/tg/ let's talk about Perception, and why it's bothersome. In most tabletop rpgs, characters tend to have the option to put skill ranks/dots/experience/what-have-you into a "Perception" skill. Or listen/spot/search, or whatever.
Why is this a thing?
Try as I might, I genuinely cannot find a good enough abstraction or reason to justify how a character can "get better at spotting or finding things" through leveling up and experience gain.
Perception, as a whole, is based off of a character's senses, typically eyesight, but hearing and smell too. How does your senses get better through character advancement? If I don't have points in perception does that mean I'm nearsighted and need glasses? If I do put points into it, does my vision just magically clear up to the point where I don't need glasses?
Perception is usually presented as a skill alongside things like climbing, crafting, survival, etc. All things that can reasonably improve. You spend time and effort climbing or making items, then in due time, you'll get better and better at it, right? But your eyes are, well, your eyes. How do you train that? How do you "get better" at spotting things like ambushes, hidden caches, etc.?
Let's discuss, /tg/.
>>44186724
It's one thing to see or hear something, another entirely to notice something.
Whenever I go hunting with my dad, he notices things far easier than I do. Whether it's something moving, animal tracks, or whatever else. He's spent more time hunting and being out in the woods than I have, so he's significantly better at noticing that kind of thing.
>>44186724
Okay anon, here's a personal anecdote.
I remember thinking I was top shit and could take any fucker just because I was a gym junkie and could bench/dead/OHP/squat good numbers. I decided to take up a martial arts and by the end of the first week I realised just how outclassed I was. Not just in fighting, but noticing and understanding cues. It's one thing to watch and see, it's another to notice and understand. This became even more obvious with my job as a safety site advisor. Between martial arts and the years on the job, little things now jump out to me in giant neon letters than I would've brushed over before. Unpinned extinguishers, poor planed fire escape plans, missing signage etc. Perception can be trained, and it can be learned.
>>44186724
Awareness and Diligence. Each rank or whatever represents your character getting better at positional awareness and such (as a former basketball player, I can tell ya it can be learned) and diligence to actually look out for stuff constantly.
Also represents the effect of experience. Even if my eyesight doesn't improve week to week, if I get more aware of the patterns I can spot disruptions of them more easily,
>>44186724
You should read more books anon.
People can actually become better at spotting/hearing/noticing little things, clues about something that could put their lives in danger, at least given they have enough time/survive that long in the first place to experience it all.
You probably should brush up and read more about trackers and hunters, just so you can gather a bit of knowledge about the subject.
>>44186724
>Try as I might, I genuinely cannot find a good enough abstraction or reason to justify how a character can "get better at spotting or finding things" through leveling up and experience gain.
You can. Learning to focus, quieting an incessant mind, figuring out what to look for... there're myriad ways you can become better.
Try again, sonny.
To characters walk along a road and the hear rustling of twigs. One character with no ranks in pereception hears it, assumes it's the wind or a small animal and ignores it. The guy who has ranks in perception realises there is no wind and the animals are in hibernation this season so it might be someone sneaking up on them.
It's not just about receiving sensory input, it's about putting the information in context and interpreting it correctly.
>>44186724
>I genuinely cannot find a good enough abstraction or reason to justify how a character can "get better at spotting or finding things" through leveling up and experience gain.
Are you an idiot? What do you think real life hunters, trackers, interrogators, etc spend years getting better at?
>>44186724
Senses can be trained to become more acute.
>>44186724
I prefer Perception/Awareness to be an Attribute rather than a skill for the reasons that you stated- it's not as easy to improve your senses as it would be to improve your rock climbing skills or your pottery, or your wilderness survival.
That being said, >>44186754 makes a good point. That's why I like the inclusion of Investigation as a skill. Your Perception is your ability to sense or notice objects, movement, scents, etc., but your Investigation is the trained ability to piece together clues and patterns to decipher any possible meaning behind them.
Perception notices that the woods have suddenly gone silent save for the rustling of branches to your left. Investigation is what tells you that quiet animals + rustling + not seeing anything = probable ambush.
Perception is less about your raw physical ability and more about your correct interpretation of what you sense. My eyes work perfectly fine, but I will never spot an animal in cover faster than an experienced hunter will.
That said.. I think in some cases that I really do not like skills such as perception, search, investigation, and so on. I don't like them because as GM I feel that these sorts of things short circuit the communication I want to have with my players. I don't want players reaching for the dice anytime they want more information, like they have a sort of radar dish on their heads that runs on RNG. I want them to have a description of the area and then manually poke around for more. I want to reward them for being curious and clever about how they investigate their surroundings, not for having a high ability score.
