Peripheral Vision, Blind Spots and Perception

[CRMcNeill]

How do you handle Perception for characters that are looking a different direction, or have their backs turned? My first thought is to treat it as partial concealment by fire arc. For example, say a human character (species matters; see below) has no Per penalty in his Front Arc, -1D in Left and Right Arcs (peripheral vision), and -4D to the Rear (no vision, just hearing).

This also opens up possibilities for non-human species with different eye placement, or tech augmentation such as helmets with rear arc cameras. A Mon Cal or Gungan, for example, might have reduced penalties in "off" arcs because of the placement of their eyes. There is also a template drifting around for a starting Mandalorian character (which is what got me thinking about this in the first place) where the armor is equipped with 360-degree camera sight, but doesn't include any real guidance as to how this would be used in gameplay.

Thoughts?
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[cheshire]

I mean, it depends on what kind of perception you're looking for. Peripheral vision excels and detecting movement and light shifts. That's it's job. The more central focused vision can give you more acuity to detail and color. So, if you're talking about studied identification out of your peripheral vision, then there should be an increase in the difficulty. But if you're talking about a penalty to detect motion or light change, then it sounds like its creating mechanic for mechanic's sake.
_________________
__________________________________
Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind.

[CRMcNeill]

This is more for detection than identification, but that sort of detail is definitely important. I'm mostly looking at it from a perspective of how someone's Sneak roll would be affected by the facing of their target, since sneak attacks would obviously be more effective against someone looking away.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[garhkal]

I've just usually gone with a -1d penalty in the perpherary, -2d in the rear.
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Bren]

Keeping track of exactly which directions each character is looking throughout the entire round is a level of detail well beyond what I see in typical play. Creating a mechanic just adds detail for little benefit. For the rare occasions that something like this would even come up in play a simple ad hoc penalty or increase in the search or perception difficulty is sufficient.

If the intent is to handle species with some sort of multidirectional or omnidirectional vision I'd treat that as a species bonus for search or visual perception.

[cheshire]

Yeah, I think tracking where all the characters are looking is going to add a cumbersome detail to combat tracking, which isn't exactly a lean mechanic in this system.

Also, I think that it's a bit odd to ask a player to roll fewer dice when they're unaware of the attack. How often do you tell someone, "Make a perception roll, oh, and take 4D off. Why? Oh... you'll find out in a minute." I can only imagine it to be a jarring play experience to feel like you have a skill or attribute neutered for reasons that will play out in a moment in the scene.

Also, I think of Perception as an amalgimation of all of the character's senses. They don't have a 3D for sight, a 4D for hearing, etc. They may as well roll their skill check, and perhaps hear something they wouldn't have otherwise seen. If we were to cap their all sense based on the location of the sneak attack (i.e., using a -4D to represent only hearing and no sight), it would have been pretty much impossible for the Scout Trooper in RotJ to hear the snapping twig of Han's approach. They only have a Perception of 2D. This houserule would render them effectively deaf for their lack of ability to see Han.

I could see adding a sneak bonus to someone based on their relative position. I.E., if someone is sneaking up behind a PC, give them a static +3, or +5 to give them a little extra edge.
_________________
__________________________________
Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind.

[Mamatried]

Active vs passive perception.

Hmm interesting thing I have yet to dwabble with but I do actually use something similar.

If you are unable to use the search/investigation skill for detecting stuff I found that a attibute check, would be my route to go.

Now it will make things harder, but at the same a perception 4D character is and should be more natually alert than a perception 2D character. So roll a perception attribute roll, yes it makes it hard, but then again how easy is it to detect things that is sneaking up.

[Dredwulf60]

I created a skill called 'Notice' .
Based on Perception attribute.
Every character gets it as a free skill.

It is used for passive awareness.
A character can improve it if they train themselves to be at heightened awareness of their surroundings.

[CRMcNeill]

[CRMcNeill]

[CRMcNeill]

[CRMcNeill]

[garhkal]

[Dredwulf60]

[CRMcNeill]

It would seem simpler to just allow Search to have a Passive function. It's not like it's so different that it needs a completely separate skill.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index