Information wants to be free: Information gathering abilities

[PhoenixPhyre]

A thought struck me when reading another thread--

When a player uses an information-gathering ability (spell, skill, move, whatever), what they're saying is "I want to know more about this world/plot/situation. Tell me more." And that's something we should encourage. Whether that's a social move/skill/spell or a divination-type effect, or researching something, we should almost always give them something, even if it's not exactly what they're looking for.

Basically, they're casting summon exposition fairy. Normally, many players are (stereotypically) averse to reading campaign settings, handouts, or knowing much about the world. Here, they're asking for it. How cool is that?

And when it's done in-character (like trying to get information from an NPC), it gives an opportunity to put that NPC's slant on the world. The information isn't necessarily Word of God, nor is it a lie. It's what the NPC actually believes, which doesn't have to be exactly the truth. NPCs have limited information as well.

In short, erring on the side of giving more information (or going full degrees-of-success) on such checks
a) won't hurt
b) will encourage player involvement in the world
c) lets you add some spice from the in-universe perspective
d) lets you show off all that worldbuilding you've been doing without boring the audience by doing a huge info-dump. Because they asked for it, and it's in context.

[Pelle]

I sometimes find myself unhappy about information gathering abilities, because they can limit what information should be given, say if the player rolls a 3 on their check. If the player ask, I appreciate to just be able to tell them whatever based on the fact that their character is a sage or has a relevant background.

[Slipperychicken]

I feel like knowledge/information abilities should provide example categories of information which the PC should know automatically, without need for random resolution.

For instance, a character with the first level of a world-lore skill would not need to roll for basic world geography (location of major penninsulas, islands, major rivers and seas, continents), names and rough location of all major population-centers and globally-important landmarks (mount olympus, suez canal, amazon rainforest, etc), or for recognizing the names and symbols of every government or similarly-powerful institution, as well as that of their official leaders. The second level would provide for automatically knowing and recognizing names, positions, and heraldry of the highest-level government officials, rough regional topography, precise location of population-centers and landmarks, and summarize the political status of each region.

Likewise a character with a level of religion-lore could automatically name and recognize symbols and writings of all faiths, recall the major divisions within each world religion, recall the basic moral ethos and most important restrictions of each faith, recall the top three religions of every region and state-entity, and briefly summarize folklore of each one.

..and so on. The idea is to free groups to say "yes, your character would know this/can do this, we do not need to roll any dice for it".