An "Insightful" Question

[Ristamar]

Yes, sure, you're welcome to ask for a different skill roll if you want. How does that address the topic of how you use insight, though? My example is using insight because that's the topic of the thread.

I know, weird, innit.

Not weird at all. I was simply stating that Insight in your examples didn't feel useful or appropriate, at least without further context.

But that's just, like, my opinion, man.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Not weird at all. I was simply stating that Insight in your examples didn't feel useful or appropriate, at least without further context.

But that's just, like, my opinion, man.

Not useful for figuring out why an NPC is acting nervously? Hmm, okay, I don't see it, but you do you.

 

[77IM]

Success = "He's lying."
Failure = "Either he's telling the truth, or else he's a really exceptionally good liar."

If an NPC actually is telling the truth, then instead of rolling Charisma (Deception) for them, I use a DC of 10 minus their Charisma (Persuasion) modifier. But the results are the same. So it's entirely possible for a suspicious PC to get a bad read on a trustworthy NPC, especially a low-Wisdom PC investigating a low-Charisma NPC.

 

[Ristamar]

Not useful for figuring out why an NPC is acting nervously? Hmm, okay, I don't see it, but you do you.

Again, missing context.

The part where you described the PCs asking questions to obtain information, questions that may anger, scare, and otherwise close off the NPC? That sounds like a lot like a classic Charisma check using the standard social interaction loop described in the DMG.

The use of Insight is typically more nuanced than the above scenario, though the results are also less revealing, providing clues instead of direct answers.

Just a friendly objection. And all IMO, of course.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Again, missing context.

The part where you described the PCs asking questions to obtain information, questions that may anger, scare, and otherwise close off the NPC? That sounds like a lot like a classic Charisma check using the standard social interaction loop described in the DMG.

The use of Insight is typically more nuanced than the above scenario, though the results are also less revealing, providing clues instead of direct answers.

Just a friendly objection. And all IMO, of course.

You can anger or scare someone without CHA. One problem with how most social interaction is run is the overreliance on CHA. To me, CHA makes you more effective at delivering your message, but not in reading a conversation and gkeaning information. A shorthand is if the goal is to make the NPC think what I want them to, it's CHA. If it's understanding their emotional state, it's WIS. I've met plenty of very charismayic folks that are as empathetic as a brick.

And, as far as I've seen, Insight is not nuanced at all. It's usually used as a free check on lying, without consequence or a consequence where the DM lies to the player -- often transparently. I've adapted my approach to avoid both of these -- using insight now involves risk by jpining the conversation, and that risk isn't me telling a lie to the player or outright telling a player what their chatacter thinks.

And, agreed! This is all a friendly discussion sharing methods and motivations.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

I go by the DM principles of: Never hide rolls and never lie to your players.

To quote myself from another thread:

The easiest example is actually "I check if the NPC is lying". Now some DMs would now think "The NPC is lying so if the roll fails I tell them he is telling the truth" and then they are like "Hmm, but then I need to hide the roll because otherwise if they roll a 1 they can assume they've failed and consequently assume the NPC is lying anyway". But if you hide the roll, the whole situation becomes pointless. You will tell your players either "The NPC is lying" or "The NPC is telling the truth", but since you've hidden the roll result, the result is completely meaningless to the players. They don't know if their DM is lying to them or not! Bad!
Also consider this: The players will now evaluate the result based on their success and fail chance. If the PC has high insight, they'd assume the DM is telling the truth since it's more likely. If the PC has low insight, they'd assume the DM is lying. That means a low skill is actually better than an average skill, because the farther away from a 50/50 chance you get to easier to tell what happened.

All of this is so much easier to handle if you set yourself the rule to never hide rolls and adjust your replies accordingly. On a high success: "You're absolutely sure the NPC is lying", on just-about success "You notice some signs that the NPC could not be telling the truth", on failure "You seem to be unable to tell if the NPC is lying or not". The failure here is actually a lot more meaningful, because the players will need to continue the adventure not knowing if they can trust the NPC or not at all, whereas on success they'd be confident about it.

 

[TallIan]

An "Insightful" Question

Nah, I make it a rule to not tell 0layers what their characters think. I've got the rest of it all, they get their characters.

Not that you can't do that, I just don't. Which is why I've gone the route I've described.

Ok, I’ve used the wrong wording there. I don’t like to tell the players how their characters think either.

“He seems confident in what he is saying.” Or “He doesn’t seem able to maintain eye contact while talking to you.” Would be more accurate. Something to convey an idea of reading a truth or lie without tying the player to a line of thought. Or something to suggest a miss read. Eg a shy NPC looks at his feet all the time, a failed insight check fails to pick up on the fact that he’s shy only that he won’t make eye contact. I’ll leave what the PC thinks up the player.

 

[Celebrim]

The one that always troubles me is when a suspicious player badly fumbles an insight check made against someone who's actually being truthful. Do they think the person is lying? And since the player knows they've rolled poorly, how much effort do you go to in order to keep the metagame knowledge out of that reaction?

I think the answer here is make that insight check behind the screen and report the results to the player. The player should not know that they failed an insight check. The character doesn't know that they failed an insight check, so why should the player have that knowledge?

With that change, all problems go away.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

(didn't read the whole thread...but here's my quick 2¢...)

