I feel so stupid about this... I think I totally messed up with the intrinsic extra that one of the characters in my ongoing Fate campaign has. It looked good on paper, wasn't until actual play that I realized it might not be such a good idea. I talked to the player but he likes the extra and thinks it's integral to his character, and anyway it was my fault for not realizing the problem up front. The PC gets to keep the extra, but I might as well learn from my mistakes.

The extra in question is "extremely acute hearing," No modifying circumstances. *kicks self* That might not be such a problem in itself, except that I realized belatedly that I had to describe all sorts of sounds to the PC that might become important plot points later on, letting the player get far more mileage out of that skill rank than he would have otherwise. The guy is an excellent player but has some power-gaming tendencies, and I believe maximum efficiency was more on his mind than character integrity. And the possible loopholes with Fate, with its freeform chargen...Arrgh.

Anyway, I all but begged and wheedled him so that this ability would really only matter when the character was concentrating on his hearing, or in a tense situation. And if the PC starts "concentrating" twenty times a session, that extra is getting slapped right up to an Aspect.

Rambling self-pity aside, at least I can learn from my mistake. The line between Aspects, skills, and intrinsic extras can be blurry, but in light of my experience I think some of the elements that make a good intrinsic extra are:

1. Something that you either have or you don't, like the examples in the rulebook. Something that's simply a matter of degree (hearing, strength, sight etc.) is better off as a related skill or aspect.

2. An ability that's only used in certain situations. Talking to trees? No use, unless a) trees are around and b) they have something useful to say. Otherwise the ability is just excellent fluff. Breathing under water? You have to be underwater first.

Man, after the third session of my second campaign as a GM it seems I'm doing nothing but make mistakes right and left. *blush* At least I'm learning.

loki's wrangling wrote: The extra in question is "extremely acute hearing," No modifying circumstances. *kicks self* That might not be such a problem in itself, except that I realized belatedly that I had to describe all sorts of sounds to the PC that might become important plot points later on...

Hello,

I think we could use some more information as to what the specific problem is. I've always seen FATE as a system where abilities indicate what the player wants to be impotant, and not resources used for overcoming tactical challenges. Is this acute hearing thing really causing a problem in play?

I'm hearing in your post some sense of frustration that he's getting the power of an Aspect out of an Extra -- which, for you not FATErs, is like paying a quarter for something that usually costs a buck -- but he's still not getting the reroll and invocation abilities he'd get if he had it as an Aspect, so I don't see that there's a straight game-balance issue. Is the problem that, given an ability he can use at will, he's stopping play every few minutes to use it?

Whatever the real issue, or what you decide to do about it, I would't beat yourself up about it. These kinds of "mistakes" are typically invisible to the players.

Good points, my lord. :) It was in fact in the "begging, wheedling" conversation that I pointed out that acute hearing could be a hindrance as much as a benefit. The player countered by saying that the character wouldn't pay attention to most sounds, unless he started concentrating on his hearing. If I'd known that in advance I would definitely have insisted that this hearing ability be an aspect.

The specifics of the situation is this: The campaign is a low-magic fantasy with ordinary humans. The character in question (Reyn) is a thief/spy type, and the campaign began with he and the other PCs fleeing the capital when a coup d'etat took place.

I described sporadic battles throughout the city, which were more aural than visual; clash of weapons, shouted orders and defiance, swearing, screaming. I was unsure at what distance Reyn should start hearing them, how sooner he should hear the sounds than his companions, etc., all the more because I was largely winging the thing, as in "here's a dramatically appropriate moment!" In one scene there was a fight that Reyn entirely narrated to his companions by hearing(but the fight was about another PC in the party), which I felt was a good usage of the ability. But most of the time, really, I'm pretty unsure how to a) repay the investment and b) not let Reyn get all-powerful. So no, he's not disrupting the play, the issue is more mine, really.

