I think it’s okay to use your instinct whenever it’s triggered, even if it’s for reattempting something. But remember, though the upside is that you save a turn and potentially earn a fate point, the downside is always that it’s hard to get help for tests triggered by instincts.
A couple further questions here that are related:
1) This comes out of the Secret Doors thing. When it comes to things like scavenging, is it okay to look for something even though it’s not prepared by the GM?
I understand that if there are no Secret Doors, there’s no test to be made, but with scavenging, it seems different. Like, as long as it makes sense in the context of the fiction a player can search for supplies or rations or oil or other things as long as they describe how and it makes sense. Those items don’t have to be placed by the GM. Do I have that right?
I mean, if the GM describes a completely bare room, I can’t see a player saying “I’m looking for oil in here. I feel around the walls and the floor.” In those cases I think it’s okay for the GM to say “You search for a while and don’t find anything.” Then again, the GM could call for an obscenely high obstacle, which is fun! The player can’t back out!
Instead, I think triggering a scavenging test is more along the lines of the GM describing an altar with burned down candles and the player saying, “I scrape the leftover wax for supplies to make candles later.”
If anybody has examples of scavenging tests that have come up in your games, I’d be grateful if you could share. We have a player whose instinct is “Always search for supplies when I have a moment,” so these situations are coming up a lot, and I’m having a weird time wrapping my head around it.
2) Also, does it always require a scavenging test to get supplies? Like if I need feathers of a giant raven for supplies, and we just fought off a bunch of giant ravens and feathers are everywhere, is it just a good idea to pick them up or is the GM going to call for a scavenging test to get the right ones or something?