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The Incognito Alter-Ego - Printable Version

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+--- Thread: The Incognito Alter-Ego (/showthread.php?tid=3312)

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The Incognito Alter-Ego - Teardrop - 08-05-2013

So, its pretty obvious that Isobeau Mauvaix would be fairly easy to spot in a crowd, as she has a pretty distinctive look about her Cool.

[Image: Money_zpse292f790.jpg]

I also have a "blank" version of her that I fully plan on integrating into her role play; her, without the mask and face paint, a slightly different "casual" hairstyle.

Now, I think I'd like to have her be able to wander about in kind of an "incognito" fashion, where someone might see her in the marketplace in Ul'dah and think "Wow, she looks familiar...can't quite place where I've seen her though", or people would draw the connection through contact and organic rp evolution.

One of the problems I have with this is the name. I understand as role players, you are supposed to treat that big floaty name over the other character's head as something that isn't common knowledge, until revealed IC. But we all know if you're standing there introducing yourself to Jake Brightblade and he introduces himself as "Roger", your character wouldn't think anything about the discrepancy necessarily, while you the player is naturally going to think to them self "Hmmm, what's his game Huh ?" What name you hang over your head is going to have some influence on the character's potential interactions rp wise, especially if you are trying to pull something unusual off, such as this.

I can think of a few ways one might go about this. Choose a name close to yours ("Izzy Mauvaix"), and you pretty much give away the game right away. Chose a completely different alias name ("Carlotta Danger" Laugh ) perhaps keeps the question of you being one and the same person completely out of the other player's mind. Using a completely off name ("A'certain Someone") can attract attention, good and bad as being immersion breaking for others.

What are some ways that playing in disguise or incognito can be handled, for those who want to integrate this type of role play into their character's repertoire? Maybe not so much in my particular case, but in general Smile.

RE: The Incognito Alter-Ego - Myxie Tryxle - 08-05-2013

You could call her "Secret Identity" or "Jane Doe." Everyone will know you might look familiar but have to decide for themselves if you actually look familiar.

Not sure if that's actually helpful, but I had a good laugh when I thought of it. Tongue

RE: The Incognito Alter-Ego - DreamedReality - 08-05-2013

I like the idea. Smile And Isobeau is a great character to do that with.

As for the name... how is -she- presenting it? Is she just deciding the hair and facepaint is just too much work simply to go out and grab a pastry and back? Or is she actually trying to be sneaky? On the whole I mean. (I realize that she can very easily do both.) And I'd base her name off of that. But I don't really worry about floaty player names too much.

RE: The Incognito Alter-Ego - Ildur - 08-05-2013

It depends on what you want to do.
When I was planning how my main character's backstory, I considered making her some sort of vigilante, wearing one of those creepy gridanian wooden masks whenever she wanted to burn someone to a crisp. How I was going to play it was making a 'civilian' version of the character that would use the real name, while having an alt that looked exactly except for the fact that she would wear her hair differently (but taking care of picking styles with the same 'volume') and the mask all the time. The name of this alt was going to be "Masked Madness".

That would have worked because the 'secret alt' would never show its face normally, so people might look on the similarities of both characters and draw conclusions without breaking immersion.

I assume Isobeau Mauvaix is the real name of your character and the one you want to use on the 'masked' version. In that, case, using an Adjectived Noun (like, say, Travelling Duskwight) on the unmasked version would probably work for meetings in the street, as people will think both characters look alike but dismiss Travelling Duskwight as an NPC.
The problem comes the moment other characters discover that they are the same person. Then the name 'Travelling Duskwight' suddenly is very, very innacurate.

It depends on what you want to prioritize, at the end: IC knowledge, in which case it is better to use a personal nickname for one of the two identities; or OOC knowledge, where you'll want to use Adjectived Noun instead to keep the mystery as long as possible.

RE: The Incognito Alter-Ego - Twinflame - 08-05-2013

In the past I've used descriptors for games like this. One such example was "Hooded Stranger," but that was utilizing an RP add-on that let me change my name and people still meta-gamed. IMHO, there's no best way to do it, but none of the ideas in this thread are really wrong either. Personally, I think Ildur hit it spot-on.

If you don't want to keep the identity a long-term or server-wide secret, you could also use a physical descriptor for the character that takes advantage of some kind of unique feature, like I called one of my alts "Scarfaced man" or something.

RE: The Incognito Alter-Ego - Eva - 08-06-2013

That 'name over the head' thing has always been a nuisance. I kind of wish we could toggle the visibility of the surname at least, though that doesn't make much practical sense. In 1.0 I never wanted to fuss around much about Eva's surname because it technically wasn't hers and she didn't give it very readily. Eventually there was some event or another when someone addressed her as Ms. Ianeira, and that was a little troublesome but we kind of just rolled with it and I'm of a mindset now that she still doesn't hand out her surname, but enough people know it that it's simply not worth getting upset over. This is all a little beside the point and a rather longwinded way of saying, "I understand."

