Sneaking and Hiding

Rcrantz: See Forum Rule 3. You are getting awfully close a the line so try to be a little more respectful.

Is calling other people disrespectful disrespectful?

No, I do get that some paranoid people would NEVER leave thier "+hide-proof" rooms for meetings. Okay. There are ways to spy on them just the same. Not with +hide, however.

And listening devices and other type of spying actions WILL be coming. No matter if people think they're cheap, etc. They will be able to be detected and WILL have repercussions to them as well.

Don't think of spies as +hide. That's just one little tiny trick they'll be able to do.

We encourage everyone to speak their mind and have an unrestrained, meaningful debate; we're hashing through major questions that will decide the shape of the MUSH we play on. As we do, it's very important we keep it civil, or the discussion will dry up, and honest debate of ideas will turn into a mere flamewar.

Good points have been raised on both sides. Let the discussion continue, by all means; I'm following it very closely.

Firehawk wrote:

No, I do get that some paranoid people would NEVER leave thier "+hide-proof" rooms for meetings. Okay. There are ways to spy on them just the same. Not with +hide, however.

And listening devices and other type of spying actions WILL be coming. No matter if people think they're cheap, etc. They will be able to be detected and WILL have repercussions to them as well.

Don't think of spies as +hide. That's just one little tiny trick they'll be able to do.

What sort of repercussions are we talking about?

I am still in favor of +hide as the ideal form of spying, because it is also the most direct and the one most likely to lead to interesting conflict. If you find out someone has bugged your room, you just whisper, leave, or start feeding him false information. If you see someone there, you've got instant conflict.

Gadgets are essential to any spy movie, but they are never the whole movie.

I don't know what repercussions. After all, who says it's the enemy spying? What if it's your boss? Clearly your boss may want to find out what you're doing. And plant listening devices. Etc.

What SHOULD repercussions be?

I think you may have misinterpreted my initial comment. I said listening devices are likely to draw complaint because you can plant one without any fear of reprisal if you're discovered--it's not (very) traceable, etc. Perhaps the fact that you can feed false information to the person listening in is enough, but it's at a level of anonymity that is likely to draw complaints.

In contrast, if you make it link to the name of the character using the listening device it will just annoy listening device users. (I'm still annoyed that +comsys/scan can be used to positively identify someone remotely.)

I think we can make it so listening devices are very traceable. So you'll know who, or at least, where. OR at the very least, be able to hire a bounty hunter or slicer to track it.

And any sort of info will come from staff.

I like where. Not so much who.

Yeah, the goal will be to prolong the RP and create challenges for both sides. Nothing will be handed to anyone.

I am not really in favor of listening devices...I would rather it be a PC doing something. Not sneaking into an office after the owner of the office is off line, plant a bug, then leave and listen to what is going on at a later date.

As much as I would like to use them, it's hard to go against my strong feelings of having so much code and eliminating the need to have actual PCs doing something. I would feel much the hypocrite otherwise. So I am not really in favor of such "devices".

Whoo, two in a row...
I really wanted to give some thought to repercussions to a PC that never leaves the safety of their office.

I have finally come to the conclusion that nothing should be done. I think having to play that way is very sad. It will happen, but it will be sad. Not to mention utterly and totally boring! I think that in it's self will be repercussions enough. As well as other players will wise up and not take part as they don't want to just hang out in one room either.

Besides, the spy actually has it easier then. Just hang out hidden outside the office, see who goes in follow them, see where they go and who they talk to, see who all is involved while learning what is going on. Nothing will be kept secret to the one that has the patience to just do the footwork.

I'm with you, Stalker. If they really NEVER leave? Wow, right?

But I think everyone kinda wants more stuff to do with stealth... and also more ways to challenge it. I have played as UBER stealthy characters before, and sometimes it's hard to pull yourself into a scene. Certainly when you +unhide, you're suddenly "weaker" as hiding is often the best skill you had...

