Absolute Pitch = Costs how much

[Kesendeja]

I have a player that wants to take Absolute pitch (also known as Perfect Pitch), and I'm having to create it. Given what it does I'm having a bit of a problem balancing the cost in relation to Relative Pitch which does much the same thing, but requires a reference tone.

By the wiki entry:
Absolute pitch implies some or all of the following abilities, achieved without a reference tone:
• Identify by name individual pitches (e.g. F♯, A, G, C) played on various instruments.
• Name the key of a given piece of tonal music.
• Reproduce a piece of tonal music in the correct key days after hearing it.
• Identify and name all the tones of a given chord or other tonal mass.
• Accurately sing a named pitch.
• Name the pitches of common everyday sounds such as car horns, phone keys and alarms.
• Detect subtle changes in vocal tones.

[mr beer]

Buy it as a Talent for Musical skills? The stuff about identifying pieces of music and tonal changes is a Perk IMO.

[whswhs]

It's in GURPS Powers: Enhanced Senses, on p. 31. It's a 1-point perk.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by whswhs

It's in GURPS Powers: Enhanced Senses, on p. 31. It's a 1-point perk.

I know someone who has it. He is a musician, as a hobby. It isn't all that useful.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by whswhs

It's in GURPS Powers: Enhanced Senses, on p. 31. It's a 1-point perk.

Also The Madness Dossier, where I think it was the first appearance.

[Ultraviolet]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I know someone who has it. He is a musician, as a hobby. It isn't all that useful.

Obviously you haven't read Anne McCaffrey's "The Crystal Singer": https://www.fantasticfiction.com/m/a...tal-singer.htm

Also: No, it propably isn't too useful.

Same goes for the reverse: Tone deafness and awful singing abilities shouldn't yield high disadvantage values. Unless combined with Delusion (I am a great singer) once talent shows for nation tv is a thing ;)

[Celjabba]

Originally Posted by Ultraviolet

Same goes for the reverse: Tone deafness and awful singing abilities shouldn't yield high disadvantage values. Unless combined with Delusion (I am a great singer) once talent shows for nation tv is a thing ;)

3 words : Florence Foster Jenkins

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Ultraviolet

Obviously you haven't read Anne McCaffrey's "The Crystal Singer"

The open secret of GURPS is that it's not really (and can't be) "Universal" with a fixed ability CP cost list. Every ability has some setting where it's a waste of points at the book value and no one would ever buy it, and some other one where it's vital and horribly undervalued at that same price, so every character must have it. Constructing pathological examples is practically a hobby in some forum threads.

I'd agree that perfect pitch is a Perk, outside of those particular games where music is a vital core interest. Might also throw it in for free with any level of Musical Ability (Talent). Relative Pitch might belong to anyone with Singing or a Musical Instrument at 12+. Most musicians can and do train it. Feel free to demand skill rolls to identify particular chords or intervals when that comes up :)

(For that matter, there's an ongoing argument about whether you can train perfect pitch or not. IMO, it's just a memory quirk, being really good at remembering pitches, the way some people at really good at remembering exact shades of color, or smells or tastes, or faces instead of names or vice-versa. With enough training, even a poorer natural memory can do the same job, while there are lucky folks that don't have to work at it. But regardless of whether it's trainable, in GURPS terms it'd still be a 1-point Perk, either because it's not as demanding as a full skill, or it's a 1-point Perk because it's a tiny Advantage.)

[ericthered]

Now, if it IS worth a whole bunch in a specific campaign because of magic or something, that's an unusual background.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Now, if it IS worth a whole bunch in a specific campaign because of magic or something, that's an unusual background.

Or more likely, entirely separate advantages that have nothing to do with "perfect pitch" you ought to be charging for separately. That's certainly case for most fiction it appears in, the actual ability to remember pitches isn't the thing that's worthwhile, it's the fact nobody (relevant to the story anyway) has it unless they *also* have some ungodly number of levels of Musical Talent.

My oscilloscope has "perfect pitch" in that it's got a quite adequate (if sometimes a bit hard to use) frequency readout function on it. It doesn't have any demonstrable musical ability.