Tarynt Essrog
Topic Author
Posts: 29
Joined: Sat 29 Dec 2018, 06:57

Investigate skill

Sat 29 Dec 2018, 07:13

I wanted to comment on the Investigate skill. The two uses of the skill described in English beta pdf are examining bodies to reveal details about their death and noticing physical clues, Sherlock Holmes style. In the real world, most investigators don’t do either of those things. The ability that applies to all investigative jobs is ability to get people to tell you the truth.
 
I realize this is a game, and one that has already been play tested and published in Swedish. My purpose here isn’t to say that the rules as written are wrong and therefore need to be changed. The rules as written probably ring true to most players without investigative experience; and that, along with being balanced, is probably more important than being an authentic representation of investigative practices. But I thought it might be worth providing my perspective based on years of experience as a civilian investigator for a variety of state and local agencies in the U.S for anyone that was interested. And maybe you will agree and want to house rule that “elicit truth” should be the default use of Investigate, and the criminalistics and pathology should be attached to supplementary talents. 
 
Getting someone to tell you the truth is a very different skill than being able to tell when someone is lying to you, so it is not the same as the game's Sense Motive skill. It is actually much harder to spot a lie (without collateral information that refutes that specific lie) than it is to learn how to get people to tell you the truth. In fact, all evidence suggests that the more confident someone is in their ability to spot a lie based solely on body language, the worse they probably are at it.
 
Depending on the situation, there are different approaches you might take to getting the truth out of a subject; but you usually want to convince your subject to be truthful with you before you ask the question you need a truthful answer to. Once you have let someone lie to you, it is very hard to get them to walk it back or admit that they have lied. And even if you know they are lying, how does that help you get closer to the truth, (unless you already know most of the truth and you are just asking the question to find out if they believe they did something wrong that they need to hide from you).
 
Jizmack
Posts: 111
Joined: Fri 12 Feb 2016, 23:48

Re: Investigate skill

Sun 30 Dec 2018, 02:25

Interesting perspective... thanks!

So, would this skill be better named as “Forensics” instead?
 
Tarynt Essrog
Topic Author
Posts: 29
Joined: Sat 29 Dec 2018, 06:57

Re: Investigate skill

Mon 31 Dec 2018, 22:19

No, but I would treat Criminalistics and Pathology as talents you need to buy to be able to use Investigate for crime scene or corpse analysis. Or, maybe those would actually be more appropriate for use with the Scholar’s Enlighten skill. (Side rant: ‘Forensic’ science isn’t a real thing that individuals practice. Forensics is an adjective, not its own discipline. You add that adjective when you are applying a specific discipline to the law. There is forensic medicine, forensic criminalistics, forensic toxicology, forensic dentistry, forensic anthropology, forensic accounting, forensic library science, and so on and so forth. I guess you could call a lawyer an expert in forensics because it is there job to apply facts off all stripes to the law, but they don’t use the scientific method). In modern practice, you have field technicians that collect evidence and then more educated specialists that analyze it in the lab. I’ve heard that sometimes during high profile investigations bigwigs that don’t know any better send the Criminalists to go straight to the crime scene and collect the evidence themselves because they want their best people on it; but the Criminalists often make a mess of it because crime scene management is not really what they do. While we are on the subject, if you want your campaign to really lean into the investigative aspects, you could give Technicians a Crime Scene Management talent. Use of that would go something like this:

GM: Your Chief Inspector demands access to the crime scene to conduct his own inspection.

TECHNICIAN: Is there anything I can do to keep him out?

GM: Do you have the Crime Scene Management talent?

TECHNICIAN: Yeah.

GM: Roll Tinker.

TECHNICIAN: I pass.

GM: You pull an ink blotter with especially sticky ink out of your kit. You keep it handy for exactly this kind of occasion. You present it to the Chief and ask for his fingerprints for the log. You need to log the prints of everyone who crosses the barrier so the lab doesn’t waste time running prints left by investigators. The chief considers the viscous stuff and the permanent stains he is likely inflict on his uniform before washing them off, then decides to leave the crime scene to the experts.

Back on topic:

Investigators should just need to have an Observation talent, which they could use to spot incongruous details (that don’t require a degree in chemistry or medicine to interpret) in their physical environment with their Investigate skill. Stuff like noticing that even though the subject claims to live alone, there is a pair of boots on the floor near the door that are clearly too large for them.

Another talent that should apply to Investigate is Shadowing, or Surveillance. Not every kind of investigator does this, but it is far more common that collecting physical evidence. Even in the kind of cases that might use physical evidence more man hours are likely to be spent discreetly watching and following subjects. Cases are expanded by seeing where people go and who they talk to.

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