We rarely use Insight without Deception. They are sort of "paired". I'm the DM and when I am RP'ing a NPC who is trying to Decieve the PC's, I *do not* call for any sort of roll. I just speak in character and let the players take it from there. Now, *if* a player becomes suspecious of what the NPC is saying, THEN I'll make a roll for the "Decieve" of the NPC and that becomes the TN for the PC's Insight. Pretty standard stuff I would guess. Now, the RESULT of that contested roll determines how much of an absolute answer I will give the Players.

DM: "No sir! I didn't see a thing! Honest! I was...uh...I was taking a leek out back when it happened. Missed the whole thing".

Player: "Uh, it took almost an hour for them to rob the place? You had to pee THAT badly? C'mon..."

DM: "Er, well, ok. I wasn't peeing. Fine. I was...engaged in activities with a street walker".

Player: "Really? What was her name? Where have you seen her? What did she look like?"

DM: "Oh, you know. A pretty lass. Her name was...Cerise. Yeah. Cerise"

Player I'm not buying what this guy is selling...I think he's lieing.

DM: [rolls Deception, gets a 9] "Roll an Insight please"

Player: [rolls Insight, gets a 17] "Last chance to come clean..."

DM: He is definitely lieing about most of it and blurts out "Ok! OK! I was drunk, alright? I was passed out drunk! I know I've been warned, but I really need this job!"


...and that's basically it. Until the RP'ing gets to the point where a contested roll is ACTUALLY needed, its fully up to the player to decide if his PC believes someone or not. This is likely due to my "old skool" style of DM'ing where the PLAYERS decisions have more effect on their success/failure in most situations (as opposed to a more 'modern' take of skill check first, then RP the result).

PS: I generally don't let a Player just blurt out "I'm going to make a [skill] check to see if...". So things like "I'm going to roll Perception to see if I notice anyone following us" isn't something I generally allow. I find it drags the game down too much in the "metagame" side of things. It also gives too much info to the player...info that the players character would have no real idea about if he rolls really high and I give a negative answer ("You got a 28? Nope. Nobody following you" <--effectively giving the player an "absolute" knowledge of the situation so he can quite reasonably expect he has time to do something critical that would be ruined if interrupted, for example).

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[5ekyu]

Hiya!

(didn't read the whole thread...but here's my quick 2¢...)

We rarely use Insight without Deception. They are sort of "paired". I'm the DM and when I am RP'ing a NPC who is trying to Decieve the PC's, I *do not* call for any sort of roll. I just speak in character and let the players take it from there. Now, *if* a player becomes suspecious of what the NPC is saying, THEN I'll make a roll for the "Decieve" of the NPC and that becomes the TN for the PC's Insight. Pretty standard stuff I would guess. Now, the RESULT of that contested roll determines how much of an absolute answer I will give the Players.

DM: "No sir! I didn't see a thing! Honest! I was...uh...I was taking a leek out back when it happened. Missed the whole thing".

Player: "Uh, it took almost an hour for them to rob the place? You had to pee THAT badly? C'mon..."

DM: "Er, well, ok. I wasn't peeing. Fine. I was...engaged in activities with a street walker".

Player: "Really? What was her name? Where have you seen her? What did she look like?"

DM: "Oh, you know. A pretty lass. Her name was...Cerise. Yeah. Cerise"

Player I'm not buying what this guy is selling...I think he's lieing.

DM: [rolls Deception, gets a 9] "Roll an Insight please"

Player: [rolls Insight, gets a 17] "Last chance to come clean..."

DM: He is definitely lieing about most of it and blurts out "Ok! OK! I was drunk, alright? I was passed out drunk! I know I've been warned, but I really need this job!"


...and that's basically it. Until the RP'ing gets to the point where a contested roll is ACTUALLY needed, its fully up to the player to decide if his PC believes someone or not. This is likely due to my "old skool" style of DM'ing where the PLAYERS decisions have more effect on their success/failure in most situations (as opposed to a more 'modern' take of skill check first, then RP the result).

PS: I generally don't let a Player just blurt out "I'm going to make a [skill] check to see if...". So things like "I'm going to roll Perception to see if I notice anyone following us" isn't something I generally allow. I find it drags the game down too much in the "metagame" side of things. It also gives too much info to the player...info that the players character would have no real idea about if he rolls really high and I give a negative answer ("You got a 28? Nope. Nobody following you" <--effectively giving the player an "absolute" knowledge of the situation so he can quite reasonably expect he has time to do something critical that would be ruined if interrupted, for example).

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Question - in combat, if a player rolls a 2 and misses and another player rolls a 19 and misses do you "allow" them to draw conclusions and make decisions based on those results?

I the guy who rolled a 19+9=28 miss decides he needs advantage to fight (or to switch to spells that target with saves instead of to-hit) but the guy who rolled a 2+9 = 11 miss decides its ok for him to just swing away is that a "problem" for you like a guy rolling high on perception?

Are they "required" to roleplay those misses as if the D20 is an unknowable thing with no real analog in the game world the character can consider?

Same with saves - does "my wisdom save is a 19+9 28 FAILS" need to be treated as "no info just failed" just like a "my save was a 2+9=11" does?

i suspect (based on my experience) that in many games when a 28 wisdom save fails or a 28 to-hit fails, the players and the characters would "take notice" and tactics and choices in play might change.

have you never seen that?