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<blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8155468" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Here is what I think some people would say to this (this is not my answer - speaking of # 2 below - and I think it would be an interesting conversation to have).In the D&amp;D community (probably somewhere around The Wilderness Handbook and the huge advent of metaplot and/or setting tourism as a growing D&amp;D cultural touchstone), two things happened (and then a third after it became clear that it made for problematic play):1)&nbsp; GM gating &quot;information dumps&quot; (of the Perception/Insight variety) around passive checks that have no attendant in-game decision-points.2)&nbsp; The point of agency in these &quot;downstream information dumps&quot; is alleged to be at the PC build stage (select x Primary Skill or y Secondary Skill or put z # Skill Points into this Skill).3)&nbsp; HOWEVER, some/most of these &quot;information dumps&quot; were important to convey to the PCs.&nbsp; Its borderline imperative that they get these pieces of information (Robin Laws speaks about this and attempts to address this at the system level) to solve the mystery or be immersed in the political intrigue of the court et al.&nbsp; So the GM tells the player to &quot;roll dice&quot; without giving them any target number so they can basically deploy Illusionism (ALL THAT AGENCY YOU HAD AT THE BUILD STAGE MATTERS GUY!) and give them the &quot;information dump&quot; regardless of the roll and regardless of the player's expression of agency at the build stage (which means, of course, that the alleged &quot;build stage agency&quot; doesn't exist in practice).3.x became the pinnacle of &quot;agency as an expression of build&quot; in D&amp;D.&nbsp; What do you (and anyone else) think about that formulation?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Manbearcat, post: 8155468, member: 6696971"] Here is what I think some people would say to this (this is not my answer - speaking of # 2 below - and I think it would be an interesting conversation to have). In the D&D community (probably somewhere around The Wilderness Handbook and the huge advent of metaplot and/or setting tourism as a growing D&D cultural touchstone), two things happened (and then a third after it became clear that it made for problematic play): 1) GM gating "information dumps" (of the Perception/Insight variety) around passive checks that have no attendant in-game decision-points. 2) The point of agency in these "downstream information dumps" is alleged to be at the [B]PC build stage[/B] (select x Primary Skill or y Secondary Skill or put z # Skill Points into this Skill). 3) HOWEVER, some/most of these "information dumps" were important to convey to the PCs. Its borderline imperative that they get these pieces of information (Robin Laws speaks about this and attempts to address this at the system level) to solve the mystery or be immersed in the political intrigue of the court et al. So the GM tells the player to "roll dice" without giving them any target number so they can basically deploy Illusionism ([B]ALL THAT AGENCY YOU HAD AT THE BUILD STAGE MATTERS GUY![/B]) and give them the "information dump" regardless of the roll and regardless of the player's expression of agency at the build stage (which means, of course, that the alleged "build stage agency" doesn't exist in practice). 3.x became the pinnacle of "agency as an expression of build" in D&D. What do you (and anyone else) think about that formulation? [/QUOTE]

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