This talent reads as:
“Whenever you spend a point of Determination, the gamemaster will grant you an additional insight. This may relate to your current activities, or it may be completely unrelated.”
This may be due to English not being my first language, and therefore me being unable to kind of dig the meaning out from the context, but I just can’t understand what “additional insight” might be, and how useful this could be for the player or the party.
This talent would de me, the GM, just saying a random phrase about anything for the player after they had spent a Determination Point?
If so, does anyone have any suggestion on how to make this a bit more useful, or help me understand its usefulness? Because it just seems one of the most useless talents
I have one player who has taken this talent, though we have yet to use it in play.
My interpretation of how it will be used is that when the player uses it the GM can give out some information the party has missed or would be useful for them to have.
It puts a lot of emphasis on the GM choosing what to give out. It may be related to the scene in front of them or it may be something completely separate that the GM wants to pass on to the party.
So as an example the party has been investigating a crashed 'thopter and the player spends their determination.
- Option A: You are leading a flight of 'thopters on an attack run against rebels hiding out in the forest. You put your 'thopter into a power dive when rising from the trees bursts a missile, it tears past you and your wingman disintegrates into debris. From up ahead you see the flare of more missiles launching.
- Option B: You are in a forest, a landing craft is concealed amongst the trees. Boxes are being brought out of it while 2 men shake hands. One of the men turns and for a moment you get a glimpse of a long, vivid scar running across the left side of his face.
In the first case it is a fairly clear hint that the 'thopter was brought down by a missile.
The second case is more ambiguous, but the characters now have a clue that a man with a scar on his face is doing something dodgy and that it is probably important.
Depending on the GM this can be incredibly useful for getting a party back on track. But pretty much all the work is thrown at the GM for this.
3 Likes
Yup. In less Dune terms its essentially the ability to ask the GM for a clue about a good course of action or a secret they may have missed.
2 Likes
As I say with my friends: it’s the power is metagaming