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Old 05-28-2016, 07:35 PM   #21
Ulzgoroth
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Observation

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Originally Posted by Phil Masters View Post
Observation is being organised and efficient about using Per (the way that unarmed combat skills are being organised and efficient about using DX to punch people). You want to watch the bank from the cafe opposite? Fine, but without Observation, you're prone to looking rather obvious as you drink your coffee; with it, you're a shopper dawdling over the newspaper, and yet you see just as much. Make a Per roll and you can say there are "a bunch of guards" in the bank; make an Observation roll and you can say how many and how their duty roster system seems to work.
That's putting a lot of limitations on sense rolls and other skills that I don't think are justifiable. You can use Acting to not look like you're too interested in what you're looking at, and you certainly don't need to make a skill roll at default to count people.

Nor do you need to have a specific, relatively rare skill to actively use your senses.
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Old 05-29-2016, 03:54 AM   #22
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Observation

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
That's putting a lot of limitations on sense rolls and other skills that I don't think are justifiable. You can use Acting to not look like you're too interested in what you're looking at, and you certainly don't need to make a skill roll at default to count people.

Nor do you need to have a specific, relatively rare skill to actively use your senses.
And yet, there are people who are good at this stuff, through training and experience, and people who are amateurs - in fiction and, I suspect, in real life. But sure, the amateur can try, making multiple rolls against Acting to hide the intention, Per to pick up the data, and IQ to collate it as he goes along. Or you can send in the professional with Observation skill, to whom this is second nature, and make just the one die roll.
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Old 05-29-2016, 04:04 AM   #23
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Observation

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And yet, there are people who are good at this stuff, through training and experience, and people who are amateurs - in fiction and, I suspect, in real life. But sure, the amateur can try, making multiple rolls against Acting to hide the intention, Per to pick up the data, and IQ to collate it as he goes along. Or you can send in the professional with Observation skill, to whom this is second nature, and make just the one die roll.
If you're willing to reduce the entire scene to a single die roll, yes.
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Old 05-29-2016, 09:11 AM   #24
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Observation

Abstraction levels are always a matter of taste. But "sit in coffee shop, assess bank's guard rotas" doesn't strike me as an overly rich opportunity for intensive roleplaying. And having Observation skill gives one a defining feature for the team recon expert, allowing a little bit of niche protection with a single purchase - instead of having to buy up Per and IQ (despite not necessarily having any other uses for them), plus Acting with a specialisation in "Drinking coffee while looking innocuous and throwing quick glances out of the corners of your eyes..."
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Old 05-29-2016, 09:58 AM   #25
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Observation

I don't think Acting is primarily suited to the task of observing without revealing that you're doing so. The core function of Acting is to sustain a false impression over time: To assume a role consistently.

Now if the role is "I'm a person who's not interested in your security arrangements," that's a pretty basic impression, and normally I'd allow an Acting+5 roll, or straight IQ, vs. Detect Lies to see through it.

If you're trying to observe at the same time, I'd call for an Acting roll (with the bonus) and a Per roll. But I'd also call for -2 penalties, because you're doing two different things: Playing a role and trying to notice things. So if you have IQ 12 and Per 12, that would be two rolls at effective skill 10, giving a 25% chance of both noticing something useful and concealing your attention to it. If you actually have Acting skill at, say, 12, that would be an Acting+3 roll, or 15 or less, so you probably wouldn't be noticed, but it would still be kind of chancy whether you obsered anything.

And even if you succeeded, I wouldn't consider it quite the same as an Observation roll. With Per, you'll tend to notice the things that stand out to the human eye or ear. On a successful roll, I'd let you pick up the marginal things. But I wouldn't let you get the things that emerge from systematic inventory of the environment, because you wouldn't have trained yourself to notice those things.

When you come right down to it, most of the Per-based skills could be defined as "just using your eyes/ears/nose." So you could argue for separate skills being redundant. And yet it makes sense to me that people can learn to apply their senses in specific ways.

As to the question of "a single roll," I mostly support what Phil said. I don't think it's really very interesting dramatically to play out multiple Observation rolls, each of which reveals a single possibly meaningful fact. I think normally you roll once and see if you spot anything. If there's drama at all, it's because you critically failed the roll and gave yourself away; or perhaps because someone else observed you observing (perhaps with a Quick Contest); or because someone came up and interacted with you randomly and you needed to roleplay your ostensible reason for being there. Or because you used Stealth to find an observation post where you would be concealed and could devote your time to systematically inventorying the enemy's routines and capabilities.
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Last edited by whswhs; 05-29-2016 at 10:12 AM.
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Old 01-18-2023, 01:56 PM   #26
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Observation

Sorry to necro, but this issue of when to use Observation skill versus a Perception or sense roll has come up for me recently, so I did a search and wanted to add something:

Observation skill is also the sine qua non of any sort of military scout- cavalry scouts in my case. For instance it is used to estimate the number of soldiers/vehicles in a large body of troops that is spotted. (And I would make an argument for the same regarding finding tracks made by a military formation on the move.) So Observation would tell you "there is an encamped battalion-sized formation of line infantry on the opposite side of the valley, they have pickets set, and from the traffic of the runners you suspect that the commander is billeted in the farmhouse near the creek" whereas all that a (+10) Per roll should tell you is "there is a ginormous mob of soldiers on the opposite hillside".

I also like the point that someone made to the effect that a Per roll will tell you "you see X over there" whereas an Observation roll might tell you "you see X, about Y yards away, on a rough heading of Z and moving at approximately speed S". The detail that Observation can give you is a great differentiator.

And the nice thing is that Observation skill can be improved, whereas generally Per cannot in a realistic setting.

Last edited by acrosome; 01-18-2023 at 02:10 PM.
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