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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6676249" data-attributes="member: 42582">The unpredictability issue was discussed a bit upthread. [MENTION=22424]delericho[/MENTION] said that he (? I think) likes unpredictability, and that this resides principally in the players' choices as to what to do with and about the backstory they know. I agree, but because unpredictability reside principally in the players' choices, don't feel that there is any great benefit in uncertainty as to access to backstory per se.The comparison I made upthread is to making a d20 roll to see which module you use, rather than just choosing the one you think will be most fun.I don't think so. The question of what my PC learned in school is a fact about my PC, not a fact about the broader setting.If I don't have to roll to learn whether or not my PC was taught cobbling at school (but instead just pick the cobbler background, or cobbler skill, or whatever), why do I have to roll to learn whether or not my PC was taught about such-and-such a secret cult?Is it about fairness? Eg it would be unfair for a player to declare that his/her PC knows every secret about every cult, but equally it would be unfair for his/her PC to know nothing about any secret cult, so the information is rationed by dice rolls? I think something like this is what is going on with the classic D&D thief's Read Languages ability, but that is in a broader context of information rationing in which the notion of fairness has purchase.Whereas in non-Gygaxian games (that are also different from some of the non-Gygaxian approaches that I've described upthread, eg BW) the broader context that makes sense of information rationing is what I'm trying to understand.But how is it better to force a roll that might make them make a choice based on bad data? If making choices based on bad data is bad, how is it less bad if it happens sometime based on rolls, rather than always based on GM mandate?Or, to flip it round, if it sometimes good for the players to make choices based on bad data, why is it not sometimes good for the GM to mandate that such a situation will occur?I know the answer to these questions in Gygaxian play: because acquiring the data is itself an element of player skill. I don't think that answer generalises to other playstyles, though.I don't see them as being at all the same.For instance, in the combat case the GM can't stop the TPK (assuming no Deus Ex Machina) other than by suspending the action resolution rules (eg fudging die rolls, or overtly declaring that the NPCs miss rather than hit). Whereas in the case of the religious icon, the GM can just declare that "Yes, your PC did learn about such-and-such a secret cult when studying at Obscure Knowledge College."The analogue to the TPK in the investigation scenario would be the players not declaring that their PCs search the room, or not declaring that their PCs look at the icon. But once they have searched the room, and have declared that they examine the icon, the players have made all the action declarations that they can - it all turns on what backstory is authored about their PCs (what did they learn at college) and hence what backstory the players become privy to.It would be possible to construct a combat that had a similar dynamic - eg the demilich puzzle in Tomb of Horrors - but in the typical FRPG combat encounter, the ability of the players to make meaningful and effective action declarations doesn't generally turn on having access to some particular bit of backstory which is rationed like the icon information.If the PCs have to return to locations because the players didn't make sensible action declarations (eg they didn't search the desk, or whatever) that is quite different from the knowledge roll scenario. It's like making a bad choice in a combat, and you wear the consequences.If the visit to the NPC has a cost, then that becomes like the "stakes" examples we discussed upthread - the reason for the knowledge check is to find out what resources, if any, the players have to forfeit in order to get the information.If there is no cost other than time spent at the table in visiting the NPC then again the rationale of the whole structure becomes more opaque to me. Couldn't we just short-cut straight to the information - either by declaring that the PC knows it, or describing how the PC visits his/her friendly old mentor who tells him/her all about the nefarious cult of so-and-so?That helps with the aesthetic, yes. I think it raises some other questions, though, or at least leaves them unanswered, like what is "the story being told", and who is telling it?This seems to me to be getting close to the heart of things, but some elements are still a bit unclear to me.I agree that PC build choices, including acquiring Knowledge skills for a PC, have a cost. The question is, then, what is the player buying for that cost?In Gygaxian D&D, the answer is fairly clear: the ability to discern backstory (secret doors, traps, etc) which will enable a skillful play to engage in even more skillful play, and thereby increase the XP & treasure per session ratio.In 4e, the answer is fairly clear: the ability to learn monster stats during combat, which can be an advantage in that system; and the ability to declare actions in skill challenges (as was discussed upthread, 4e knowledge skills also include "active" aspects, like using Nature to find the way or to tame an animal, or using Religion to exorcise an evil spirit).In Burning Wheel, the answer is also fairly clear: knowledge skills enable action declarations which will permit player authorship of backstory (eg the "chink in the armour" example upthread, or "locking in" that the feather the hawker is selling really is an angel feather).In both 4e and BW, knowledge skills can also be used to gain access to the GM's secretly-authored backstory, but that is not their sole use. When used in this way, the main benefit the player gets is to force the GM to declare, and thereby "lock in", the backstory. It's a sort of "tempo" benefit.In the style of play which emphasises "collecting potentially useful clues", what is the benefit to the player in collecting those clues? How do they relate to the adventure - and what exactly is the adventure (or, in [MENTION=22424]delericho[/MENTION]'s terminology, the story being told? If a group of players turns up with PCs completely lacking knowledge skills and divination magic, what will they not be able to do, in terms of engaging the game and doing well at it, that they could do if their PCs did have those abilities?</blockquote>

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