Physical senses as a mechanic (see, smell etc.)

[tldenmark]

So I have this idea for a game ... (isn't that how it always starts?)

You are a cryptozoologist, derided by your science peers as a crackpot. I mean, no one can take a cryptozoologist seriously! The adventures center around finding creatures believed to only by myths (sasquatch, yeti, chubacabra, panda bears, etc.) and getting your work published and recognized, and all the fame and money that come from that!

I wanted to get away from the typical old strength, agility, smarts and instead base characters on the physical senses. (You could still buy strength and stuff with a system of advantages rather than as a core stat.) My first thought was a target number system, okay I roll my die, add my smell stat and get X. Do I smell any sasquatch scat? But that is so typical, we want to push the design and be innovative.

In reality when you smell something you have less than 2 minutes to identify it, because your sense of smell becomes used to the smell and it fades. If you think about all the senses they are very similar, we have a knack for getting used to things. When you get in the hot shower, you get used to it and can slowly crank up the heat.

So with this idea I thought of having the senses be points you spend to increase your success chance. Actually, scratch that. I don't like "chance" I like "do or don't". So the GM has a hidden number - a Sasquatch has just been here, so the number is low. Your cryptozoologist just spent points sniffing the air over there, but he still has some left. He goes for it and spends all he has left sniffing the air here and he smells the Sasquatch scat! Now he knows he's close to something, and spends all his sight points looking for tracks (straining his eyes).

Modifiers could be skills, advantages, etc. that give perpetual, or temporary bonuses.

Thoughts?

[Autocrat]

Novel, yet ....
*   What happens when all Sense Points are expended?
*  How often do the replensih?
*  Are there modifiers for situations, (Bigfoot is likely to leave a fairly large puddle & pile, where as the Jack Rabbit is only goping to leave little pellets!)

  Also, how do skills etc. work?  Obviously you are going to have to prove you fond them, so what about photography, hunting, tracking, casting molds, trapping, filing, writting books etc.
  Are these perks, traits, skills, attributes etc.?
  How are you going to work out potential success/failure?

Still, sounds like fun!
Could get fairly funny or scary as well!

[tldenmark]

Novel, yet ....
*   What happens when all Sense Points are expended?
*  How often do the replensih?
*  Are there modifiers for situations, (Bigfoot is likely to leave a fairly large puddle & pile, where as the Jack Rabbit is only goping to leave little pellets!)

  Also, how do skills etc. work?  Obviously you are going to have to prove you fond them, so what about photography, hunting, tracking, casting molds, trapping, filing, writting books etc.
  Are these perks, traits, skills, attributes etc.?
  How are you going to work out potential success/failure?

Still, sounds like fun!
Could get fairly funny or scary as well!

Hey, these are good questions! Ron Edwards posted here once that when you present an RPG mechanic it's difficult to isolate 1 mechanic, since the entire game tends to be interrelated. On that note, the 5 senses were just the core idea. I think that there would be a period of time when your senses were worn out, and you'd slowly regain them.

I've been thinking of avoiding skills to stick purely with a system of advantages. So writing, tracking, etc. would all be individual advantages to buy during character creation. And depending on how they work, they would provide continual or temporary bonuses to certain tasks.

So it could be a 2-part equation:

player  sense points + advantages = #
gm situation + difficulty = #

If the player beats the # they succeed, otherwise they fail. A tie would render a so-so result and could be interpreted by the gm according to the situation.

td

[Umberhulk]

You could have each of the five sense rated as a target number (TN) and each character has a focus/perception pool of dice that they could measel out on rolls.  # of dice rolled can then give relative degrees of success then and you can easily track your resources (dice).

[Scourge108]

Here's a quick thought I just had:  how about instead of having points to spend to spot something, they have an option to push their senses higher (for more bonuses or dice or whatever), but that if they go too far over the target number, they push the sense too far and imagine something instead.  So if he's trying to smell bigfoot scat, and pushes his sense of smell by a few dice and goes over the number needed, he smells bigfoot scat AND chupacabra scat.  So a cryptozoologist always has to question his sanity, and his colleagues think it's all in his head.

[lumpley]

Rather than having the sense points replenish slowly over time, have the character do something to get them back, like in the Dying Earth.  To get your Sight points back, you can rest your eyes and look off at the horizon, to get your Smell points back you can sniff ground coffee beans or take a break somewhere with fresh air, like that.

-Vincent

[tldenmark]

You could have each of the five sense rated as a target number (TN) and each character has a focus/perception pool of dice that they could measel out on rolls.  # of dice rolled can then give relative degrees of success then and you can easily track your resources (dice).

I kind of like this idea. Requires lots of dice though. I like the idea of keeping track of your available points with an actual die for each point. Hmm, there would be a problem - do I need a different colored die for each sense?

How about if the character sheet just has 5 large spaces for "sense pools" and you just use a pile of tokens in each. You could have the base number written there (4, 5, whatever). And then you expend 1 token of the appropriate sense for each die you want to roll in a sense check.

Actually I like less randomness. If each point is worth X (lets say 3) and you can choose to either take the X value for each point -or- roll a die for each point. The die gives you a variable 1-6, you may get lucky ... or not.

This still leaves us with a basic TN system, not exactly innovative, but the method to get there is interesting.

[tldenmark]

Rather than having the sense points replenish slowly over time, have the character do something to get them back, like in the Dying Earth.  To get your Sight points back, you can rest your eyes and look off at the horizon, to get your Smell points back you can sniff ground coffee beans or take a break somewhere with fresh air, like that.

-Vincent

You know, your right. In a role-playing environment it is difficult to gauge time by "turns", since in the heat of the game turns tend to melt into literal banter with the gm.  Turns are really only useful during combat.

