• Homework: Create a Town

• Create an Area in NWN

GAME CONCEPT AND DESIGN
COSC 320.101_SU09
SUMMER 2009

Hopefully Helpful Glossary of Terms

New Entries

As I think up new entries, I'll enter them here then next week shift them to the end of the lists below.

Gaming Terms

I thought it might be useful to create a glossary of terms that we'll be likely to run into when talking about NWN, games, online gaming, and serious games. I'll add to it as I think of it. Feel free to send me emails with suggestions.

RPG - Role Playing Game. In this game, the player assumes the role of a person or creature that is quite different than the player is "in real life." The player then plays the game as if he were the character in the game. Dungeons and Dragons, NWN, EverQuest, World of Warcraft, and City of Heroes are all examples of RPG's. The list is pretty much endless.

FPS - First Person Shooter. A type of game, like Doom, Quake, and Unreal Tournament, where the player (often still in some sort of roleplaying mode) sees the games scenery as if looking through the eyes of his character (hence "first person") with the goal of using a variety of simulated weapons to kill monsters or other players. (In tech-speak, FPS also means "Frames Per Second" which deals with how quickly the computer is able to refresh, update, and display information and animations on the screen.

Avatar - The onscreen representation of the player.

Multiplayer Game - A game in which several players participate simultaneously using some sort of network such as a LAN or the internet. Unreal Tournament is such a game in which several players are in the game controlling their own individual avatar.

MMORPG - Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. This is a game played (typically via the internet) in which thousands of players are online and in the same gaming environment simultaneously. EverQuest, City of Heroes, and World of Warcraft are examples of MMORPGs.

PvE - Player vs. Environment. This term is usually used in conjunction with conversations about MMORPGs. In PvE games, the players battle against the computerized environment. These games frequently rely on several players joining forces to overcome the computerized obstacles.

PvP - Player vs. Player. This type of multiplayer game is one in which the players can attack each other.

PK - Player Killing or Player Killer. The act of killing another player, or the person who commits such deeds.

Griefing - Typically thriving hand-in-hand with PvP games, griefing is when one player ceases to play the game and instead focuses on hindering the gameplay of other players. Repeated, unprovoked PK'ing is a typical form of griefing. Other forms might involve using an avatar to block access to a door or dungeon, or leading monsters to group of players unprepared to fight them.

Server - The computer that is hosting the game.

Client - The computer that is play the game. The client is connected to the server through some sort of network connection.

Aggro - To "get the attention" of a monster, causing it to attack you. Many computerized foes have an "aggro range" which is the distance at which the monster will "see" you and attack.

Faction - You can think of faction as a sort of "gang" title. For instance, the "Crips" vs the "Bloods." Typically, as players play the game their standing with factions increase or decrease. For example, killing an orc might raise your faction with the townfolk, but lower your faction with the Orc Brotherhood. Better faction ratings will cause a group to treat a player more favorably (giving quests, or special discounts when buying goods). Lower factions may make the group treat the player less favorably resulting in higher fees when dealing with merchants, or so forth. Very low faction can cause the group to attack the player. NWN has 4 default factions: "Commoner," "Defender," "Merchant," and "Hostile," although more can be added if the designer deems it necessary.

KOS - Kill On Sight. If the monster will attack the character as soon as the monster notices the player, the player is said to be "KOS." This is usually a result of faction loss.

Train! - When battling monsters, a player may get overwhelmed by the opposition and attempt to break off combat and flee to safety. However, the monsters follow the player seeking to finish the kill. While running, however, the poor player often "aggros" other monsters who join the attack. The result is a long...train...of monsters chasing the character. In MMORPGs, when the original player is killed or escapes, the monsters frequently re-aggro on nearby innocent bystanders---resulting in the deaths of those avatars as well. It is often considered good manners to scream some sort of "Incoming Train!" warning if you create or spot such a train.

PC - Player Character. The avatar of the person playing the game.

NPC - Non-Player Character. Any creature in the game that is not controlled by a player.

Monster - When we hear the word, we think of orcs, dragons, giant spiders, and so forth. Technically speaking, however, a monster is any "creature" that is not controlled by a player. So the merchant in the town square, while an NPC, is also a monster.

MOB - The source for this term is always under debate. Some say it means "MOBile entity." Others claim different origins. Nonetheless, it essentially means "monster."

