Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

[APE]

I figure This would mess any one up pretty bad as any one who has had an iner ear infection would attest.

 

Would this be in Touch Group, Hearing Group, or Unique Group?

What would be the effects?

 

I figure this would be good for Gravtational, Subsonics, bioelectrical, or mental powers.

[SirViss]

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

 

I think that the effect would be best simulated with another power, like a Dex Drain/Suppress. I can't think of anything else that would simulate what you suggest, though I am sure other people will have suggestion soon enough.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

 

We've debated this one with darkness to touch. Very silly if you follow it through without reasoning from effects (as is commanded by Holy Writ): it just stops you sensing being touched it dosn't have all the 'logical' effects.

 

As SirViss suggested you need another power. I'd suggest Mental Images based on CON as you can't be made to throw up with a DEX drain...and if you lose the input from your inner ear, you will be throwing up...

 

You could get away with change environment, possibly, if you wanted atoned down area effect.

[Lupus]

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

 

Hmm. Of course, why not follow through? If you flash the eyes, the person's blind. That's a major combat/movement penalty.

 

So if you flash sense of balance/touch/etc, the effect would also be a major combat/movement penalty. Why wolud this innately be out of line?

 

The problem is coming up with numbers... we have them provided for blindness, but not vertigo.

 

I'm just tossing this into the air. I agree that this may lead to silliness that should be countered by reasoning from effects, but I think it should be explored.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

 

Hmm. Of course, why not follow through? If you flash the eyes, the person's blind. That's a major combat/movement penalty.

 

So if you flash sense of balance/touch/etc, the effect would also be a major combat/movement penalty. Why wolud this innately be out of line?

 

The problem is coming up with numbers... we have them provided for blindness, but not vertigo.

 

I'm just tossing this into the air. I agree that this may lead to silliness that should be countered by reasoning from effects, but I think it should be explored.

 

Not a bad approach at all, but if you wanted combat effects like you get from blinding someone you'd need to pay the same cost - treat touch as a notional targetting sense.

 

Personally I don't like the idea, but it could float if handled correctly.

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

 

I did something like this years ago for a minor villain, but I can't for the life of me remember how I did it. I think I did indeed use Flash, but don't remember the penalties that it imposed. It's possible I still have that sheet around somewhere, but I haven't seen it in over 10 years, and since I've just recently moved, I wouldn't have any idea where to begin looking!

 

Y'know, on balance, this post really doesn't add much to the discussion, does it?

[yamamura]

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

 

I think that the effect would be best simulated with another power' date=' like a Dex Drain/Suppress. I can't think of anything else that would simulate what you suggest, though I am sure other people will have suggestion soon enough. [/quote']

 

I also thinks this is the best way to go.

 

G

[Sean Waters]

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

 

I did something like this years ago for a minor villain' date=' but I can't for the life of me remember how I did it. I [i']think[/i] I did indeed use Flash, but don't remember the penalties that it imposed. It's possible I still have that sheet around somewhere, but I haven't seen it in over 10 years, and since I've just recently moved, I wouldn't have any idea where to begin looking!

 

Y'know, on balance, this post really doesn't add much to the discussion, does it?

 

It adds length

[Greatwyrm]

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

 

I think that the effect would be best simulated with another power' date=' like a Dex Drain/Suppress.[/quote']

 

Maybe tack on AVLD (Hearing Group Flash Defense).

[Sociotard]

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

 

My only problem with building this power as a flash is the rarity of the defense. You see, normally a flash against a sense not included in the big 5 is fine, because while few people will bother with flash defense for that sense, few people will have that sense to begin with. With this power, everyone has a sense of equilibrium, but few characters I've seen buy defense against this. If I were presented with this character, I would insist a suitably common defense be determined. (hearing group for balance maybe, and touch group for the kinesthetic (sp?) sense, etc)

 

On that topic though, you can do some fun things with Flash. Flash memory, flash hunger, flash sense of passing time, flash color (character can still see, but is color blind), flash sense your bladder is freaking full, flash sense difference between right and left, Flash sense difference between similar letters (temporary dyslexia), maybe even flash certain emotions.