Regarding the changing of appearance for certain purposes and having a kind of "blank" version, I think that's pretty creative and there's some good possibilities there. It would be nice if the game supported changing of face paint along with hairstyles when the salon/barber/stylist/whatever comes to Eorzea. Maybe it will~! Unless you level both 'halves' you may find yourself unable to equip the same gear or unable to easily reach certain places as the lower-leveled half, but there's probably ways around that as well.

As others have suggested, naming whichever version you're planning on using less frequently (I'm assuming the 'blank' one without face paint) something a bit more vague will help towards keeping the anonymity of the character even OOCly as well, but I think most RPers are good enough to avoid any sort of metagaming.

But I think the concept is creative, from my perspective refreshing, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it all plays out if you do go forward with it!

RE: The Incognito Alter-Ego - Naunet - 08-06-2013

(08-06-2013, 03:33 PM)Eva Wrote: That 'name over the head' thing has always been a nuisance.  I kind of wish we could toggle the visibility of the surname at least, though that doesn't make much practical sense. 

You can disable display names in the UI configuration. I do it in pretty much every MMO I play.

RE: The Incognito Alter-Ego - Ildur - 08-06-2013

You'll still see the name in the chatbox, though. :p

RE: The Incognito Alter-Ego - Naunet - 08-06-2013

(08-06-2013, 08:38 PM)Ildur Wrote: You'll still see the name in the chatbox, though. :p

Eva said "name over the head", so I figured she was referring to the... names that float over other players' heads. xD

Not really much you can do about the chatbox. Without it, trying to figure out who is who would be nigh on impossible, especially as ARR is stupid held back by the PS3 limited in that it doesn't have chat bubbles.

RE: The Incognito Alter-Ego - Asyria - 08-06-2013

As a player of a double-identity character, I feel that the best solution is simply to rely on fellow RPer's willingness to participate in your story.

If they call you by the "wrong name" give a simple OOC reminder ("gasp! you're not supposed to know it's her! :O") or something.

If everyone plays their part (yours is to give them good IC reasons to not figure it out and theirs is to acknolwedge this), there shouldn't be any issue.

RE: The Incognito Alter-Ego - Fates Skein - 08-06-2013

I go with the 'turn off nameplates' and roll with it crowd, personally.  If someone is playing an alter-ego and I, the player, recognize them but my character is a bit oblivious, then I should play that and not recognize them.  If my character is quick on the draw, then I should play that too and go "You know, you look awfully familiar." 

Of course you'll have slip-ups from time to time and people who intentionally meta-game to make their characters -look- smart from time to time, unfortunately that's the way the more subtle RP goes sometimes, but I think it's -really- fun to play with those types of characters and have to figure out how much my character (quick or slow-witted) will catch on to. Big Grin

RE: The Incognito Alter-Ego - Lren - 08-07-2013

(08-06-2013, 09:26 PM)Asyria Wrote: As a player of a double-identity character, I feel that the best solution is simply to rely on fellow RPer's willingness to participate in your story.

If they call you by the "wrong name" give a simple OOC reminder ("gasp! you're not supposed to know it's her! :O") or something.

If everyone plays their part (yours is to give them good IC reasons to not figure it out and theirs is to acknolwedge this), there shouldn't be any issue.
Generally the best approach from time spent in the field. For sure a fan of the double identity, though I decided in the end to keep things light with Lren. 

I do think I may participate in the turning of the name plates off, though if things got crowded... I dunno if I'd be able to make out who was saying what! Short of targeting, anyways. (People would likely watching my characters head spin as I would do that XD!)

RE: The Incognito Alter-Ego - Eva - 08-07-2013

(08-06-2013, 09:21 PM)Naunet Wrote:
(08-06-2013, 08:38 PM)Ildur Wrote: You'll still see the name in the chatbox, though. :p

Eva said "name over the head", so I figured she was referring to the... names that float over other players' heads. xD

Not really much you can do about the chatbox. Without it, trying to figure out who is who would be nigh on impossible, especially as ARR is stupid held back by the PS3 limited in that it doesn't have chat bubbles.

To clarify I meant the appearance of the name over my own head as other players see it. I would have liked an option to remove the visibility of the surname as everyone else would see it, since I didn't want to use it early on in 1.0. I realize this would not be practical from a gaming standpoint, and I understand that names can be toggled by each player to their own preferences, but this isn't what I was talking about. I keep nameplates on but if Eva doesn't recognize a character, than that isn't RPed. And if a character looks similar to another character, than they might be mistaken for it. I don't need to remove the nameplates to facilitate that though. Years of practice and all that...

RE: The Incognito Alter-Ego - Rhan'ir Azal - 08-07-2013

You could just use a nickname for the other you. Either a variation of the name, such as "Izzy" or one unrelated to your name like "Windstrider". Or both! Since we have two slots.

Oh man! That's such an interesting idea. I might have to play around with that since I already have a nickname that fits both name slots. And I have an alter ego of sorts already too.

I'll have to see how much PVP relates to PVE before making the decision though.

RE: The Incognito Alter-Ego - Falkner - 08-15-2013

Is this your other incognito form, Tear?

[Image: dc4_zpsfa27b5dd.jpg]

Looks like Isobeau finds the right costume for her side jobs eh? Big Grin