-Dev] Non-combat advancement and roleplay

[John Buehler]

J C Lawrence writes:
> John Buehler <johnbue at msn.com> wrote:
>> holding99 at mindspring.com writes:

>>> As an aside, how would any of the reputation systems people have
>>> suggested be modified to work with disguises? Would you still be
>>> able to see the reputation a character has, even when there is
>>> no conceivable way that your character could know?

>> It's not much of a disguise if you can see through it with a
>> given system.

> This assumes that disguises are inherently impenetrable.  Why not
> allow disguises which can be seen through, partially seen through,
> or even setup to be potentially recognised by the human player?

I'm assuming that the systems of the game should respect the fact
that there is a change of identity.  I was objecting to game systems
that completely ignore the fact that the identity change was made,
thus making the disguise process fairly pointless.  Imagine floating
names that don't respect the identity change.  You completely change
from the tall blond to a wizened old man, but your floating name
remains "Bob".

>> A game that implements disguises must implement 'identities' as
>> separate from the character itself.  That is, the relationship
>> between character and identity is one-to-many.  All game systems
>> such as reputation, etc, must work from identities and not from
>> characters.

> That's one definition of "disguise".  Another definition of
> disguise is to mask identity into the abstract generality.  Thus a
> beggar disguise doesn't achieve a unique beggar identity. but
> instead "a non-descript unremarkable and generally unidentifiable
> beggar who be transparently replaced with any beggar in the city."

That's simply an artifact, and not something that I would implement
directly.  If a character establishes a new identity, it may be
specified as being an attempt at appearing non-descript, making it
harder for other characters to recognize it at a later time.  But
that needs to depend on the perceptions of the other character.

JB

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev