One would hope they make up sensible things for sensible levels but that is by no means assured.
It is also by no means assured, that what is in descriptions now is sensible. (Other than through GM control, and you have proposed the solution to that potential problem yourself.) So I don't see any new problems introduced. On the contrary: Making people think by using this feaure before writing about what others
could actually perceive will improve on the RP quality of descriptions, IMO. If this feature eventually diverted the troublemakers' energy away from chat and into descriptions I would still call that a positive side-effect! This kind of asynchronous troublemaking is much more easily provable as well as contained!
What about those that would rp the levels that would trip it?
As I see it, people who intentionally do not use such huge parts of the available game features can't really expect to be catered when related features are concerned. They will have to do without adaptive descriptions as they have to do without crafting certain things, effecting most spells and so on. Seems a logical consequence to me and in no way unfair…
I think the idea of giving another player at chance to perceive things based on their skill is good, but I'm not a fan of using game mechanics for this for obvious reasons I won't blather on about.
Obvious?
‒ Again, game mechanics is why we have a game. I know some people prefer to roleplay without backing their character with game mechanics, but then you also shouldn't expect to have a mechanical way to ascertain other people's skills or profit from related game mechanics passively (i.e. you can't have your pie and eat it)…
I'm aware that I am intruding on the "creative writing" RPers use of the game to some degree here, but IMO descriptions have a potential to be much more useful to the majority who does prefer to work with game mechanics, while there would only be marginal losses to those playing without skill mechanics. (As I will explain in greater detail below.)
Another way of implementing this would be to have players make some sort of perception check. ie. I ask you if my dark way experience would afford me any extra insight into your character, maybe you decide or you ask me to /roll if you want this attempt to be based on chance.
This would either require a considerable programming effort (and thus is not realistic to be adopted into the existing roadmap for the game). Moreover, this would be far too disruptive to general game play if you would constantly have to react to all the "view-my-char" requests by others.
Or if done manually, it would even more inflate descriptions with potential perceptions that have to be read by everyone including pseudo-mechanical instructions on how and what to roll. Very much contraproductive for making the descriptions more useful and more reader-friendly.
I prefer a good novel if I want a big read, not spending a long time working through someone's character description in order to decide which minute detail I skillfully or randomly perceive or not.
That's why I play a computer RPG and not P&P. For me reading time is better and more comfortably invested in print products by professional authors.
I tried to propose something that is realistic and can be done with (as far as I can judge it) a reasonably low programming effort to complement what is there in terms of game features and game mechanics. Reinventing the wheel is not feasible. Plus, what you propose would run in parallel and be in no way tied to the existing mechanics, which does not make sense at all in developing a cohesive software product. The question is again, why do we have these game mechanics if we don't tie new game features to them.
It has been brought to this provocative conclusion before, but a chat alone does suffice for this kind of RP. If you don't need mechanical stats and skills and use manual rolls instead then why should mechanical ways of perception matter. If the RP is so far away from the mechanics and people do this extensive Q&A interaction about what or what not to perceive, the minor details in a description do not really matter a lot. The loss of a few written extra perceptions through the avoidance of mechanical skill should not be a problem if most character features are negotiated anyway.
Opposing the complementation of the skill features as proposed for this reason alone seems a bit unfair to those who use mechanical skills and would like to profit more from them. (Not to speak about being unfair to the programmers who made the already present unused features, BTW)
Players would just need to adopt this style of play and get used to it.
True enough, but players
could also adopt the use of already present game mechanics, which is much more likely.
To summarise most of the above… Let's not go any further into the discussion of wheter PS should have game mechanics like skills or not. But since it was brought up I needed to address the aspect. It's off-topic. PS
has game mechanics. If someone intended to undo that I guess that would need to go into a different whish-list thread.
And my proposal wants to make use of those mechanics and extend them. People who do not want to make use of that are not concerned, are they? Afterall using this feature would be entirely optional. Those who like their … 'ultrafaulkneresque' descriptions could keep them as before.
The purpose of character descriptions is like that of the name and guild label display: It's a workaround solution to the problem of not being able to display many individual features graphically on one's character. And I think here lies the strong point of my proposal. It would create a more individual description and would positively affect the dynamics between RPers who do use the game mechanics. (
"Have you noticed the daggers this guy is hiding in his boots?" ‒ … ‒ "Well, if you don't believe me, ask another dagger fighter you trust.")