So, my players are sniffing the spicy-musky stink coming from the cellar. Now, I happen to know this is kobold musk, but the players don’t know that. That’s what they’re trying to identify with all of the sniffing. However, one player has “kobold-wise”. Would he not recognize that as the smell of a kobold? Of course, he can’t use kobold-wise yet, because he doesn’t know what the smell is. I suppose I could “good idea” it, but that relies on me knowing or remembering that one of the players has kobold-wise in the first place. Is there a good answer for this?
The player in question can’t use kobold-wise in a test on its own, anyway – he could only use it to supplement another character’s Scout test using the I Am Wise rule.
If I know what kind of creatures are going to come up in play, I check the sheets for relevant wises and then hand the player in question the information when I think it makes sense. Otherwise, ask the players if anyone has any monster wises and note which are relevant.
Today we started on the House of the Three Squires, so I looked over the sheets before we started. One player had picked up on my hint and taken kobold-wise. Later when the door to the wine cellar slammed shut behind the party and there were kobold noises and kobold talk, it was a sound his character remembered having heard before.
If a player thinks enough to ask, I’d give it to them. Or at least give them a clue. You want to feed your players information to get them to dig deeper. So you want to reward the smart, clever and even the lucky.