DM or GM - Dungeon Master or Game Master. In D&D, the DM is the person running the game. In online games, the DM or GM is usually a "player" who is paid by the company running the game to deal with gameplay glitches, such as avatars that get stuck in the scenery and cannot move. The GM avatar usually has special (programmed) powers to allow him to move characters, kick troublesome players from the game, return lost equipment, and so forth.

Race - In many RPGs, there are a number of races that a player can adopt for this character, such as Human, Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, and so on. Different races tend to have different benefits. Elves tend to perform better as Mages, while Dwarves make better Fighters, and Gnome excel at Thievery. Elves often have better night-vision, Gnomes have higher Dexterity scores....and so forth depending on the ruleset of the game.

Class - The "job" that the character has in the game. Rarely--particularly in RPG's--can a character do everything. Instead he specializes in an area. That area is his class. A fighter is profecient with weaponry and armor. A mage casts magic spells of various sorts. A cleric (also called a priest) specializes in healing other players. A thief can open locked containers and hide in shadows. Whatever your main job is, you will excel in that area, but be penalized in all others. A Cleric can heal great amounts of damage, but usually cannot deliver much damage to his foes. A Mage can cast outrageously damaging fireballs and such, but cannot wear protective armor or wield weapons with any proficiency.

Fighter - The fighter is often called the "tank." He/She has access to the best armor in the game, the best weapons, has the most hit points, and dishes out the most damage. He is called the "tank" because his job is to engage the enemy and keep the enemy's attention on himself so that the other (weaker) classes can perform their functions without having the monster attack them.

Cleric - The cleric class is typically the healer. A monsters tends to do amazing amounts of damage to the players it battles with. The Cleric uses his magical power to "heal" the player being attacked. Essentially, the cleric turns his mana/spells into hit points. Depending on the game, clerics have fairly decent armor (although far below what the fighter uses). However, because he can heal, he is often "crippled" in all other respects. He has fewer hit points, deals less damage, any damage spells he has often take an extra amount of mana to cast, take longer to complete the casting, are often more easily resisted, and deliver an unsatisfactory amount of damage. Because he can heal, he often "gets aggro" from monsters who "realize" he is healing others...resulting in the death of the Cleric. The cleric is often the one who removes poison effects, or even return dead characters to life. Clerics get their healing powers by "worshipping" one of the gods of the gaming world--and this is one of the reasons why D&D had such a bad reputation.

Mage - Mages are the spell-casters of the game. Depending on the game or the specialty of the mage, he may cast wildly damaging fireballs, lightning bolts, and so forth. He may confuse the opponents causing them to flee in terror, stand motionless, or even fight for the players. He may summon monsters to fight alongside the party. He may be able to enchant equipment giving it better statistics (such as doing more damage or providing better protection.) Mages typically have the worst armor in the game, and the lowest number of hit points because they presumably spend all their time indoors studying arcane tomes, rather than working out. In the same manner that Harry Potter has the religious community up in arms about how it "teaches" witchcraft, so too were they condemning D&D because of the Mage class.

Thief - Besides killing monsters willy-nilly, D&D "dungeon crawls" also featured locked doors, locked chests, guards with keyrings that needed to be lifted, and so forth. The thief character has special skills to allow him to move silently, hide in shadows, pickpocket creatures (or other players), detect traps on doors, chests, and in hallways, and disarm those traps. The thief typically has a fair idea of the worth of any goods found during gameplay. Because they can "hide and sneak" they typically get a huge bonus to the amount of damage given during a successful "backstab" attack. Thieves tend to have armor only slightly better than Mages (since heavy armor clanks making sneaking impossible) as well as hit points.

Sub-Class - Many games have classes that are considered sub-classes of a bigger, all encompassing class with different specialties. For instance:

Priest - Priest is the all-encompassing class of healers. However in some games (such as EverQuest) you will find:

• "Templars" who get their powers from a god and are almost exclusively limited to large effect healing.
• "Druids" get their powers from Nature and have somewhat lesser healing powers than Templars, but gain some other abilities such as "root" and "cure poison."
• Shaman" are tribal healers who specialize in potions.

Mage - Is the umbrella for all spellcasters, but you can find these sub-classes:

• "Wizards" deal in the spectacularly damaging spells such as fireball, lightning bolt, earthquakes.
• "Conjurer" might create things from nothing, resulting in items that are used temporarily, or pets that can be commanded to fight for the spellcaster.
• "Necromancer" deals with death, disease, poison, and fear.
• "Enchanters" can often make people's gear better (or worse if a foe), hypnotize foes so they just stand in place without attacking (allowing the party to fight one monster at a time), or charm a foe causing it to fight for the party.

