Insight skill: how narrow is the meaning?

[Glorelendil]

Here is the RAW description of Insight:

Insight is the ability of a hero to see beyond appearances, recognising people’s hidden thoughts and beliefs. Heroes with Insight can recognise when someone is lying, and can draw useful conclusions about people’s motives. A hero with a high Insight score is often recognised as being a sensible and discerning individual, and many might seek his counsel. A successful Insight roll provides the hero with a faithful, if partial, portrait of the character observed. A great or extraordinary success reveals truths about an individual of which he himself is ignorant. Insight tests may be rolled in opposition to an adversary using Persuade or another Personality skill.

Do people use it beyond just social Encounters (formal or otherwise)?
Examples:
1) What's the weather going to do?
2) Why did the badger act like that?
3) Should we take the left fork or the right fork?
4) Where will the bandits strike next?

I'd like to be able to say that some problems require analysis, deduction, induction, etc...relying on Wits and thus Riddle, and other puzzles depend more on intuition and gut-feel guesses, and thus Heart or Insight (or something.)

Does anybody use Insight like this, or is it as simple as "Insight for People, Riddle for Things, end of story."

[mirkwoodfalcon]

Since the RAW specify people in all uses of the Insight skill, we have always used it exclusively for people. I'd say a roll such as 'Where will the bandits strike next?' should use Riddle if the bandits are not present (and a fair amount is known about their previous attacks,) but Insight could be used if you are face-to-face with a bandit chieftain and questioning him, for example.

[Mythicos]

For me, Insight is Perception's emotional equivalent. So people have to be the object of Insight.

Something that is purely "intuitive", like your #3 (left or right fork?) falls more, I think, into the realm of Riddle.

[Deadmanwalking]

Yeah, Insight is more a combination of empathy and psychology than it is intuition per se.

Of the things you list, Insight might easily be used for #4 (as a means of predicting human behavior) though Riddle or Battle might also be useful in that situation. The others? Insight has nothing to do with.

It being used for preliminary rolls on Encounters makes it a very commonly rolled and useful skill already (more than Riddle in my experience, and my character has lots of Riddle and looks for opportunities to use it), so expanding its uses at the expense of Riddle seems like a less than great idea.

[Robin Smallburrow]

My advice: Always give the players a choice, you as LM should not be the one making the decision! So in the examples given below, all you need to do is decide on a default skill for the task and assign it a Difficulty Level -usually TN 14. Other skills could also be used but should be at a penalty compared to the default skill -either TN 16 or TN 18. Also discuss this with all players so they are OK with your ruling on this.

The obvious one in the examples below is #3 - this is clearly part of the Guide's role so is actually a Travel test, but you could certainly use Explore or Awareness. I use this system all the time and I always try to give the players options. The other examples given in the OP I actually thought were all uses of Lore, so it just goes to show that these things are a matter of perception!

Sum up: 1 decide on a default skill and default TN
2 work out what other skills could be used so players have options
3 discuss them so they are happy with how you see it

Robin S.
PS I use Riddle skill a lot so my players have learnt to put some points into it!

[Glorelendil]

In retrospect I improvised poor examples to illustrate my question, but my inability to come up with good examples may suggest that an "Intuition" skill isn't really needed.

[Falenthal]

I'd say that intuition about people is included in Insight. Intuition about facts tends to be Riddle.
Intuition about certain specifics can be attached to other skills: battle movements from the enemy - Battle, how to travel best along some marshes during spring - Travel or Lore, where would a wounded werewolf hide - Hunt,...

[Rue]

I thought your second example could definitely be an Insight moment, given Radagast is around and there are plenty of sentient creatures in ME. Of course, my thinking on this is probably influenced by the extensive amount of time I've spent with ME's drinking buddy, Narnia.

[zedturtle]

Yeah, I'd be okay with either 2 or 4... the analysis of thinking beings being the crux there. (Maybe number 1 in unusual circumstances ).

That said, I do like the idea of getting away from Travel as an uber-skill. If it was spun as understanding the thoughts/logic of the builders (and thus of no value in a natural cave system), I might be okay with its proposed use case.