Conditional parts of character descriptions

[Daevaorn]

Hi, there. Not a strong wish per se, just sharing some sudden thoughts to get fellow player and developer feedback on it …

I just had an idea for a feature that I'm assuming is not too complicated to realise, but of which I'm not sure if it has been proposed before. It might in all likelihood, but with a rough search I couldn't find any related post here. 

What do you think of the possibility to mark certain parts of your character description with an easy syntax, to prevent it from being shown to everybody, but depending on the onlookers stats and skills?

Let me exemplify that with the following potential description:

Char: Lahm Hakuun - Nolthrir
This Nolthrir is rather on the small side. Even for his race he seems exceptionally thin and wiry.
{{Intelligence:200|You judge that this build could make him an agile fighter given some light weapons.}}
His clothing is plain and simple: Brown leather trousers and a whitish linen shirt, simple leather boots, worn by many miles of walking.
{{Knives & Daggers:50|Your experience with small blades allows you to notice a pair of knives hidden away in the shaft of the boots.}}
{{Charisma:200|You feel a distinct aura of Dweomer in your vis-à-vis.}}
{{Blue Way:100|Clearly you recognise the Blue aura that emanates from him. ‒ A fellow Blue Way mage.}}

That would mean that the marked parts are only visible if the person to whom the description is displayed has the given minimal stats or skills for each part. Assuming this should be fairly easy to implement as a parser-filter before display.

Of course one could think this even further: By allowing comparison of levels, you could also provide alternatives in the form of

{{Dark Way<30|If someone is easily impressed this guy could give them the creeps.}}
{{Dark Way >=30|Your progress on the Dark Way allows you to recognise another Dark Way mage in him.}}

Thus you could even hint towards certain perceptions possible with a higher level of a skill.
Even more flexible and possibly easier to use and implement would be the option of skill ranges:

{{Dark Way:0-29|If someone is easily impressed this guy could give them the creeps.}}
{{Dark Way:30-99|Your progress on the Dark Way allows you to recognise another Dark Way mage in him.}}
{{Dark Way:100-200|You perceive clearly of the Dark aura that surrounds this other Dark Way practitioner.}}

All in all I think this would be an asset that would improve the value of character descriptions two-fold:

• Character descriptions could be even more elaborate and creative, while providing characters with only the information that is relevant to them. Overall size of "the read" would be reduced, as every individual would only get to read parts that concern them in some way.
• The RP value of descriptions would be so much higher, with this targeted information. If people actually could learn something from the description that others don't know, it will make descriptions more exciting, more useful and thus used more frequently and intensively!

[cdmoreland]

Okay.....So I am a master in cw and adept in all others (level 90+), maxed stats, maxed armor, expert swordsman, musician, leather-worker and nice guy with maybe a too sharp wit. Should people know all that when first meeting me? While some like to display their status with robes, bracers and wand, many do not, plus there are those that rp what they've never had time (or just chose not) to train.

[bilbous]

So don't put any of that in your description. The way he described it seemed entirely voluntary.

[cdmoreland]

So don't put any of that in your description. The way he described it seemed entirely voluntary.

Might want to re-read it. It would need to be implemented in the code.

[LigH]

Waesed already pointed to the right direction: I doubt that the character description should depend a lot on the achieved stats. Even if the use of such conditional statements at all would be optional; but we already had issues with people faking server generated descriptions, which is now forbidden, and limiting the display of such descriptions to a skill range might be abused to obscure it from GMs only while (not) wielding skill boosting items etc.

[bilbous]

I think I read it fine, while, yes, it would be effected in code, the textual triggers would be specified by the player, if no triggers were input no information would be revealed. Of course the way it is implied could have funny results.

It seems to be implied that the user will set both the condition to be met and the message that is revealed and the code only needs to check that the condition is met in order to display the appropriate message. Naturally only specific conditions could be set.

GMs could be shown the list of conditional:text combos instead of just the specific text that goes to their condition, or rather GM flag set could be a standard condition that the user could not affect that would override all conditions and show the input tests directly.

It is an interesting idea, even if it is not deemed practical to implement.

[Illysia]

Seems like an interesting idea but one best suited to more small detail parts of description related to profession.
For instance, people with magical training seeing a glowing aura around a character with high magical stats or people with baking training noticing flour and the smell of fruit on a character instead of notincing a white powder and funny smell.

[Daevaorn]

Exactly! @Illysia

@cdmoreland: You may want to re-read what I've written. No one said anything about revealing something about someones stats or skills not to mention automatically. It's about the stats of the people reading a description and what they are able to "see" because of the skills and stats they have. A creative and conscious decision of the person writing a description text for their character.

The author of the character description could think about what certain people with certain experiences would notice about their character. So that different people with different skills would see different details. Like in real life. 

So to state that very clearly again: My idea is NOT about making character X's description dependent on X's skills. It is about giving X the option to display certain self-written parts of X's description to onlooker Y only if Y's got certain skill levels.

[cdmoreland]

So what you are saying is that people make up things that only people with certain skill levels can see?

[bilbous]

Pretty much exactly that. One would hope they make up sensible things for sensible levels but that is by no means assured.

[cdmoreland]

What about those that would rp the levels that would trip it?

[Rigwyn]

I think the idea of giving another player at chance to perceive things based on their skill is good, but I'm not a fan of using game mechanics for this for obvious reasons I won't blather on about.

Another way of implementing this would be to have players make some sort of perception check. ie. I ask you if my dark way experience would afford me any extra insight into your character, maybe you decide or you ask me to /roll if you want this attempt to be based on chance.

