Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Rules and such => Topic started by: 忍 on <08-27-16/1925:06>
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What options does a character with Deaf have for interacting with the Sixth World? A datajack is a no-brainer to start, but what then?
How would y'all implement a mic or drone to hear then put through some sort of software to make AR text in the PCs field of view? What minimum pilot would be necessary to "alert me when being hailed"? What price would you put on a speech to text program (per language likely)?
What other creative tech solutions are there for Deaf PCs?
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I would use an omni directional mic with select sound filter to catch the player's name and dangerous sounds.
Next would be a directional mic for conversation.
Then you would need the correct language or languages.
Software for speech to text, I can't see costing more than 10 per language.
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Honestly I wouldn't unless its a street scum level game. Between bio and cyberware I can't see anyone making it long enough to become an established (normal) runner without getting deafness treated with some form of cyber/bioware. Unless there's a restrction on just how far it can go I'm not aware of and give there are lionization technics and the like that can completely rewrite the genome, change a persons sex, even I vaguely recall alter a species or at least the appearance thereof fixing deafness should be fairly simple.
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There's always a chance your body won't just take the fix, however. Or a holistic reason, which is also a good possibility.
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You may just be a mage/adept who doesn't want to have any fraging metal or other stuff in her for essence reasons.
Or a character that has a phobia or something.
If you have any kind of cyber though, it becomes a lot harder to justify...
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IMHO, what you are doing (if not hooking something up to your brain to replace said healing lose) is adding additional tasks for your eyes (or metaphorical eyes if in matrix) to handle so I would have some sort of penalty as you have to divide you attention to two things. ie you eyes are now both see'ing and hearing for you.
What to use for senses? I would probably use some of the following radar, Lidar, sonar and or any other ranging technology for detection. Once you have a ping then you can task other "sense" options to determine just what it is that is coming from direction X.
Note: In one game I played in a GM ruled that if you took negative qualities (flaws) such as deafness then they could not be healed by any means, even cyber did not work as the centers of your brain were broken some how. Be sure to ask you GM for a ruling.
Note 2: This rule was because we were getting some really crazy PC's for one player that often greatly impeded the party if they idea did not work. In essence we were a small'ish group of 3-6 and if one PC went down there was a significant chance that the rest of us were going to be creating new PC's as well. ie lame, blind, deaf rigger's were not considered as a PC option because of past negative experiences by the GM.
MDC
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Note: In one game I played in a GM ruled that if you took negative qualities (flaws) such as deafness then they could not be healed by any means, even cyber did not work as the centers of your brain were broken some how. Be sure to ask you GM for a ruling.
There is no need for such a rule because everytime you do something to cancel a negative quality (such as getting Cyberears for Deaf) you have to buy back the quality for Karma x2 and it is not allowed at chargen.
In general any Neg qualities that has no impact on the character will be denied by the GM anyway such as Incompetent Cracking for a non hacker.
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Note: In one game I played in a GM ruled that if you took negative qualities (flaws) such as deafness then they could not be healed by any means, even cyber did not work as the centers of your brain were broken some how. Be sure to ask you GM for a ruling.
There is no need for such a rule because everytime you do something to cancel a negative quality (such as getting Cyberears for Deaf) you have to buy back the quality for Karma x2 and it is not allowed at chargen.
In general any Neg qualities that has no impact on the character will be denied by the GM anyway such as Incompetent Cracking for a non hacker.
Thanks for the info, I have been working my way through 5E and seem to have missed that ruling.
IMHO this is a big improvement from past editions as as I have said before solves one of the problems we had to house rule before.
MDC
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IMHO this is a big improvement from past editions as as I have said before solves one of the problems we had to house rule before.
It was in 4e, too.
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Try to understand that I'm not attempting to make the deaf hear. I merely want to help the deaf to live functionally with the help of technology. Adding subtitles to everyday conversations seems like a huge upgrade in quality of life to someone who can't hear. Now 5th has a DP modifier for focusing on AR IIRC. This is a bearable inconvenience considering the alternative.
Just for reference:
Deaf:
Characters with this quality are completely deaf and can perceive no sound at all. This means they automatically fail all audio-based Perception Tests. They also face a –2 dice pool modifier for general Perception tests, a –3 dice pool modifier for Surprise Tests, and any other modifiers at the gamemaster’s discretion.