 

I read an article by some doctors who were studying the brains ability to discern "gross". They found this guy with a little damage up there, who'd lost that ability. He'd touch or eat anything, and while he'd intellectually know "this could give me a disease" he wouldn't have that queasy feeling. Now that would be an interesting sense to flash!

[MarioTani]

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

 

It seems to me that the game effects of having been FLASHed at the Sense of Balance, are similar to those of Being Stunned.

 

So I will go with a Drain STUN power with the SFX "You lose Sense of Balance".

 

THe difference with the "FLASH" model is that whit are possible several levels of "Losing Balance" represented by the recovering of the Drained poitns, while the flash as a Game Mechanic more All-or-Nothing oriented.

 

Let me explain with an example

 

If you drain the STUN (or something else for this matter) in the following turns he recovers some of the drained points, gradually "healing" from teh power effects.

If you FLAH a Sense there's not a gradual "healing" in every given segment you can use the sense or you cannot.

 

p.s. IIRC if a power that is not bought in increments, like senses, the Character has to recover all the point drained in order to use it. In this case there's not a Gradual HEaling Effect. So the powers share a similar working model.

[APE]

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

 

Thank you everyone I'll have to think some more on this. I was thinking it was somthing like a 1/2 dcv concentration just to stand, and 0 dcv concentration to move about. I was also leaning twards the touch group wich the majority of you seem to concur with.

 

I'm glad to belong to a board were eveyone has put some points into Flash Defence: Common Sence

[Dust Raven]

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

 

I've done the "sense of balance" thing two different ways. First is a Drain DEX to represent the loss of coordination, although this would typically need to be a really really large Drain. I've also done it as a Suppress, possibly Uncontrolled.

 

The other way is with a Suppress STUN in hopes of stunning the target, and using the effects of being stunned as the effects of a temporary loss of balance.

[Basil]

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

 

Personally, I think there's a need for a new Sense Group: Bodily Senses. This would include Balance, Kinesthesia, Hunger, and so on. That way, this sort of thing could be easily integrated into the existing structure.

[Chuk]

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

 

Because some one has to say it:

 

Transform, Target to Target With No Sense of Balance

 

And it's probably even minor.

[TheEmerged]

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

 

Reason from effect: what does destroying their sense of balance do?

 

I think you'll find that a Change Environment: Usable As Attack (so it affects and individual instead of an area), with the adders you want is a workable mechanic.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

 

Personally' date=' I think there's a need for a new Sense Group: Bodily Senses. This would include Balance, Kinesthesia, Hunger, and so on. That way, this sort of thing could be easily integrated into the existing structure.[/quote']

I think this is the best idea so far. The sense group system is a little too simplistic to model the way RW senses work. Talking about "the five senses" is almost as oversimplified as "the four elements."

 

Most of the internal bodily "senses," such as hunger, fullness, the need to go to the bathroom, etc. could all technically be considered part of the Touch Group, but we don't want to add all this extra functionality to a simple Flash vs. Touch Group.

 

People should be considered to have some free "Bodily Detects" by default - mostly bought with Sense, and Discriminatory, since you automatically feel how hungry you are or how urgently you need to go.

 

As to the actual effects of loss of sense of balance, I'd say something like this: No powers with Concentration can be used, Ranged powers are 1/2 OCV (or -3), movement is halved, or you can move up to full movement but you make a DEX roll at -X/Y additional inches moved or fall down, PER rolls are -1.

 

It may be perfectly reasonable to say that some senses simply cannot be Flashed (or blocked in any way) at all. Kinesthesia is one example that comes to mind.

 

It should also be noted that some "senses" like the "sense of grossness" that Sociotard mentioned, take place in the brain rather than in the sensory organs or nerves. This suggests that a Flash might not be appropriate for these (like causing temporary dyslexia, or "flash" sense of humor), but should instead be built with Mental Powers. Mental Illusions seems good, but I'll give it some more thought.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

 

I think this is the best idea so far. The sense group system is a little too simplistic to model the way RW senses work. Talking about "the five senses" is almost as oversimplified as "the four elements."