Hybrids - A hybrid class is one that combines certain aspects of two or more classes giving them access to a wider variety of skills. The trade-off, of course, is that the hybrid character can never be very power in any of the skills.

Paladin - Is typically a mix of fighter and cleric. He can do a fair amount of damage and perform decent heals. Paladins typically get a once-per-day special ability called "Lay on Hands" which completely heals a character of all damage. Some games change this from "completely heals" to "heals a great deal."

Spellsword - Is a mix of fighter and mage. He can deal damage about as good as a cleric can, but is limited to either cloth or leather armor. The spellsword has access to a number of spells which can assist but rarely provide huge benefits.

Bard- A bard is very much like a Spellsword with a bit of Thief thrown into the mix. Instead of spells, however, the bard works his magic through the use of song. Bard song typically affects all those in listening area. If performing an enchancement spell, for example, every member of the group benefits; a detrimental song would affect all the foes in the combat. In some games the Bard can either fight..or sing..but not both because in order to perform he must play an instrument; and different instruments are used for different songs. In other games, he can play-and-sing, or fight-and-sing....although his songs will be less effective without his instruments.

Others - There are other hybrids and even hybrids which mix up subclasses. So trying to detail them would take an eternity. Different games approach the subject different ways.

Pet - In many games, there is a selection of classes that can summon a monster of some sort to fight for them. This summoned monster is referred to as a "pet" because it follows the player's avatar around the game. Although the player frequently cannot directly control the pet, he can usually issue generic commands such as "Attack my target," "Follow me," "Stand here and don't move," "Unsummon," and so forth.

Level - This word has many definitions depending on how it is used.

• Character Level - A character starts at Level 1. As he progresses and gets better, he'll become Level 2, Level 3, and so on.
• Monster Level - Monsters have levels similar to players. Because monsters are killed so frequently, they do not progress through the level stages as players do. Instead, when a monster is placed in the game, he will be given a level appropriate to the challenge of the dungeon or quest.
• Dungeon Level - Many dungeons have multiple levels. When you first enter a dungeon, you are on Level 1. When you go deeper down (or up if the dungeon is a tower of some sort), you move to Level 2. Typically the monsters get more difficult as the dungeon level increases.
• Spell Level - A Mage frequently does not have access to every spell. Spells are often grouped into levels of difficulty. In some games, a 1st level Mage has access to 1st level spells, and a 2nd level Mage has access to 2nd level spells. In some games, (like D&D) the levels are not equivalent. 1st level spells are all that can be used by mages from Level 1 to Level 3. Upon reaching 4th level Mage, the player has access to 2nd level spells.

Experience - When defeating monsters, completing quests, or performing particularly noteworthy deeds (depending on the game system), a player is awarded a number of "experience points." As the points accumulate, the player advances to the next Character Level at certain marks. For instance, the player begins as 1st level, but upon gaining 1000 experience points, he may advance to 2nd level. However the spread between levels often grows in leaps and bounds. The player may not reach 2nd level until he gains an additional 2000 experience points (for a total of 3000), and may find that he must get an addition 3000 (total of 6000) to become 3rd level. Some MMORPGs, have experience point spreads of millions of experience points.

Dungeon - We tend to think of dungeon as a subterranian complex, but in truth a "dungeon" can be any special area where there is a concentration of adventure. For example, EverQuest has a large, outdoor, wilderness map. Wander into a cave, however, and you have entered a dungeon. Enter a tower, and you've entered a dungeon. Enter a fortress, a castles, a sewer system...they all count as dungeons.

Hit Points - The number of life points the avatar has. When the player is damaged during combat (or other mishap) a certain number of points are deducted from this total. If the total reaches 0, the player dies. Many things exist to increase the number of hit points or to restore lost hit points (thus delaying death).

Mana - Similar to hit points, this is related to spell casting. When a Mage casts a spell a number of points is deducted from his Mana. If the player tries to cast a spell that costs more points than he currently has in his mana, he cannot cast the spell. Mana is usually regenerated slowly over time. Some games--particularly those that don't employ "magic"--will give this some other name such as "power" or "stamina," but it functions the same.