>>44186754
/thread
Your senses never get better, you get better at using them. Most people simply aren't *aware* of the many things their senses pick up, and it actually takes some effort to be conscious of them
>>44186724
You can train in perception. My granddad was in the RAF during the second world war as a spotter on the bombings - but he went into aerial recon. They trained using a trick. You close your eyes, open them for a split second and then you have to describe all the essential details that you see. They train with shorter times for viewing pictures, more complicated pictures and the like. With a bit of experience and training, it's amazing what you pick up.
Also, hunters and tracking. They spot things that others miss, a broken twig, a mark in the ground. Things that only through experience and training will you notice.
So yes, you can improve it. Of course you can.
>>44187019
>That said.. I think in some cases that I really do not like skills such as perception, search, investigation, and so on. I don't like them because as GM I feel that these sorts of things short circuit the communication I want to have with my players. I don't want players reaching for the dice anytime they want more information, like they have a sort of radar dish on their heads that runs on RNG. I want them to have a description of the area and then manually poke around for more. I want to reward them for being curious and clever about how they investigate their surroundings, not for having a high ability score.
Seconded
>>44187019
>>44188978
thirded
>>44186724
Wow, OP, literally everyone disagrees with you. Well done.
>>44187019
>That said.. I think in some cases that I really do not like skills such as perception, search, investigation, and so on. I don't like them because as GM I feel that these sorts of things short circuit the communication I want to have with my players. I don't want players reaching for the dice anytime they want more information, like they have a sort of radar dish on their heads that runs on RNG. I want them to have a description of the area and then manually poke around for more. I want to reward them for being curious and clever about how they investigate their surroundings, not for having a high ability score.
This was literally solved years ago with Passive Perception. You don't roll unless you are actively doing something (searching for clues, listening through a door, whatever). In all other cases you use a baseline value derived from your skill.
>>44188978
Does this mean, if I insult ''7019 an' we get into a fight an' he bites it, you'll tell his wife?
>>44186724
>>44186999
It's not just "this is how well you see or smell or hear things." It's the thing where the new guy sees an overturned pebble and doesn't even think about it vs a hardened, blood-soaked veteran noticing the same rock and being like "shut the fuck up you clowns, there's someone here."
>>44186724
listen/spot/search as individual skills
Nigga you're misguided from having grown up with 3.5. Perception isn't just eyesight/hearing/smell/etc. It's more than just your physical senses, it's your ability to perceive things. Lemme explain.
When you were a kid, did you ever build a really big LEGO set? Or like a model airplane or something, anything that involves a big pile of pieces. Do you remember looking for that one specific piece that you can't find? You have the whole pile spread out in front of you and you're looking through it and for some reason you can's spot it out of the group of random other stuff. Your eyesight is fine, nothing is actually obscuring it, but it takes some hunting to actually find it. That's what perception represents. Audio equivalent is picking out one sound from a bunch of others, or picking up on a really faint sounds with louder ones over them, or figuring out the direction a noise is coming from. Reading braille would be a touch-based perception.
>>44186788
Is also true, and it's the reason why perception is wisdom-based in the dnd family.
>mfw I have literally had a dungeon master who would have us roll spot in order to read things because he thinks it represents visual acquity
>>44186724
I dunno anon, at first I thought that everyone in 4chan was okay. But as time passed and I gained experience, I started to spot faggots in threads, faggots just like you.
>>44191540
>mfw I realize I said "perception is your ability to perceive things"
>>44191682
...well, you're not wrong. Perception is indeed the ability to perceive things. I get what you mean, though - it's like describing the taste of salt as 'salty'.
>>44187019
I understand your sentiment and you obviously have to take the middle ground with this as DM, but to me as a DM it's completely valid to just let your perception do the work. After all it's your character who is actually there' and it's only reasonable to let the Skills speak you pied for him. You as a player give the cues, and the character tries to fulfill them to the best of his abilities.
>>44186724
Have you ever played a shooter? if it's your first tiem you don't understand shit, the more and more you play you start improving and paying more attention, eventually you'll be able to head-shot tiny pixels that turn out to be a dude behind some cover that is now raging about how you shouldn't be able to spot him behind that cover.
Perception can be trained.
>>44186776
Pretty much this.
I was with a river guide who spotted a snake on a bank from a good 40 yards away while he was talking to a group and piloting a pontoon boat at ~7 mph.
Took the rest of us a good 15 minutes to see it after he crept to about 8 yards away.
You get acclimated to looking for certain things, depending on the lifestyle you live, and the arena you spend your life in.
>>44186724
I imagine your either very young, or live a rather dull life.
