Coded +hide

It's time, I think. The +Check stealth has proven a miserable failure for three reasons: It wastes a ton of time every turn. It causes fights in every scene. Even when you do hide, people RP as if they know where you are.

Bring back +hide and +sneak. We never had problems that were anywhere NEAR as annoying as the ones we are having now.

I dont log in to rules lawyer and argue OOCly in the middle of scenes. I /rarely/ had to do this on DH1. Why is it that every scene on DH2 ends up like this?

I agree.

Perhaps things could be improved on. Perhaps the DH1 stealth could be tweaked to be better.

We are never going to see an end to troubles involving hide methods. We might as well go with the system that generates the least of them.

The reason is because the majority of our players are back to level 5-9 (whatever your levels are) and keep wanting to do things like DH1.

This is not DH1. If something happened on DH1 one way, that is not a reason for it to happen on DH2. You may have commanded vast legions of troops and on your first day as a character ordered fleet bombardments of wherever you want.

Those days are gone. You are a cog in a vast machine, or a small machine trying to build up cogs.

If you fail a +check, the system is not faulty. If you fail to win a combat, the system is not fault.

There are some of you that are... really doing good. I'll be perfectly honest, going forward from DH1, there were some people I was convinced would hate the new direction. But not only have some of them greatly surprised me, they're emerging as leaders both ICly and OOCly.

As for saying the +check system is a failure, then I think you're using it wrong. The problems with +hide and +sneak were there. They just came out differently. People would accuse others of twinking because they had info. Now people accuse others of twinking because they refuse to adhere to +checks.

We left +sneak and +hide off the storytelling templates specifically because there was so much discussion about it. I wrote a sniping guide that is going to POSSIBLY be the basis of sneaking.

Now, some of these guides that incorporate +checks might work as a +command. A +hide that auto-rolls and sets you up so you don't have to keep track of "levels of hide" and stuff isn't a bad idea. BUT FIRST, I want to see how it works with raw +checks. If it works other than people losing count of "hide level" then I can talk to gulp about adding a command.

These problems you are describing are not system problems, they are player problems. No system will _ever_ be perfect. Every system relies on players cooperation (much as I know some of you despair at the thought) and we will need to keep working on both player cooperation as well as rule refinement as we move forward.

So keep working on it, and LOG these problems. I'm serious. We see some of it, but just a "This is a problem" without the specifics doesn't let us go in and admonish a player for specific actions.

If staff has sat in on any of the big scenes that occur, they would not need a log to show them which players consistently act like total tools.

Beyond that, maybe I am using the system wrong. The frustration for me is not so much having to make a check or failing a check. It's having to sit there for 30 minutes while other people squabble and feud over it. I have no interest in watching it and it kills my desire to RP.

So, it is now the official staff position that coded +hide is not going to happen?

I know I was hoping it would be coded. It helps to stave off any arguments. The thread on hiding had some really good ideas in there as well; though I will say that I do appreciate staff's work on the posts in regards to sniping and addressing that question.

Yeah, me too. If staff has officially decided that coded +hide is going the way of the Dodo, that's sort of a dealbreaker for me, actually.

It's not in the immediate pipeline, no.

I've actually been impressed with a lot of players and how they have worked out pretty cool stuff that they never would've attempted with simpler (by necessity) coded systems.

Though some of the systems might eventually become coded auto-resolves (such as chase or sniper-cover mode) I don't see us having as near an expansive code-based system going on.

I've been increasingly annoyed by it with every check that's been made, even the ones where there are no arguments. I've ended up just conceding "sure, whatever" because I didn't want to waste the energy on a discussion of whether or not someone was seen or wasn't seen because the sniping rules don't cover a situation at all. And it happened organically, without any real "I WIN" mentality going on--a check happened, then another check, then "I thought I saw you?" and suddenly I saw it unfolding before me: an unnecessary discussion, not heated, because I didn't particularly care, but of the variety that takes more time than is necessary, that makes people vaguely irritated that they had to go through the whole ordeal, that keeps the other person from RP they are about to do. It would take five, ten, fifteen minutes to figure it out, perhaps longer, and as I was not the only one in the room, other people would have their two cents. Eventually the checks would either be repeated, or not, and we'd go on our way. It was shy of a nightmare scenario--but it would have been unpleasant and I don't think anyone involved would have cared.

