Hiding

Hiding is the art of not being seen. Sometimes you need to avoid unwanted attention by hiding. There are many professional uses of hiding, such as investigators tailing suspects, refugees evading soldiers, snipers concealing their position, journalists avoiding attention, and toddlers avoiding bathing. 

Finding a Hiding Spot

With a quick look around your surroundings, you can find a suitable spot hidden by cover, concealment or darkness. You can also hide in plain sight to find a way to blend into your surroundings to avoid standing out or looking suspicious. You can usually identify several potential hiding places that offer the best combination of cover and concealment. You can return to a previously chosen hiding spot to have the same chance of hiding again.

Perception Factor

It takes a sharp eye to spot the best possible hiding place in a hurry. Your perception factors into your hiding chances.

Risk of Being Seen

Your hiding chance risks the seeing chance of anyone who might see you.

Cover & Concealment Factor

Being able to hide depends on finding hiding places in your surroundings. It’s easy to hide in a jungle or a dark cave, and it’s difficult to hide on a salt flat short of burying yourself in the sand. Cover factors may vary depending on your hiding spot’s coverage relative to each observer’s point of view.

Seeing Factor & Field Of View

The best way to remain hidden is to stay out of sight, because if you can see them, they have a chance of seeing you. Sometimes you want to continue to observe while hiding. For example, you can peek through a door crevice by holding door open and then letting go using a combination of hiding and sneaking to open doors quietly. The better you can see, the worse you can hide. Thus, your hiding chance is subtracted from your seeing chance.

However, it sometimes becomes necessary to be both hunter and hunted. If you see them before they see you, you can take better cover or stop moving to better hide while still observing them.

Camouflage Factor

Camouflage and color contrasts make a big difference when attempting to hide without complete cover. If you wear something that blends in with your immediate surroundings, your hiding chance increases. Learn more about camouflaging.

Movement Factor

Movement attracts attention. It is best not to move while hiding. Even moving your head or hands can give you away (–5% chance). Try to focus your eyes within a single field of view rather than moving your head if you need to look around. Pick a head position that gives you the widest possible field of view of the area you will need to observe. You can attempt to stay hidden while crawling (–20%), walking crouched (–30%) or walking upright (–50%). It’s nearly impossible (–100%) to hide while running or charging except in the dark or far away.

Sneaking Up On Someone Looking Away

It is possible to move or sneak up on someone while hiding by moving only when they look away and hiding motionlessly again before they look back in your direction. Very risky (–50% chance).

Moving Using Concealment

If you can stay behind something that blocks an observer's view of you while moving, you can move closer without being spotted until you leave that concealment.

Light Factors

Light makes it difficult to hide. Darkness provides a +20% hiding chance. Shadows cast.

Shadow Factor

If you pass in front of a bright light like the sun that casts your shadow where observers can see, your movement is hinted at and you have a –20% or worse hiding chance.

Avoid Sillhouetting

Avoid “skylining” or otherwise placing yourself in front of a contrasting background where your shape becomes visible. Silhouetting yourself at the top of a hill is a dead giveaway, especially while moving.

Size Factor

People larger and smaller than full--sized adults don’t fit into the same hiding places. You get a size factor that is plus your percentage shorter or minus your percentage taller compared to full human size (1.8m). Thus, if you are 20% smaller, you get a +20% size factors on Hiding chances.

Avoiding Observation

“Think Quickly, While Nobody is Looking!”

If people are even casually observing you , you can’t hide. You can run around a corner or distract them so that you’re out of sight and then hide, but the others then know at least where you went. If your observers are momentarily distracted (as by a deception chance; see below), though, you can attempt to hide. While the others turn their attention from you, you can take a hiding chance if you can get to a hiding place of some kind. (As a general guideline, the hiding place has to be within 1 meter per 10% you have in Hide.) This test, however, is at –10 because you have to think and move fast.

Creating a Diversion to Hide: “Hey look at that!”

You can use deception to help you hide. A successful deception can give you the momentary diversion you need to attempt hiding while people are aware of you.

Taking Time Or Hurrying

If you have plenty of time to hide before you expect anyone is listening, you can hide without also sneaking. But if you need to hide quickly without making noise before someone nearby sees or hears you, you must also take a sneaking chance. Finding a hiding place in a hurry is tough and might cause you to overlook the least obvious spots.

Hearing Observers Coming

Hearing someone coming with enough advance notice can give you time to hide in a hurry.

Seeing Observers

If you spot a new observer before they spot you it can give you time to hide. Sometimes it is difficult to tell if you have been spotted or not. 

Observer Psychology

Understanding how potential observers may be thinking can help you predict where they will be going and looking.

Time & Effort

Depending on how successful your hiding is, you will pick a particular spot or means of hiding. Sometimes the best method of hiding will require time or other skills to achieve. For example, hanging from a ledge while someone walks by is a climbing challenge. But going to more extreme lengths to hide effectively will increase your chances of hiding.

back to wall, using cover:

crouching, Crouching behind low cover: 

Things That Look Out Of Place

Sometimes someone doesn’t so much see you as see something that looks suspicious and warrants further investigation. Someone familiar with an area may see that it has been changed if you modified the environment or constructed concealment where there was nothing before.

Disturbing Plants and Animals

In a natural environment, hiding runs the risk of disturbing plants and animals in a way that will give you away to an observer. Birds can be startled by your movements.

Leaning Around Corners

You can peek around corners by leaning just your head around a corner with hands readied to pull yourself back behind cover quickly.

Mirroring Around Corners

A pocket mirror can be a useful way of looking around corners without exposing your face.

Nobody Looks Up

If you are skilled at jumping and climbing, you can find hiding spots high up where few will look. The trouble with high spots is that they are sometimes difficult to escape from once you are spotted or need to flee.

Concealment Isn't Cover

Not all concealment is actually solid enough to protect you from attack. Only concealment with sufficient stopping power constitues cover against certain types of weapons. A curtain may conceal you, but it won't stop a knife or a pistol like a concrete wall might.

And Now For Something Completely Different

The Art of Not Being Seen (Video)

Stealth Games

Stealth games teach both observation and stealth.

Eagle Eyes

One person stands and counts to 30 while everyone else hides 50 feet away...

Dear Ears

One person...