Anyway the player seemed to have no problem with the way I was handling things--these "mistakes" are definitely more visible to the GM than the players. Our aforementioned conversation started like this:

Me: Look, I don't think your investment in this "acute hearing" extra is paying off. I'm sorry I'm handling it so badly.
The Player: What? How?
Me: *stare*

So maybe it's okay to go on the way I have, after all. :D But I'm going to start adding slightly more negatives to the equation, for the sake of flavor and reality. The "sound of magic" is a great idea, too. One of the other PCs carries a violin that has a sleeping wind-elemental inside, and summons her in times of danger. I could work something about that into the party dynamics.

By the way, I'm reading The Fall of the House of Usher online. Good stuff.

I think the problem might be in your perception of his ability as a problem.

There's been some great advice on how to deal with the problem, in particular the House of Usher reference.

I'd like to suggest two other sources:

1) "The Conversation" featuring Gene Hackman. An electronic surveillance expert, he uses bugs to listen in an discovers shocking information about a crime that may be committed. I'm not going to say any more, but once you've seen this film, you'll have a whole bag of tricks to pull on him

2) "A Game of Thrones". Midway through the book, one character listens in on some plotting. Stuff is hinted at and suggested, but 90% of it makes no sense at all until in hindsight.

Being able to hear very well does not mean omniscience. The player cannot hear the conspiring of people distant from him... if this is a concern, don't have the conspirators plot around him. Have them do it moments before.

Others may speak in another language, or talk in low hushed voices that aren't audible. Or have a raspy voice from damage done to the throat.

And simply hearing things does not provide clarity of offer context to the problem. "He'll be dead in days" does not mean a murder is happening, but could be a doctor telling a grieving wife that her husband is dying of cancer. All manner of fun can be had with this (see "The Conversation" above).

Or, use that spying as a way to insert the player into the plot. Another source: "The Lion in Winter", when a character hides behind curtains to listen in on a conversation. A great way to launch the character into a scene.

In truth, rather than worrying about his power ruining YOUR adventures, I think you should look at his power creating THAT PLAYER'S adventures. Overhearing conversations, being aware of things. Not only that, but as "The Fall of the House of Usher" suggests, hearing can be a problem. There are times when you don't want to hear things:

A father beating his wife or child in the room next door. A man on the streets buying a child. The creepy or disturbing conversations people have. The barmaid calling the character a creep or a skinflint behind his back... etc... etc...

You've got a wonderful opportunity here to use. I think you need to shift your perspectives a bit though on whose adventures it is you are running.

EDIT

One of the other PCs carries a violin that has a sleeping wind-elemental inside, and summons her in times of danger. I could work something about that into the party dynamics.

One other thing to remember is that the player didn't buy inhumanly good hearing. He just bought acute hearing. It's like having 20/10 vision. Nothing supernatural about it. It won't even give him that much more than a normal character would get. Since he just paid for an Extra and not an Aspect with multiple boxes, I'd just treat most of what he gets as a little extra color to most scenes. Certainly use it to set up cool situations but you should be using anything and everything for that. What I wouldn't do is vastly increase his character's effectiveness. He paid for cool color. Give it to him. If he wants greater effectiveness, let him buy an Aspect, "Extremely Acute Hearing". That's what Aspects are for.

Hiya,

I guess I'm a little confused about a couple of things. "loki's wrangling," can you help me out a little?

I'm going to re-state your concern as I understand it, and you tell me whether I'm on the right track.

You have to tell me: do I have this correctly stated? If not, then say so, and the rest of this post can be ignored and we'll all move on. If I do have it right, or almost do, then I can help.

Here goes ...

I'm used to this from years of playing Champions. It's the "Wolverine's senses" effect.

Have a guy show up who is one of your villains out of costume? Wolverine senses exactly who he is, because Wolverine perceives scents, and scents don't lie.

Was that guy lying? Ah, Wolverine knows, because his senses can tell when a person's stressed.

Have a surprise attack? Wolverine's not surprised by it, because Wolverine senses the merest snap of a twig, or better, the unusual silence that precedes an ambush.

Is something going on nearby? Wolverine knows all about it, because Wolverine can hear it all, and tell how far away it is, and how many bulkheads are in between. And so on.

