Listening/Hearing and the rules

[B.T.]

Thanks a lot, guys!

I'll do it the way, Mahatatain solves these situations.

Again, this Forum has been a great help.

[Mahatatain]

Glad to help!

[StainlessSteelCynic]

One of the guys I know never liked the notion of using Observation as a check against the other senses e.g. hearing or smell and his game group didn't want hundreds of extra skills that have limited use so they made a new skill called Awareness (I think they stole it from Cyberpunk 2020).

It covers all the other senses (hearing, smell, touch, taste) along with sense of balance, temperature and movement etc.
The reason for that was simple - one of the PCs was temporarily blinded and the player thought it was daft that tests involving his sense of smell and hearing were made on a skill that implies the use of sight.
The Awareness skill was typically half the character's Observation skill for character generation but was raised as normal during gameplay