Topic name should be hidden by default
 

If I want to reveal snippets in a topic I also have to reveal the topic as a whole before the snippets become visible in player view.

This works well and no complaints here.

My problem is, that the name of the topic is automatically revealed when the topic is revealed. In player view it appears as the name of the window displaying the revealed snippets.

In my view this is far from optimal.

I would prefere a "reveal button" (I have forgotten the excat term right now; those grey-turn-green orbs next to all infomation) for the topic name as well.

Let me illustrate with an example why I think this is important:

I have a character, Finn Sawdust. He is the mayor in a town that the players are using as a base of operationsfor the time being. All know Finn Sawdust, jovial, friendly, easy to smile, actually a quite good mayor.

Now and then, normally on stormfull nights, Finn Sawdust the Mayor transfers into the Midnight Crawler, an infamous and feared burglar and murderer.

I create Finn Sawdust. I describe him. I add "Midnight Crawler" as an alias.

During a session the players get a not-too-good a look at the Midnight Crawler (man, 1 meter 90, heavyset, curly hair).

I reveal the Alias, I reveal the description of Finn Sawdust, but not more than that.

However, when I reveal those data I get the following in the player view:

"Finn Sawdust" as name of the window (this sort of spoils the plot).
The description.
But not (surprisingly) the alias.

Now, what am I doing wrong?
Or is this feature lacking?

I would create a second topic with the name "Midnight Crawler" and link them with a Relationship. Maybe a "Simple connection to" "Equivalence."

That way, you can reveal the info about Midnight Crawler and when/if they work out he is Finn Sawdust, you can reveal that as well.

Yes, that would work.

But it would add yet another topic to an already too long list. And I would have to duplicate most of the information.

I imagine there will be a lot of characters that have aliases, that the players will come to know them by and later their real name will be revealed.

There must be a better way than having a relationship each time you have a character with an alias.

It is - IMHO - not an elegant solution, but it will work.

It's interesting that you can reveal the alias separately from the topic, but there doesn't seem to be anywhere that it shows up on the player view, and you need to reveal the main topic name to show in player view even if the alias is revealed.

I'd expect an alias to be treated like a topic name.

It might not be an easy fix, but I think it's a good idea. I have some secret agents in my campaign...

+1

I think there are two situations here.

The first is how Vargr describes, and personally, I think what I outlined above is a solution.

The other situation is, for example, a barman, "Robert Jones", with the alias of "Bob the Barman." The players only know as "Bob the Barman," and have done for years. Then I think that you should be able to reveal the alias.

So basically, if a topic has an alias, I think you should be able to choose which alias to reveal the topic under.

This is also how I thought it would work.

This would be the right solution as far as I can tell. Then we can have it each our way (a second topic with a relation or just the one topic).

Furthermore, one could have an empty alias and reveal the topic through that, keeping the players in the dark (isn't that what we as GM love to do?).

Or in the cases when players give characters, movements or what-ever a name, you could simply put that as an alias and reveal the information under that alias. That would be sweet.

The way it's working just totally defeats the reason for aliases (well, at least a big reason for aliases). Can you work around it? Sure, but that's not how it should work. +1 for this

The reason for aliases, in my view, is to have multiple known ways to refer to the same topic. And that's important. If the players should not know they are the same topic by revealing ONE name, then the two should not be the same topic.

If the fact that "Finn Sawdust" and the "Midnight Crawler" is a fact to be revealed during the game, then they should be two topics as described above, with the relationship connecting them revealed at the appropriate time.

If "Finn Sawdust" is also "Finny S" and "Fine Finn", but they're just nicknames for the same person, then they should be the same topic and the aliases revealed as they are learned in the game.

Sneaky! I like it!

But if "Finn Sawdust" is introduced as "Fine Finn" and the players only hear of "Finn Sawdust" later, how do you reveal the alias without revealing the topic name, thus defeating how Realm Works should work!

+1 for being able to reveal the topic via an alias.

How to enter it in Realmworks is a good way to think about how the names are used.

For instance if the players first find information about the character Midnight Crawler, but not Finn Sawdust an will never know this name until it is revealed, then you could make the name Midnight Crawler and later reveal the alias Finn Sawdust. This requires you to know how the plot unfolds.
As with nicknames like Fine Finn or Finny S. Remember that the players usually remember the NPC with the name it was introduced.

If both names are used then make two topics and link them with either relationships or through a link in a snippet that explains Finn is the Midnight Crawler.