15 Karma buys me not so great Perception and slightly worse Surprise Tests. That doesn't mean I ought not have a way to interact with existence through a means of ease. Besides, that's what technology is for! A datajack isn't going to break the negative quality, and cyberears wouldn't work anyway RAW.
@fseperent: I like your thinking, however what happens next after a dangerous sound is received? A blinking warning icon? Would that cover all situations? Firefight? Explosions? Crashing Vehicals? Would you need a program or Agent to determine what to convey?
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I was thinking that it would show a red crosshair pointed at the noise or a red arrow at the edge of sight to indicate which way to look.
Gunfire, loud noises, and explosions would cover most threats in a urban situation.
For the software, you wouldn't need much intelligence to constantly analyze the audio coming in.
I would say a R2 agent to handle the alert and text displays would suffice.
A higher rated agent would be better at detecting if the noises are coming from real threats, from speakers, or from your chummer's guns.
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Yep I was answering to markc about removing the quality.
Deaf really shouldn't be too bad in the 6th world. As you mentioned AR can pretty much give you subtitle for everything, Magic can also help by using Mindlink. I think the game nailed it by giving only a malus to Perception/Surprise and nothing on Social interactions.
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For the average person in SR that cyber replacement was not a option, would have several tools at their disposal.
For the most part, I think a standard commlink with some translation software would be all that is needed for most personal interactions. The deaf person aims the Mic of the commlink at the persons they want to 'hear', the commlink captures their words, and displays them in AR for the deaf individual to read. Done.
Hearing sounds from the environment is an other issue altogether, and the deaf person probably wouldn't be able to pick up on environmental audio clues at all... As the ambient noises would either overload the mic, or even just confuse it with what it is supposed to translate.... After all, <Crashing sound. Breaking glass. Screeching noise.> doesn't really help the deaf person much... Are they approaching an accident? A construction site? A robbery in progress?
And honestly, if the person was born deaf, they would proabably find such info distracting, often relying on their other senses to clue them into the happenings of their environment.
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For the average person in SR that cyber replacement was not a option, would have several tools at their disposal.
For the most part, I think a standard commlink with some translation software would be all that is needed for most personal interactions. The deaf person aims the Mic of the commlink at the persons they want to 'hear', the commlink captures their words, and displays them in AR for the deaf individual to read. Done.
Hearing sounds from the environment is an other issue altogether, and the deaf person probably wouldn't be able to pick up on environmental audio clues at all... As the ambient noises would either overload the mic, or even just confuse it with what it is supposed to translate.... After all, <Crashing sound. Breaking glass. Screeching noise.> doesn't really help the deaf person much... Are they approaching an accident? A construction site? A robbery in progress?
And honestly, if the person was born deaf, they would proabably find such info distracting, often relying on their other senses to clue them into the happenings of their environment.
As someone with partial hearing loss and significant vision loss, I can say in complete honesty that a character WILL find a way to overcome their deafness. My sense of smell is by far my strongest sense, and the smells of a gunfight (gunpowder and cordite) are drastically different than the smells of construction (concrete dust, diesel fuel/exhaust, and sweat). A character who was born deaf, or has been deaf for any significant amount of time will learn to adapt.
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For the average person in SR that cyber replacement was not a option, would have several tools at their disposal.
For the most part, I think a standard commlink with some translation software would be all that is needed for most personal interactions. The deaf person aims the Mic of the commlink at the persons they want to 'hear', the commlink captures their words, and displays them in AR for the deaf individual to read. Done.
Hearing sounds from the environment is an other issue altogether, and the deaf person probably wouldn't be able to pick up on environmental audio clues at all... As the ambient noises would either overload the mic, or even just confuse it with what it is supposed to translate.... After all, <Crashing sound. Breaking glass. Screeching noise.> doesn't really help the deaf person much... Are they approaching an accident? A construction site? A robbery in progress?
And honestly, if the person was born deaf, they would proabably find such info distracting, often relying on their other senses to clue them into the happenings of their environment.
