Skills used by players on other players.

Blue · Dec 11, 2018

Ovinomancer said:
You're telling Player B what their character thinks.

Really? I though I was giving player B information on what his character observed.

Please give me a case where, by your definition, an Insight check can be made where the DM is not "telling the player what their character thinks".

Blue · Dec 11, 2018

iserith said:
"I don't know - is he?"

Player B is sitting at the table, so he knows that Player A's character is lying. He or she can just say his or her character believes or disbelieves Player A's character for whatever reason Player B chooses to establish.

Please see the next section below what you quoted:

"The second player has not predetermined if their character will believe or disbelieve. The player wishes to find out what their character experiences so that based on that they can make a call. They need the full description of the environment including the results of their passive Insight (PHB, pg 175) in order so that they can determine what their character thinks and does."

In other words, the player has built a character, expects to have a chance to tell if someone is lying, NPC or PC, because that's a common and legitimate passive usage of the Insight skill, and is asking for the DM to describe if they noticed something.

Back when I was playing AL, I had players join the table for a week that had already gone through parts of the adventure we were currently going through. The best was when the didn't use their metagame player knowledge, but limited themselves to what their character would know and could observe. Their character didn't know there was a hidden compartment with loot just because the player knew it. They worked to keep in-game and out-of-game knowledge separate.

So, assuming Player B also want to know what their character has discovered, what do you tell them?

billd91 · Dec 11, 2018

Sacrosanct said:
Your position was that a player decides how their PC acts and thinks independent of stats. That is not following the rules because it is ignoring and overriding the rules. specifically stat values and the rules around resolution (like saving throws and ability checks). A PC with an INT of 6 is going to think differently than a character with an INT of 18. Those values are important because they guide us as players in how to role play the PC. Choosing to arbitrarily ignore those and play your PC however you want is not wrong (see the above post re: having fun), but it does in fact ignore the rules.

It may be that an INT 6 character thinks differently from an INT 18 character, but there's no prescribed way to do so. Hence, the player has full power to determine how that difference would manifest. The INT 18 character may be too smart to fall for the other PC's attempt at sophistry and not go along with it - while the INT 6 character may be too dumb to listen to reason... and also not go along with the argument. Different routes but to the same basic result.

iserith · Dec 11, 2018

Blue said:
Please see the next section below what you quoted:

"The second player has not predetermined if their character will believe or disbelieve. The player wishes to find out what their character experiences so that based on that they can make a call. They need the full description of the environment including the results of their passive Insight (PHB, pg 175) in order so that they can determine what their character thinks and does."

In other words, the player has built a character, expects to have a chance to tell if someone is lying, NPC or PC, because that's a common and legitimate passive usage of the Insight skill, and is asking for the DM to describe if they noticed something.

If a player describes the character as trying to determine an NPC's true intentions by observing its body language, speech habits, and changes in mannerisms, then I'll adjudicate and narrate as normal. I would have telegraphed a tell while describing the environment anyway.

In almost all cases, if there is an ability check at all, this would be a Wisdom (Insight) check though; passive Insight would only be called upon to resolve a task performed repeatedly and that's not likely to come up much.

Blue said:
Back when I was playing AL, I had players join the table for a week that had already gone through parts of the adventure we were currently going through. The best was when the didn't use their metagame player knowledge, but limited themselves to what their character would know and could observe. Their character didn't know there was a hidden compartment with loot just because the player knew it. They worked to keep in-game and out-of-game knowledge separate.

So, assuming Player B also want to know what their character has discovered, what do you tell them?

Do you mean about Player A's character's lies? If so, that's up to the players to work out. I'm not getting involved in that.

Blue · Dec 11, 2018

iserith said:
If a player describes the character as trying to determine an NPC's true intentions by observing its body language, speech habits, and changes in mannerisms, then I'll adjudicate and narrate as normal. I would have telegraphed a tell while describing the environment anyway.

In almost all cases, if there is an ability check at all, this would be a Wisdom (Insight) check though; passive Insight would only be called upon to resolve a task performed repeatedly and that's not likely to come up much.

Do you mean about Player A's character's lies? If so, that's up to the players to work out. I'm not getting involved in that.

So a mechanic that works fine for NPCs is of no use for PCs, even when a player is agnostic to the results but just wants to know what they have observed?

You before have explained that the reason you won't make the roll between PCs is:

iserith said:
Since a player determines how a character thinks and acts, the outcome of a task made to influence how the character thinks is not uncertain. Therefore, there is no ability check. These are also not house rules.

