Passive Mind Reading
 

For many fictional telepaths, reading surface thoughts is a passive ability. It's an additional sense, analogues to hearing. It doesn't take any effort, and the only resistance non-telepaths get is trying not to think about anything private. In fact it generally takes effort to not overhear everything people are thinking all the time.

How would this be modeled in GURPS?

Re: Passive Mind Reading
 

Before I get into mechanics have you considered how amazingly annoying such a PC will be? He'll be attacking all the other PCs constantly with an effect you'll have to roll dice for. You'll have to constantly be asking other characters what they are thinking. The telepath becomes the center of everything.

That being said, you can just have Compulsive Mindreading, Empathy and Supersensitive.

Re: Passive Mind Reading
 

The Reflexive enhancement on Mind Reading sounds like a match.

Re: Passive Mind Reading
 

Reflexive would make it passive, but it sounds like you're talking about a possibly disadvantageous version. Maybe Always On or Usually On, combined with a modifier package to limit it to those a certain distance from you.

Re: Passive Mind Reading
 

My problem is that the RAW game mechanics are incompatible with many fictional examples of mind reading abilities. GURPS Mind Reading requires a second of concentration followed by a contested roll. That assumes an intrusion into the subject's mind that can be resisted.

In many setting with telepaths, that's not how it works. They don't need to intrude into someone's mind to pick up surface thoughts. They just receive the thoughts broadcasting from all the mind around them. It would be like making a character roll a contested contest in order to hear someone speaking in front of him.

Re: Passive Mind Reading
 

But with reflexive lets an ability activate itself without any time, 'in the presence of something interesting, if [the ability is] a sense'. I think it would be fair to allow reading of all present minds to work there. Gurps (wisely) does not allow resistible abilities to become irresistible, but each level of reliable gives you a bonus on your roll, and enough can leave you effectively irresistible. It will be expensive, but the ability to know what everyone around you is thinking is powerful!

Re: Passive Mind Reading
 

And potentially very distracting. It´s bad enough if a couple of people have loud conversations nearby. This will be as if everybody around you simultaneously speaks.

Re: Passive Mind Reading
 

Which is why in B5, the experience a telepath has when he can't yet screen out others thoughts is called a "Mind Burst." In one episode, a young teep collapses screaming, because the telepathic noise all around her becomes too strong.

The same thing happens in Buffy, in the episode where she gets telepathy from a demons blood.

Rules-wise, isn't there Supersensitive (Basic Set p.158) to handle the disad part of cases like these?

Re: Passive Mind Reading
 

Well, I guess the thing is a man of exceptional Will power will beat you. Putting Reliable 10, +50% on it will help overcome most people. And to overcome magical barriers, Cosmic: Irresistible can beat down those pesky Mind Shields. Otherwise though, gonna have to roll.

And even if there wasn't a roll, a person who knew you were doing it could roll his Mind Block skill, where he simply thinks of random thoughts so you can't understand him.

Moral to the story: Batman always wins.

Re: Passive Mind Reading
 

One of the PCs in a supers game I'm in uses Mind Block to concentrate on Fabio in a speedo to foil/traumatize telepaths. Remarkably effective.

Re: Passive Mind Reading
 

Even if a GM allows the use of Reliable on Mind Reading, you still run up against the Rule of 16, don't you? And if your effective skill for making the roll can never be higher than 16, then those with high Wills will sometimes be blank to you, because they'll win the Quick Contest; somebody with a 16 Will will resist something like 50% of the time.

Re: Passive Mind Reading
 

I'd say that Mind Reading (Reflexive, +40%) [42] is about right. Variations include adding Temporary Disadvantage, Supersensitive, -15% to that (makes cost 38 points) or taking Supersensitive [-15] full-time (makes overall cost 27 points), depending on what model you prefer.

Re: Passive Mind Reading
 

Let's remember that GURPS is a game, and the rules have to be balanced. Every game I've seen requires you to make rolls against your target to get into their mind. It's a balancing mechanism.

Well, if you're trying to emulate something specific, you can always add a level of Reduced Time to Mind Reading making it a free action (it's not an attack power, so it's legal). A couple levels of Telepathic Talent will help with the quick contest.
And, while it's not RAW or canon, if you're still trying to get something specific, you might ask your GM if you can put Cosmic (doesn't have to roll for surface thoughts) on it.

