How do you use the "Trivia" ability?

[DrunkonDuty]

I dunno... good question.

as only one example... If you were playing/running a game and it had a thing that was mostly "Trivia: the character can recall interesting facts useful to the situation at hand which are not actually part of the plot or mystery or clues." = how would you use it?

There are certainly many other ideas and ways to write up a Trivia ability or skill, I am hoping to explore what everyone thinks of when it comes to "Trivia" as a useful thing for a character to do.

And I will be honest, I have no idea or requirement on it, just wondering stuff

I'm afraid the only answer I can give is too general to be of much help: "the character recalls some useful info."

Maybe you could translate that into a dice roll modifier for a relevant skill. "Oh, all these old Chubb safes use a triple tumbler."

Or maybe you give a clue for a puzzle. Or even the answer. e.g: "Oh I've seen this in an old Dr Who episode, it's the old 'One always lies, one always tells the truth' conundrum." Just hope you don't get those idiots from Labyrinth.

 

[MGibster]

I agree. I've been thinking about when to and when not to make rolls a lot lately. All for my homebrew HERO System that I'm muddling out. Fewer rolls is better. It's faster. It stops parts of the adventure being gated behind rolls.

Delta Green has a percentage based skill system and they don't always require a roll to know what someone with that skill would know. Land Warfare (I think), is the skill you use to figure out the best way to use the terrain, set up a kill zone, plan an attack or defense of a structure, and the kind of general tactical planning for an operation someone in the military or law enforcement might know. A scenario might say something like, "Characters with a 25% Land Warfare notice the only safe way to approach the house unseen is from the woods to the south." Other times you might know something with a 50% but if you roll successfully you get additional information.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

That's a good way to do it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I agree. I've been thinking about when to and when not to make rolls a lot lately. All for my homebrew HERO System that I'm muddling out. Fewer rolls is better. It's faster. It stops parts of the adventure being gated behind rolls.

Yeah one thing that's been really notable when I stepped back from DMing a bit during the pandemic is that the other DMs I played with initially were very "roll-heavy" relative to how I ran things, in one case to almost a parody degree, but as they got more recent experience with DMing (two of them had long-ago experience), all of them have moved to fewer and fewer rolls.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Trivia is clearly used for social checks. Used to confuse or daze opponents and put them off-guard. Maybe even to impress. Roll knowledge check using charisma or Persuasion/Convince check using INT

“Why does he keep talking about all these useless obscure facts?”

“He’d probably be amazing on Jeopardy. “

Adventurer name: Cliff Claven

(Sorry for the Obscure Cheers reference)

Classic Final Jeopardy answer: Who are three people who have never been in my kitchen

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Oh man...

I'm currently playing a Star Wars game. It's online with some old, old friends. I love hanging out with them. But the need to roll dice for every damn thing. Every. Damn. Thing. And the discussions that go on before the rolling. And, because is FFG Star Wars, there's all the discussion afterwards about what to do with all the threat/advantage/despair/triumph. Arrrrrggggghhhhhhh!

Sorry, rant over.

 

[aramis erak]

What situations is it useful for?

Any situation where it might provide information of a weakness, be it combat, social, or magical conflict.
Any time where knowing the right fact about a subject enable better planning.

I would use it as a form of self-help fairly often.
I also have allowed Trivia/Lore rolls to define something about undefined lore, again, starting in Burning Wheel, but expanding to many other games.

Can it ever be used for more than 'trivial' benefit? Can it be highly effective?

It's the same as help from another player in Burning Wheel; in the absense of a trivia rule à la BW's FoRKs, I often allow a success on the knowledge roll to be self-help. In 2d20 Dune or Star Trek, it's a preparatory action to create a temporary trait to reduce the difficulty of the main action... Similarly in Firefly or MHRP, or in Fate.

For GM's how would it help you for players to use it?

It shifts successes a good bit... It makes for richer play... And meaningful choices about which skills to invoke and how to shade the narration and derive failure stakes based upon that choice...

 

[aco175]

Model it after the new Lucky feat and have it 3 times a day you get some knowledge when you need it.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

I like all these !


Even the idea around "the player gets to add something or a truth to the scene" = thats fun too!

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

I fine Common Knowledge and such useful when players MIGHT have picked up snippets of info, but it’s not at the top of their head, like about a space station in the region that they haven’t visit. The better the roll, the more info and details.