We now have a case where what the player determines what the character thinks is uncertain. So this no longer covers it.

So, why would you not get involved in giving what information character B can observe about the statement from character A to player B?

iserith · Dec 11, 2018

Blue said:
So a mechanic that works fine for NPCs is of no use for PCs, even when a player is agnostic to the results but just wants to know what they have observed?

Which mechanic do you mean - "Insight?" Because that sounds awfully close to "using skills" again which is strictly inferior to deciding the result anyway.

Blue said:
We now have a case where what the player determines what the character thinks is uncertain. So this no longer covers it.

No, there is no such case. The player always determines what the character thinks. It is therefore always certain.

Blue said:
So, why would you not get involved in giving what information character B can observe about the statement from character A to player B?

The whole scenario is rife with trouble. It's better in my view that the players work this out between them to their mutual satisfaction than try to involve the DM and possibly mechanics to mediate it. Effectively, I'm just giving the player(s) input into how a task is resolved and rubber stamping it.

Blue · Dec 11, 2018

iserith said:
Which mechanic do you mean - "Insight?" Because that sounds awfully close to "using skills" again which is strictly inferior to deciding the result anyway.

No, I mean "Insight, because following the rules consistently is strictly superior to using one rule in one case and ignoring it in another case."

iserith said:
No, there is no such case. The player always determines what the character thinks. It is therefore always certain.

Player: What do I see?
DM: You decided what your character thinks, I don't have to tell you that.
Player: WTF?

A player who has not been given sufficient information from the DM may still be in the process of determining what there cahracter should think, and is not able to resolve that until the DM finishes giving information.

So YES, that case exists.

iserith said:
The whole scenario is rife with trouble. It's better in my view that the players work this out between them to their mutual satisfaction than try to involve the DM and possibly mechanics to mediate it. Effectively, I'm just giving the player(s) input into how a task is resolved and rubber stamping it.

This is fair. "I don't want to use the mechanics because I don't want to get involved in that situation."

Which brings back to my describing it as a house rule - mechanics exist, you just don't want to use them in a particular situation. Player vs. player in this instance.

House rules are fine - I use variant rules and house rules in every campaign I run. Someone else said I was derogatory calling something a house rule - I don't see that, it's just fitting something to your table and/or setting.

iserith · Dec 11, 2018

Blue said:
No, I mean "Insight, because following the rules consistently is strictly superior to using one rule in one case and ignoring it in another case."

Which rules are you referring to? Players don't get to decide they're making a Wisdom (Insight) check or any other kind of ability check. They might succeed or fail outright with no roll. All they get to do is describe a task they want to perform.

Blue said:
Player: What do I see?
DM: You decided what your character thinks, I don't have to tell you that.
Player: WTF?

A player who has not been given sufficient information from the DM may still be in the process of determining what there cahracter should think, and is not able to resolve that until the DM finishes giving information.

So YES, that case exists.

What the character sees can be negotiated by the players involved.

Blue said:
This is fair. "I don't want to use the mechanics because I don't want to get involved in that situation."

Which brings back to my describing it as a house rule - mechanics exist, you just don't want to use them in a particular situation. Player vs. player in this instance.

House rules are fine - I use variant rules and house rules in every campaign I run. Someone else said I was derogatory calling something a house rule - I don't see that, it's just fitting something to your table and/or setting.

You can call it a "house rule." It doesn't bother me. But it's not really. I'm still effectively deciding the result as DM. I'm just giving the players input. I'm not required to use mechanics to resolve a situation as DM. The rules serve me, not the other way around.

billd91 · Dec 11, 2018

Blue said:
So a mechanic that works fine for NPCs is of no use for PCs, even when a player is agnostic to the results but just wants to know what they have observed?

Using Insight to determine if another PC is exhibiting a tell is essentially benign. I think most people wouldn't see a problem with it. Of course, the PC being deceived still has the authority to determine whether or not their PC believes the other. That's the limitation of social skills on PCs, for the most part. By comparison, I think proper DMing fairness etiquette would pretty much require an NPC to actually fall for the deception based on the outcome of the check or adjudication. That's the constraint the DM lives under, but not the other players at the table.

Charlaquin · Dec 11, 2018

Blue said:
Player A: My character lies and tells everyone they treasure chest was empty.
Player B: My character is a good judge of people because I built them that way. Is my character observing any body language or tells that was a true or false statement?

Me: If you want them to be. Player A is taking a hostile action against your character, so you adjudicate the results. If you don’t think the lie has a reasonable chance of fooling your character, then it doesn’t. If you’re not sure, call for a check to resolve it.