Should Perception be a mental stat or a physical stat? Why or why not?

Should Perception be a mental stat or a physical stat? Why or why not?

does it matter?

it's clearly a "g" by the way.

It definitely shouldn't tied to IQ.

A. Does it necessarily matter?

B. Mental

Since your perception is based on a bunch of different physical senses all wrapped up together it makes the most sense just to call it a mental stat as most physical changes to you would simply change one or two senses while a major mental change (drugs or mental trauma) throw them all off at once.

It's your ability to process the information your senses are gathering. There is very little difference between the actual quality of people's senses, it's down to your ability to take that in and notice things.

that 'b' is pretty crooked

They laid that a down the wrong way up.

Also, mental. Who treats perception as a physical stat?

Mental. Perception also includes the ability to comprehend the bits of informations given by sight or hearing when percieving things.

I.e. You see movement in a bush, but you must interpret it as a sign of someone creeping up on you from there, and learn to percieve actual danger or remarkable things instead of just curious thing

Do you mean perception as in the ability to notice something, ie: I can spot squirrels in a tree easily? If so then it's physical. Or if it's interpretive ie; You listen to the recording and hear a voice whispering, roll for perception to hear what it's saying (such as with an EVP, if you watch any ghost hunting shows) then it should probably be a taken as a mental stat.

>Who treats perception as a physical stat?
People who make rude gestures at blind people.

>People who make rude gestures at blind people.
They know when you do that, btw.

Also - deaf people? SUPER BIGOTS.

It's clearly a six.

It's clearly a bad drawing of a pirate hook.

Even noticing something is mental, not physical.

Having a high-quality camera certainly helps, but what matters more is the quality of the software processing the image. Two people can have equally good eyes (physically speaking, as would be indicated in an optometry exam), but differ wildly in their ability to pick out details in what they're looking at.

Personally, I think the core perception stat should be mental, with physical advantages (ie, having sensory organs that are physically more sensitive) being represented through feats/perks/whatever your system has for extra bonuses added on to your basic stats/skills. (And likewise, disadvantages for impaired sensory organs, like nearsightedness or colorblindness.)

It's both. Think about it.
Physical, in that good or poor eyesight, hearing, or an insensitivity or hypersensitivity to pain can affect how well you perceive things.
Mental, in that your mind needs to be able to disentangle the data coming in, or be sifting that data for specific markers. "Why does this fish smell like turpentine?", "I didn't ask for almond in my coff-"*thud*, and "Hey, that guy's actually a bear!" are examples.

If you get better at reading stuff on the other side of the room as you get older due to mental stay increases then it should be physical.

>"I didn't ask for almond in my coff-"*thud*
Bitter almonds taste and smell different to regular almonds

>deaf people? SUPER BIGOTS.
Oh, I've heard stories about deaf people who get crazy pissed off and abusive at other deaf people who get surgeries and such done to restore their hearing, it's honestly quite absurd

MUH DEAF CULTURE.

I once played a game that used the five senses as game stats. Perception was split into Eyesight and Hearing, Touch was important for crafting and projectile weapons, Taste mattered for cooking and detecting poisoned food, and Smell mattered for cooking, some encounters, finding bodies, and favorable NPC reactions to your character.

Congrats, you passed your Perception check.

GM should ask the player exactly what they're trying to achieve and then determine whether it is physical, mental or a combination thereof.

Putting it as a skill divorced from or only secondarily influenced by stats is what most systems do anyway, which is far more sensible.

I would minimax taste and smell

This is how I would run it. Stats are already abstractions, reducing multiple real factors down into one game number is already their job. It doesn't matter if those factors are both mental and physical. It's the job of use-case to differentiate when Percepetion is standing in for a character's physical or mental abilities. What skill you roll in conjunction with your Perception stat, what circumstances give you bonuses or penalties-- these are what determines what your Perception actually represents in any given moment.

>Smell increased to absurd supernatural levels
>Walk into a brothel
>You can smell the semen in the air so strongly it's as though you're gargling it yourself.
Nope, that's not a stat I'd want to get too high above average

Its spring here atm and there's this tree who's pollen smells like spunk. Always funny to see people's reactions as they walk under it if they don't know about it already

That sounds like linden wood! The very same tree that nymphs keep getting turned into to escape Zeus. Also a top-tier wood for shields because of the unusually fibrous grain. Blades lodge in the stuff really and get bound up really easily, making for a choice protection and disarming tool.

>They know when you do that, btw.
No, they don't.

>The very same tree that nymphs keep getting turned into to escape Zeus
Well that explains everything then

It's an easy scene to picture.

>Hey Agathon, why do you suppose this tree smells like a Corinthian whoreshouse?

>Well it's divine jizz isn't it, Demetrios.

>How so?

>Well, Zeus, right? He likes his nymphs.

>That's true. Everyone knows that. Zeus likes his nymphs.

>Right. So the way I figure it, he's going after a nymph like a Theban goes after his squadmate, and how does Hera feel?

>Well, pretty angry I guess.

>Just so! So she turns the nymph into a tree, right? So Zeus can't fuck her.

>Sure, that's something she would do. But why does the tree still smell like your slavegirl's sheets?

>Well obviously he fucks the tree anyway.

>Yeah, I can see that. I mean, It's Zeus. Only...

>What?

>There's a whole forest of these trees...

>learn
You are describing skill, moron. You don't "learn" strength, agility or intelligence, you learn skills that rely on those stats.

No, you fool! It's a lowercase letter G, obviously.

Most games don't have mental stats automatically increase due to age.

Uh, they need to move; I'm pretty sure that's a golem. Not sure what type though, because the pic is black-and-white.

Props to my fellow roguelike-without-graphics players.[/color]