Observation Skill and the Opposite Sex

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

Looks like the same answer to me, although a P.I.'s job might fall under the purview of 'police operations'.

So there is no skill currently for observing people without letting them know you are watching them?

Hm. If Observation is only about Geography, Structures, Electronics and the like...and not about observing people stealthily...then I at least need a new Skill. I have not only played PIs who go on stakeouts to watch people, my players do it all the time. To be more clear. I often have PCs in games I run who are not police or military...but regular people, sneakily watching people and trying to overhear conversations or get dirt on people, etc.

Any suggestions for what to call this new skill? Social Observation? Surveillance?

[RedMattis]

Shadowing sounds pretty close. That skill is about knowing where to hide and how to look inconspicuous

[Xplo]

I suspect that the skill of checking out hotties is way, way out of scope for most GURPS games.

If someone actually has Observation skill for use in social situations, because they're a private eye or something, then I suppose they could use that.. but it's silly to suggest that they need to buy it just to check out hotties.. or that checking out hotties for long enough will give them a skill that's useful in a broader context.

Most people only think they have this skill, anyway. Trust me - they know you're looking at them.

[Jasonft]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Observation is the skill of gathering tactical and strategic intelligence for criminal, espionage, military, and police operations: geography (lines of sight, topography, important features), structures (number, location, size, defensive value, entrances), security systems (number, location, type, quality), guards (number, location, rotation, training, armaments), mounted weapons (number, location, type, arcs of fire, crew), vehicles (number, location, type, state of repair, crew), signals (visual, radio, etc.), etc. I would say that watching attractive people is either a One-Task Wonder perk that lets somebody use Observation at Per for this one thing . . .

. . . or Connoisseur (Sex Appeal).

Observing a person of the opposite (or same!) sex with this skill would be entirely appropriate - if you were gathering information for potential conquest and/ or alliance. But casual observation (as opposed to Observation) would be a different skill set.

Shadowing sounds better for that, but I don't have my book handy.

Edit: Using Observation in the proposed manner is generally called stalking these days...

[krapou]

According to the description in the Basic Set, Observation seems to be the skill you are looking for :

B.211, Observation :
This is the talent of observing dangerous or “interesting” situations without letting others know that you are watching.

[Lupo]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Observation is the skill of gathering tactical and strategic intelligence for criminal, espionage, military, and police operations:

As others said, according to the Basic Set, Observation has some "stealth" component included and it's therefore useful in any kind of situation - anytime you don't want other people to realize you are looking. This looks like the definition of voyeurism...

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

Looks like the same answer to me, although a P.I.'s job might fall under the purview of 'police operations'.

Yep. I'm afraid I don't see how trooper6's desired skill differs from my description of Observation in any meaningful way. The way my brain works, what I wrote perfectly describes what he's asking for. "Guards" is obviously the worst case of "people," and "signals" includes conversation and social cues.

Originally Posted by Lupo

As others said, according to the Basic Set, Observation has some "stealth" component included

Well, yes . . . but my post wasn't about that, which is blatantly obvious from the skill description. It was about what kinds of things the skill trains you to notice.

Originally Posted by Lupo

and it's therefore useful in any kind of situation - anytime you don't want other people to realize you are looking.

Sure. The list of stuff I wrote up is what's canonically of relevance. Trivial uses are fine, too; that's why I recommended a One-Task Wonder perk that specifically lets you have just the trivial training without the meaningful kind.

Edit: And Observation being Average, you could have an Easy optional specialty – call it Social – that gives you Per level for 1 point. That would be much like the OTW perk, but improvable.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Well, yes . . . but my post wasn't about that, which is blatantly obvious from the skill description. It was about what kinds of things the skill trains you to notice.

See, there you have a difference in how the rules are read. I read that same skill description, and focused on "avoid having people notice you're watching" as the distinctive element that made it an Observation roll and not just a Perception roll. And I generalized it to any situation where "not being seen watching" was a desideratum, since it's not as if we had a whole family of skills for observing different sorts of things stealthily.

Bill Stoddard

[Kromm]

There are many skills for staying unnoticed – start with Acting, Camouflage, Disguise, Shadowing, and Stealth in person, and add things like Holdout and Smuggling when stashing little mikes and cameras. That's not the tricky part. The tricky part is understanding what you see well enough that you collect useful details for the analyst, and don't waste what might be limited time looking at the wrong door or listening to the wrong conversation. That's how Observation differs from Perception. It isn't unique, either; if you can mechanically collect reams of intel and analyze it at your leisure, then things like Electronics Operation and Photography are just as good. But absent such tools, having a good idea of which way to point your Perception is vital. Observation includes a minor ". . . and not be noticed" clause largely to cut back on rolling dice, as it gets annoying to have to make both a "be unnoticed" roll and a "notice stuff" roll; that isn't its primary thrust.

I'd strongly encourage those who are really interested in hard rules for which skills to use here to check out GURPS Action 2: Exploits.

[jacobmuller]

Originally Posted by nik1979

Don't people who know how to look over those of opposite sex discretely considered to have Observation Skill? If so how much?

I don't think that would be Observation. Discrete Chick Checkin' would be more of an IQ check thing. I'd employ skills if the player wants to analyse the behaviour of the target; body language, psychology, connoisseur (fashion...). To me, Observation would be about numbers, equipment, direction and speed of travel - is that a chick-gang or a sale queue? (in the case of Ikea openings in London there might not be much difference - was it Three dead?)