Balance - Is the Holy Grail of game design. You want the players to have to work to achieve their goals, but the effort they put forth should not be too much, nor should it be too easy. The monsters the player fights should be challenging with a chance for defeat...but not outrageously difficult. Nor should the fight be too simple. Similarly, balance between classes is important. Each class should be able to complete the game in his own way using that class's skills. If Fighters waltzed through your game while the Mages could not advance at all---your game would be overrun with Fighters.

Lag - In online games, data must pass from the client computer to the server, and from the server back to the client. Due to the nature of network connections--particularly across the internet--the data can be slow to reach its destination. As a result, the player may press a key to begin some action, but nothing happens on the screen because the data has not yet reached the server and been echoed back as successful.

LD - Link Dead. Since network connections (particularly the connections through the internet) are fragile things, a player may lose connection with the server. When this happens, the player's avatar will either stand in place, or will run amok through the game creating all sorts of amazing trains. Once the server realizes that the player is LD, it will remove the avatar from the game allowing the player to then reconnect. Many times the player will reconnect to find himself dead (the monsters killed him while he was LD) and/or all of his friends dead (the monsters then came and killed the friends).

Quest - Sometimes called "mission." This is a job given to the player by an NPC of the game. It frequently involves killing "x" number of monsters, or killing a certain monster in order to obtain a particular item. Once the player completes the quest, he return to the NPC to recieve a reward.

Spawn - To enter the game. Players "spawn" when they first enter the world. Monsters "spawn" when the game puts them on the map and readies them for play. Interactive items "spawn" when the game engine puts them in the game.

Spawn Timer - In MMORPGs there are thousands of players. Frequently many are in the same area working on the same quests at the same time. To control (or slow down) progress, monsters tend to be on spawn timers. When a monster is killed, a timer begins. When the timer "dings" the game will spawn a duplicate of that monster. When he is killed, the spawn timer is reset, and eventually the monster will respawn. This is how games keep the map populated with foes for those thousands of players.

Named Monsters - Many times, there will be "special" monster that the player must find and defeat. This monster will have a name. For instance, the player may be told to go to the Orc fort and kill Gruntbelly the Flatulent. Around the orc fort, there may be dozens of look-alike orcs...but one will be named Gruntbelly the Flatulent. The player must often "clear" all the other orcs (by killing them) until he is able to engage and (hopefully) defeat Gruntbelly.

Rare Monsters - This is related to Named Monsters. Typically a game has "spawn points" or well-defined locations that monsters will appear when they are spawned by the game. Typically, when hunting a Named Monster, a player will go to the spawn point where the named is supposed to spawn. When the spawn timer expires, however, the named might not appear. Instead of Gruntbelly the Flatulent appearring, another orc labeled, "An Orc Chief" may spawn instead. The player must kill the orc chief, which then restarts the spawn timer, and hope that when the timer expires, Gruntbelly will appear. Often he will not, and the Orc Chief will spawn again instead. The process repeats until Gruntbelly does appear.

Placeholder - The term given to the un-named monster that spawns where a named monster is supposed to appear.

Camping - This is the term given to the situation in which a player sits at the spawn point of a named monster, kills the placeholders, and waits for the game to spawn the named monster. In PvP games, this is also the term given to griefers who sit at the place where new players enter the game in order to kill the new players as soon as they spawn into the game. In general, "camping" means to stay at one location for an extended period of time.

Loot - (1) The treasure that a monster drops when defeated. "What sort of loot did the dragon have?" (2) The act of picking up the treasure dropped by a monster. "Lonzrick, go loot the Hammer of Smiting."

Drop - Synonymous with "loot," it refers to the notion that a monster has his treasure on his digital body when he is created by the game. When the monster is killed, he "drops" this loot.

Loot Table - In most MMOs, the monsters don't drop the same loot all the time. Instead, there is a list of items that has the potential to be drop. When the monster dies, one of those items is chosen as the treasure.

Rare Loot - Named monsters tend to have a special item that is a powerful weapon or an item needed to advance a quest, but this "special" item will be given a rather low percentage chance to spawn. Thus it can take multiple "kills" of the named monster to get the desired item to appear as loot.

"Solo" - To play the game by oneself completing quests and killing monsters without the help of any other players.

