An Open Letter on the Acquiring of Time-Limited Information

[Seymor]

A note is written in rather calm script. The note is very well placed and very catchy, almost inviting you to read it.

The note reads,

"I have of late been taking up the studious topic of behavoir as a subject of my research. Studying this, I have come to numerous conclusions yet still have many questions that need to be answered.

My studies of late however are only qualification for the claims that I wish to make. These claims concern adventurers, such as are abundant in the area, and the optimal strategy for acquiring information in a time-limited setting. Put in a more succinct manner, it is the art of not asking dumb questions.

I have had recent experience, which I will detail, which suggests that many who take up the profession of adventuring do so without an appropriate amount of training in the art of asking question. It is this that I wish to address.

The importance of the first question is key to information gathering. It is not a question with which to be subtle in the subject of your inquiry, nor should it be redundant in delivery or importance. The first question is that which will drive the intonation of the subsequent interaction and manipulation of the person to which you are speaking to. It is with this grave importance that the first question must be carefully considered and delivered.

To consider the optimization of the question, one must quantify and qualify the possibile approaches to solve the problem. These questions can be so qualified using two different approaches, a matter of what information that is sought and the matter of how distant in causation. These matters are more of an academic topic and one in which a tome could be written, but are not to be considered in discourse such as this.

So now I think I will explain that which is the situation which lead to my discourse in this letter. Recently, within the tenday, a loud explosion was heard South of Candlekeep. I went to investigate to find an Amnian ship surrounded by the bodies of the crew, many orcish. I was not the first to arrive at the location and so I took the role of a simple observer. It had turned out that there was but one survivor and, in some stroke of great luck, he was answering questions! What better situation than a survivor to collect a robust account of the situation at hand. As a couple of clerics went about healing the mans wounds they also asked him, almost as if in disbelief rather than to seek information, what had happened. It was here that I noticed the folly in not doing the questioning myself. It was obvious what had happened on the brink of an Amnian-Baldur's Gate war. The question of what had happened wasn't interesting at all as anybody with half a brain would have figured that out by now, a note that I restrained myself from making verbally. The much more interesting first question was why. Why was a single ship willing to brave the waters of the enemy in such a flagrant display. This question is one that will forever go unanswered as the answerful ship-mate would soon succumb to his injuries. Instead we were left with a relatively simple answer in WHAT had happened, and as if there were any doubt of the events that day, a group of fist soldiers came to admire their work.

The fundamental problem that occured here is that the people doing the questioning wished to dispel their own disbelief in events rather than try to acquire new and interesting information regarding the events. This disbelief caused the clerics to ask a question to try to verify their own ideal version of events, a purpose to which the question was ill purposed to do as the answer to the question was a return to the reality of the situation.

I think the issue with which this letter is concerned has been properly addressed in it's scope, though not neccesairily in it's execution.

Signed, Kestral Fyle"