Bluffing PCs

[Merkuri]

Our DM's have always used Bluff sort of like a defense the NPCs have against the PC's Sense Motive, kinda like rolling Listen for NPCs when a PC rolls Move Silently.

You have the NPC say whatever they feel the need to say, truth or lie or some of both, and if the PCs ask for a Sense Motive check you roll a Bluff for the NPC. Based on the rolls (and whether the NPC was actually lying or not) you tell the player whether his character thinks the NPC is telling the truth or lying.

The PC is still free to go against his instincts if told he thinks the NPC is telling the truth. I interpret the result of a Sense Motive check as the character's "feel" about the other character. Somebody could tell you the sky is green, roll really high on the Bluff check, and while the PC can't detect the lie through facial expressions or tone of voice he still knows logically that the NPC is full of it.

Diplomacy, on the other hand, I find hard to use against PCs without taking away the player's freedom to control their character. I suppose if you really wanted to use it you could roll ahead of time for the NPC and play him according to the result. If he would've changed their attitudes from neutral to friendly then play him very likable. Try to make the players think of him the way the diplomacy check results come up with. Personally, though, I think it's just safe to say that diplomacy checks simply can't be used against the PCs and to use the NPC's diplomacy ranks as a guide to his personality the way you would look at an NPC with high charisma.

 

[Sleeping Dragon]

What Merkuri said, except that I ask for Sense Motive rolls from the players rather than having them ask to roll them (I think of Sense Motive as being a reactive thing, just like Listen and Spot - you don't have to be trying to tell if someone is lying to you.) Only problem with my approach is that it results in a bit of metagaming when the players know that the person that rolled the highest also happens to be the one that thinks they're being lied to. It's easy enough to just roll the PCs SM checks for them though (only reason I've not changed to that is that we're quite late into my current campaign, will do so in the future.) And I've used opposed Diplomacy checks for haggling, but never to change PC attitudes (I don't use the attitudes rules anyway, I just tend to handwave Diplomacy.)

 

[nittanytbone]

You can only bluff PCs if you, OOC, as a DM, can pull it off. The only way they can see through it is (A) their OOC gut feeling or (B) asking for a sense motive roll.

If you don't have a good poker face, don't rely on NPCs with high bluff scores.