Note that Wolverine's senses operate in three distinct ways, as I tried to illustrate above:

a) Prior to an event
b) During an event or interaction (i.e. resolving a conflict)
c) After an event, retroactively stating what the senses "would" have done and negating what you have established

There really won't be any way to make this "acute hearing" enjoyable for you. It's basically turned the player into a co-GM ... and not only that, a co-GM with a clear investment in a given character's importance, positioning into scenes, and even possibly how his resolutions are handled.

Think about it. What if such a person were the only GM? That would suck, right? His NPC would be the center of everything. You have managed to find a player who is doing something people that hate when a GM does it - and sure enough, you as fellow participant are not finding it fun when anyone does it.

Again, let me know whether I'm on the right track.

Best,
Ron

There really won't be any way to make this "acute hearing" enjoyable for you. It's basically turned the player into a co-GM ... and not only that, a co-GM with a clear investment in a given character's importance, positioning into scenes, and even possibly how his resolutions are handled.

Ron has cut to the heart of the matter with his usual penetrating insight - it's a social contract issue. Talk to your friend and sort it out.

I might point out the section of the FATE rules on intrinsic extras to him, though.

Taking it as an Aspect - useful when the player decides it is.

Taking it as an Extra - useful when the GM decides it is, plus allows the player to use other Aspects in circumstances where it might not normally be allowed (e.g. picking out some details of a conversation in a crowded room, IF he has a "Listen" or "Read Lips" or "Innuendo" - type Aspect in addition.

So by taking this as an Extra, he's basically ceding authority over its active use to you. Now, he can come back and say things like "I would have heard that...", but it's up to you whether you respect those requests. If you expect the requests to be constant and universally aimed at momentary advantage, that gets back to the social contract stuff that Ron pointed out, and so the conversation becomes once again necessary.

I find it a little disturbing that so many other responses on this thread are basically of the 'find a way to twist it around and screw him with it' variety. I don't think this is the right approach at all - you're getting sucked into the same kind of thinking, and not respecting the game rules, if you do this.

Sean's nailed it.

This is really key: you cannot resolve this situation from "within the rules" or in any fashion that's in-game whatsoever.

Debating about what Acute Senses "can or cannot do" is fruitless.

Coming up with "teaching-type consequences" in terms of what then happens to the character is fruitless.

This is purely and simply a Social Contract issue: who are we, why are we playing in this game together, and what are our respective roles in helping us jointly to achieve our goals.

Best,
Ron

It sounds like Ron's got the Social Contract issue nailed down, so I'm going to talk to particulars of the FATE rules. (Obviously that's less important, but it seems relevant.)

Investment in an Extra or Aspect in FATE isn't really about how powerful that ability is at all; it's about its importance in play. For reference, an Aspect is a defining element of the character that can be used for significant impact. An Extra is kind of a fraction of an Aspect, cheaper to purchase and providing less impact on play.

As I interpret the rules, an Extra is usually "color", but it can be invoked once per session to have a significant effect. (The example in the rulebook is Harry Potter's invisibility cloak -- it's a very powerful ability, but it comes up very rarely.) This invocation lets the character do something special, but doesn't carry Director stance level of control.

An Aspect is a larger investment, and gives corresponding more player input on play. Players can go Director Stance-y by checking off an Aspect, or spending a Fate Point. Resolving a scene through use of an Aspect would be a reasonable amount of power to give to it.

Now, let's go with the "Wolverine's Senses" issue. The player would like their ability to have a significant effect on play. By the rules, they can do that -- by invoking the Aspect (using it for the session) or spending a Fate point (a limited resource).

So they can pull a "Aha! I know he's lying" bit, but if they want to do this more than once or twice a session they need to have invested several Aspects in it. (Of course, the way the system works, I could do the same thing with any Aspect. Just because I've described the ability as broadly useful doesn't mean I can ignore the mechanical cost to invoke it.)

