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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6676131" data-attributes="member: 42582">I agree that's the crux of it.Why, when you investigate an icon, do you not roll Perception instead (eg to notice the details of how it looks)? Why is their a paradigm of &quot;saying yes&quot; to visual perception, but not of &quot;saying yes&quot; to recollection? This is one way of restating the question I'm interested in.All this can be achieved by the GM choosing what information to provide. Including the GM choosing what degree of information to convey.Some people don't know who their parents were, but in D&amp;D there has never been a practice of determining whether a PC knows who his/her parents are via die roll - and certainly not via an ability/skill check. Why choose to hand out backstory based on such rolls in this particular case?It seems to me there is a difference between the game coming to an unexpected end because the players declared actions for their PCs, and failed due to bad luck; and the game coming to an unexpected end because the players missed out on relevant backstory due to random dice rolls.It seems to me that the question is, Why are we rationing backstory via die rolls? The answer in Gygaxian play is clear: because spending resources to generate those dice rolls (or otherwise trigger access to backstory) is an element of skilled play; and skilled players who gain the backstory will use it to their advantage (eg to find the better treasures, to avoid the tougher monsters, etc). In this mode of play, acquiring backstory is itself one demonstration of player skill.But I don't think any of the active posters in this thread is playing a Gygaxian game. (If I'm wrong on that, I'm happy to be corrected.) What is the reason for rationing backstory in other modes of play? I'm not asserting that there is no reason; I'm just interested in learning what it is!</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6676131, member: 42582"] I agree that's the crux of it. Why, when you investigate an icon, do you not roll Perception instead (eg to notice the details of how it looks)? Why is their a paradigm of "saying yes" to visual perception, but not of "saying yes" to recollection? This is one way of restating the question I'm interested in. All this can be achieved by the GM choosing what information to provide. Including the GM choosing what degree of information to convey. Some people don't know who their parents were, but in D&D there has never been a practice of determining whether a PC knows who his/her parents are via die roll - and certainly not via an ability/skill check. Why choose to hand out backstory based on such rolls in this particular case? It seems to me there is a difference between the game coming to an unexpected end because the players declared actions for their PCs, and failed due to bad luck; and the game coming to an unexpected end because the players missed out on relevant backstory due to random dice rolls. It seems to me that the question is, Why are we rationing backstory via die rolls? The answer in Gygaxian play is clear: because spending resources to generate those dice rolls (or otherwise trigger access to backstory) is an element of skilled play; and skilled players who gain the backstory will use it to their advantage (eg to find the better treasures, to avoid the tougher monsters, etc). In this mode of play, [I]acquiring backstory is itself one demonstration of player skill[/I]. But I don't think any of the active posters in this thread is playing a Gygaxian game. (If I'm wrong on that, I'm happy to be corrected.) What is the reason for rationing backstory in other modes of play? I'm not asserting that there is no reason; I'm just interested in learning what it is! [/QUOTE]

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