This would be redundant (entering the info twice) and would make the topic list expand quickly for no good reason. And, IMHO, making it more difficult to - at a glance - see what the character is all about.

No, it simply isn't elegant - and certainly not the way I instictively perceive things. It would be counter-intuitive for me.

I know, our look on this obviously differs :p
Still, I really would like this behaviour to change.

It wouldn't require entering all the data twice, since one of the two topics would be a stub that contains a relationship (or other link) to the other topic.

I agree that it will create redundancies. And I agree that it is counter intuitive.
It is the way things work at the moment. And secret identities create a lot of problems.
You would need to be able to identify which alias you are using and what information has been revealed under that alias.

For instance:
Players meet Midnight crawler and get a description of him. Suppose they notice he is limping (so that information is revealed).
Later they meet Finn Sawdust. They speak with him while he sits behind a desk and so do not know if he is limping.

Now how to show this to the players?
If they look up the Midnight Crawler they will see his description and the information that he is limping. (Not that he is Finn Sawdust).
If they look up Finn Sawdust they should only get the description, but not the information that he is limping.

You may end up revealing more information than you want.
Example. If players compare the notes they will notice an exact copy of the description between the Midnight Crawler and Finn Sawdust.

A good point - I haven't thought of that.
Particularly valid if using the player access tools.

I didn't think of this because the way I plan to use this, is to reveal the information to the players on a screen during the session. I am not planning to give them access to the information through webaccess or player client. At least not at the moment (well, it can't be done yet anyway :rolleyes: ).

This means that I can finetune the data revealed, switching the limping on and off as needed (for example) and even let players' characters forget things along the way.

But yes, it poses a problem - how can that be solved?
Is a second identity - eh - topic really the best solution?

I think that the name/aliases should not be automatically revealed, ever. Just like any other piece of information in a topic, each name/alias should be revealed if and only if the GM decides to reveal it. For example, if I (as the GM) wish to reveal that the PCs see a person with a particular tattoo or a building with a particular symbol carved into it, I would like to be able to do that while revealing exactly as many identifiers for that person or building as I choose - be that none, all, or any number in between. From the player perspective, the identifier could simply default to "Unknown", or something similar.

-Ian

So the feature request would be that you could determine which alias is shown in the player view. I would +1 that request.

But remember that even in player view you cannot show both characters side by side. So you will not grant them a request if they want to see both topics side by side to compare notes? (This is a legitimate choice on your part, and they should make their own notes, but I know my own players would grumble at that. If you have the means why not use it?)

Ian: The current system is such that you only reveal what you have marked as to be revealed as a GM. So yes you can reveal that the person has a mark of a dragon on his chest, but not that the dragon has three tails as they cannot see that. This also goes for aliases. So if the players know Finn Sawdust, but have not heard his nickname yet, you do not have to reveal the nickname.

Right, that's true, but what I'm suggesting goes further: I'd like to reveal that they see "someone" with a dragon tattoo on his chest, but without revealing any name or alias for that "someone" at all. This is currently not possible, because in order to reveal the "dragon tattoo" snippet, I must reveal at least one name/alias for the person (the Topic itself). I'd like to remove that dependency.

Exactly! This ability would be very useful - let's start with that :D

Wholly off topic, but I see this as a problematic GM decision. Players sometimes remember things you don't expect them to, and telling them "You remember, but your character forgot." may go over like a lead balloon. The point, as I understand it, of player view is to summarize things that the characters know but the players may have forgotten.

Delete Me, I am a double post.

Yes, this gets a +1 from me. It's either this, or create multiple "Unknown" topics in any sort of mystery, having the real names as an unrevealed alias. Either let us reveal snippets without revealing topics, or let us choose which alias to reveal as the topic name.

If this was the case, you could set the alias to "Unknown".

Correct - but sometimes players (and their characters) pay no attention to clues jumping up and biting them. If they (the players, not the characters) later ask me if they remember anything of relevance from the last week, I might say "you don't remember" (though more often I would give them a hint they apparently missed something when they visited there and there).

If the players remember I would never make them un-remember.

Sorry, back to topic again.

+1 for a good solution to this. I'm a touch fuzzy on all the alias work as I haven't needed it myself but...

I think that if revealing the topic name was its own piece separate from the overriding 'The players know SOMETHING in here' reveal that currently shows the name, it would be a solid start but that more could/would be useful.