Disguise system

[thids]

Another thing that bothers me about this feature and disguise in general is, when I appraise someone who is disguised and I beat their disguise roll with my spot roll, all I get is the information that they are disguised (unless I know them from before? not sure how this mechanic works exactly)... that's not enough information IMO. How am I supposed to translate that into roleplay if people aren't obliged to describe what exactly is disguised? Am I missing something?

As a side note, I am aware that disguise system is one of those things that are building blocks for the future, as duster47 has said, I'm just pointing this out.

[seawied]

I agree completely.

Also, although there are numerous, legitimate complaints about people getting meta-game information from a player's name, the new system where a player can change their name at whim opens up even larger can of worms.

There needs to be a unique identifier of each player constantly.

The new disguise system where you are able to change your name at a whim can open the door for exploitation. Although DMs have come out and said that changing your name to match another player's is not allowed, there are no mechanical ways to prevent this until things happen after the fact.

Also, the new disguise system is poor because of the internal limitations of the NWN2 character creation system. A character's appearance is incredibly limited. Certain faces are much more popular than others. Some races like aasimiar have less than a dozen faces to choose from. I've encountered at least 2 people who have a characters who look almost exactly identical to one of my own characters.

Players do not identify each other based off each other's face.

The old system of disguises worked around this, by stating a disguised character (face covering+unique outfit) could be recognized after the third time encountering them. After the third encounter, using the player's name above their head was fair game. This was not a perfect system, but it worked.

In real life, you recognize people based off of small details that are not limited to their facial appearance: their mannerisms, birthmarks, scars, their gait, their smell, speech patterns, inflection of their voice, microexpressions, etc.

The game does not convey these expressions.

Recognizing a player's name tag helps make up for these lack of identifying signals. Again, not a perfect system in the slightest, but it works.

Now that your character's name can be changed at will, all of these get thrown out the window.

The worst part is, a very well RP'd enigmatic character will ultimately be more recognizable than a very generic and poorly RP'd character.

In short, the new name-changing disguise system does not add to roleplaying, but detracts from it.