Let's depart from what we know already. Forget the "every 10 minutes it checks to see if you're still hidden and gets harder to stay hidden." Stuff... what I want to know is if there is an entirely better way to do it.

What do you think? While I may have been really stealthy once, it was never really my thing. So you probably have more ideas than me.

Think games like Thief... stealth is often moving.

Think even the star wars movies... a lot of stealth we see (not much of it, admittedly) is with moving from place to place to accomplish some mission (Obi-Wan turning off the tractor beams)

What THINGS would you like to see an elite stealth-agent be able to do? What about a mediocre stealth-agent?

What actions should they have at their fingertips? (Not necessarily gagets, but missions you think would be cool, their roles or potential skills they'd offer to various agencies, etc)

My opinion...having gone from not stealthy at all to pretty darn stealthy....

Leave as it is.

Also in Thief, stealth is waiting quietly in one place to study patterns and plan your next move.

One of the first things I learned when I started MUSHing is it's more or less impossible to RP stealth. The RP comes from what you do or learn, or occasionally with an impartial judge running the guards/environment/opposition. Even then, though, the RP is limited. The entire point of stealth is avoiding interaction. It works great in a tabletop campaign or computer game--on a MUSH, it's seldom terribly fun.

The RP it generates comes from what you learn or do while sneaking, or from the point at which you fail or are no longer hiding. The information you gained, the things you stole, the switch you threw--or the alarm being sounded, the guards being called, the security device activating. Stepping from the shadows at a dramatic moment, gun drawn.

The interesting stealth in movies and games is all pretty much of the same variety: avoiding detection. Sometimes it's sneaking past guards, sometimes it's waiting for a threat to pass, but it's always pretty much the same: hide, sneak, avoid detection.

The difference between an elite spy and a mediocre one is the elite spy can get away with it more often. You mentioned Thief. Garrett doesn't do much besides be stealthy--he just does it really well. The current mechanic is the most brilliant way to handle stealth in a MUSH I've ever seen.

What the game does not offer to stealthy characters is things to do. There's currently no situation in which you sneak into the enemy base to deactivate the tractor beam, open the gate, steal the macguffin, et cetera. At the moment it's pretty much all eavesdropping and eluding detection. There is probably not a good mechanic for this--it will rely on storytellers being good at it.

I should stress that replacing the existing stealth mechanic with storytellers is pretty much the most undesirable scenario imaginable.

Here are some thoughts tossed out there....

If you make a "check" every so often to see if a hidden player has been spotted arbitrarily then....
Make the same check to see if someone wealthy has lost all the credits they have in the bank due to, bank failure, embezzlement, thefts.

If the system changes to make it possible to chance spot a spy by the tools he uses...
Make it a possiblity that the system will have to check to see if there are any bad rumors that would drasticly reduce the popularity of the Politician in response to some odd rumor that the system generates.

JUst some thoughts and examples.
What's fair for one, is fair for all?

The concept of someone being discovered simply because a timer triggers and the other people present don't do anything seems very very distasteful to me. People need to be proactively /looking/ to see if someone is spying on them, not walking along and getting lucky because someone else just failed a check. Oblivious people deserve to not notice.


I suggest a command similar to +track, maybe +scan or some such that can be used every X amount of minutes to look around and see if anyone is present. AND it is emitted so that spies could tell that someone is looking around, so both sides see what is going on.

Make this command modified by droids or scanners to increases their chance of success. Or even just have scanners or what not, but having a default check? That seems to be a little harsh. Like Stalker said, if we have people's core abilities checked for failure randomly, it needs to be across the board. Pilots randomly jumping to the wrong place or flying the wrong direction? IF you have a skill, it means you are skillful (to a degree) at it.


