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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7868380" data-attributes="member: 42582">[USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER], this is not a post about 5e but we did have a couple of knowledge-type checks in our last Prince Valiant session.System context: Prince Valiant, in its basic dynamics of play, has (i) rolls count, and (ii) GM has predominant authority over new scene-framing/background-type content that is introduced into the fiction.First example:The PCs, having landed in Dalmatia and being on their way to Constantinople, are leading their warband ('the Knights of St Sigobert') across the Balkan peninsula. Exercising GM scene-framing authority, I decide that they are attacked by a band of Huns. The players declare that they are arraying their forces for battle, and with a successful Battle check the player of the Grand Master of the order establishes a good position, meaning that a penalty die will be suffered by their rassailants.Exercising further GM authority, and following a suggestion in the episode description I am working from, which mentions an ambush by the Huns, I decide that part of the Hun force is separate from the main force and is ambushing the PCs on their flank. In discussion with the players, we agree which PC (the Marshall of the order) is in command on that flank. And then, as per the rules of the gam, I call for the player of that PC to make a Presence check to see what he notices. He succeeds, and so the ambushing Huns don't get a flanking bonus, but they do avoid the penalty from the advantageous position that is being suffered by the Huns attacking the force from the front.In this example, the framing of the situation is establsihed using GM authority; the knowledge check determines whether or not the PCs suffer a disadvantage coming out of that framing.Second example (for which memory is a little hazier):The PCs, travelling through a forest in the vicinity of Transylvania, encounter an undead knight and entourage. They are trying to lifft the curse that keeps these beings in their state of undeath. When I read and amplify a description of the undead from the relevant episode text, the players take it as a sign that these people are Celts, and I run with that.The players of two PCs, who have Lore skill, make checks to try to learn various things about the past and the details here: from memory at least one of these is an attempt at recollection, while the other is an attempt to understand the significance of a seemingly magical wooden dais, engraved with a sigil, that one of the PCs has found by spending a player fiat resource (a Storyteller Certificate) and that seems to be connected to the curse (because that's what the player had stipulated his PC was trying to find, when he spent the Certificate).. I don't think there were any failed tests. On the successful tests I narrated more stuff about the history of these ancient Dacian Celts and why they had become cursed, which include mystical visions of past events at the timber dais. The players then use this information to help with the declaration of their actions to persuade the undead knight to move on from his curse, and let them pass through the forest.In schematic terms, I would describe this as: successfurl knowledge check obliges the GM to establish more background/framing context, which the players can then use as material for their action declarations. The successful checks, besides establishing some fun colour, help generate the momentum towards successful resolution of the situation that the players are trying to establish. I think it's worth noting how this doesn't require the players to themselves be able to author that new background/framing stuff. But it does require the GM, when authoring it, to do so in a way that respects that the players succeeded on their checks.While this was done in a different system from 5e, I think these sorts of approaches might be usable in 5e also.</blockquote>

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