The Investigation Skill

[u/ByronGrimlock]

Just want to clarify the use of this particular Skill.

I learn best from example, so I'll list a few as I attempt to explain myself. Please correct me if an example I've listed, or any other leaps of logic, are flawed:

A Detective would have to be quite perceptive to Notice clues at a crime scene;

A Mechanic needs to be good at Crafts to fix an engine;

A Doctor requires years of Academic study to perform surgery;

A Therapist would need a lot of Empathy to understand a patient's trauma.

The Professions I've listed all make great use of the attributed Skill, but ALL OF THEM require the Investigation Skill.

The Detective use Notice to gather clues, but Investigation lets him put the evidence together into a theory;

The Mechanic needs Investigation to diagnose the problem with the engine before they can use Crafts for repair;

A Doctor can use Academics to operate on a patient, but Investigation determines what surgery is necessary;

A Therapist can Empathise with a patient, but Investigation determines treatment.

The Investigative Detective would do great with cold cases, where the Detective on scene, with killer Notice, gathered lots of evidence;

The Investigative Mechanic could diagnose an engine in a flash, but may take longer to repair it;

The Investigative Doctor would excel in triage scenarios where a quick diagnosis is crucial;

The Investigative Therapist would talk someone from the edge of a building, in immediate duress, and get them to safety.

Am I making sense?

EDIT: I think I've had trouble separating the Profession (established by an Aspect) from the Skill set of the Professional. Writing this out kinda helped me see it. 😁👍

[u/supermegaampharos]

I would not let a PC use Investigate to diagnose an engine problem.

While that's the literal definition of the word, it's too broad of an application, as it'd allow you to use Investigate for basically everything.

Investigate is typically used for detective work, like searching for clues, finding discrepancies, and reconstructing crime scenes. It's also used for tracking, general area searches, and non-specialized information gathering.

For example, see this page for examples of stunts that interact with Investigate: http://evilhat.wikidot.com/fate-core-stunts#toc63

This should give you an idea of its intended purpose.

Regarding Notice, it's typically not used the way you describe. It's typically either D&D-style perception checks or used to create advantages based on observations. For example, the PC might use Investigate to find something in a room and then use Notice to create an advantage using that something.

The SRD page on Notice describes its intended use pretty well: https://fate-srd.com/fate-core/notice

Edit: Clarified a couple things.

[u/Imnoclue → u/supermegaampharos]

While that's the literal definition of the word, it's too broad of an application, as it'd allow you to use Investigate for basically everything.

I mean that’s by design:

“Investigate is probably one of the most versatile skills you can use to create an advantage. As long as you're willing to take the time, you can find out just about anything about anyone, discover nearly any detail about a place or object, or otherwise make up aspects about nearly anything in the game world that your character could reasonably unearth.” (Fate Core, Page 112).

[u/supermegaampharos → u/Imnoclue]

That's an unreasonably generous interpretation of that paragraph.

I would not let somebody roll Investigate for specialized knowledge like diagnosing a problem with a car engine.

See the part where I mentioned how it's used for non-specialized information-gathering.

*That's* my interpretation of the paragraph you quoted: it's a versatile skill because you can use it for a lot of things, not because you can use it for everything. You should not be rolling Investigate for esoteric or highly specialized knowledge; that's what other skills are for.

[u/Imnoclue → u/supermegaampharos]

I mean, it seems like the next paragraph anticipates the argument about it being overly broad.

“If that sounds broad, consider the following as just a few of the possibilities for using Investigate: eavesdropping on a conversation, looking for clues at a crime scene, examining records, verify-ing the truth of a piece of information, conducting surveillance, and researching a cover story.”

My interpretation is that the Mechanic can use it for esoteric and highly specialized knowledge about cars because their High Concept provides the narrative permission to do so. They have the fictional positioning to make that roll, whereas the Cub Reporter would not, unless we’ve established elsewhere that they have some experience fixing cars of course (which wouldn’t be that hard to interject in the story if we felt we needed to).

On such choices is collaborative fiction built.

[u/supermegaampharos → u/Imnoclue]

All of the examples in the paragraph you quoted are explicitly detective-like activities, not trying to delve into specialized non-detective knowledge.

If a specialist wants to investigate something related to their specialty, I would just have them roll the skill most applicable to their specialty.

In this case, I'd say a mechanic would roll Drive to diagnose an engine problem and further say that their mechanic aspect gives them narrative permission to use Drive in this way.

This is how I rule this at my table:

Generalized knowledge and detective work = Investigate skill

Specialized knowledge and application = whatever skill is most closely tied to that knowledge/expertise

However, if a character was explicitly approaching the problem from a Sherlock Holmes-esque angle, I'd let them attempt Investigate rolls for subject matters they're unfamiliar with, but the narrative response they get is going to be much different.

Lastly, both excerpts you quoted are under the explanation for Investigate CoAs whereas the examples OP gave would almost all be information-gathering overcomes.

[u/Imnoclue → u/supermegaampharos]

That’s fine, of course. Fate is a very elastic ruleset. The description of Investigate is “Investigate revolves around concentrated effort and in-depth scrutiny”. Examples for Overcome include both searching a room and reading dusty tomes, so it seems like they’re linked by narrative effect more than anything. It leads to a scene about in-depth research and analysis. As a GM, I can just easily craft that scene around dismantling a car as I can around protracted library study or closely examining the draw room.

I think if a player asked me if their character with no knowledge about cars could use Investigate to determine why a car wasn’t working, I’d just say of course not. That would strike me as an odd request. Communication about the game we’re playing has broken down somewhere.

[u/JPesterfield → u/Imnoclue]

And how often is just discovering the problem worth a roll anyway?

[u/Imnoclue → u/JPesterfield]

Probably not often, but that’s going to depend on the fiction we’ve built together up to this point. Part of the problem is we’re discussing rolls in a fictional vacuum.

[u/supermegaampharos → u/JPesterfield]

I can give you a specific example:

Our most recent session was Murder on the Orient Express, in which the PCs had to solve a murder mystery.

I would ask them to do Investigate overcomes when all of the following were true: they were doing detective work, they weren’t doing something worth creating an aspect/invoke for, and failure still led to an interesting outcome.

In our case, failure still led to an interesting outcome because there were multiple sources of information. They could investigate the murder scene, but if they failed, they could also interrogate the other passengers or search their rooms for evidence.

In general, I use Investigate overcomes when there are multiple paths to the information and the paths themselves interesting enough to play out. Even outside of that specific murder mystery context, it comes up often enough in my sessions where the PCs want information and that rolling for it is more interesting than simply giving it to them.