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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7833689" data-attributes="member: 4937">One of the things you have to keep in mind is that if you put a library or even just a bookshelf in the dungeon, then the books in that library contain vastly more information than the dungeon itself.&nbsp;&nbsp; Indeed, they probably contain more information than your entire campaign.&nbsp; So there is a huge disparity between the granularity which you can treat the dungeon, and the granularity you can apply to a book or a bookshelf.&nbsp;&nbsp; If preparing the dungeon to a particular granularity requires 32 pages, the bookshelf may require 6000+ pages.&nbsp;&nbsp; It's just not practical to prepare the books.&nbsp;&nbsp; And for the library, even a two line summary of the book titles and contents might require 6000 pages.&nbsp;&nbsp; So you have to make compromises.The lesson is that in a game simulating a world, things that are information dense are hard.The same basic problem applies to something like &quot;Recall Knowledge&quot;. You are dealing with something that is information dense. If you tried to have some sort of highly granular rules for &quot;Recall Knowledge&quot; you'd quickly run into the problem that those rules would be larger than all the rest of your rules combined. Since any limited set of rules would be insufficient to cover even a default campaign setting set in a specific location in that world, much of any &quot;Recall Knowledge&quot; resolution process has to be left to fiat both in its DC and the information that results. This can depending on the GM result in a situation where divination and &quot;Recall Knowledge&quot; vary in utility from useless to the most powerful abilities that a character can have, depending on the GM's comfort level with giving information to players through character resources, the GM's generosity, and how quickly the GM can think on his feet. I don't think there is much a system can do about that, and the best a rules set can hope for is to have examples of play that encourage the sort of structure the designer expects - something that I think is best seen in various attempts at Call of Cthulhu rule sets whether classic BRP based or GUMSHOE based. The difficulty you are encountering in other words is rooted in inherent math. You can't avoid it.In my own game I try to assign a difficult to a bit of information based on how well know I think it would be.&nbsp; That DC can vary from like 5 to 40 depending on whether it's something I think every peasant farmer would know like that the weaknesses of vampires (known to every school kid even in a world they don't exist) to lost, hidden, or specific information not likely to be in a book and which only the gods might know.&nbsp;&nbsp; Then for every point that the PC beats the DC, I try to give them one fact that they recall (using the best result by any party member).&nbsp;&nbsp; For large parties and low DC's, it's probably not even worth it to roll.&nbsp;&nbsp; Just give enough exposition to cover the situation.&nbsp;&nbsp; I like for the players to have character lore that they can draw on.&nbsp;&nbsp; I also don't at all mind if they have player knowledge to draw on.&nbsp;&nbsp; I'm decidedly not the sort of DM that minds if fire is used against trolls, as I don't feel any sort of need to play &quot;Gotcha&quot;.&nbsp;&nbsp; Players are going to be lost enough as it is without trying to hide information from them or trying to force them to play stupidly for the sake of imagined &quot;realism&quot;.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7833689, member: 4937"] One of the things you have to keep in mind is that if you put a library or even just a bookshelf in the dungeon, then the books in that library contain vastly more information than the dungeon itself. Indeed, they probably contain more information than your entire campaign. So there is a huge disparity between the granularity which you can treat the dungeon, and the granularity you can apply to a book or a bookshelf. If preparing the dungeon to a particular granularity requires 32 pages, the bookshelf may require 6000+ pages. It's just not practical to prepare the books. And for the library, even a two line summary of the book titles and contents might require 6000 pages. So you have to make compromises. The lesson is that in a game simulating a world, things that are information dense are hard. The same basic problem applies to something like "Recall Knowledge". You are dealing with something that is information dense. If you tried to have some sort of highly granular rules for "Recall Knowledge" you'd quickly run into the problem that those rules would be larger than all the rest of your rules combined. Since any limited set of rules would be insufficient to cover even a default campaign setting set in a specific location in that world, much of any "Recall Knowledge" resolution process has to be left to fiat both in its DC and the information that results. This can depending on the GM result in a situation where divination and "Recall Knowledge" vary in utility from useless to the most powerful abilities that a character can have, depending on the GM's comfort level with giving information to players through character resources, the GM's generosity, and how quickly the GM can think on his feet. I don't think there is much a system can do about that, and the best a rules set can hope for is to have examples of play that encourage the sort of structure the designer expects - something that I think is best seen in various attempts at Call of Cthulhu rule sets whether classic BRP based or GUMSHOE based. The difficulty you are encountering in other words is rooted in inherent math. You can't avoid it. In my own game I try to assign a difficult to a bit of information based on how well know I think it would be. That DC can vary from like 5 to 40 depending on whether it's something I think every peasant farmer would know like that the weaknesses of vampires (known to every school kid even in a world they don't exist) to lost, hidden, or specific information not likely to be in a book and which only the gods might know. Then for every point that the PC beats the DC, I try to give them one fact that they recall (using the best result by any party member). For large parties and low DC's, it's probably not even worth it to roll. Just give enough exposition to cover the situation. I like for the players to have character lore that they can draw on. I also don't at all mind if they have player knowledge to draw on. I'm decidedly not the sort of DM that minds if fire is used against trolls, as I don't feel any sort of need to play "Gotcha". Players are going to be lost enough as it is without trying to hide information from them or trying to force them to play stupidly for the sake of imagined "realism". [/QUOTE]

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