Making sense of Senses

[Sean Waters]

Re: Making sense of Senses

 

Late to the discussion but here is what I think:

 

A basic detect will tell you of the presence of the detected thing and the location.

 

Why location?

 

Well if you buy a basic sense it has no range, so you can only detect something you are inc contact with - that pretty much means you know where it is.

 

Adding range should not make the sense less useful.

 

I would also allow 'intensity' with a basic detect: a lot of a little?

 

Example: Detect light would tell you that there is light, how bright it is and where it is coming from, like a directional light sensitive resistor in a circuit.

 

Good Lord: just had a thought: normal human vision is not ranged. The light comes to you, you only detect it when it hits your retina (or skin ). Blimey. That would mean that a basic detect would not allow you to detect distance, just direction. I suppose that applies to all passive senses that rely on something coming to you.

 

Anyway, moving on, DISCRIMINATORY is what normal people have with most of their senses, despite what the book says about 'semi-discriminatory' - that is just potty.

 

So, with discriminatory you can detect what normal human senses could detect - that sort of level of information: for detect light that includes colour (i.e. light frequency). Actually that is about all you get with discriminatory. You can actually 'see' shapes and such but interpreting them is a matter for knowledge. Obviously you also have the basic 'detect' stuff. You can also estimate range, but that is a skill, rather than a function of the sense. you can tell things apart on a pretty impressive scale, but can still be fooled by many things: for instance a hologram would look like the real thing to you.

 

Analyse gives you about as much informtation as you can get from light, including exact amplitudes and frequency mixes and polarity. That is about all there is to know about light, to be honest, but you get a LOT of information that you can then knowledge-crack. If two light sources can be told apart, you can tell them apart. A hologram would usually obviously NOT be real to you (there should probably be a sort of 'ultra-detail' adder for images allowing it to fool even analytical senses).

 

That is just 3 steps, but frankly, we need no more.

[secretID]

Re: Making sense of Senses

 

Looking through frosted glass gives us about the same level of information as our sense of smell gives us.

***

If the sense provides a similar level of detail as Sight or Hearing, it's Discriminatory.

If the sense provides a similar level of detail as Smell, then it's not Discriminatory.

If the sense provided an even greater level of detail than normal Sight or Hearing, it has Analyze.

If the sense provides significantly less detail than Smell, maybe don't bother building it or paying points for it (or buy it with a limitation).

I appreciate the reasoning behind this approach, but it’s nearly useless to me, personally. It’s also genre and universe dependent. “Similar,” etc., aren’t useful words to me in this context. If I’m just going to compare things and price them by taking my best guess at utility, I might as well not bother with the rules. That’s necessary with a few things in Hero, but I prefer to minimize it.

 

I also can’t easily imagine senses that provide greater level of detail regarding as broad a category of things as does sight. Whatever those senses are, I bet a high proportion would be game breaking.

 

I think the rules definitions are good. I think they just screwed up in the categorization of the normal senses. I suspect it’s because they overlooked the point I made last post, about Discrim. and Analyze both being relative to the breadth of the Detect. If smell is a collection of Detects – Detect Garlic, Detect Feces, etc. – then it doesn’t fit the basic Discrim. definition. If it’s one sense, then it does.

 

But I’ve said all of that.

 

The upshot is that I won't just compare to normal senses and price to match. I'll continue defining class of things detected, and applying Discrim. or Analyze based upon the degree of differentiation between class members.

[secretID]

Re: Making sense of Senses

 

A basic detect will tell you of the presence of the detected thing and the location.

 

Why location?

 

Well if you buy a basic sense it has no range, so you can only detect something you are inc contact with - that pretty much means you know where it is.

 

Adding range should not make the sense less useful.

That's clever.

 

I would also allow 'intensity' with a basic detect: a lot of a little?

Same here.

 

Good Lord: just had a thought: normal human vision is not ranged. The light comes to you' date=' you only detect it when it hits your retina (or skin ). Blimey. That would mean that a basic detect would not allow you to detect distance, just direction. I suppose that applies to all passive senses that rely on something coming to you.[/quote']

You're way late to the party if you're making that observation. Personally, I don't think the physics of RL senses is relevant.