The way I'm reading it, he's paid a fraction of an Aspect in cost to get this ability, and wants to use it as if he'd invested several Aspects into it. Even worse, he's not limited in the number of times he can use it. He's spent one-fourth of a point on something he sees as worth infinite points in play.

So here's how I'd handle it mechanically: He buys "Extraordinary hearing" as, say, 2 Aspects. If he just happens to hear something useful, and it doesn't shape the scene, it's free. If he wants his hearing to make a significant difference in the scene, he checks off one of his uses, or spends a Fate point. If his acute hearing causes him significant inconvenience in a scene, the GM gives him a Fate point.

Sorry, I cross-posted with Ron. I agree with him, and my lengthy rules digression doesn't really do a good job of showing that.

My point is that this system ties player power directly to their investments (in character creation with Aspects, and during play with Fate point expenditure). These resources are scarce. Playing a game using these rules is, in a way, saying "Everyone will be given equal opportunity to shape events."

In my experience with the system, it's vital for the group to understand "If you want something to be important in play, invest in it and hoard your Fate points." Trying to nail these things down after character creation is unsupported by the system. Defining abilities by their "in-game" power, rather than the investment in them, is also unsupported by the system.

To some extent, that's true about a lot of systems -- the rules are a part of saying "This is what we're trying to accomplish, and what everyone's role in that is." If someone playing Primetime Adventures has a character trait that's defined as broadly applicable, and wants to use it constantly to shape every scene in an episode where their Screen Presence is 1, the problem would be very similar.

So by taking this as an Extra, he's basically ceding authority over its active use to you.

I find it a little disturbing that so many other responses on this thread are basically of the 'find a way to twist it around and screw him with it' variety.

Investment in an Extra or Aspect in FATE isn't really about how powerful that ability is at all; it's about its importance in play. For reference, an Aspect is a defining element of the character that can be used for significant impact. An Extra is kind of a fraction of an Aspect, cheaper to purchase and providing less impact on play.

So here's how I'd handle it mechanically: He buys "Extraordinary hearing" as, say, 2 Aspects.

Ron Edwards wrote: Sean's nailed it.

This is really key: you cannot resolve this situation from "within the rules" or in any fashion that's in-game whatsoever.

Debating about what Acute Senses "can or cannot do" is fruitless.

Coming up with "teaching-type consequences" in terms of what then happens to the character is fruitless.

This is purely and simply a Social Contract issue: who are we, why are we playing in this game together, and what are our respective roles in helping us jointly to achieve our goals.

Noon, your post reminds me of something. I don't want to derail Loki's thread, but this discussion has convinced me that the whole idea of intrinsic Extras is kind of dumb, in the sense of being an artifact of a kind of play I'm not sure FATE is really all about (but keep in mind I haven't played it, though I've read it fairly carefully). I mean, if the GM wants to tell you something or give you something, he can go ahead; likewise if you want to use an Aspect, that's a big deal, and you get what you were going for with it. If you want to be able to whack the story by hearing stuff, take an Aspect; if the GM wants you to hear stuff, she'll tell you anyway. On this model the most an extra is is a 'bump' if the GM can't decide one way or the other, or a rhetorical tool for wheedling at the GM ex post facto in precisely the way Loki is worried about (but then who really wants a wheedling-enabling mechanic, except in Hackmaster?).

Well, OK, here's something for Extras to mean: they're sort of a note to the GM saying "I'd like you to keep in mind to tell me about things relating to this." I guess I think that's peripheral and unrealistic enough to the (my?) psychology of running games not really to warrant inclusion.

Maybe Mike Holmes or one of the Evilhat guys can come around and set me straight on this if I'm missing something.

(Again, folks, let us know if discussing the system used is off topic. My thought is if we're only making a few posts about it, it doesn't warrant creating a new thread in RPG Theory.)

Sean, I tend to agree with you. It looks to me as if Extras are ported directly over from Fudge Gifts, and the explanatory text about them is pretty vague. The only experience I have with them in play matches your take on things; they're just a reminder on the character sheet.

