[Kromm]

The target number is a flat 8 modified downward for BAD (meaning it might actually range from 8 down to -2) because at Action power levels, skills can be arbitrarily high, and no penalty would be large enough to ensure that a few failures occur and the PCs feel time pressure. Starting here ensures a dramatic buildup as the group's time margin gets carved away. In less meta-game terms, the world is a big place, the sorts of people who keep secrets don't advertise, and no one piece of knowledge (i.e., skill) should suffice. If the PCs lack complementary skills (hard but not impossible), then they're basically just applying brute force: checking out all the banks in town, wandering around bad neighborhoods asking unwise questions, calling every John Smith in the phonebook, etc.