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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 8303658">It is late so my answer may lack certain details or start to ramble. I think first, it does depend on what the guard is guarding and what kind of setting we are dealing with. So it is a little hard to say in a vacuum, dealing with the guard alone. Again a lot of it is going to be asking questions (what is he wearing, what does he look like, etc). There may also be skill rolls to notice things if that seems important. My rule of thumb is if the player asks something specific, no roll needed they get the info (i.e. if the player asks what his hands look like, I will mention that he has a wedding ring, whereas if he just says "I look at the guard" I may ask for a roll to see if the the player spots the ring. Keep in mind, I am answering for myself when I run my approach to skilled play (which is not going to be standard for all OSR GMs---for example I use social skill because a lot of people like them, even though personally I dislike them: and social skills are a contentious thing among skilled play GMs.What information is obtainable would depend on the guard. You aren't going to be able to deduce where he was last night and how much money he spent at the casino like Sherlock Holmes, by just observing his demeanor, but you could certainly get details like someone seeming emotionally weak or strong, someone seeming sad, happy, or angry, a person looking like they've been in a lot of combat and survived, someone looking like they are in need of new clothes, etc.  That is just off the top of my head. There would be plenty more that would come up naturally in an interaction with players on this front. If the players cased out the guard more, they could definitely do a lot more than that. Like I said, I've had players follow guards and similar NPCs around, to learn more about them. That would potentially lead to a lot more information. That also would, to your above question, come with greater risk of being caught (and spotting someone following you is definitely an area I would leave to a die roll with a possible modifier based on spotter's specific actions: i.e. I am constantly checking over my shoulder to see if I am being followed). A good example of this might be the scene in Goodfellas where they found out the security guard had a weakness for women, and arranged to put him in a situation where they could steal his keys and make copies.  I can imagine a similar scenario where players learn about that sort of shortcoming, an potentially use it to black mail and coerce the guard. What they could find though depends on the guard and what his situation and personality is. If he is someone heavily in debt, or who demonstrates a powerful interst in money, they might be able to try bribery, or offer to trade information for a favor. Again though depends on what this guy is guarding, what the setting is, what the players choose to do specifically in terms of bluffing this guard.</blockquote>

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