Re: House Rules
I'm probably one of the more gear-headed IN players, and I don't use the disturbance rule literally, either. Typically, I just have the players roll for Perception, and decide if they're likely to have heard based on the total disturbance and the distance. I'll pick a plausible bonus or penalty, if things look close, based on the amount of noise and distance (which is roughly how we wound up implementing it in GURPS IN).
As a rule, player-generated disturbances seem to come in "too small for anyone but a Grig to hear" and "enough noise to be heard halfway across the continent". No one hears the former unless they're right on top of it, and everyone in town hears the latter, pretty much automatically. (The first case is typically an isolated Song use, or an Essence boost to skill or resonance. The second is the typical battle scene.)
---Walter
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