Research is a roll-up of all the skills necessary to glean useful information from documents, computer systems, books, etc. This skill implies greater or lesser skill with any of: codebreaking, linguistics, research methodology and techniques, as well as some computer skills. It is intentionally broad, and players may choose to restrict their character's breadth of knowledge as they see fit, but they are not required to do so by Source. Research Challenges will typically be present where there is a large amount of data to sift through, or a book that needs to be translated. Unfortunately, the actual nature(roleplay) of research may be quite quite boring. Source encourages players to spend the Challenge time interacting with the subject material as they see fit, including substituing a book of their own for a book that is being translated, a personal data device for the one being cracked, etc.
Research Challenges vary heavily depending on the nature of the source material. They may be hardier or easier than standard Challenges as determined by the staff of the Source Campaign.
When a Challenge allows Research to qualify for Assistance, if the Primary character meets both the Challenge Requirement *and* the Research requirement, they may act as their own Assistant (in addition to the normal number of allowed Assistants), per the normal Assistant rules and using their Research skill for the retest.