Making disguise/persona slots

This idea was brought up on ooc chat, it's basically making a @macro type thing dedicated to disguises.

You would type @persona add, get a prompt on what you want to call the persona, then what you want to appear as (tall, fat, male, etc), what you want to sound like with @voice, what @lp you want, perhaps the names of the disguises you want to use with it?, and then the @persona is set.

You can just use @persona [name] to swap into it with a simple 'You take up your 'blank' persona', making it less screen-filling than @marcos. Last you use @persona stop to revert to your normal state.

@disguise-name and @disguise-desc is still up to the player to skillcheck in and set themselves.

By deaddragon at Sep 18, 2020 4:01 PM

If there was some sort of timed aspect to this, I'd be down. It'd let people build up templates in their spare time and better utilize the disguise features without having spam macros or copy-paste commands.

I'd see it akin to tailoring. Something you tinkered away at and had prepped and at the ready, if you had the given items associated with the persona. Also, it'd be a pitfall for lazy people, using the same persona again and again. There's a lot of pros to this and the cons are outweighed by more RP, from my perspective.

By HolyChrome at Sep 18, 2020 4:03 PM

I'm actually on the other end. Disguise is a powerful tool, there's been issues where players feel people fleeing from scenes already do appear, etc quickly without any roleplay to get away from those pursuing them. I feel this idea only empowers an already pretty well compensated ability and makes it so less work is required. While it's certainly a quality of life improvement, I don't think a quality of life improvement should also give someone what I feel is a significant boost in mechanic assistance.

By crashdown at Sep 18, 2020 5:48 PM

I don't think there will be a mind to a cooldown on personas, to stop you from suddenly switching them on the go. Perhaps even requiring a mirror in the room or on hand like with makeup?

By deaddragon at Sep 18, 2020 6:05 PM

Unlocked at a high disguise level... slot count dependent on the primary associated stat...?

Definitely like the idea.

By Quotient at Sep 18, 2020 6:08 PM

I'd like to get clarification if macroing disguises is even something we're allowed to be doing anymore.

We've been told that we're supposed to be taking time to pose, emote and setup/change our @nakeds when using the appear command. I could see the same applying to making the various other changes to hide your identity.

By TalonCzar at Sep 18, 2020 6:14 PM

1. You can already use @macros to do this.

2. This seems to go against having to learn all of the different disguise elements ICly.

By Hek at Sep 20, 2020 12:39 PM

Agree with Hek here, there's some in-character learning associated with most skills, which gives some value to experimentation and/or IC mentors. A lot of good RP would be obviated by a @persona feature.

By Rhicora at Sep 20, 2020 12:42 PM

Personally, I think @macros should remain an optional feature and one which we should be prepared to move away from not rely on.

@persona would be a capstone feature. One you get after all the experimentation and mentoring needed to use for disguise. I fail to see the need to gatekeep that with RP and honestly question if any OOC @ command should be obfuscated that way. For IC commands like appear - maybe but I do not think applies here.

By ReeferMadness at Sep 20, 2020 12:50 PM

Setting up a disguise is so much work as it is that I welcome any convenience method.

By ynk at Sep 21, 2020 6:15 AM

@ynk

What would @persona do to help you setup disguises that you cannot already do with @macro?

By Hek at Sep 22, 2020 9:38 AM

I'm not sure I understand. I'll have to look into macros some more, I guess.

I feel like there's a lot that goes into disguising that just wouldn't work right or consistently with macros.

Having looked into it, it may be possible but right now it just goes over my head.

By ynk at Sep 23, 2020 6:41 AM

Having to rely on macros to engage with game mechanics is probably an indication the mechanics could use improvement. We should be striving for engagement over macro usage as much as possible IMO. the MOO-side macro tools are clunky and philosophically problematic as it is, and there are lots of people who can't or don't want to use them.

By Jameson at Sep 23, 2020 11:34 AM

Okay, here is what I have glemed from this post.

-A time limit with using @persona to counter abuse. (5 mins after you drop a persona? maybe dependant of skill)

-Perhaps requiring extra prep with needing to be done with a mirror on hand/in the room.

-Slot dependence on skill.

extra ideas:

-You can not change from @persona to @persona, you have to @person stop then wait out the time limit. This would cut abuse even more, stoping people from using @persona right out of a fight even if they have a mirror on hand.

-Perhaps you should be required to have the disguises in hand for a specific persona, if you want to @persona Jane, you need to have a wig/poncho/hoodie/whatever you specified in the slot. Maybe it wont force wear those items, but you are still needed to have them in inventory.

-You need to stop appearing to use @persona, more removal of abuse.

I'm not going to speak on @macros because..as it is those are very very broken, and you can't plan or prep and they feel more cheaty than a balanced and dedicated command.

By deaddragon at Sep 23, 2020 12:13 PM

@macros work for applying overall disguises in principle, but in practice some of the steps need to happen in the correct order to work and occasionally @macros fail to do that.

By 0x1mm at Sep 23, 2020 12:53 PM

I am not against this. Especially if it is gated by skill, higher disguise, more slots, for example. And by item. IE: needing a mirror.

I love that folks have not only discussed this but also (as deaddragon pointed out) talked about the limitations that would be needed for balancing purposes! Makes my job much easier :)

By Slither at Sep 24, 2020 12:19 PM

I am a little concerned that by having a prompt based mechanic that is truly fully inclusive that we are letting a command teach a PC/Player about what it takes to make a good disguise while, as things are, this is something they can and do learn from other PCs. I worry that this will negate the need for that RP.

I get that some feel that having high enough skill is good enough but I can't think of other skills that, once high enough, have command shortcuts that largely negate the need for the PC/Player to learn how to use that skill effectively. I worry that this suggestion might do this.

I am not saying that one path is better or worse than the other but if we want high skill level to allow a PC/Player to skip the IC learning then it should be applied across the board and not just to disguise. I just like consistency.

Additionally, any limits put on this command should it be implemented, should be matched by the slew of commands one would use to manually get the same result. If the limits were only places on this command then it would be trivial to avoid them.

Just a few initial thoughts I had after reading this.

By Grey0 at Nov 4, 2020 6:16 AM

The helpfile already tells that information, so, this @idea doesn't add or subtract anything, regarding "learning".

By beandip at Nov 4, 2020 6:59 AM

I disagree. The PCs I've seen be awesome at disguises are doing more than you find in 'help disguise'.

By Grey0 at Nov 4, 2020 7:00 AM

I don't see anything in this @idea that isn't in the helpfile. So - there may be players who are even better at disguise than the suggested prompts, but they learned those subtleties organically and they still will.

By beandip at Nov 4, 2020 7:03 AM

-	QueenZombean	3s
-	BigLammo	4m	youtu.be/NZR4EeTkRqk
-	zxq	1m
a	Mench	2m	Doing a bit of everything.
-	SmokePotion	1m
-	Ameliorative	10s
-	connorf88	12h
And 29 more hiding and/or disguised

Making disguise/persona slots What mask will ya wear today?

Making disguise/persona slots
What mask will ya wear today?