Using lore skills to build a world

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by aesir23

For the most part, I like the idea of letting so-called "lore skills" function as a reality-altering superpower (within reason and adjusted somewhat the the margin of success) because otherwise the player of a knowledgeable character generally only gets to role them in order for the GM to explain the results--which isn't very much fun.

I've been doing this for a while for Area Knowledge (I believe Culture20 suggested it here) and haven't had a problem. If the GM hasn't determined the thing the player wants to know, ask him what he wishes were true, make a skill roll, and the better the roll the closer it is to his proposed ideal. Yeah, it requires some GM flexibility, but realistically making this stuff up on the fly does too, and is much harder.

Mostly I wouldn't charge points for defining something that doesn't clash with anything I already planned. For something major that doesn't immediately benefit you, I'd tend to agree that would give you points if anything. Point costs are for altering something predetermined. I'm not going to charge you 3 points for a major story modifier Impulse Buy if you go to the trouble of completely designing a new village for me. If you want it to be located just over the next hill here in the middle of the Forest of Doom, that's different.