Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - Bonus to hearing rolls - specifically taking several seconds to listen

hal · 02-16-2014, 11:33 PM

Having been born hard of hearing as a result of complications of my birth - I think I can add some thoughts to the thread...

Sometimes, no matter how hard I try, no matter how hard I wish - there are going to be sounds that I just can NOT hear, simply because I suffer from nerve damage to my auditory nerves. Think of it as hearing loss at say, -2, with an additional -1 penalty for higher octave sounds (aka the vocal range of women's voices). If I wear a hearing aid, I might gain a +1 bonus at best (technically, I suffer from about 25% and perhaps 30% loss in both ears). In order to help augment my hearing loss, I have to lip read in order to catch conversational cues that I missed with my hearing. My "Alertness" or lip reading skill in constant use, might gain me another +1 bonus, and what I miss conversationally, I can sometimes interpolate due to context of conversation and basic redundancies in language. That isn't a function of my hearing the sound(s), but in interpreting the sounds I do hear.

So, someone might be able to hear the faint sound of a siren in the distance, that I just can't hear. Someone might be able to hear a cat purring from 6' away, that I can't hear from 3'.

My advice? NEVER give player characters more than a +1 bonus unless it is augmented by devices. Always utilize a two roll system where the first roll is to see if the sound is heard, and the second roll is for whether or not the person hearing the sound can make sense of it. It would be like listening to a radio at volume 2, and hearing noise, but not recognizing the sound or even style of music, raising the volume to 3 and maybe being able to figure it is punk or country music or something, to raising the volume to 4 and recognizing not only the artist singing, but also what the song is. Volume two is a recognizable radio like sound, but not make much sense of it. Volume 3 gives more information, but still isn't 100% discernible. It took volume 4 before one could comprehend what one heard.

So, like that example above, think of sound as being hearable, but not necessarily intelligible. A snapped twig that was barely heard and not repeated isn't going to be recognizable as a snapped twig unless the sound was heard, and the person could interpret it in that fashion.

02-16-2014, 11:33 PM	#5
hal Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Buffalo, New York	Re: Bonus to hearing rolls - specifically taking several seconds to listen Having been born hard of hearing as a result of complications of my birth - I think I can add some thoughts to the thread... Sometimes, no matter how hard I try, no matter how hard I wish - there are going to be sounds that I just can NOT hear, simply because I suffer from nerve damage to my auditory nerves. Think of it as hearing loss at say, -2, with an additional -1 penalty for higher octave sounds (aka the vocal range of women's voices). If I wear a hearing aid, I might gain a +1 bonus at best (technically, I suffer from about 25% and perhaps 30% loss in both ears). In order to help augment my hearing loss, I have to lip read in order to catch conversational cues that I missed with my hearing. My "Alertness" or lip reading skill in constant use, might gain me another +1 bonus, and what I miss conversationally, I can sometimes interpolate due to context of conversation and basic redundancies in language. That isn't a function of my hearing the sound(s), but in interpreting the sounds I do hear. So, someone might be able to hear the faint sound of a siren in the distance, that I just can't hear. Someone might be able to hear a cat purring from 6' away, that I can't hear from 3'. My advice? NEVER give player characters more than a +1 bonus unless it is augmented by devices. Always utilize a two roll system where the first roll is to see if the sound is heard, and the second roll is for whether or not the person hearing the sound can make sense of it. It would be like listening to a radio at volume 2, and hearing noise, but not recognizing the sound or even style of music, raising the volume to 3 and maybe being able to figure it is punk or country music or something, to raising the volume to 4 and recognizing not only the artist singing, but also what the song is. Volume two is a recognizable radio like sound, but not make much sense of it. Volume 3 gives more information, but still isn't 100% discernible. It took volume 4 before one could comprehend what one heard. So, like that example above, think of sound as being hearable, but not necessarily intelligible. A snapped twig that was barely heard and not repeated isn't going to be recognizable as a snapped twig unless the sound was heard, and the person could interpret it in that fashion.