Group - In many games, a single player cannot complete a quest by himself. The final step of the quest will be too difficult for him to manage solo. The players can form a "group" of players, between 6 and 8 (depending on the game), to assist him with the quest. A well-balanced group can easily defeat a foe that a single player cannot hope to defeat. Not only that, but that same group can often easily defeat multiple foes any one of which would be impossible for a solo-player to vanquish, which results in faster experience point gain. Many games give experence point bonuses to people who are part of a group. Often players will form groups--even when they are not working on a quest--simply to battle and defeat difficult monsters and "grind out" experience points in order to reach the next character level.

Raid - Many MMORPGs have monsters that are incredibly difficult to defeat. As an example, consider a game that might be made about King Kong. Kong would be impossible for a single player to defeat, and even a group of 6 to 8 would be crushed by this fellow. MMORPGs tend to have several dozen such "boss mobs." The only way to defeat these foes is for several groups to form a larger group called a "raid." In EverQuest it was not uncommon to have a raid force of 60 players (10 groups) band together to defeat such a monster. Every member of the raid gets a share of the experience for the victory, and the monster tends to drop enough loot to reward several members of the raiding party.

Guild - A guild is a group of players who have banded together under a common name. Because MMORPGs require such amazing degrees of co-operation, many players will join a guild and then help each other complete quests. Additionally, guilds tend to schedule raid-sized events where they set out to do battle against a "boss mob," but the raiding party is only built from among the members of the guild.

Chat - A way of communicating with other players in the game. Typically you type your message, and other players can then see what you've typed. There are different types of chat:

• Say - or Local. Only avatars standing near you will see what you have typed.
• Tell - or Whisper. This message is sent directly to a particular person and no one else can see what is typed.
• Group - This message is sent only to members of your group.
• Raid - This message is sent only to members of your raiding party.
• Guild - This message is sent only to members of your guild.
• Shout - This message is sent to everyone in the same area that you are in.
• OOC - This is an "out of character" message. This is used when you want to talk about real-world events or other non-game issues.

EyeCandy - This tongue-in-cheek term refers to the special visual effects displayed when a spell is cast, or a battle is raging. All the swirling colors, flashing lights, and explosions. Those "in the know" will refer to them as "particle effects," but eye-candy is much more amusing.

Ambient Animation - Given that games are digital pictures on a screen, how does the player know that the giant frog he sees is a "real" giant frog or a "statue" of a giant frog? An ambient animation is a sequence of moves that the creature executes when it's not doing anything else. Guards may shift their weight from foot to foot, look around, yawn and stretch, scratch their nose, or any other of a number of things. It's just an animation to let the character know that the creature is "alive."

NWN TERMS

Area - One map created in the toolset. An area may be as small as 1 tile, or as large as 32 x 32 (1024 tiles).

Module - The entire game that you create. Your game may have 1 area, or it may have a dozen, or more!

Tileset - The "feel" of the map that you are using to create an area. "Rural" is a tileset, as is "Forest," and "Dungeon Interior." Different tilesets have different looks, sounds, visual effects, and "group objects." Many of these can be altered by altering the properties of the area...although some cannot be changed.

Properties - Nearly everything in NWN has a long list of properties that you can access. Changing these properties can change the way the object looks, behaves, or affects the players.

Tiles - The actual squares that make up the map in an area.

Objects - All the other non-tile things that you can place in your area. Monsters, placeable scenery, items, doors, waypoints, and so forth are all "objects." For the sake of clarity, however, we'll refer to each on by its category.

Palette - On the right side of the toolkit window, where all there objects are that you can place in your game. There is a "Standard" palette that holds all the default objects created by Bioware, and a "Custom" palette for things that you create and add back to the palette for your own future use.

Structure Window - On the left side of the screen is where the game displays a list of all the things you have placed in your game. All your areas are listed here (and within each area, all the objects you have placed in the area), all the conversations you have created, and all the scripts you have written.

Monster - An object that is programmed to behave like a living creature. Monsters, humanoids, animals, NPCs, and so forth can all be found in the Monsters tab.

Door - A door or gate that the player can (perhaps) click on to (perhaps) go to a different area. There are many different doors, depending on the tileset you are using.

Placeable - A placeable is a bit of scenery such as a tree, a cart, a stone, a desk, and so forth, used to decorate your area. Placeables can be set to be either static scenery or something that the player can interact with.

Item - Items are loosely defined as "things that the player can carry around in his inventory." Armor, weapons, jewelry, trophies, quest gear, and so forth.

