How do you Handle Smells in your Game?

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One conundrum I've not really solved with describing smells in games is when to calibrate descriptions to what the player would be familiar with and when I should stick with what the character would find normal. They're likely to be very different things, in most premodern fantasy settings, at least.

You might think that the obvious answer is to describe things from the point-of-view of the character: if a smell is so expected or usual that they would not notice it, then there is no point in describing it. That's what I do most of the time.

But sometimes it makes more sense to approach things from the point of view of the player. Part of the experience, after all, is immersing yourself in this imaginary alternative world. I find that it can help with that if the descriptions sometimes point out sensory elements of that world that are quite unfamiliar to us in our lives nowadays. Descriptive works of social history tend to use that trick as well, pointing out the way that smells, sounds, and sights of the premodern world are vastly different than what we are used to, though they were unremarkable to people at the time.

Generally, I hew to the 'describe what the character would notice' approach for things that are in effect clues to what is going on and 'what the players would notice' for scene-setting, but that isn't always the case.
 
So how do you handle this in your games? Do you try to include smells in most of your descriptions? Do you do reaseach on what things smell like? Is it something you totally leave up to your players' imaginations?

I do use smells quite a bit in my current Fantasy AGE game, which also has smelling as a skill focus for Perception. The characters spend a lot of time in areas where they have had to rely more on smell and hearing than sight, because only one of them has darkvision and for some reason they seem to be allergic to light sources. I don't know how many times they're going to march boldly into the dark before saying "Shit, I forgot torches."

But anyway... they've had to rely on smell a few times. Once I had them roll Perception (Sight/Smell) it to find a dead body in the dark, which had a couple torches for them. Another time I let them use it to track a noble, following them by the smell of their cologne. I figure if it's a focus then I should use it, make players see the value of having it so it doesn't feel wasted.

I don't do research. My wife tells me I have the nose of a pregnant werewolf. I have a terribly sensitive sense of smell and have been hit with some nasty stuff. Like I used to work as a CNA in high school, which was miserable and I can still remember what nasogastric drainage smells like nearly 20 years later. I just let players imagine how something smells without trying to get too graphic in the description. If I say a room smells like rotten meat, or like they've walked into a flower garden, or if there's the slightest tang of kerosene in the air, they will get the idea.
 
I don't do research. My wife tells me I have the nose of a pregnant werewolf. I have a terribly sensitive sense of smell and have been hit with some nasty stuff. Like I used to work as a CNA in high school, which was miserable and I can still remember what nasogastric drainage smells like nearly 20 years later. I just let players imagine how something smells without trying to get too graphic in the description. If I say a room smells like rotten meat, or like they've walked into a flower garden, or if there's the slightest tang of kerosene in the air, they will get the idea.

while I wouldn’t quite say pregnant werewolf, my son and I both have very sensitive sense of smell. My wife puts on half a puff of perfume 40’ away through 4 rooms and I can smell it by he time she’s put down the bottle.
 
while I wouldn’t quite say pregnant werewolf, my son and I both have very sensitive sense of smell. My wife puts on half a puff of perfume 40’ away through 4 rooms and I can smell it by he time she’s put down the bottle.

Do you get headaches from strong smells? That's something I'll describe, that a smell is powerful enough to make them retch or that they feel a headache coming on.
 
Do you get headaches from strong smells? That's something I'll describe, that a smell is powerful enough to make them retch or that they feel a headache coming on.
yea, occasionally. I feel like it's gotten stronger lately. I didn't notice the fumes from cars as bad, but lately I have been reflexively putting it on recycle (HEPA filter) because it's gotten really annoying.
 
This makes me wonder, usually there's physical damage, like stabbing, mental damage, like psionic attacks and sound damage, like sonic weapons. But what about smell damage? Like a scent gun that shoots an odor so potent it causes hp loss.
A taste gun too... hmmm...
 
This makes me wonder, usually there's physical damage, like stabbing, mental damage, like psionic attacks and sound damage, like sonic weapons. But what about smell damage? Like a scent gun that shoots an odor so potent it causes hp loss.
A taste gun too... hmmm...

That's an interesting idea. I'd be more inclined to have the smell incapacitate instead of doing actual physical damage--it is so intensely bad that it makes targets nauseated, lowering their chances of success at attacks, spells, etc. A failed save (or skunky critical hit, whatever) could lead to vomiting and more severe impairment.
 
I did get some durian flavoured cream biscuits to give to my cow-orkers last year but I didn't get any takers. If I ever see durian flavoured kit kats I might buy some.
You think the cow-erkers would like the kit-kats better:grin:?
 
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