Briggand

[Staltos]

Well, wouldn't having something like a hood or mask that hid your face also work, I could try to covere all my character's clothing with some cloak, and try to keep others from learning my character had a hood or such that hid his description...

[Delia]

I think scars should be coverable with atleast disguise too.

The appraise system has always somewhat rubbed me the wrong way...not a fault in the system though. I love how it starts to be somewhat unspecific unless there is a huge gap in skill and how various things affect the outcomes. Perhaps appraising should not be that fast to begin with? Things such as vague general health and such could be gleaned with a glance but estimating someone's "kickassiness" might require a moment or two in contemplation.

Btw, I love meeting Gen when he is in disguise. It would be even more fun if the player(me) would not know who the halfling was, but playing ignorance is fun too.

[luminier]

drake i find your arguement plausible. but i still believe typical halflings won't have tracks to asador and be seen frequently by tundra towers, each time looking different, yet the height and weight remains.

also i think disguises could be "buffed" to prevent proper appraisal or at least something similar to what Delia suggested. as for future meetings with people in disguise... i will try to think before i act.

hehe this game is quickly becoming more of a chore to play that i orignally thought it would be. i understand now what you meant about why being a crusader is hard to role play. as for now im sure many have noticed, im taking a short break to rethink somethings.

[tessa]

but i still believe typical halflings won't have tracks to asador and be seen frequently by tundra towers, each time looking different, yet the height and weight remains.

Funny, I don't remember towers telling the height and weight of passerbys. If each one is looking different, who's to say they aren't different? And who says Asador is a 'no-halfling zone'? I recall a halfling that wanders the tundra collecting loot, and he's not Gen.

If every male halfling under the sun got assaulted for being a potential Gen, I wouldn't be surprised if some of them migrated north where it's safe.

[Olrane]

Anyway, the height and weight thing that you keep going back to is kind of ridiculous. When I imagine halflings, I don't imagine that there's a significant difference in height between the tallest halfling and the shortest, and I think that weight would only be noticeable if such a halfling were abnormally fat or skinny. Those things really are not good enough benchmarks for if a disguised character is or is not who you think it is, as any combination of height and weight except for extreme ones is likely to be very common among the populace.

[tessa]

Not to mention, Gen's a pretty normal-sized halfling. Much like the arguments that any unknown female elf of normal height and weight has to be Tessa, I doubt that Gen is the only normal-sized halfling in the entire world, especially since it'd be hard for it to be 'normal' otherwise.

[luminier]

and im _not_ just using height and weight... from what i read of your posts thats what you think im doing, which isn't my only reason. but when you can appraise someone and know their exact weight and height, later you appriase them and get the same weight height compounded with those other factors, personally i think that warrants an attack. i mean if your going to be THAT suspicious when your trying to be disguised you _deserve_ a lance to the face. but then drake doesn't agree with me either, but, honestly i like to think i play luminier pretty brashly, in most cases to a fault (being brash usually is) which is exactly what i wanted.

heh well think about it. if you were a crusader. if you were luminier. you saw halfling tracks from asador and saw a halfling frequenting the scrag bridge. what would you do? turn a blind eye?

[isengoo]

Yes. The world is inhabited by many peoples, not just player characters. It could be any one of the numerous halflings your character sees walking around Elvandar (and elsewhere, everywhere) on a daily basis, so why pick this one out of the crowd?

You do realize that there are horrible monsters that need killing, right? Goblins setting up camp right outside Bandama! Orcs infesting Elvandar land! Undeads living in the former elf capital! The list goes on and on and on. Why do you and others feel the need to hunt down a single halfling (or a single anything)? It's bogus and just bad RP.

[tessa]

I'm sure in real life, if you walked down a street clubbing or shooting every person of a certain height and weight in a certain area, you'd find yourself in prison rather quickly, and likely for very good reason.

As for what I would do, I would probably leave him alone, unless I had a reason to attack him other than 'just because I can'. Having played a baddie before, I can say it's not enjoyable to be assaulted every single time I try to leave a hiding hole, and it's not very easy at all to bypass watchtowers when they're put in one-way areas. Sometimes it's nice to do something other than 24/7 pvp.

This isn't to say he shouldn't be hunted at all, but it sounds to me like any and each time a halfling goes by a watchtower, it sets off sirens and alarms. And maybe Gen doesn't mind this at all (I can't speak for him), but I doubt his opinion would be the same as everyone else that would be in this position.

And again, the point of the mud is to have fun, not to "own" the other side at every opportunity and "dominate/win" the mud.

but when you can appraise someone and know their exact weight and height, later you appriase them and get the same weight height compounded with those other factors, personally i think that warrants an attack. i mean if your going to be THAT suspicious when your trying to be disguised you _deserve_ a lance to the face.

This sounds amazingly unfair to me. It's essentially impossible to change height and weight, so how do they have any chance at all to not be suspicious by this logic? This sounds like a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, and basically another way of saying 'don't bother with disguises, they're a waste of time'.

And still, if a man that had a build of 5'10" and 160 lbs. pickpocketed you, are you now going to deck every guy of the same build you see? After all, they could all potentially be the dude that robbed you (they're the same size, after all), just with a disguise on, right? Probably you'd get a tired fist before finding the same guy, seeing how I'm sure there's thousands of guys out there that meet that build.