The issue there is, again, that this leaves use of the Extra in play as a social contract issue. In my game, one character purchased a houseboat as an Extra. We used it as his "home set", and framed several scenes there, but it was really only color. In another, it was used to denote interest in a particular NPC "Girl Friday". She remained under GM control, and again was used as color to provide dialog during investigation scenes. I wouldn't have played either resource differently if they'd spent no points at all, and just asked for the location or NPC to be present.

Ron Edwards wrote: This is really key: you cannot resolve this situation from "within the rules" or in any fashion that's in-game whatsoever.

Debating about what Acute Senses "can or cannot do" is fruitless.

Coming up with "teaching-type consequences" in terms of what then happens to the character is fruitless.

Judd,

I think what Ron is saying is that given the situation described the source of the problem is a misunderstanding or miscommunication on what is acceptable/unacceptable in playing the game at the Social Contract level. If this is the case, then everything he said is true. All those other methods of resolving the situation aren't going to help until the very basic Social Contract issue is resolved. The system, techniques, rules, etc are all built on the foundation of the Social Contract. If that isn't nailed down and agreed upon then all the other stuff is going to have problems no matter what you do.

If the issue is NOT a Social Contract one but rather a difference of opinion on what the rules allow / disallow, then discussion of rules and techniques are what is needed. I don't *think* Ron is debating that but I'll let him respond one way or the other.

Hi Steelhand -

It seems to me that what you're talking about is a social contract discussion.

to use fair play in resolving that

Gaerik wrote: I think what Ron is saying is that given the situation described the source of the problem is a misunderstanding or miscommunication on what is acceptable/unacceptable in playing the game at the Social Contract level.

quot;Lord_Steelhand]Player contract expectation - the GM will be fair about judging the effects of this ability and make the game fun for me.

GM contract expectation - I expect the player to understand my rulings about his ability, have reasonable expectations of it's use, and help make the game fun for me.

Sean,

but this discussion has convinced me that the whole idea of intrinsic Extras is kind of dumb, in the sense of being an artifact of a kind of play I'm not sure FATE is really all about (but keep in mind I haven't played it, though I've read it fairly carefully).

Lord_Steelhand wrote: Even in a social contract issue, the realism and fairness of the judgement is going to be the primary question. Even if the player accepts that the problem is Social Contract related (which is not a given), he will expect the judgement executed by the GM to be reasonable, thus the consideration of a realistic adjudication of the special ability has to play some role in the discussion.

Hiya,

Lord S wrote,

Even in a social contract issue, the realism and fairness of the judgement is going to be the primary question.

And I thought I was being vitriolic by using the word bitching.

Note that I woudn't be concerned if I didn't like FATE so much.

Ron's point about "scene framing" power is well taken. If you ask Fred and Rob, I'll bet that an "intrinsic extra" isn't supposed to have that sort of power, it's just supposed to "do what it does." The standard example is nightvision - it allows you to see at night. But in terms of resolution, that means "Doesn't have to roll hearing checks to note people in the dark" and the like. It has to be an "advantage" of some sort, or people wouldn't spend their slots on them. Somebody adjudicates these things. In this case, the player is trying to take control using "realism and fairness" as his arguments to gain control of elements that I don't think the rule intends him to control.

But the rules don't tell you how to adjudicate these things. I think they assume a more or less sim GM who will just take over adjudicating what they mean in terms of what contests are called, and how scenes are framed as general powers assigned to the GM. And that a strong one will be able to enforce their will despite player appeals to "realism and fairness."

There are always an infinite number of adjudications that are actually realistic and fair. Assuming a GM who's selecting one, in this case, the player is merely disagreeing to gain control.

Again, however, has this problem actually surfaced? You talk about how it might surface, but not that it has, and not that the player seems to be having trouble accepting your adjudication. So, all this said, is there a real problem in this particular case? Or just a fear of what the ambiguities might cause?

If it's just a fear, alter the rules til your comfortable. Simply saying that it's your final call as GM might be enough. Or you can go more radical, and simply rate all abilities as skills. Either should fix your fear. Or simply trust your player who, at least til now, hasn't seemed to have broken the implicit social contract clauses in question.