Encounter - A meeting with one or more monsters. The meeting may result in combat (it usually does) or may be friendly. The encounter object lets you create somewhat randomized encounters for your players to experience.

Merchant - A special object that allows players to buy and sell loot.

Sound - An "area sound" that provides atmosphere for your players.

Trigger - A polygonal area painted on the floor of the map (invisible to players) that registers when a player crosses into its area. The trigger can be programmed to do any number of things, from setting off traps, to firing special scripts, to acting as transitions between areas.

Waypoint - A flag placed on the map (invisible to players) used by the designer and the engine to mark special locations. Waypoints can be used to create paths for NPCs to "patrol," as locations for the spawning in of special monsters or even placeables, or as the destination for a player to teleport to.

Names - Nearly everything in NWN has three different names.

• Resref - or Blueprint Resource Reference. This is the name of the object as the toolkit knows it in the palette. This is particularly of importance if you create creatures with scripting. Consider if I wanted to make a small army of 24 orcs. Instead of having 24 orcs in my palette, I only need 1. I then make 24 copies of the orc with the resref "orc_1". The game will put 24--identical--orcs on the map. They're identical because they all are copies of the same resref.
• Tag - When you put an object on the map (either through scripting or by dragging it out when in the toolkit), you can give it a "secret name" that only you know about. This is called the tag. Again, this is of particular importance when writing scripts. Suppose you had your 24 orcs, but one of them you wanted to be a coward. You could give him a tag of "orc_coward." Then when the battle starts, you could use a script to tell the engine, "Find the orc with the tag 'orc_coward' and make him run away." The player would see 24 identical orcs (because they came from the same resref, but 1 of those orcs would run away...because (unknown to the player) your script has given him special commands.
• Name - This is the display name that the player sees when he runs the mouse over the object. Continuing with our orcs, you might have 24 all from the same resref of "orc_1." All of them may have the same tag of "orc_fighter" except for one which has the tag of "orc_coward." However, they all have display name of Orc Infantryman.

Conversation - A special sort of event in which a character appears to talk to an NPC. There is no way for the players to input actual text into the game, so a conversation provides a number of choices for the player to choose from. Conversations are built using the Conversation Editor and are done in the form of conversation trees in which multiple possible responses branch out at particular locations in the conversation. It should also be noted that each line of the conversation can execute a script that either

• determines if the line of conversation is shown at all. For example, you don't want the quest NPC to say "Hooray! You brought me the dragon's head!" unless the character has really brought the dragon's head. Therefore, you can program that line of conversation to check to see if the player has the head before showing the line.
• run a script as a result of a conversation line being shown or selected. Suppose the player has the option of choosing a line that says, "Then defend yourself, for I shall kill you!" If the player chooses that line, you would tell the conversation editor to run a script that would make the NPC begin combat against the player.

Script - A short bit of...programming...to cause the engine to perform a special function. Suppose you had an army of 24 orcs. By default, they will attack the player on sight. However, you might want one of the orcs to be a coward and run away. You would write a special script that changes his combat behaviour. The NWN scripting language is very powerful (for what it does) and allows you to create an amazing array of special effects and outcomes.

Event - An event is when "something happens." Objects in NWN "listen" for events, then run scripts in response to those events. For instance, each monster has an "I'm dead" event that occurs when the monster is defeated in combat. When the monster dies, it looks at its onDeath event to see what script it should run. If it finds a script there, it runs that script. Different objects listen for different events and you can write a script to handle the objects reponse to that event.

Message - This is almost directly related to an event. When an event happens, a "message" is sent to the object. So when the monster dies, the message onDeath is sent to the object.

Handler - The script that is written that tells the object what to do in response to some event. So, when a monster dies, the message onDeathis sent to the object. The game then looks for a script to run in response to the event / message.

Identify - Often in D&D games there are a slew of magical items. When a player picks up a new item she'll want to know "what does it do?"--particularly if the item seems magical. Without knowing what the item does or how to activate it (what is the power-word?) the player cannot use the item. So, the item must be identified. Typically, there's three ways of doing this: (1) Take it to a vendor who often has an identify option that costs about 100 gold. (I've never understood how Myrna the Flower Merchant is so knowledgeable about rare, arcane magical items..but there you go.) (2) Have a magical user cast an Identify spell on the item, or (3) have someone with a high skill in Lore examine the item and see if he "recognizes" it from his knowledge of tales, rumor, and...lore.