Otherwise, Kromm's Reflexive + Supersensitive is the way to go.

Re: Passive Mind Reading
 

Mind Reading with Reflexive is essentially "just another sense." Although Reflexive does mean rolling dice, that angle simply makes Mind Reading work like hearing, vision, etc.: you roll dice to notice easily missed or deliberately obscured items. The only difference is that the die rolling is a Quick Contest of IQ vs. Will instead of a Per roll. As with normal senses, there would be no special reason to roll for obvious stuff, where "obvious" here means everything that a non-mind reader could glean through mundane skills like Detect Lies and Psychology. The point cost (42 points) is on par with that of a sense that can look inside things and through light cover (Para-Radar [40]), perceive things that are normally too fast to perceive (Enhanced Time Sense [45]), or give spontaneous visions of the past (Psychometry (Immersive, +100%) [40]), which seems balanced.

Don't forget that no amount of Mind Reading is Mind Probe. Mind Reading gives surface thoughts -- things that an emotional person might accidentally say, and that anybody might rather clearly convey via body language and tone of speech. So passive Mind Reading isn't an ultimate ability to pry into the thoughts of everyone nearby, just a souped-up version of Empathy.

Re: Passive Mind Reading
 

I imagine a Telepath with this advantage would hear thoughts as white noise. You hear it but you aren't listening like a radio playing softly in the background. You don't pay attentation to it until something interesting happens. It makes the advantage into a hidden check made by the GM.

John is sitting in a crowded cafe working on a report about his last mission. He can hear the thoughts all around him but it doesn't distract him from his work. Until he feels rage boil up from the corner of the room... the man sitting across the cafe is angry at his well dress dinning partner. John focuses his abilities and finds the angry man is planning on killing the well dressed man shortly after they leave the cafe.

Makes it almost a sixth sense.

Re: Passive Mind Reading
 

The horrifying part would be if the Mind Reader continued reading. . .

Re: Passive Mind Reading
 

Hows about Fabio without the speedo? Talk about traumatic!

Re: Passive Mind Reading
 

Gambit does one better, he bring up the memers of aseeing The Blob, Naked.

Re: Passive Mind Reading
 

I like Kromm's summary. Mind Reading with Reflexive is how I'd do Matt Parkman's power in Heroes. He hears people's thoughts, usually without meaning to, but the concentrates to get a better reading (to get rid of the -4, that is)

Re: Passive Mind Reading
 

The disadvantageous part could be accessinility to a point or two of IQ - not when around people (exluding other trained telepaths working with you and similar..).

But how to price it (I suppose it depends much on the range of the TP and wether sleeping people count or not) and would the possibility that if you somewhat lose the TP ability you also lose the distraction count as anything more than a perk. I suppose not - unless you hawe acces to psi block drugs or something like that...

Re: Passive Mind Reading
 

i always thought of Matt's inadvertant hearing of thoughts as being uncontrolled as it does not always seem to be "on". having said that i do like the reflexive idea lol.

Re: Passive Mind Reading
 

The only time I wouldn't allow a mind reader to read a sleeping person's mind is if the ability is specifically defined as only reaching conscious thoughts. The idea of a Mind Reader watching somebody's dream, or even better, EXPERIENCING a person's dream while asleep is just too cool for me to pass up willingly.

Re: Passive Mind Reading
 

Just a wee recomendation:

There is a TV movie out there, Thoughtcrimes, that tells a nice little story about all of the issues bantered about here:

A woman gets caught in a psychotic hell on prom night, crushed under a million voices intruding on her mind.

Years later, she learns that she's actually not crazy ... the bad news is that it is the MIB's who do the telling.

The the struggle to control the thing begins ... life and death of course depends on it ... hers not at least!

Of course this is not a brilliant piece by the scions of moviemaking, but it had me pleasantly surprised. OK plot, OK acting, good handling of low budget ressources.

Re: Passive Mind Reading
 

Passive Mind Reading is it a benefit or just annoying.

I had a similar idea but left it.

It could be written off as a quirk you just get random thoughts now and then.

Re: Passive Mind Reading
 

Looking at it that way covers what I was looking for pretty. Thanks.

Re: Passive Mind Reading
 

If it's just a benefit, add Reflexive to Mind Reading.

If it's just a drawback (with the teeny, tiny plus that you get to know when there's people around), take the Supersensitive Disadvantage.

If it's both, take both! :)