Mike

Mike nailed it - this is Actual Play we're discussing, after all.

You've already alluded to disagreement between you and the other guy. Was this a disagreement about stuff that happened during play? Or about what might happen during play?

Best,
Ron

As Mike and Ron have said, it's a potential problem and not a manifest one yet. The player doesn't hesitate to tell me he loves my sessions(*feels warm and fuzzy inside*) and if he wishes he could be just a bit more cooler in-game, that's a common player hope and not a dysfunction on either of our parts.

It's just that I've been kicking myself so hard because I think both of us would have been better served if he'd just taken the skill rank and hiked up his Alertness skill instead, because the extra seems just a bit too mundane and clearly within the bounds of an existing skill. I still wish the player had listened to me(hey, GM's fondest wish and all) when I asked him to take the skill rank back, but I couldn't make him since I'd okayed his choice at the time. I'll just have to make the best of things, and everyone offered such excellent suggestions. :)

OK! So this is still a good situation.

Tell us about the actual sessions, then. What happens? Who says what? Who likes what? And so on.

Best,
Ron

Ron wrote:
Therein lies the Cosmic Void of gamer-think. Neither of those things mean jack shit to a Social Contract.

Hi Judd,

From The Provisional Glossary,

All interactions and relationships among the role-playing group, including emotional connections, logistic arrangements, and expectations. All role-playing is a subset of the Social Contract.

Hey there.  Co-author Rob pointed me at this thread; sorry I didn't see it sooner.

I'll try for a sort of generalized reply here.  (Though, please keep in mind, I myself haven't made use of extras, per se, for a few years, now -- they're meant to be there as a sort of minor catchall, but I've usually got better solutions in mind and, thus, most things don't need to be "caught".)

I'll first say that my general posture with Fate assumes you've got a functioning trust relationship (social contract, whatever) going between players and GM.  Extras are vague, I suppose, because they're really meant to be expressions of that trust relationship, in the sense of "hm, okay, so you want Foo, and that's not clearly an Aspect or a Skill, but there should be some amount of cost for that, so we'll call it an extra."

If we'd intended scene-framing power in extras, we'd be correctly blamed for them getting used that way.  Really, that's not the point of them at all, and if someone's getting that kind of oomph out of an extra, you should either a) disallow it, or b) charge them a lot more than a single skill rank for it. Someone remarked that extras, effectively, are intended as sorts of toggles, when they're intrinsic -- I have this / I don't have this.  They're meant to broaden the applicability of a particular skill, so to speak.  Nightvision's the classic here.  Normally, your perception skills can't be used well (or at all) in darkness. With Nightvision, perception is broadened to work at night.

If you're going to start giving some Real Serious Game Effects with 'em, you need to start getting super-consistent with how they're "statted".  Historically, I've been beyond loath to go to that kind of level of detail in my games, and thus, you have the (insert accusing tone of voice here) vagueness problem.

(Sidebar: Looking to the future, these sorts of things are going to get handled, in newer versions such as we're putting in the Dresden Files RPG and Spirit of the Century RPG (both Fate derived and currently under development) by things called stunts, which are the spiritual descendants of Extras, but with a much more careful level of attention to exactly how much of a game effect any one of them can have.  In this utopian future, skills and aspects also have purer definition of purpose, and it all works together much, much better.  But we aren't there yet, no matter how much Ron might urge us to "grab a clue".  We have day jobs, so it'll take us some time, and your patience is appreciated!)

Heh.

Ok, I'll take issue with "Crap" if only because extras aren't supposed to have that much authority, but I'll totally concede to the reasoning behind it. :)

So that said, yeah, problems.  It's not a terrible rule, and it's not terribly written, but it's a kind of bad rule and written not terribly well, and that's just an ugly combination. 

Extras were a concession made to more traditional play.  And not a terribly smart concession to make.

Extras were really conceived to cover weird cases, so you could have the one guy who, I dunno, could breathe under water.  It was something entirely divorced from skills.  For those, I have fewer problems, because they're basically powers bought at Average (assuming that syncs up with the magic of the setting) and placed outside of the pyramid.  Sometimes it works out fine, but when you get into the area of skills and stats, things get ugly.

