Peripheral Vision, Blind Spots and Perception

[Dredwulf60]

[CRMcNeill]

From the description of the Perception attribute (2R&E Rulebook, pg. 53):

[Raven Redstar]

I also allow search rolls for passive perception. Especially for paranoid rebel characters!
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[CRMcNeill]

[Raven Redstar]

Oh, absolutely for those.

I just was making a joke that most players are suspicious, borderline paranoid in games. Why wouldn't they be? Most of them are guilty of at least treason against the Empire.
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[Dredwulf60]

[CRMcNeill]

I'd say that's more a candidate for what I discussed here. I'd be fine with renaming Search using a broader term that covers both.
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"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

[dph]

In combat, like most other games I ignore facing, but in certain situations where a player's POV is restricted it would depend on all the usual factors, what other senses can be used, how restricted IS their POV, what were they doing at the time (fully engaged in an activity or actively on the look out).

The penalty could be as much as 3D but I would say 1D would be most common.
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[Naaman]

There are certain suggestions in this thread that overlap with the concept of investigation (as a skill and as a notion).

Some of the examples listed here as justification for a skill or attribute could be handled by the investigation skill.

Per my personal experience and opinion, learning investigative techniques "awakens" the mind to the passive detection of otherwise innocuous details.

In other words, I see investigation as both a passive and active (and interactive) skill.

Going off the top of my head (don't have access to my library at the moment), I suspect that between search (as written) and investigation (as presumably written) the vast majority of issues concerning passive detection can be adequately if not amply covered.

[Mamatried]

I always saw the Perception Attribute to be the sum of "all" senses.
There are species with no eyes and ears, yet they do have perception and to me this indcates that the attribute is a sum of sight, hearing, and even feeling (as feel by touch)to some extent.

So to me the perception is the total sum of perceptiory senses what ever they may be for the species.

So a human has XD in perception, this is his total sum of his hearing, and vision (and touch), and if his vision is hindered then his total dice pool should suffer.

However while a human do not have a 360 vision, or even a 270 vision, it is still not very hard for a 4D perception to be able to turn his head just enough to see what he is hearing behind him, and this head movement will not take more time a mere instant.

However I do think that penalties for sitations, including reductions to the sensory organs is the right thing.

I use 1D loss for hearing, and a 2D loss for vision this becuse vision in the game have a stronger combat impact.

However it will not go to 0 unless he is also deaf.

[CRMcNeill]

My first thought is some sort of Advanced Skill with Investigation and Search as prerequisites...
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"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

[Naaman]

[CRMcNeill]

[Naaman]

FWIW, these are both perception skills.

I might say that investigation detects relationships or connections between things and that it reprsents a character's ability to know what to "look for" (not to be confused with the search skill, here). Example:

A search roll might give a character enough information to accurately describe a dangerous villain to whatever level of minutiae is appropriate to the total rolled.

An investigation roll might give a character enough information to know that the villain is almost certainly carrying a hold out blaster inside the waistband on his right side due to posture and hand placement and figiting, etc. And that the villain is currently in the process of evading law enforcement by the way he keeps checking his surroundings and adjusting his positioning in the room.

As an extension of this kind of savvy-ness, the character's passive investigation would kick in whenever there are physical or situational elements interacting with each other.

Example:

The investigation roll happened to be high enough to also identify that the villain is headed toward the back exit (thus revealing to the player the presence and location thereof); but had he rolled 8 higher, he would have also been able to detect that the villain's movement in the room was also a code to communicate with his partner (who could also be identified among the crowd with a high enogh roll) regarding his current predicament.

[CRMcNeill]

For some reason, I was thinking Investigation was a Knowledge skill. My bad.
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"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