Thursday 20 March 2014

Handling Light, first draft

Following a discussion on Shannon’s blog, here’s a quick stab at a chart for handling lighting modifiers.

After some brief playing around, I think there's four light properties that are probably relevant:

  1. how much light there is
  2. shadows - basically, whether it's ambient light/high light that leaves few shadows, or directional light that casts lots of deep shadows
  3. steadiness of light
  4. width of spectrum - lack of some colours reduces our ability to see properly

Lighting Modifiers

Concealment indicates the chance of a character or object going unnoticed, even without making any effort to avoid detection. Where a / is used, the first figure indicates the concealment of stationary objects, and the second that of moving objects. Very energetic or prominent motion should reduce the effect of concealment further.

Misidentify indicates the chance of a character not being recognised at a distance. This might include passing for authorised personnel in restricted sections, or being mistaken for another character expected to be present. The alert status of the watcher, the distance between them, the degree of resemblance, and whether the character’s behaviour follows expected patterns, may all modify this chance.

Light Prominence indicates whether light sources (such as LEDs, cantrips, glow-in-the-dark watches, torches, lanterns, screens, fires or sparks) are likely to attract attention.

Visual Tasks indicates the difficulty modifier applied to actions that rely heavily on vision. Some characters may be proficient at specific tasks by touch, such as typing, field-stripping weapons or picking locks.

I’m basically applying broad modifiers based on the lighting and the amount of shadow, then another fixed 10% for light sources that are particularly skewed towards one colour, and another 10% for particularly unsteady of lighting.

Concealment = Lighting + Shadow + Spectrum + Unsteady

Visual Tasks = Lighting + Spectrum + Unsteady

Misidentify = Lighting + Spectrum + Unsteady

Total Darkness

  • Concealment 100%
  • Visual Tasks -90%, or automatic failure if vision essential (reading, surgery)
  • Misidentify - characters will anticipate this and behave accordingly
  • Any Light Prominent

Deep Forest

  • Concealment 80%
  • Visual Tasks -80%, or automatic failure if vision essential (reading, surgery)
  • Misidentify - 80%
  • Any Light Prominent

Starlight

  • Concealment 70%/35%
  • Visual Tasks -50%
  • Misidentify 50%
  • Low Light Prominent, Flickering Light Prominent

Candlelight

  • Concealment 70%/35%
  • Visual Tasks -60%
  • Misidentify 60%
  • Low Light Prominent, Steady Light Prominent
  • Short range

Firelight

  • Concealment 55%/25%
  • Visual Tasks -45%
  • Misidentify 45%
  • Moderate Light Prominent, Steady Light Prominent
  • Short range

Stereotypical Tavern

  • Concealment 50%/25%
  • Visual Tasks -40%
  • Misidentify 40%
  • Low Light Prominent, Steady Light Prominent

Twilight

  • Concealment 35%/20%
  • Visual Tasks -35%
  • Misidentify 35%
  • Moderate Light Prominent, Flickering Light Prominent

Full Moon

  • Concealment 40%/20%
  • Visual Tasks -20%
  • Misidentify 20%
  • Bright Light Prominent, Flickering Light Prominent

Daylight, Modern Office Lighting

  • Very Bright Light Prominent

Dark
(50%)
Dim
(40%)
Low
(25%)
Moderate
(10%)
Bright
Minimal shadow Cloudy night Specialist lab
Museum special collections
Atmosphere restaurant
Shabby hotel
Cloudy winter
Indie hotel
High noon
Modern office
Gallery
Fast food joint
Chain hotel
Occasional shadows
(10%)
? Cloudy moon
Tavern
Twilight
Well-lit street
Victorian office
Chain pub
Cathedral
Small industry
Cheap dorm
Winter sun
Factory
Crowded Lab
Frequent shadows
(30%)
Deep forest
Haunted house
Candlelight
Starlight
Theatre
Firelight
Underpass
Mediaeval house
Moonlight
Sunrise/set
Georgian house
Full moon
Summer evening

Reflection

This is probably too detailed to be usable as an in-game chart, but hopefully is interesting as an idea.

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