SAGE: What constitutes as "LORE" for the Researcher feature?

[NewbieDMaster]

Hello everybody,
I've been having a bit of difficulty with a couple of PCs in my current game with the Sage background. The Sage gets a feature called Researcher which does the following:

When you attempt to learn or recall a piece of lore, if you
do not know that information, you often know where and
from whom you can obtain it. Usually, this information
comes from a library, scriptorium, university, or a sage
or other learned person or creature. Your DM might
rule that the knowledge you seek is secreted away in an
almost inaccessible place, or that it simply cannot be
found. Unearthing the deepest secrets o f the multiverse
can require an adventure or even a whole campaign.

My question is, what exactly constitutes as "lore" when using this feature? My PCs are trying to interpret the ability as, "anything we don't know, we know where to find information on", and I don't like that. I like to create situations where the players have only a little bit of information and have to role play to gain additional information. The feature, when interpreted in this way, seems to break this kind of role playing.
Are we interpreting this feature correctly? Any help would be appreciated.

[GWJ_DanyBoy]

Well, they don't know exactly where to find the information, just more generally, as in "There's a proffessor at such-and-such university who might know something". And maybe they do know something. Maybe they don't. It's really just a short-cut for you to feed that character plot hooks that may lead them to learning stuff. And it explicitly gives you an out, so if you don't want to give them a piece of information, you don't need to. Just give a reason such as no mortal or institution knows about it. Or make gaining the information way too pricey to gain, like needing favors from a god or somesuch.

[Draken]

Hello everybody,
I've been having a bit of difficulty with a couple of PCs in my current game with the Sage background. The Sage gets a feature called Researcher which does the following:


My question is, what exactly constitutes as "lore" when using this feature? My PCs are trying to interpret the ability as, "anything we don't know, we know where to find information on", and I don't like that. I like to create situations where the players have only a little bit of information and have to role play to gain additional information. The feature, when interpreted in this way, seems to break this kind of role playing.
Are we interpreting this feature correctly? Any help would be appreciated.

If they know where to go to find out some piece of information it also means they know when there is nowhere to go for that information and thus need to wing it.

Treat that background feature as if the character was a scholar who keeps in touch with other scholars around the world through mail and etc. They are always talking about their research and trading info and thus all of them have a good idea of what several other people are working on. But that doesn't mean everyone has an answer.

In fact, go an extra mile and setup a ring of NPC acquaintances the character has, work with the player in this. Give him, I don't know, 2d4 scholar friends who study various things that may come to be of interest. Make at least half of them study fancy-sounding things that you will probably never use in the campaign itself to throw the players off the tracks.

[DanyBallon]

Like GWJ_DanyBoy said, it's a great plot hook generator. Otherwise it can be used to force downtime on a group. (i.e. it will take x days of searching, talking to the right person etc. What will you do in the mean time?)

[Daishain]

If its a legend, piece of history, academic knowledge or has otherwise had reason to be committed to paper and/or researched by fellow sages, it probably qualifies.

What wouldn't qualify would be stuff like: who to talk to to find out about the local thieves guild's recent activities.

Even if it does fall into the first category, you don't have to just give the information up. The more obscure the information, the more hoops the players should expect to jump through, and particularly obscure details have no guarantee that any source of info will contain them.

[NewbieDMaster]

If its a legend, piece of history, academic knowledge or has otherwise had reason to be committed to paper and/or researched by fellow sages, it probably qualifies.

What wouldn't qualify would be stuff like: who to talk to to find out about the local thieves guild's recent activities.

Even if it does fall into the first category, you don't have to just give the information up. The more obscure the information, the more hoops the players should expect to jump through, and particularly obscure details have no guarantee that any source of info will contain them.

Thank you for this Daishain, That helps me a lot! Everybody else, your answers were also very helpful. ^_^

[Slipperychicken]

My question is, what exactly constitutes as "lore" when using this feature? My PCs are trying to interpret the ability as, "anything we don't know, we know where to find information on", and I don't like that. I like to create situations where the players have only a little bit of information and have to role play to gain additional information. The feature, when interpreted in this way, seems to break this kind of role playing.
Are we interpreting this feature correctly? Any help would be appreciated.

Only if the information is conveniently within reach, in the hands of someone who will helpfully hand it to them at no cost. Just make roleplay involved with getting to and accessing it. PCs might know where the library is, but they still need to get directions, do encounters and spend resources associated with reaching it, deal with hazards and enemies on the way, and convince the keepers to let them access the information. Just getting people to give you the information could be a hook for all kinds of quests; someone might have borrowed, lost, or stolen the needed text, so the PCs might have to quest to find it again. The whole process is loaded with potential quest hooks and RP opportunities.

If you need the information to be inaccessible, maybe it's located with a spy agency, in a lost temple, locked up in a celestial bureaucrat's desk, or in the hands of some other group that really doesn't want to give it up.

[MrStabby]

I would probably ask people to be a bit more specific. The things commonly discussed are very much traditional lore. I would allow people to select other backgrounds that offered other types of Lore:

Martial lore (not intended to be a pun but you take what you can get): You know who to ask about weapons, weapon production, troop movements etc..

Natural Lore - knowledge about all things in nature. Where plants or animals are to be found, seasonal migratory patterns. Advantage on interpreting patterns of plant growth to infer things about the environment etc..

[Rowan Wolf]

Also biographical pieces you never know who truename might be in the journal of an acquaintance from antiquity.