Deduction skill

[phoenix240]

Does it see much use in your games and in what manner? How do you prefer to employ it when/if it does come up? Any war stories of noteworthy good and bad incidents fueled by the Deduction skill?

[bluesguy]

If the players have a whole bunch of clues but don't seem to be able to put them together (because I haven't done a good job laying them out) I will ask anyone w/ a 'real' Deduction roll to make the roll.  If they just make the roll I will point out a connection, if they make the roll very very well then I will point out something really hidden but still in the clues.

 

This comes up more when the session is oriented around investigation/detective work.

[zslane]

I will allow Deduction to be used to learn something from an NPC's character sheet, as long as it is something that could conceivably be deduced from watching them. I also allow it to be used to try and glean what an NPC might be "up to", again assuming it could be gleaned from their behavior. I like to use Deduction to simulate Sherlock Holmes' powers of observation, and is good for allowing players to obtain small useful details about other characters just from watching them.

[Sir Ra]

In Dark Champions TAS, they suggest allowing a clue to be dropped if a PC makes his Deduction roll.  The type/level of the clue depends  on how well the PC made his roll.

[Netzilla]

If the players have a whole bunch of clues but don't seem to be able to put them together (because I haven't done a good job laying them out) I will ask anyone w/ a 'real' Deduction roll to make the roll.  If they just make the roll I will point out a connection, if they make the roll very very well then I will point out something really hidden but still in the clues.

 

This comes up more when the session is oriented around investigation/detective work.

 

This is almost exactly how I use it.

[dsatow]

Sadly, I have a war story where I had 6 players who were clueless to the mystery.  I had them all roll deduction (half of them had the skill) and no one roll below a 14 or make their roll.  At that time, I quietly introduced two house rules.  

1) In the case the players really need this roll, the one who makes it closest wins even if they fail.

2) If they are close, there will be a time delay before they come up with a solution (if they missed it by 3, then a minute later or +3 to that roll they do a d'oh and remember it).

[Nolgroth]

I use Deduction for memory related checks. For example, something that happened a month ago in game time but nearly six months ago in real time might be something the player forgets but the character would not. The character might have forgotten specifics or even need a quick reminder, but they should have some readily accessed memory. Deduction is then used to remember the specifics, with the only outright failure being a natural 18 roll*. Any roll that would otherwise be considered a failure at least deserves a "The Great Wizard Snarfulgatz mentioned something about the <MacGuffin> when he greeted you at his tower." A successful roll nets an additional fragment of the memory for every 2 the roll was made by, up to the entire memory if the roll is good enough.

 

 

 

 

*Aside from Combat and a few other rolls, I have been leaning away from binary pass/fail skill rolls. 

[Era Scarecrow]

2) If they are close, there will be a time delay before they come up with a solution (if they missed it by 3, then a minute later or +3 to that roll they do a d'oh and remember it).

Sounds like a good workaround to the whole tracking problem, where a key detail required to be noticed by the best most experienced person there is missed and could completely derail the entire plot. Forcibly adding the 'extra time' as you put it (another +1 per delay category) would certainly be the way to go. Seeing as a -10 would be a day at worst, that means the worst (them all realizing a month after the fact) won't happen... unless it's a very difficult roll.

[Crusher Bob]

If the players have a whole bunch of clues but don't seem to be able to put them together (because I haven't done a good job laying them out) I will ask anyone w/ a 'real' Deduction roll to make the roll.  If they just make the roll I will point out a connection, if they make the roll very very well then I will point out something really hidden but still in the clues.

 

This comes up more when the session is oriented around investigation/detective work.

 

If no one has see it before, here's one of the 'classic' outlines about how to create mysteries in RPGs.

 

Short version: you don't 'create' the clues, the GM has how the mystery happened.  The PCs then create ideas about what happened, and look for clues that support that case.

 

That way, the GM doesn't have to have a list of clues for the PCs to discover.  The idea the PCs create about what happened will then suggest the clue for them to look for.

 

----------------

 

As for the deduction skill, I'd let it let the skill user quickly extract useful information from a large sea of stuff.

 

Example:

GM: the police have collected 73 witness interviews...

PC: I roll deduction to try to extract useful information from all that.

 

GM: OK, you have stolen the last to years of the companies financial records, they don't quite fill up the bed of your pickup truck, but they come close.

PC: I roll deduction to try to extract useful information from all that.