For a while I would reverse the thinking a little and have them come into play in narration rather than in character effectiveness.   That means, for example, that a "sharp eared" character rolls alertness as normal, they get no more information than anyone else, but the information they get is pitched in terms of hearing, which can mean that combined with information other characters gather, the gestalt of data is more comprehensive, but that only happens when I'm feeling particularly clever.

Problem is, that kind of guts extras.  It's a skill rank that gets you nearly nothing but flavor.  So my concession to that is that it sometimes allows for rolls to occur when they otherwise wouldn't or it means I spotlight the character in question, such as calling on them alone to make an alertness check to hear an approaching opponent.  It's nicely organic, works out in play, and we don't give a single damn guideline to doing it, which is on us.  Also, frankly, it's a bit too fuzzy a solution to standardize.

In the stuff we're working on,  extras have gone out the windows.  If things like that are appropriate to the setting, we tend to use a stunts system (A powers/schticks model that we haven't published yet).  Certain recurring schticks, like "use a skill in a non-standard way" or "Get a bonus to this skill under limited circumstances" might provide the guidelines for what you're looking for.  

I don't know what terms you offered for trade in, but I woudl suggest taking another swing at it, this time pitched as either a trade-up or a clarification.  If you offer some specific, repeatable capability, a lot of players will find it very tempting.  On one hand, they have somethign explicit and mechanically supported they can trust, and on the other hand, it's now more distinctive, which helps reinforce the "cool" element that distinguishes him form the other characters.

With that in mind, I would offer to treat a sharp eared extra as one of the following:
* The player can hear something genre specific (voices of ghosts? Blood Magic?) that normally can't be heard, thus allowing them to apply perception skills in certain circumstances.
* To tip our hat to Wolverine, the character is keenly aware of the cadence of voices, and can use alertness rather than (whatever) to try to spot a lie.
* Character's hearing lets them hear things farther away than most, so they may roll perception skills at things from a greater range than normal (such as eavesdropping across the room).
* Character's keen senses are less about how sharp they are and more about how well they filter information.  The character may ignore any penalties for excess noise or volume when making perception checks.

Alternately, you can explicitly say "gives a +1 Under X circumstance" (such as eavesdropping, outdoors or in crowds).

The value of offering an _explicit_ bonus is not only for your player, it's for you.  As a GM, you look at Sharp Eared on the sheet and because it's so fuzzily defined, it's not much of a hook for you.  If, on the other hand, you know that it means that the character is a skilled eavesdropper or can ignore aural distractions, you know that you want to start throwing some whispered conversations or deafening crowds at the game.  However it settles out, once you are comfortable with what it means, everything else should fall into place.

I hope this was at all helpful.

-Rob D.

Rob wrote:
With that in mind, I would offer to treat a sharp eared extra as one of the following:
* The player can hear something genre specific (voices of ghosts? Blood Magic?) that normally can't be heard, thus allowing them to apply perception skills in certain circumstances.
* To tip our hat to Wolverine, the character is keenly aware of the cadence of voices, and can use alertness rather than (whatever) to try to spot a lie.
* Character's hearing lets them hear things farther away than most, so they may roll perception skills at things from a greater range than normal (such as eavesdropping across the room).
* Character's keen senses are less about how sharp they are and more about how well they filter information.  The character may ignore any penalties for excess noise or volume when making perception checks.

I'm still worried about any consistency issues that might crop up.

Ron wrote: Oh, now you're just worrying to make yourself happily miserable.

Problems so far? No. Then quit imagining disasters and keep doing it as you're doing it.

You also have to consider one other thing that makes extras "cost" more in a way:

They are outside of the pyramid... meaning that you lose an (Average) skill count. Meaning that you have a smaller base, meaning that you cannot move on to upgrade your highest skills because of that missing skill point...

Even though it's not directly relevenant, I just wanted to point out that drawback.