Another aspect of sneaking and hiding I would like to push is a 'surprise' attack aspect. I think with the limit break system, that any attack out of hiding should be affected by being hidden. If you're hiding and you get that surprise attack off, you probably are going to catch someone with their proverbial pants down. Maybe give it an extra knock to the limit gauge or what not. If someone is not paying attention, scanning, checking, they deserve to get popped. But don't punish the sneakers.

Addendum: Think of it this way. Striker is sneaking around me. I +scan, he knows I looked around but believes he is sneakier than he is. I see him and know he's there. Just like he'd get a bonus for attackign me, if I pop a hidden character, that char assumes he is hidden most likely so I'm going to surprise him for a little extra pop. Balance.

Exactly and I like it, Paradox.
I was hoping that someone would catche my meaning in my post.
And I like the idea of the "scan".
Do you want to play chess?

The way I see it going down, Player A is hiding, Player B scans...Now Player A has a decision to make...did B see me, if so I better shoot, but if B didn't see me, then I don't want to else my cover is blown....decisions decisions.

I really like this idea.

I don't know. It seems to me that there isn't a huge difference between creating a command that people will want to use as often as it can possibly be used, and creating an automatic check that does the same thing, calling their stats, at regular intervals.

Is there an advantage to having a command whose use people can challenge ("Why did you +scan then of all times? Maybe you somehow OOCly knew I was here, huh?")? I'm not sure I'm seeing the same benefits and costs--sell me on this idea.

Well maybe I'm not understanding the auto-check but to me it seems that if someone isn't being proactive in checking then they deserve to be followed.

Maybe elaborate on the auto-check a bit more? Because the way I saw it explained was everyone who is hidden on the game every 10 minutes has a chance to fail and be detected no matter what is going on.

The reasons I see are this:

If the code just checks what you are doing and see if you pass or fail then you have to apply that across all skills. Not just some, but all.

Also this way a PC, a person, has to remember to do it. There is an action by a character and a possible outcome. Not code on some timer that just outs the PC. Just like the real thing, the person forgets to check and and the spy/sniper gets off free.

I would further add this:
1. Hand scanners would help a little, not much power limited range.
2. Droids have more power and greater range.
This way they have to be used and not so arbitrary.

A timer-based scan command that automatically checks for spies is functionally the same as an automatic timer that forces the same check, because, if the command isn't run automatically to begin with, it soon will be.

In SimpleMU, my preferred client, click on Game -> Add Timer Event -> +ScanForSpies.

Why not? "My character is always on the lookout. If someone manages to evade him anyway, it's because they're really stealthy, they have the stats for it. But I have the tracking skills to always be looking."


On a separate but related note, I can see a fair objection to forcing the tracker to continuously type commands to counteract an effect that the spy only has to activate once. Tracker players could make a fair case that the spy should have to type a command every few minutes to stay hidden, since staying still for long periods is a difficult skill to maintain.

The way I see it is this...A player has to activily do something to cause an action.

If it is automated to check to see if the hidden player is still hidden then I submit to keep things fair and balanced that this has to be across the board in all skills.

As Paradox said, the Pilot enters a command to fly to X, code it so that there is a chance he typed in Y. The Merchant invests...code has to check if that was a good investment and there is a chance he just lost all his credits. The Politician makes a speech, code checks to see if rumors of his speech start up and his ratings go down.

Every skill would have to have this to be fair for all. Other wise a player is getting penalized just by picking a certain role.

I for one dont' want to play against code, I want to play against players.

One way to stop people spamming the +scan command, especially in scenes, is to have it do some short emit (and I mean short, 1 line only and NOT powerposing anything specific) telling people that it's been used. It'll get self-policing, because I know that, sneaking or not, I'd get very tempted to stab someone who spammed my nice RP with 50 lots of COMBAT: Jimmy has scanned the room.

Paradox suggested that it be made known that Player A scanned. I agree...I keep seeing at a regular interval that some player constantly scans...that is going against the rules of fair play. Action would be taken by Staff in such cases and as you said, self policing.