Quote:
Originally Posted by thom
So is it just a simple "a friendly merchant/waiter/warrior buys you a drink and asks how your journey was" and then roll the NPC's Elicitation vs. the PC?
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The usual thing that happens is that the NPCs have a Quick Contest against the PCs, and their margin of victory is applied as a penalty to the PCs' skill rolls. In this case, those would be rolls to conceal what they were doing, in circumstances where it would naturally come up in conversation. If you let the players make their own rolls, you'd want to have them make IQ rolls (for a simple lie) or Acting rolls (for an elaborate coverup)—but not tell them about the penalty. If you want to roll for them, you'd just have the information get out without their realizing it—after all, their characters wouldn't realize it. Unless, of course, the NPCs failed to conceal the attempt (a failure of Elicitation).
I think the natural setup might be that people talk with them, or in their presence, about things related to their activities. You can disguise this best, perhaps, as "you've gained something of a Reputation"—showing them that there's public reaction to what they pulled off. Or if not public reaction, reaction in certain inner circles.
Bill Stoddard