Except that there are five senses, and not four elements. Sure we can list off a bunch of stuff we can "sense" like hunger, balance, the need to pee, pain and even your own emotions and like fear and desire. I'm sure we aren't going to build a Flash versus Emotions Group anytime soon (though the idea is intreging, I don't think Flash is the way to do it).

 

It's better to think of the effects of what happens when a persons loses the ability to sense something, whatever it is. The Sense Groups and Senses have narrowed down some of those for us, others are either too rare in occurance ot too varied in application and effect to group into a single all encompasing this-does-that effect.

 

So reason from effect. Since it's a game, you can either do research on the RW effects of lacking a sense of balance and methods of losing it, or you can just pick something dramatic/appropriate and make it that way.

[APE]

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

 

How's this sound.

 

Mind Control: xd6, "If you try to do anything make an EGO roll or start retching".

 

Would you consider this to be a +20, or +30 EGO level?

 

Or would you consider this to be based on CON?

[Ganesh]

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

 

Except that there are five senses' date=' and [i']not[/i] four elements. Sure we can list off a bunch of stuff we can "sense" like hunger, balance, the need to pee, pain and even your own emotions and like fear and desire. I'm sure we aren't going to build a Flash versus Emotions Group anytime soon (though the idea is intreging, I don't think Flash is the way to do it).

 

It's better to think of the effects of what happens when a persons loses the ability to sense something, whatever it is. The Sense Groups and Senses have narrowed down some of those for us, others are either too rare in occurance ot too varied in application and effect to group into a single all encompasing this-does-that effect.

 

So reason from effect. Since it's a game, you can either do research on the RW effects of lacking a sense of balance and methods of losing it, or you can just pick something dramatic/appropriate and make it that way.

 

 

 

I've actually been using a modified version of the sense groups, with the addition of the "no-range sense group" that overlaps with all other sense groups, but cannot be blinded in any way, and effectively acts as "touch" or "fringe."

 

Vision sense group is as normal, with heat being the no-range component (add range to that for heat vision).

 

Tactile sense group is hearing, with tactile touch as the no-range component, measuring texture, density, and the like. Extend the no-sense group to get sonar.

 

Chemical sense group is smell, with taste being no-range.

 

Mental sense group is as normal, but the no-range component is what allows you to "hear" your own thoughts, feelings, and needs, and tell when a mental power is affecting you directly. Buying "mental awareness" is gaining the ranged part of the mental sense group.

 

So four senses makes a lot more sense to me. You can buy the no-range sense group on your invisibility to eliminate the fringe, and on your Images to make it possible to fool people who are right nearby.

 

I maintian that the five senses are as much an artifact of our current shoddly understanding of how the brain actually works as the four elements (or five elements, or two elements) are of former shoddy understanding of matter.

 

If you haven't, you should find an article or two on the notion of Active Perception, the idea that we actively (though automatically) querry our environment for information, rather than just passively taking it in, and how perception is related to imagination and memory. It's interestingly orthogonal to any "the n senses" models.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

 

Overall, that's a pretty neat way to go with things. There is one thing I have to point out though...

 

Vision sense group is as normal' date=' with heat being the no-range component (add range to that for heat vision).[/quote']

You can still feel heat when you're blind, so there's no way it can be part of the Sight/Vision group. I know, I had a blind friend once and he complained about the Arizona heat as much as any else. There's also a number of things that give off heat but you can't even see that they do, and have no way of knowing until you touch them.

[Basil]

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

 

Except that there are five senses' date='...[/quote']

 

No.

It has long been known there are more. The "five senses" idea goes back to Aristotle, and like many of his ideas, he was partly right at best.