So having a player initiated mechanic, where the player has to stop and do something to get his senses back solves that problem.

I've actually written quite a bit of this game and was hoping to have it available by now, but it's looking like it'll have to wait. At least I got the Dungeoneer RPG out!

Monster Hunters, Inc. available Gen Con 2005! I hope...


td

[Cemendur]

So with this idea I thought of having the senses be points you spend to increase your success chance. Actually, scratch that. I don't like "chance" I like "do or don't". So the GM has a hidden number - a Sasquatch has just been here, so the number is low. Your cryptozoologist just spent points sniffing the air over there, but he still has some left. He goes for it and spends all he has left sniffing the air here and he smells the Sasquatch scat! Now he knows he's close to something, and spends all his sight points looking for tracks (straining his eyes)

. . . Thoughts?

Is your system mostly used for tracking?  If not, what other instances of play will this mechanic become activated?

For extensive information on tracking and stalking, I recommend' The Science and Art of Tracking' by Tom Brown, Jr.

"Tom Brown, Jr. shares generations of wisdom through one of the most rewarding pursuits to be found in nature. Tracking lets us unlock the secrets of each animal we follow, and in turn, to become more aware of our own place in nature and the world. It is a journey of discovery that engages the senses, awakens the spirit, and enlightens the soul."

I find it fascinating that cryptozoologists share this sense of passion and purpose that one finds among a wide spectrum of trackers - mushroom hunters, birders (bird watchers), hunters, etc.

I have had a little experience in tracking, nothing much but I aspire for more experience. I am an amateur/semi-pro mushroom hunter. Mushroom hunting is a form of stalking. "Stalking the wild mushroom"*  has become cliche' for a reason.

A comment on your "straining the eyes" analogy- I become more effective at mushroom hunting the longer I am in the field. On the sensory side, the skill is mostly "pattern recognition", sensory intellegence, or perception - what Howard Gardner calls Natural or Environmental Intelligence in his "Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences". This is of course tempered by ones intimacy with  the subject- knowing where to and when to look for the subject - knowing its environment, knowing the weather (to the point of being intimately familiar with the microclimate), etc.

However, I find it important that after a few hours, I "ground myself", take a break, clear the debry so to speak. Perhaps this is because an overload of sensory information needs to be processed? Its not so much of a "straining of the eyes", but a strain on the mind. In my system, code-named SNAFU, this is moot; I have a Perception ability score which is one's sensory intelligence, this is what would get strained if I were to use a mechanic like this.

I have not finished this aspect of my system, but I envision tracking/stalking to be made up of:

Perception ability score
Animal Tracking/Stalking skill or Mushroom Hunting Skill, etc.

I would either have synergy points given for characters with both animal and mushroom tracking in a system where these skills are added to perception or I would have perception be made up of skills i.e. the more points in perception related skills you have, the higher your perception. I have been contemplating switching to the later system. (This is for a simulationist system supported by character driven premise.)

Tasks that are easy for the character's skill level have no averse effect on perception unless it is extended over a long period of time.  Tasks which are difficult start lowering perception to the point where one needs to take a break in order to refocus.


* Although I doubt it is as useful for you as Tom Brown, for a mushroom hunter's take on stalking combined with a field guide, I recommend, "Mushrooms Demystified" By David Arora. "A comprehensive and delightfully written book by an author whose preoccupation with fungi borders on the extreme, this field guide is the most useful on the market."

[tldenmark]

Is your system mostly used for tracking?  If not, what other instances of play will this mechanic become activated?

For extensive information on tracking and stalking, I recommend' The Science and Art of Tracking' by Tom Brown, Jr.

Thanks for the recommended reading. There is a wealth of information in books and on the internet about cryptozoology, and hunting. The feel of the game should be very "national geographic" and also a bit of that underdog who knows the truth but nobody's listening kind of thing.

So there doesn't need to be exhaustive information on tracking, though enough to be convincing would be good. Also it will be important to handle the "publishing your research" aspect, which this five-senses approach doesn't handle well. There will have to be aptitudes or skills in addition to the five senses. Because characters will need to have traits like writing, education, influence, academic respect, and so on. But I think these can be handled with a system of additional traits you can purchase for your character - no need for more core stats other than the five senses.


td

[contracycle]

I'm very much more into the mental effort of searching than the limits of physical percpetion.  They play a role, but IMO as limits rather than modifiers, if you see what I mean.

How about a system something like this - the target number is high, and the search total accumulated by the player must reach this TN.  Now the character starts with a base value determined by skill and, umm, their framing of the question.  So maybe "sasquatch presence" has athreshold of 20; the character starts with points for physical senses (smell level 5) plus their compreghension and experience (experienced tracker +8; prior experience with sasquatch spoor +2).

The base level of detection is presumed to be lower than the target TN except in cases where the answer is 'obvious'.  An automatic success is a case where the answer is literally detected at first glance.  If this does not apply, then the character must continue searching.  Searching is an action that requires time, and possibly other things like lab materials and mobility.  Each unit of time adds a point to the search score, so that increased length of search makes the probability of finding the answer higher, and barring other interventions, inevitable.

This obviates the problem in other games which modify the probability of success by duration  of search, in which duration must be stated ahead of time and then a difficulty is determined.  In this mechanism you can determine whether it is found in the first hour or the tenth precisely.  As a wrinkle, a counter-point system could be built to replicate the effects of exhaustion undermining percpetion, to the point that continuing to work on the problem is counterproductive.  For each period of exchustion you can lower the search TN by a fixed or random value to indicate this effect.

This would hopefully produce a similar result of the search having to be called off so the searchers can rest and come at the problem refreshed on another occassion.