From:	Bob Tockley zzdeden@*******.com.au
Subject:	Concealing Stuff
Date:	Tue, 23 Feb 1999 15:07:28 +1000

I recently saw a study on the human mind and the way it perceives changes
or abnormalities in the environment. One of the experiments the
psych-students worked out was pretty simple. They thoroughly filmed and
documented it, repeated the experiment 1,000 times to various people in
various locations, and wrote up the results. Here's how it went:

One of the students (wearing a red shirt, beanie, and jeans) would walk up
to a pedestrian and ask for directions to one of the local hangouts.
Halfway through the discussion, two other students, carrying a wooden table
between them (thus, hiding their upper bodies from the pedestrian) would
move towards the two, and the student asking for directions would allow
them to pass between him and the pedestrian. As the table blocked the
pedestrian's line-of-sight to the student asking for directions, one of the
students carrying the table (wearing a blue shirt, no beanie, and short
pants) swapped places with the question-asking student. After receiving
the remainder of the instructions, the person was then questioned on
whether he'd noticed. Of the 1,000 trials made - only one woman noticed
the difference, but was too un-sure to actually ask.

Concealabilty has always been a problem in Shadowrun - especially if you
treat it how the books read - make a Perception Test to determine if
-every- NPC notices the gun... or the clips... or the Nav-DAT GPS... etc
etc etc. Based on the "I can't see it because nothing's drawn my attention
to it" mentality of humankind, I've been trialling a separate system, which
I'll outline the basics of...

If the concealability of an item is greater than the number of dice the
NPC would roll in a Perception Test (usually Intelligence), the NPC does
not get a test to see if he notices it UNLESS one of two other factors come
into play. Either the NPC has reason to suspect the character is carrying
a weapon/item/whatever (because the character is dressed inappropriately,
has made some suggestive/intimidating remarks, looks like the type, or
whatever) OR if the NPC is properly trained to look for weapons (assume all
security, police, paramilitary, shadowrunners, federal agents, and the
like, to fall into this category).

Characters with reason to suspect the character or who have the
appropriate training or experience to know what to look for, make their
Perception Tests normally.



(>) ARKHAM
"War is man's answer to boredom. Technology is man's answer to the lack
of war."