 

 

 

See:

1) http://sun.science.wayne.edu/~wpoff/senses.html

2) http://sun.science.wayne.edu/~wpoff/cor/sen/other.html

3) http://www.skidmore.edu/~hfoley/IM3.doc

4) http://sws.iienet.org/public/articles/index.cfm?Cat=59

5) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12953620&dopt=Abstract

6) http://216.239.63.104/search?q=cache:I68vpcY7EVYJ:www.psych.co.uk/Chap12.pdf+%22more+than+five+senses%22+physiological&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

 

Of especial note, from link #5:

"The five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, enumerated by Aristotle, were incremented in the early-nineteenth century by the muscle sense, multiple dimensions of touch, and a movement sense. ... The division of touch into several sensations...was given anatomical, physiological and psychophysical support in the late-nineteenth century. A separate muscle sense was proposed in the late-eighteenth century, with experimental evidence to support it. However, before these developments, behavioral evidence of the vestibular (movement) sense was available from studies of vertigo,..."

 

And from link #6:

"In this chapter, we will be looking at how the nervous system gathers information from our external environment.We have many more than five senses which convey information to the brain: at the very least, we have sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell and proprioception (the sense which tells us about the internal state of the body, such as the position of joints and muscles) -- although really proprioception consists of several senses, not just one.We have one set of receptors which inform us about balance, another which informs us about movement, and so on.The empiricist philosophers were mistaken when they assumed that human beings had only five senses -- and if they had taken our internal senses into account at the same time, they might easily have developed a very different kind of philosophy."

[Dust Raven]

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

 

From a rules standpoint though... perception has nothing to do with sensing anything about the character sensing; it's about perceiving the world around the character. While an important ability, and assumed by the players (and probably the game designers when they wrote the rules) to be present and functioning, the proprioception senses don't really count as perceiving anything in Hero System.

 

Has there been much discussion on how to deprive one of these senses and the effects thereof? I also noted that in the sections you quoted there seems to be an unknown number of other senses, as if scientists know there are more than 5, but aren't done differentiating them. I'm sorry if any of this is covered in the articles you linked, but I haven't had time to read them yet.

[Basil]

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

 

From a rules standpoint though... perception has nothing to do with sensing anything about the character sensing; it's about perceiving the world around the character.

Which way is down (the sense of balance) is not "sensing...the character sensing"' date=' nor is whether the character is being moved (sense of movement). As for kinesthesia/prioperception---if a character has to [u']look,[/u] right at his gun to tell which way it's aimed, or his feet to be able to walk, that's a severe restriction on him. A removal (by Flash, Darkness, whatever) of balance or kinesthesia has major game effects.

 

While an important ability' date=' and assumed by the players (and probably the game designers when they wrote the rules) to be present and functioning, the proprioception senses don't really count as perceiving anything in Hero System.[/quote']"Merely" what every limb that's not being looked at is actually doing. All motion is a feedback process: the brain says "tighten these muscles and relax those", and the percepton nerves in the muscles say "these muscles are tightened/relaxed X amount." Without that feedback, or visual "feedback" to replace it, controlled motion is impossible.

 

Has there been much discussion on how to deprive one of these senses and the effects thereof?

Other than in threads like this one, where plenty of people deny the last couple of centuries of research and say "there's only 5 senses," or say "the other senses have no game effects"? No, not to my knowledge.

 

BTW, how much game effect does the sense of taste reallly have? The sense of smell, yeah, but taste? I mean, from a game-effects POV, why not call it the Smell Sense Group, and not bother with taste? Oh, and for those who are going to come up with examples of usefulness for taste, I can come up with just as many examples for balance, kinesthesia, and even hunger or full-bladder-ness.

[Koshka]

Re: Flash: Inner ear/ Sense of Gravity/ Sense of Balence

 

Thank you everyone I'll have to think some more on this. I was thinking it was somthing like a 1/2 dcv concentration just to stand, and 0 dcv concentration to move about. I was also leaning twards the touch group wich the majority of you seem to concur with.

 

I'd probably go a little stronger (0 DCV concentration to stand), but then a friend of mine has severe Meniere's Disease and I've seen her fall because she can't feel herself tipping over lots of times.