This would also have the carry on effect of normalizing wigs and contacts on undisguised characters which would improve the overall metagame for when the natural type was used for disguises.
This would also have the carry on effect of normalizing wigs and contacts on undisguised characters which would improve the overall metagame for when the natural type was used for disguises.
But this would be a solid start for a pretty underutilized niche. Though you can already kind of use them cosmetically if you just don't take them off after your disguise drops.
These items are very expensive by default to make, and the cost to create a cosmetic variant (ie. be written by a player to suit the purpose) means they are typically more expensive than expensive clothing while also having very limited numbers of uses, and significantly less availability since anyone with the necessary skill can make clothing whereas wigs and contacts will only ever be able to be crafted by 1 or 2 players at any given time at most.
These items, as disguises, would be much more useful if they were more common, so it's kind of a chicken and egg problem where they're limited because of their potential but their potential is limited because of their scarcity. Having cosmetic variants increases their usage, and therefore their usefulness for passing as a non-disguised character, while not actually making their disguising costs any lower.
A contact lens that didn't apply a disguise, or include a disguise bonus.
Aren't different hairstyles covered by the auto-styler plus @nakeds?
These would not be wigs, they would be a character's actual hair styled in a certain way.
I guess it's not well known but wigs and contacts, aside from their disguise function, are not the same as just setting nakeds and have different functionality and allow for different things than natural hair or eyes styles. This is nice to some extent, cosmetically, but it actually works against these items as disguises since they're fundamentally different than undisguised appearances. Having non-disguise variants would help to establish these as things characters can be wearing for all sorts of reasons that are not cloak and dagger purposes.
I understand what you are saying about wanting to normalize disguise items. I agree that they are cost prohibitive and charge limited to the point where they are not used very often.
The meta around players noticing disguised characters comes down to maturity. Twinks are gonna twink. TBH I didn't stop "playing to win" until I was in my early 30s. That's a whole other rabbit though.
I think it would awesome if "used up / broken" wigs and contacts were still usable, but not as disguise items. I am thinking that the descriptions of the items could be modified to make it obvious. "%P is boldly rocking a ratty old, "purple dreadlocked wig" without a care in the world." Or whatever. Instead of applying the "disguise" text modifier to the description / @naked, it would substitute in the name of the item itself.
At the risk of coming across preachy, this seems like the typical "Be the change you want to see in Withmore" moment. If there are only 1 or 2 people in the game who can create disguise items, that is the perfect opportunity to start disseminating that knowledge. Even if you make a book at charge 10,000c for it. At least the knowledge starts getting out there.
This is where playing to lose comes in. Instead of gatekeeping the knowledge, spread it around. Do it selfishly. Do it because "you" / your character / your faction benefit from having more people casually rocking disguises. It's the whole, a rising tide lifts all boats phenomena.