As far as I'm concerned, what time I post isn't relevant so long as it's still important to the discussion.

...that's almost the same thing I said in my blog post.

Ham Doctor wrote:

So I had a thought. What if I provided "clothes" to players that simply change their outward appearance. Clothes wouldn't effect your character in any way, other than how they look. This would allow players to have a custom image, but not have to rely on the "best" gear they can find.

that is an alternative, but it eliminates the pride and joy found in showing off that awesome armor you got by killing that demon no one else could kill, which is an integral reason people enjoy paperdolling.

if you really want to go with clothing being unrelated to equipment, you could also include expensive clothing pieces or ones dropped off bosses, in order to retain as much of the 'show off' fun as possible. it wouldn't be exactly the same, but it'd still help

Mobius Evalon wrote:

I think the concept fails because there is one static set of equipment whose stats never change and there is always an ongoing effort to seek out the "desirable" combination of equipment with total disregard for everything else.

This thesis assumes that there is neither an interaction between equipment and character, nor special skills a player could progress in, or even learn.

A hammer would heavily depend on strength (at least in a an environment based on our every-day experience). Agility is less of an issue yielding this weapon though.
With a dagger, things suddenly change drastically.

In a world that considers such points, the equipment you want to use is in flux, like your character is, even more when the equipment has influence on the character as well!

This magical sword you just found might grant you a little better endurance, as the magician that examined it for you just claimed.
Now, you have the agility to strength ratio to make decent use of this sword, but does the endurance gain outweigh loosing the benefits on intelligence you got from using this morning star?
And would you profit enough through the swords additional seed to compensate the heavy initial blow of the morning star, that sometimes allowed you to end a fight right away?


Mobius Evalon wrote:

Someone who defeated the red dragon and got the dragonscale armour should be nervous about fighting a dude holding a broomhandle and wearing a greasy wifebeater, because he can't predict the strength of the opponent based solely on the equipment he's wearing.

You could only predict strength based on equipment in a really static system.
A finger wriggler in a plate armour is much less of a danger than a strong, well trained knight.
Whereas the knight might suddenly loose it's potential when clad in rune-decorated robes.

Or, in other words, in a good, flexible system, equipment is only as powerful as you can make use of it.

Simple Solution to paper dolling but without slaughtering the system:

Each equipment is generically named (IE: Sword, Shortsword, etc). When you equip them you're given the option of how you want them to appear. Even if you equip the best (IE: Dragonscale) you could basically choose from like a dozen different appearances you want it to look like.

That's a simple enough conclusion and allows blatant customization.

Just don't permit light armor (IE: Thief clothes) on Knight class equipment, that just looks stupid.

This way you can get wehatever equips you want, but in exchange they can appear any way they (realistically) could relate to.

Paper dolling customization with freedom.

That defeats some points of paper dolling, and whether you can even call it 'paper dolling' is debatable, as what your character wears has nothing to do with the items in your possession. "Not breaking the system", eh?
That also means that is generally better implemented as a different concept than "wearing" items; just let players choose their full appearance (including clothes) right off the bat, without any need for or correlation with items, and of course also allow them to change it again later at will (or perhaps with a minor fee or price). That takes customization to higher levels, obviously higher than paper dolling customization, similarly to features such as being able to choose your hair, eye or skin color, and additional features such as choosing between a set of base icons.

I wrote:

That defeats some points of paper dolling

Among those would be the following advantages of paper dolling:

• Paper dolling is based on possession; in order to wear X, you must possess it. This furthers the gameplay by adding more goals to players (explore so you can find the Pants of Cthultu, or work on saving up money to buy a cool jacket), more uses for their money, more item and quest rewards variety, etc.
• Wearing expensive, rare or hard-to-get items is a sign of achievement and source of pride and boast; certain worn items can also be a sign for position or special achievement (such as a special crown or hat for a king, sherrif or whatever, a special ring for a master of a certain field, etc), and others for abundance/prosperity. All of that is depth added to the game, but if players can automagically wear anything they want, all that depth is lost.
• Realistically, paper dolling adds the ability to obtain information about a character merely by looking at it (PCs and NPCs alike) and also adds grounds on which to strategize; something that also enriches gameplay. If a character wears expensive clothing, it is obviously relatively rich and so would likely be much more rewarding to rob or kill than a character who wears simple clothes. If a character is not wearing any armor, it should be considerably easier to defeat than one who is. Similarly, a character wearing a type of armor known to be relatively weak (leather or wood, for instance) isn't as protected as a character wearing strong armor (iron/platinum/dragon...), and should also be weaker. [Of course, it could also be a cunning high-level character acting weak] Same with weapons.
  Enchanted items (armor, clothes, weapons...) could also reveal themselves by emitting sparks, shining, etc - perhaps stronger enchantments creating a bigger effect.
• Along with realism, comes common-sense, immersion and a reduce in things 'not feeling right' or feeling artificial. A character seen clad in heavy armor and surviving heavy blows from weapons or beasts makes much more sense than one doing so while looking completely bare and unequipped. Similarly, someone attacking a monster with a sword looks much better if he is actually seen... holding said sword, and the same for someone emitting light in a cave because he has a torch equipped actually holding the torch.

Yes, paper dolling isn't only about customization.