This is tough. Think of it this way, however, compare it to the merchant's "Know's Customers." How would you use that? Really it's similar - "customers" are a pool of contacts, as are "Ancestors". Whether or not they know something is, dramatically, a matter of how well you know them. That is, there's a customer for everything, and an ancestor who knows each secret. The question is finding them.
Listen to Ancestor, seems like the ability that one would use to listen in on the yabbering that the dead do as they plague us day to day. So, what I'd do is allow the player to roll their ability against a resistance that was appropriate to the obscurity of the information sought, to find the ancestor that one needs to talk to. The ancestors are everywhere, it's just a matter of separating out the right voice from the crowd.
Once that happens, if you only have listen, you'll only get limited information, as you can't ask specific questions. If you have "Speak with" too, you can then try to direct the discussion, with potentially better results.
Does that make sense?
Mike
Powered by hypermail