Do I know you? (aka To floaty text, or not to floaty text)

[Pen N Popper]

In a virtual world where distinguishing one face from another is virtually impossible, we all rely on visual cues. The most obvious is the floaty text name but others include head choice, clothing, and weapon. With this, though, comes the chance for "metagaming" though it is a gray area in most cases.

I'd like to suggest that the floaty text and examine feature have an automatic and custom-per-PC flavor.

Scene: An unhooded figure approaches
Floaty: A male with dark brown skin, shoulder length blond hair, and moustache.
Examine: A male with dark brown skin (lore check) indicative of the Eastern desert. Shoulder length blond hair and moustache. He is wearing expensive silk clothing, purple and green, with a (lore check) greater swordsman's belt. A expensive looking rapier is on his belt. etc.

The pair of you stop and make small talk. During the conversation, the man says, "My name is Daniel." At this point, your PC has new information that is automatically added to the floaty text and examine: His name is Daniel. (Bluff checks and other niceties can be included in here behind the scenes so no metagaming is possible.)

Scene: A hooded figure approaches
Floaty: A male hooded figure wearing purple and green.
Examine: He is wearing expensive silk clothing, purple and green, with a (lore check) greater swordsman's belt. A expensive looking rapier is on his belt. etc.

You still don't recognize the man since you just met once several months back. Upon lowering his hood, though, you do automatically recognize him and his floaty switches to Daniel. With each meeting and length of interaction you begin to recognize him more and more often in various garbs and circumstances.

This would bring the floaty text completely into an IC thing. Skills such as perform with sub-categories of disguise, speak with accent, look stronger, etc. would add further flavor.

How would you improve or change such a system? What would be the pros and cons?

[Frances]

Sounds too complicated to me.

I think you should have a floaty text that's editable within the game, restricted to a reasonably short length (e.g. "Daniel Orcbane" or "Fat Halfling with short brown hair"). This would be visible to everyone as you walked around, no action required on anyone's part. Then you should have an in-game editable description that comes up when someone examines you. Thirdly, there's a permanent description (similar to what we have now) that someone with a high enough Spot check (or something similar) will get when they examine you, instead of the one you edited in game.

The editable long description would default to the permanent description. There would be bonuses to both sides trying to see/hide their permanent description. For example: Your Disguise skill (assuming such exists), the person doing the spotting has your race as their Favored Enemy, racial bonuses/penalties, hood up, etc.

Perhaps we could add the ability for characters to be able to recognize other characters. Each time you see a character, you can click on "Recognize" on a radial menu or equivalent, and it increases your character's recognition of the other one, which would be a bonus to your Spot check, or could give you the character's name vice the edited floaty text.

On a related note, I'd like to have a description of my own for each character. When I examine a character, I'd have a set of my own notes pop up, so I could write things like: "Probably a Corathite in disguise", "Hates humans", "Will sacrifice himself to save the party". Basically, a short journal that's specific to each character encountered. To save space, this might be limited to the last 100 characters encountered, similar to how you forget someone if you haven't seen them in a while.

[Marswipp]

Floaty text default: disabled

Edit: The "enabled" options are: short description, name (has a requirement)

[Thak]

In general I'd like no floaty text at all until:

-NPC : introduced through dialogue
-Creature : Examined /lorecheck and/or Item use (Book, Treatise or other RP item) for identification

PC: introduced. Not sure if we could reliably parse for any possible introductory statement or if "introduce" would simply be an action that sets your name for the target you use it on.

If introduced, but meet the person masked/disguised:no text until successful lore check.

[stragen]

Players can select to turn on/off the floaty text above their own characters head. This will help other player realise the character 'is in disguise'. What may be even better is perhaps some automated contest of skills to determine if your character recognises the other character. At success means the floaty text appears over their head (this would be hard to do).

If descriptions are used, Players can edit and self-manage their characters descriptions.

I like the idea of using lorecheck for creatures and NPCs.

If you know a PC, but they are masked/disguised, then a contest of skills bluff/disguise verse spot/perception should be used instead of a lorecheck.

Cheers,

Stragen

From What I want in a MMO