Listen

Key facts

Base Value

20

Overview

Listen covers hearing and interpreting sound: the board creaking on the stair above you, the conversation two rooms away, the engine that has been idling outside for longer than it should. It is the awareness skill that works in the dark, around corners, and through a door you have not opened yet. At the table Listen is often the roll that decides whether an ambush is an ambush. It is also the eavesdropping skill, which makes it an investigative tool rather than a purely defensive one. A lot of scenarios hide their best information in a conversation the investigators were never meant to hear, and Listen is how you get it without needing a reason to be in the room.

How it works

Base Value: 20% Key Uses:

• Hearing someone approach before they arrive
• Eavesdropping through walls, doors, and floors
• Identifying a sound: a gunshot, a specific voice, machinery
• Noticing that a room has gone quiet Special Rules: Listen is opposed by Stealth when someone is deliberately moving quietly, and modified by the environment: a silent house helps, a factory floor or a storm imposes penalties. Keepers frequently roll Listen in secret so that a failure feels like nothing happening, which is the point of the skill.

Tips and playstyle

Build Advice: Cheap insurance. Starting at 20%, a modest investment brings it into the range where the Keeper's secret rolls land in your favor. Occupation Synergies: Listen and Spot Hidden together give complete awareness and cover for each other's blind spots. Stealth benefits directly, since knowing where people are is how you avoid them. Psychology turns an overheard conversation into a read on the speaker. Character Concepts: Private investigator, journalist, drifter, clergyman, police officer, anyone whose job is waiting.

Frequently asked questions