 

Anyway' date=' moving on, DISCRIMINATORY is what normal people have with most of their senses, despite what the book says about 'semi-discriminatory' - that is just potty.[/quote']

That's a decent synopsis of my position. I don't appear to have expressed myself as efficiently.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Making sense of Senses

 

I also can’t easily imagine senses that provide greater level of detail regarding as broad a category of things as does sight. Whatever those senses are' date=' I bet a high proportion would be game breaking.[/quote']

I'd say it goes to the point you made earlier about the "skill" of sensing. And I'd also say that Analyze is not really intended to be applied to normal Sight. You could do it, but as a GM, I would require that it be restricted to a particular type of analysis, or analysis on a particular class of things. Such as looking at a person and being able to quickly see and evaluate his physical condition: his health, any diseases he has, stuff like that. Or looking ad a piece of machinery and being able to quickly tell about how much power it requires, what parts are worn/broken, what parts are going to heat up when it's running, etc. Or looking at a character display his powers and being able to see whether they are mutant abilities, magic, training, technology, etc., and probably other things about the powers. And no, I would definitely not allow someone to have all of these sensory abilities for buying Analyze only once on his Sight.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Making sense of Senses

 

You're way late to the party if you're making that observation. Personally' date=' I don't think the physics of RL senses is relevant.[/quote']

 

I agree. I don't think normal sight should be called, "detect light." I think it is more like, "detect visible things," (a very broad and useful class of phenomena). That in a more physically accurate game this requires particles (photons) to bounce off of (or be refracted by, scattered by, or emitted from) the subject and reach the character with senses is besides the point. There may be fantasy games or others that subscribe to some metaphysical model of sight that is quite different from reality. Whatever. In game terms it is built for what it does, not the little details of how it works.

 

We do have some senses that work on a different basis (detects the same or similar class of things but with a different spectrum or medium). For example IR Vision. While these may have somewhat different behaviors and quirks, I think in the end they aren't defined much different in terms of the basic thing they can detect.

[SteveZilla]

Re: Making sense of Senses

 

After all, isn't the "little details of how it works" relegated to SFX?

[ajackson]

Re: Making sense of Senses

 

I can describe for you a visual sense that provides a greater level of detail than normal sight, without falling under other descriptions. That would be an enhanced color sense. Some animals have better color sense than humans, and in technical senses spectroscopy is important in astronomy and a variety of other chemical applications, and hyperspectral imaging also has some purposes. In other senses, I have trouble thinking of a more detailed hearing sense, smell/taste could easily extend into chemical analysis, something like terahertz radar might allow certain types of ranged analysis.

 

However, any of these effects could be handled with Detect (Chemical Composition), attached to the appropriate sense group, and doing so would probably be easier for everyone involved.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Making sense of Senses

 

.......................

 

You're way late to the party if you're making that observation. Personally, I don't think the physics of RL senses is relevant.

 

.................

 

 

I'm thinking 'range' on a sense could be used to move your apparent perception point, enabling you, perhaps, to see round corners and such.

 

I like to use a sort-of physics approach to senses because it makes them so much easier to adjudicate if you know what is actually being detected: physical objects (as well as being a poor descriptor for what a lot of senses perceive) does not help with what the method of detection is (EMR/Magic/Psionics/Celestial Energy...), but if you know what you are picking up then you know what is, for instance, likely to be opaque to that sense.

[secretID]

Re: Making sense of Senses

 

I'm thinking 'range' on a sense could be used to move your apparent perception point' date=' enabling you, perhaps, to see round corners and such.[/quote']

Uh...yeah, that was said, too - somewhere around page 2 or 3.

[secretID]

Re: Making sense of Senses

 

I can describe for you a visual sense that provides a greater level of detail than normal sight' date=' without falling under other descriptions. That would be an enhanced color sense. Some animals have better color sense than humans, and in technical senses spectroscopy is important in astronomy and a variety of other chemical applications, and hyperspectral imaging also has some purposes. In other senses, I have trouble thinking of a more detailed hearing sense, smell/taste could easily extend into chemical analysis, something like terahertz radar might allow certain types of ranged analysis.

 

However, any of these effects could be handled with Detect (Chemical Composition), attached to the appropriate sense group, and doing so would probably be easier for everyone involved.

I was actually addressing a different point, that if Analyze could only apply to something more precise than vision, it would have to be a pretty fantastic ability, because relative to the huge class of things it detects, vision is extremely precise.

 

As you mentioned, I think that would be Detect Chemical Composition or whatever. That goes back to the whole thing about what kind of Detect sight is. I say it's something like "Detect Visible Things," and that the physics of its functioning is sfx.