I'm not purposely trying to be mean or pick on you or anything, Luminier, I just really don't agree with that kind of justification. And it's fine if the character Luminier is brash, but there's a difference between an in-game quirk and an OOC belief that it's reasonable.

[luminier]

to isengoo,
well luminiers patrol entails killing everything that you have mentioned, but that really doesn't matter in my view. and i agree with you that ok invisible halflings exist ok thats fine, but honestly theres a reason that there are no room emotes as to halflings or any other species in the tundra... because people don't go up there.

think about it. if i knew there were scary things in the north and death priests that want to sacrifice me... im not going anywhere near that place.

to tessa,
i agree with you that height and weight shouldn't be a deciding factor, for me it just clinches it. i told you all the other ways i discern whether the halfling is gen or not. and most of the time, i don't even see him so he does his work well.

and im really not trying to "win" the mud. luminier is supposed to emulate an elite holy soldier. so indeed most things i do include killing and hunting. when someone chooses to go evil, they know they will have taniel and evren to face, just as when someone chooses to go good they have to face lillith and sathonys.

and as i said before i don't base my decisions on height and weight purely. if i did, i _would_ be decking every halfling that fit that (heheh something like 'emote decks the nearest halfling') but there are other factors as i have mentioned in earlier posts.

and one day if it turns out i was wrong and attacked the wrong halfling, id be in trouble. but hey doesn't this whole invisible halfling thing work both ways? i _don't_ actually deck any halfling that fill gens description =P

[adanath]

There are many ic clues to many things with thieves and others. MANY. The crusaders or at least I do not always tell people mine or other's reasoning, because it is not their business. Of course, neither do I feel are a lot of things this board always tends to gravitate to. Generalizations are made continually. There are suspicious places and ways to act suspiciously that will draw attention. Either hide completely or hide openly, if you get caught in-between it can appear very suspicious. As far as the issue brought up of halflings running when they meet Crusaders or others doing so, because of the "tendency" of crusaders to "shoot first" and ask questions later..I would really like an example of this from the past 8 months, yet nonetheless, I don't feel such subjects, as they are ic related to ic information gathering (spy networks), ic tactics and other, are relevant here on these boards, though such things continually creep up. Nonetheless, whatever.'

*Edited in an attempt to be more clear.

[Olrane]

This was not supposed to be an attack on Crusaders or their roleplay - in fact, a lot of the badly roleplayed disguise stuff I've not seen any Crusaders do firsthand, but rather other characters.

I agree that there are many other clues worthy of your suspicion. Sneakiness, circumlocution, etc. can still make you see the truth behind a disguise. Nonetheless, it's important to absolutely assume that a disguised character is an unknown character unless your character picks up on such suspicious behavior or gets the message that they can tell it's a disguise. That's the bottom line.

[Minariel]

Digging up an older topic simply because it brings up disguises.

When I first created Minariel, which wasn't really that long ago, I'd been playing for maybe a day and was stopped by Luminier in Arborea. He stopped me and asked to search me for disguises. Of course I allowed it, some HUGE guy in armor is blocking my exit, what am I supposed to do?

The reasoning he gave at the time was "Chani has been causing trouble recently" and Minariel comes close to matching Chani's height and weight. For all I know, she could have been spotted in town just recently. Minariel wasn't doing anything suspicious, so that's what I believe it is.

I'm not saying that it was OOC knowledge infringing on game, but simply discouraging to any thought of wearing a disguise. The fact that a guard might stop me and search me for disguises simply because of my height and weight would -really- piss me off IRL.

But again, for all I know, Chani could have been causeing problems immediatly prior to that, and I'd never know.

On that note... Great job, Chani on frustrating Minariel without even trying.

[krelji]

I think the reasoning from Luminier was just fine. If you see disguised people
entering the towns regulary, then you should start thinking about how to stop
them. Since it's not guaranteed that you will notice that it's a disguise, there's
little you can do apart from denying them access to the towns, and attempting
to undisguise them. Doubtless it's a very annoying method, but it increases the
safety of those within the towns.

[Minariel]

I agree that he had perfect justification, in fact it piqued my interest. It made me wonder just how often people sneak in to cities wearing disguises, and prompted me to even 'help disguise' since I wasn't even aware that was an option.

It's just pretty amazing to me that I can log on nearly every day and nearly always learn something new about the game's mechanics. Though there will always be flaws in /any/ system, they (so far) have been few and mostly un-noticable from what I've seen here.

Has anyone suggested maybe being able to hide your strengths and weaknesses from people with disguises? Such as stooping over to hide your height and baggier clothes for weight, and possibly even being able to hide how agile/dextrous you are by walking with a limp or something. The fact that you can just appraise someone and know for a fact that they are not new could be detremental to role-play. No matter how good someone is, it can be difficult to seperate OOC knowledge from IC knowledge, and I'm sure nearly everyon is a little guilty of blending the two from time to time.

[krelji]

Has anyone suggested maybe being able to hide your strengths and weaknesses from people with disguises? Such as stooping over to hide your height and baggier clothes for weight, and possibly even being able to hide how agile/dextrous you are by walking with a limp or something. The fact that you can just appraise someone and know for a fact that they are not new could be detremental to role-play. No matter how good someone is, it can be difficult to seperate OOC knowledge from IC knowledge, and I'm sure nearly everyon is a little guilty of blending the two from time to time.

I think I've done that in the past, though it certainly predates this forum here by a
year or two.