Everyone present expressed their desire for a coded system, and I said "Go ahead, I didn't see you." It was not ideal. It wasn't fun. It was a momentary blip in the road that forced me to sit there and ponder what stealthy purpose this person might have, and what I might have done had I spotted them. Had the RP been more active at the time it would have been a disruption where we all paused to make stealth checks and briefly discuss what was going on.

Then I envisioned a future where stealth was like this, forever. Where every time someone sneaked past me in order to try to find something, I had to pause and wonder what was going on, when I was essentially honor bound to avoid that room, even if I was going to wander into there later. Gone are the surprises of spotting someone who is +hiding and doesn't know, IC or OOC, that I can see him. Gone are the days when you could actually sneak past someone and not have to stop and chat OOC first.

I envisioned how this could have gone on DH1, how the player would have sneaked past without me seeing. I envisioned how it could have gone had I seen this player on DH1, how, rather than drawing a weapon and attacking, I would have watched, and waited, and gathered up an army and followed, and led an ambush. The player would have known nothing of this. On DH2 it would be nearly impossible, unless I communicated my intentions and somehow got the player to approve, or unless, for some reason, they were content with me saying "yeah, I see you, but I don't react," and continued unheeded and unsuspicious. The spontaneity and intrigue is gone from it.

Then I thought back fondly of all of the fun times I'd had using +hide on DH1 that would be impossible without a coded +hide. Of spying on associates unawares, listening to the conversations they thought were private. Then, when one had departed, revealing myself to the other. He didn't know how much I heard or knew, but he knew that I now had the advantage. I didn't know if he had seen me or not, and if he did, whether he was manipulating me. I thought of the secrets I had gleaned from hiding in the right place at the right time, the times I had been spotted and ignored, the times I had spotted someone and foiled an assassination attempt thereby--all of this was fun that +check cannot begin to replicate.

Spying with +check, most scenes will feature people whispering and looking about suspiciously, and there is no uncertainty--unless it is the uncertainty of whether this person is going to be trustworthy OOC. And without uncertainty, if you know you've been spotted, there is no reason to keep hiding and watching--you want to get out of there as soon as you can. There is no way for the espied to signal to their associates that there is a spy, and we should mislead them.

For you see, stealth is all about deception. And as much as people seem to find this concept strange, IC deception is just not possible without some OOC deception. If you know, OOC, that my character is a dangerous fraud who is going to murder you in your sleep and steal everything you own, then I am going to have my work cut out for you in convincing you to go to sleep so I can commence the robbery and murder. But if you OOCly assume that I am a harmless traveler who just needs a place to stay for the night, then you will react OOC the way you would IC--unsuspecting until something happens to make you suspicious.

Believe me, I have played on games where stealth is resolved with checks, far more elegantly than +check does it currently. It is simply not fun. Perhaps stealth-based characters are not your concern--I note with disdain that you arbitrarily forbade characters with forgery skills from using them to bypass armies. But if you are removing the potential to play a properly deceptive, cunning, stealth-based character--the kind that I was given to understand Gulp wanted to encourage in the Sith, the kind he asked me to play--then you will have to forgive me for looking for another, better game.

Happily, you are not the one responsible for coded direction in the game, and unfortunately for you I will only quit when I have exhausted all of my options, of which I have many. Can I get an affirmation that the game is officially avoiding coded +hide in favor of this horrible convoluted unfun system of +checks from someone above Grip in authority?

I'd be perfectly satisfied with a stealth system like last time except instead of track it would use the higher of stealth, forensics or streetwise, along with some sort of restriction (coded even) against using the +hide command during combat, or a coded way to use it in combat, perhaps.