[Rq-rules] the five senses and base skill scores

[Tom Cantine]

Why not treat this as a permanent skill modifier, rather than the base 
skill? So, a supertaster would start out with the same basic 5% (which 
would apply for skill advancement), but would receive a bonus of +20 
percentiles all the time.

Harnmaster, by the way, has traits for Eye, Hearing, Smell/Taste, and 
Touch, and they're generated with 3d6 each.

On 15-May-07, at 10:08 AM, Peter Maranci wrote:

> Oooh, this raises an issue I'm quite interested in: supertasters.
>  
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_taster
>  
> Approximately 25% of the human population (of Earth) are supertasters. 
> 50% are medium tasters, and 25% are nontasters.
>  
> I happen to be a supertaster (there's a simple test you can perform at 
> home to find out if you're one). As a result, my senses of taste and 
> smell are unusually keen; if there's a gas leak in a house, I'm the 
> first person who's going to know about it. There are, of course, some 
> drawbacks as well.
>   
> In any case, it seems to me that if the super/medium/non-taster 
> phenomenon exists in a game world, it should probably make a rather 
> large difference in the base skills for both taste analysis and smell; 
> Nontasters might have a 0% base, medium tasters a 5% base, and 
> supertasters 25%. On the other hand, this would allow medium tasters 
> to gain experience in those skills more rapidly, and that doesn't seem 
> right. My understanding is that supertasters can do jobs that others 
> simply can't; professional wine tasting, for example, or perfume 
> creation.
>   
> This would fit in well with a GURPs-like Advantage/Disadvantage 
> system, actually.
>