Elements of Disguise
You can tell by the way I walk...

There's been a lot of discussion around disguise. I have summarized my thoughts below and look forward to hearing from you folks. The idea is to promote a disguise system which has two main kind of playstyles: disguising yourself in advance as a distinct persona and slipping into the masses as just another anonymous face on-the-go.

If you like movies, I find these are best presented in...

Sherlock Holmes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdVtcHMYAM4

The Saint: I couldn't find a solid clip but there's a lot of great scenes of him doing persona prep.

Verbose shortdesc transitions

Anyone watching, following or shadowing someone who uses the appear command should have a chance to notice them transition. This is particularly useful or to your detrimental in the street but I believe this needs to be accomodated more to reduce abuse.

At its core, this means a lot more passive emoting from people using disguise. Noticing someone switching from being a amazonian diva to a puny chen as they move through rooms or changing in front of mirror. Taking on another character is strenous in of itself - cut some slack for the folks who don't know when someone is watching and take it out of their hands.

Appear

I propose a major refactor with appear based around transition speed and mirrors:

* If you are in front of a mirror and use appear, the effect is instantaneus.

* If you are NOT in front of a mirror and use appear, the effect takes one room movement to transition.

The @shortdesc command would not be impacted by this.

On the go, when utilizing appear you would have a chance based on your diguise skill and a limited StreetWise Pool (much like luck to prevent abuse) to pick-up a temporary one-use disguise component that correlates with your new identity. I.E. A blanket made of discarded spreadsheets for the urchin, a blazer for the suit, an umbrella for the wage-slave, etc. Where (Sector, Crowd Size, etc) you use appear will also impact your chances of success here.

Notably, I'm very curious about the prospect of thievery being in use or in conjunction with disguise to this.

Clothing Refactors

Have every peice of clothing feature attributes that boost the diguise score of someone appearance that correlates to their size and design. These would be setable/adjustable by tailors on tailored clothing, assigned to premade clothing (which should not have sizing) and would feature broad categories such as masculine, feminine, corporate, mixer, sporty, milspec, etc.

A petite mixer outfit would make a shitty disguise for someone appearing to be a amazonian suit, etc.

Disguise Items would provide blanket bonuses to each type across the board as they are generic.

Persona implementation:

I think persona should implemented in such a way that you should NOT be modifying your @nakeds to appear disguised but rather your persona should be loaded with your disguised @nakeds along with @voice.

Brought up previously and to be discussed here: https://www.sindome.org/bgbb/game-discussion/ideas/making-disguise-persona-slots-2124/

Wigs & Contacts:

If these don't match @skintone or provide @worn messages actually capable of fooling anyone - what is the point?

Hairstyle

We need a %hairstyle and %haircolor variable.

Mirrors

With these refactors, mirrors would be more important than ever and I wouldn't be surprised if they started popping up in public places. What stripclub or bathroom doesn't have a mirror?

I propose mirrors are easy to break and commonly defaced. Combat, explosives, etc...should all pose an immediate threat to mirrors. And the only thing worse than having to pay to replace it? The bad luck reduction assigned to whoever broke it.

Skintone Modification

A final ingredient. Sugar, spice, and everything nice...

https://www.sindome.org/bgbb/game-discussion/ideas/-skintone-modification-2109/

@nakeds

Are people really changing @nakeds?

That seems like it should be out of bounds. Nakeds are nakeds. The body itself doesn't change.

I always thought that nakeds were supposed to be an accurate reflection of stats. Ie, don't describe a body as beautiful without the associate Charisma. Don't describe movements as fluid and cat like without the associated Agility, etc.

Nakeds are nakeds. The body itself doesn't change.

Nakeds don't always only describe objective, immutable elements of the body's measurable properties.

Leaving aside the powergaming that people put into nakeds, where they're telling YOU what YOU think and feel about them, they also include hints of manner and behavior, GIS (general impression and shape), and personality.

If your argument is that nakeds shouldn't be changeable on principle or changed as a practice when someone appears different and is ICly attempting to thoroughly disguise theirself, I think it's a losing one.

TBH I'm not sure it's an OOC expectation as much as an IC pragmatic. Someone fucks up their disguise? Why should staff care.