Having an idea what to watch out for? Like, this way Russ would know which individuals are actually important (characters), the behaviors of the magical people in arizona, and places Toffee would likely use or have his men stationed in. Just little bits of info to start off rather than going full blind and have Russ literally stalking some randoms to even get some info. Like Mina Loveberry for example. The only thing that would make Russ suspect her to be magical is if he knows Mewmans physical characteristic.
Except Janna probably never left Echo Creek, so she wouldn't be able to give Russ tips except for stuff in that specific town. And I don't imagine that Janna ever actually had much contact with people who aren't Star and Marco, who are most likely on the run and dead respectively.
Like, let me try and explain my position. The information that Janna would give us is stuff you'd find on a character sheet, such as Toffee's general temperament or what, specifically, Toffee did to Star/Marco. The stuff that Russ would give us is stuff like what we'd see in something like the rival reports that we'd get between turns, such as big projects that Toffee is working on or deals he's making with other Kings or how he's running his territory as a whole.
We've managed to investigate other places like Doomtown without first talking to someone from there, and Russ was able to identify important people just fine. I don't imagine that his competence is going to suddenly take a sharp dive such that he's reliant on a teenage girl to tell him what he needs to do.
While Janna might impact the results of the investigation, I just don't see it as important enough to wait for. Russ is a government superspy, investigation is what he's best at. Just let the man go in and do his job.
Knowing what Toffee is, and that (for example) he commands the loyalty of millions of nonhuman creatures and an entire parallel world/dimension where they're obsessed with corn, would probably make it easier to put what we learn into context.
Just sending a guy down there to find out what's happening can happen regardless- but part of an investigation is understanding what you see. The more Doof (and his chosen agent) know in-character, the more likely they are to understand what they see and correctly interpret the clues in front of them.
Yes, but I'm not understanding why we need to do it in the specific order of Janna and then Russ next turn. If Russ can identify that Toffee is putting up a whole bunch of corn silos, and then Janna tells us that Toffee and his monsters love corn, we should be just as capable of putting the dots together.
I'm not trying to argue that we don't need to talk to Janna for info on Toffee, I'm trying to argue that doing both actions in parallel with one another won't result in any appreciable drop in results than if we had done them in sequence.
It's like trying to argue doing Robo Doppelganger AI before Robo Doppelganger bodies. We'll need both for the complete result, so why does it matter whether we do one before the other or both of them in the same turn.
*Note: Doppelgangers were just used as an example of how I view chatting with Janna vs Russ investigating, I am not arguing to touch Doppelganger research this turn.
