What does Gather Information entail?

[Quertus]

No doubt this seems a silly question, but if someone says they want to make a “Gather Information” roll, and you want to break that down, narrate the action, what would you be describing?

Perhaps more tangibly, if one wanted to change “gather information” from a single roll on a “Gather Information” skill into its own minigame, one would need to evaluate all the components that the rules gloss over and abstract into a single roll.

So, what do you think of when you hear “Gather Information”?

[Doctor Despair]

Gathering information takes a few hours, and rarely does the whole party help, so I don't usually try to draw a bunch of attention to it. However, I usually use it as asking people around town about the issue, offering gold at bars for anyone with information about X, etc. Remember, it's a -20 to do it without raising suspicion, so you're pretty obvious about it with a normal check. It's also charisma-based (setting aside the skill description), so it really should involve talking to people and trying to convince them to tell you about the thing. It says you can spend gold on it in the skill description, but I'd argue that just means the "masterwork tool" for it would be a small bag of petty cash for bribes/rewards for tips.

[Thunder999]

It's just going around asking people about something.

[pabelfly]

I wouldn't make it into a minigame, I think it works fine as intended. I like the money suggestion though, I'm stealing that for my games.

Gather Information is the abstraction of finding out information relevant to a plot or mission. A player is attempting to persuade various NPCs to tell them (who are likely strangers) relevant information for what they are inquiring about. It's not diplomacy, in that they're not really attempting to persuade characters to do anything (but the players might meet a character that then needs a diplomacy check). A low check should be just enough information to move to the next plot point or required location, while a good check should give extra relevant information - weaknesses of enemies, extra plot information, secret hints and so forth.

[Quertus]

So, what got me started thinking about this was a terrible module I encountered (stupid meta-GM, putting modules on the random encounter table), wherein a) the only way to move the very linear plot forward was with a Gather Information check; b) the 1st level characters needed to hit a DC of about 50 or so; c) the module takes great pains to detail all the ways the GM should punish the PCs if they start asking questions. And I was like, “I guess that makes sense… wait, what is Gather Information if not asking questions?”. Couple that with me writing a story in which the protagonist is trying to Gather Information without drawing attention to themselves, and me thinking about “roll combat” level of abstraction, and you get this thread.

Personally, I feel like the system as written (or, perhaps, as implemented in modules I’ve read) is stupid. But it’s taken this thread for me to understand why.

First, there appear to be two basic uses for Gather Information, which I’ll call “targeted” and “untargeted” (or “hearing rumors”). In modules, when the PCs have a specific question they want answered, they roll Gather Information, usually against a specific table of results. In modules, when PCs are trying to hear rumors, they aren’t asking specific questions, and are usually rolling Gather Information against - or to get a random result from - a table of results. It feels like the system would benefit by giving the GM good general “yes, but” level of advice for how to build such tables, to advise the GM to build variable DC tables before the roll (or, perhaps, before the game starts, for general rumors).

Second, iirc, by default, Gather Information always costs 1 gold for 1d4 hours work. While I feel like people are more likely to answer simple questions happily when you’re “shopping” from them rather than just window shopping, there’s plenty of information you can pick up just by walking around and listening to conversations, particularly if you’re not Gathering “targeted” intel. For that matter, there’s definitely things one can learn by walking around and being observant, or by asking the right person without spending money. I feel like a proper Intel minigame would take such things into account. And the game doesn’t include the “benefits” of the things you’ve purchased to loosen people’s tongues.

On a related note, “dropping a lot of money” (the module in question have +1 to the roll per GP spent) seems counter to “not drawing attention to yourself” for *normal* implementations of Gather Information (asking questions while shopping, drinking, etc). Heck, I feel one could make a minigame around who knows what (what results are on the table based on who you ask), where one asks questions, where various “factions” have “spies” (and what their responses to people asking questions are), etc. And this is true even in the comedy “the protagonist was asking about wedding rings got overheard by his girlfriend’s friend” sense.

Now, “spending a lot of money” makes sense if you’re having back room dealing with powerful Information brokers, or dropping twenties into your informant’s hand. But usually, that feels (to me, at least) like the corresponding game Flow would be that you roll, then the GM informs you that there is a specific price tag attached to the information you want. Or, alternately, if you have the existing contacts, that you simply contact them (probably no Roll required), and they inform you of the price of that information (if they have it)… which might be abstracted with a roll of some sort. (Of course, the module in question punishes players for seeking information brokers, too - it’s very dead set on railroading people into playing the game right, and rolling Gather Information like good rollplayers, Dagnabbit!)

There’s probably more to be said, like using Gather Information to Bluff without the target becoming suspicious that you’re trying to Bluff them (“the Wizard guild has been asking around about poison antidotes - they must have new Intel on (or, if asking urgently, must have sent a team into) the fabled Lost Arsenic Mines”), or to find out what others have been asking about, but this seems like a good start.

[Darg]

Gather information isn't meant to be hard. Anyone without a penalty can take 10 to get general news. And you only draw attention if you fail the check for specific information or try to get more information and try again for that specific topic. The epic use just makes it so you never draw suspicion if you try to get more information.

[Crake]

You can make it into a mini game by having the answer to each question posed through gather information simply lead to more questions, which they can maybe get an answer to through more gather information checks. You can also use this as an opportunity to introduce the players to plot relevant, and important npcs

[Coeruleum]

You can make it into a mini game by having the answer to each question posed through gather information simply lead to more questions, which they can maybe get an answer to through more gather information checks. You can also use this as an opportunity to introduce the players to plot relevant, and important npcs

That's not really what gather information is supposed to be for, though. If I'm doing that, I might as well just use divinations or telepathy to help me, but divinations and telepathy generally explicitly can't help gather information checks because you're asking around to lots of people.