Players would just need to adopt this style of play and get used to it.

[Daevaorn]

One would hope they make up sensible things for sensible levels but that is by no means assured.

It is also by no means assured, that what is in descriptions now is sensible. (Other than through GM control, and you have proposed the solution to that potential problem yourself.) So I don't see any new problems introduced. On the contrary: Making people think by using this feaure before writing about what others could actually perceive will improve on the RP quality of descriptions, IMO. If this feature eventually diverted the troublemakers' energy away from chat and into descriptions I would still call that a positive side-effect! This kind of asynchronous troublemaking is much more easily provable as well as contained!

What about those that would rp the levels that would trip it?

As I see it, people who intentionally do not use such huge parts of the available game features can't really expect to be catered when related features are concerned. They will have to do without adaptive descriptions as they have to do without crafting certain things, effecting most spells and so on. Seems a logical consequence to me and in no way unfair…

I think the idea of giving another player at chance to perceive things based on their skill is good, but I'm not a fan of using game mechanics for this for obvious reasons I won't blather on about.

Obvious?  ‒ Again, game mechanics is why we have a game. I know some people prefer to roleplay without backing their character with game mechanics, but then you also shouldn't expect to have a mechanical way to ascertain other people's skills or profit from related game mechanics passively (i.e. you can't have your pie and eat it)…

I'm aware that I am intruding on the "creative writing" RPers use of the game to some degree here, but IMO descriptions have a potential to be much more useful to the majority who does prefer to work with game mechanics, while there would only be marginal losses to those playing without skill mechanics. (As I will explain in greater detail below.)

Another way of implementing this would be to have players make some sort of perception check. ie. I ask you if my dark way experience would afford me any extra insight into your character, maybe you decide or you ask me to /roll if you want this attempt to be based on chance.

This would either require a considerable programming effort (and thus is not realistic to be adopted into the existing roadmap for the game). Moreover, this would be far too disruptive to general game play if you would constantly have to react to all the "view-my-char" requests by others.

Or if done manually, it would even more inflate descriptions with potential perceptions that have to be read by everyone including pseudo-mechanical instructions on how and what to roll. Very much contraproductive for making the descriptions more useful and more reader-friendly.

I prefer a good novel if I want a big read, not spending a long time working through someone's character description in order to decide which minute detail I skillfully or randomly perceive or not.  That's why I play a computer RPG and not P&P. For me reading time is better and more comfortably invested in print products by professional authors.

I tried to propose something that is realistic and can be done with (as far as I can judge it) a reasonably low programming effort to complement what is there in terms of game features and game mechanics. Reinventing the wheel is not feasible. Plus, what you propose would run in parallel and be in no way tied to the existing mechanics, which does not make sense at all in developing a cohesive software product. The question is again, why do we have these game mechanics if we don't tie new game features to them.

It has been brought to this provocative conclusion before, but a chat alone does suffice for this kind of RP. If you don't need mechanical stats and skills and use manual rolls instead then why should mechanical ways of perception matter. If the RP is so far away from the mechanics and people do this extensive Q&A interaction about what or what not to perceive, the minor details in a description do not really matter a lot. The loss of a few written extra perceptions through the avoidance of mechanical skill should not be a problem if most character features are negotiated anyway.

Opposing the complementation of the skill features as proposed for this reason alone seems a bit unfair to those who use mechanical skills and would like to profit more from them. (Not to speak about being unfair to the programmers who made the already present unused features, BTW)

Players would just need to adopt this style of play and get used to it.

True enough, but players could also adopt the use of already present game mechanics, which is much more likely. 

To summarise most of the above… Let's not go any further into the discussion of wheter PS should have game mechanics like skills or not. But since it was brought up I needed to address the aspect. It's off-topic. PS has game mechanics. If someone intended to undo that I guess that would need to go into a different whish-list thread.

And my proposal wants to make use of those mechanics and extend them. People who do not want to make use of that are not concerned, are they? Afterall using this feature would be entirely optional. Those who like their … 'ultrafaulkneresque' descriptions could keep them as before.

The purpose of character descriptions is like that of the name and guild label display: It's a workaround solution to the problem of not being able to display many individual features graphically on one's character. And I think here lies the strong point of my proposal. It would create a more individual description and would positively affect the dynamics between RPers who do use the game mechanics. ("Have you noticed the daggers this guy is hiding in his boots?" ‒ … ‒ "Well, if you don't believe me, ask another dagger fighter you trust.")

[Bonifarzia]

The idea is not bad, and there's nothing wrong about considering character stats, as they are used for the last few lines of the char descriptions anyway. Though, I think it would really help to offer some gui functionality that helps players to structure their descriptions, such that parts of that can be optional based on RP criteria, not only mechanics.

Why not allow the observer/reader to decide which parts he or she wants to read, and which parts are spoilerish for that kind of character or uninteresting for the player. It could be nice to have collapsed text fields that will be expanded only if you click on their header. This header holds a short description, which can imply that the information is available IC only for certain characters. So, instead of a strict and automatic condition, the reader has the option to see parts that are intended for people with a certain background, knowledge or simply the curiosity to have a closer look at some piece of clothing or equipment. I think this could really help with those rather excessive descriptions that some players like to write.

Sorry, Daevaorn, in case I derail your topic a bit. That was the first thing that came to my mind when i read the subject line

[bilbous]

I think part of the objection to this is not so much a failure to engage with the game mechanics as much as it is that they are too slow to level many alts to respectable levels. This is particularly so if you wish to avoid OOC leveling practices such as the rat army armor training.