[i3ullseye]

Re: Making sense of Senses

 

Sight interprets amazing amounts of iformation, but it can't categorize it and quantify it as much as an analyze might. I think spectral scans are a great example. We see a painting, and some people discern the differences in various blues more than others. But an analyze might just be able to tell you exactly how many shades of blue, sort of like Photoshop or other graphics programs pulling the color palette data out of an image.

 

Perfect pitch is kinda the analyze of hearing I think also. But again, analyze can take that to a far greater level depending on what you want to accomplish. There are some people who can tell you all notes and major/minor chords that are heard when you drop a plate on the ground. I have even seen people play that back with notes on a keyboard and recreate the general tone of the crash. Amazing stuff.... out of well attuned but completely normal hearing.

 

I think our senses are clearly gathering enough data to be truly analyze in nature, but without the cognitive awareness to process that data (and practice/training), it is just overflow.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Making sense of Senses

 

Hmm. Yes. Interesting. Likewise, our eyes do things like blend colors into one (the only reason the "three primary colors" work to simulate colors of the spectrum not actually present). And our visual processing centers make us prone to visual illusions that make it difficult for us to judge lengths and colors in certain circumstances. One possible benefit of Analyze could be to eliminate such quirks.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Making sense of Senses

 

Uh...yeah' date=' that was said, too - somewhere around page 2 or 3. [/quote']

 

You don't seriously expect me to get through more than about 2 or 3 posts before I get bored and start opining, do you? I wish someone would get their act together an provide three line summaries or at least bullet points for any thread that goes over a page. Maybe ghost-angel: he doesn't have much to do.

 

What?

[Sean Waters]

Re: Making sense of Senses

 

Hmm. Yes. Interesting. Likewise' date=' our eyes do things like blend colors into one (the [i']only[/i] reason the "three primary colors" work to simulate colors of the spectrum not actually present). And our visual processing centers make us prone to visual illusions that make it difficult for us to judge lengths and colors in certain circumstances. One possible benefit of Analyze could be to eliminate such quirks.

 

....which would mean, for example, that a sight image defined as a hologram would be much easier to detect if you had Analyse on your sight...so you probably need an extra adder for images: HD Image, which puts in far more accurate detail to overcome this.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Making sense of Senses

 

Hmm. Yes. Interesting. Likewise' date=' our eyes do things like blend colors into one (the [i']only[/i] reason the "three primary colors" work to simulate colors of the spectrum not actually present). And our visual processing centers make us prone to visual illusions that make it difficult for us to judge lengths and colors in certain circumstances. One possible benefit of Analyze could be to eliminate such quirks.

I think I know what you mean, but I think you got it turned around. Other colors of the spectrum may be actually present, it's just that our cones come in only three types: red, blue, and green. And when we see some other color, such as majenta, cones of different types are triggered, in this case red and blue.

 

But yes, Analyze on Sight could be defined as "immunity" to optical illusions.

[SteveZilla]

Re: Making sense of Senses

 

Except that a 5 point Sense Adder isn't going to automatically nullify the use of a Sight Group Images power on that person...

 

[prestidigitator]

Re: Making sense of Senses

 

I think I know what you mean' date=' but I think you got it turned around. Other colors of the spectrum may be actually present, it's just that our cones come in only three types: red, blue, and green. And when we see some other color, such as majenta, cones of different types are triggered, in this case red and blue.[/quote']

 

Not turned around. That is the very reason we are able to simulate other colors by using combinations of red, green, and blue. If there was some creature that had 20 different receptors for different frequency ranges in the visual spectrum, for example, or separated light into a continuous frequency distribution like a spectrometer does (difficult to do while still seeing the full geometry we do, but that's beside the point), then our RGB monitors would look very strange to that creature.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Making sense of Senses

 

Except that a 5 point Sense Adder isn't going to automatically nullify the use of a Sight Group Images power on that person...

 

So? I didn't say "Sight Group Images," I said "optical illusions."

[SteveZilla]

Re: Making sense of Senses

 

I was just clarifying. So nobody would have any illusion allusions.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Making sense of Senses

 

I was just clarifying. So nobody would have any illusion allusions.

Let me express my elation that there is no more elusion of the point about illusions. My friend, an eye doctor from the islands of Alaska (an Optical Aleutian) would have been most disillusioned.