As someone with partial hearing loss and significant vision loss, I can say in complete honesty that a character WILL find a way to overcome their deafness. My sense of smell is by far my strongest sense, and the smells of a gunfight (gunpowder and cordite) are drastically different than the smells of construction (concrete dust, diesel fuel/exhaust, and sweat). A character who was born deaf, or has been deaf for any significant amount of time will learn to adapt.
I got a buddy with advanced Retinitis Pigmentosa that begs me to take him with me when I go target shooting. He can't hit anything with out me lining him up, but just loves the feel of the guns and the smell of spent powder. (As long as he pays for his ammo, I could care less!)
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For the average person in SR that cyber replacement was not a option, would have several tools at their disposal.
For the most part, I think a standard commlink with some translation software would be all that is needed for most personal interactions. The deaf person aims the Mic of the commlink at the persons they want to 'hear', the commlink captures their words, and displays them in AR for the deaf individual to read. Done.
Hearing sounds from the environment is an other issue altogether, and the deaf person probably wouldn't be able to pick up on environmental audio clues at all... As the ambient noises would either overload the mic, or even just confuse it with what it is supposed to translate.... After all, <Crashing sound. Breaking glass. Screeching noise.> doesn't really help the deaf person much... Are they approaching an accident? A construction site? A robbery in progress?
And honestly, if the person was born deaf, they would proabably find such info distracting, often relying on their other senses to clue them into the happenings of their environment.
As someone with partial hearing loss and significant vision loss, I can say in complete honesty that a character WILL find a way to overcome their deafness. My sense of smell is by far my strongest sense, and the smells of a gunfight (gunpowder and cordite) are drastically different than the smells of construction (concrete dust, diesel fuel/exhaust, and sweat). A character who was born deaf, or has been deaf for any significant amount of time will learn to adapt.
I got a buddy with advanced Retinitis Pigmentosa that begs me to take him with me when I go target shooting. He can't hit anything with out me lining him up, but just loves the feel of the guns and the smell of spent powder. (As long as he pays for his ammo, I could care less!)
I grew up around guns, and with years of practice I've learned to not only differentiate gunpowder from other smells, but actually be able to tell what kind of round was used. Winchester Ammunition 22 long rifle 36 grain plated lead hollow point rounds leave a slightly different smell than, say Remington UMC .44 180 grain jacketed soft point rounds.
That said, I grew up around a LOT of guns. Because 'merica.
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For the average person in SR that cyber replacement was not a option, would have several tools at their disposal.
For the most part, I think a standard commlink with some translation software would be all that is needed for most personal interactions. The deaf person aims the Mic of the commlink at the persons they want to 'hear', the commlink captures their words, and displays them in AR for the deaf individual to read. Done.
Hearing sounds from the environment is an other issue altogether, and the deaf person probably wouldn't be able to pick up on environmental audio clues at all... As the ambient noises would either overload the mic, or even just confuse it with what it is supposed to translate.... After all, <Crashing sound. Breaking glass. Screeching noise.> doesn't really help the deaf person much... Are they approaching an accident? A construction site? A robbery in progress?
And honestly, if the person was born deaf, they would proabably find such info distracting, often relying on their other senses to clue them into the happenings of their environment.
Honestly I'm not sure I agree. Bear in mind you can for not much more get mics (in shadowrun) with select sound filters and the like so it'd be quite easy to have it set to ambient noise normally and then tune in only on the guy showing you around his house. As someone who likes subtitles on movies (most modern one have a really annoying habit of loud thematic music that drowns out what the characters are actually saying) I don't think having those playing need be that distracting. Think of a small white text box scrolling away "background noise, bird chirping, store music, guy sniffing." then in BIG BOLD RED LETTERS "CRASHING SOUND, BREAKING GLASS, SCREECHING NOISE." May not help them much but it'd tell them something odd was going on and alert them they should at least take a quick look round to determine if its a construction site or a truck sliding towards them.
Not to mention with the AI somethings have it could well be possible to program an agent like the Nixdorf Secretar except aimed at determining normal sounds vs danger sounds and alerting the subject to them. For that matter it could be useful for anyone your strolling along the street, asleep, suddenly your morning music cuts out and you hear the sounds of screams and gunshots as it draws your attention to an incident happening nearby so you can run away.