If an NPC is telling the truth, what's the Insight DC to know they're telling the truth?

[Sadras]

Well let's talk about three possibilities with my jewel heist scenario.

Nice building on the original example.

The below is how I'd rule on it. What is important to me is determining if their is advantage/disadvantage as well as figuring out what will be revealed in the PC's approach*.

The approach being their line of questioning, the emotions they put on display, their movement and positioning, what specifically they might mention how their character's act or something specifically they do, use of seduction/deception/insinuating bribery/intimidation...etc

1) The shopkeeper is really telling the truth and is not particularly nervous or agitated.
For #1 there is no deception, but an insight check doesn't hurt in most cases. It could even be a setback if low enough because the PC believes they see something that's not there.

I can see the merits for misdirection with a low score.

No Insight: Bare basics, nothing specifically noted, shopkeeper appears to be genuine.
Proficiency: Provide undertone of emotion in shopkeeper's language and behaviour.
Insight check: Success - Reveal characteristics of shopkeeper (bonds and/or ideals and/or flaws), Failure - Misread shopkeeper, mistake a movement or tone of voice as some sort of tell.

2) The shopkeeper is the thief but is not any good at deception.
For #2 I want the encounter to be one where the PCs will know the shopkeeper is lying (possibly blackmail, etc). I'll act nervous or give obvious clues. If people really want to make an insight check they can I suppose but I've never had players not pick up on this.

No Insight: Like you, I'd provide all the basic clues upfront.
Proficiency: Further exposition on the tells/clues of deception, misdirection, avoidance, inconsistencies.
Insight check: Success - Inform the characters on the range of emotions, highlight connections that PCs haven't made in the investigation, perhaps even get a sense of coercion depending on the PC's character read of the shopkeeper, revelation of ideals/bonds/flaws, maybe a sense of the man's life/history...etc
Failure - Odd behaviour is just nerves on the side of the shopkeeper no ill intent, perhaps suffers from something psychological, or character senses deception but for the incorrect reasons.

3) The shopkeeper is the jewel thief but he's really good at deception. Good enough that a passive insight isn't going to catch the deception (which I would handle as an automatic success and let the player know).

For #3 There's nothing obvious, but everyone has a "tell". Think poker players. A good poker player is not going to say "Woo-hoo! What an amazing hand!" I'm not going to broadcast anything because success isn't automatic even for someone with proficiency in insight.

No Insight: Bare basics, nothing specifically noted, shopkeeper appears to be genuine.
Proficiency: Passive Deception versus Passive Insight. Success - Reveals something obscured or a concealed tell/nervous tick, Failure - Perhaps reveal false characteristic (bond and/or flaw and/or ideal.
Insight Check: Success - Might reveal connections/motives not realised by the PCs, reveal masked emotion
Failure - Might reveal nothing, or reveal the incorrect personality characteristic (ideals and/or bonds and/or flaws), or reveal the incorrect emotion.

 

[5ekyu]

What some people refuse to accept or acknowledge is that finding/removing traps descriptively is boring for a lot of people. They may have focused their limited options on being the greatest trap finder/remover they can be so they want to be rewarded by using the skill now and then.

But describing in detail how they counteract yet another contact poison? Snooze time. Not to mention, why is it always contact poison? And why would pouring fermented grape juice on it do anything at all? Why would anyone else at the table care? I think if anyone started doing this at my table, I'd start throwing in alcoholic mimics that pretended to be poisoned door handles.

So when it comes to that kind of stuff ... if people want to describe it and are reasonably entertaining fantastic. Here's a cookie inspiration point. But I don't expect people to play my way. I don't expect them to describe every sword swing or how they read arcane script or decipher religious symbolism. I don't even expect them to describe how they find/disable mundane traps. Even if some doorknob mimics may be disappointed by that.

This kinda ties in with a question I had before, about the use of traps, the examples bring put forth etc and it all ties back to the ABCD divide between "challenges" and solutions.

In my games, the result of creating some massive IJones style shifting blocks massive multi-part mechanism at no doubt great effort and expense that literally anyone with a std adventurer's pack and kit under 50 gp can fool without need for proficiency or trainjng - well - would be the trap maker and his financial overseer getting to watch their families fed into its giant sliding blocks and then joining them as "the boss" searches for a better trapmaker.

I mean, really, some expertise went into these at their construction. Someone went to a lot of time and expense to make them tough to beat, not something anyone can just get around.

But, if instead there was no thought about "well, how could someone get around it?" when it was being built and so now it's a quick "look in your pack and let's just walk on thru simple then hey, it's a screen for on a submarine.

Now of course, some of these no doubt are just fabricated examples not something anybody would use in actual play. But that's kind of the point.

In play, is where ability scores and training and those choices matter. In play is where in-character choices matter. It's from those contexts that the "balance" between checks and no check required is seen and learned from.

So, if you as a player describe what you consider fool-proof poison-trap defeating moves and expect the execution to go off as you describe it... are you going so because you are roleplaying a character who is a master poison trap beater and know they cannot fail? Or are you going it regardless of character skill because you the player"know" this will defeat such?

This is where the concepts of "I dont think DC or solutions whrn i setup a challenge to me fails." Within the game world, someone did setup that scene, that challenge. Someone within the game world did think thru challenges and possible solutions in most of the cases we have here.

So, "how hood were they at it, how much time, resource and planning went into it, etc should all be directly part of the setup and from that the difficulty.

If the massive Indiana sliding blocks of doom are beatable by a squire with a crowbar, there is a terrible breakdown in the underpinnings. One that would lead my players' character to go "WTF" not start patting themselves on the back and checking their inspiration tallies.

The DMG addresses this in its section on setting DCs by asking the GM to focus on how skilled someone would be who could beat it. They come up with some pretty basic divisions to get you to DC 10, DC 15 and DC 20. They leave room for higher and lower due to additional circumstances.

This five tails with a practice that serves me well too, the reverse perspective - who set this up, why, how good were they, how much time and resource etc. Its really just the same decision making but when I have a "known" creator and intent I use that perspective.

In the DMG, they do not however scramble this in the context of or confined by "but of course maybe a squire with a crowbar is the best answer so let's just skip past it."

So, again it comes back to how many times does a GM show the players that their characters will be challenged based on their skills vs how many times its solvable by the players along, maybe just by thrir choice- to buy a kit with a crowbar st chargrn?

For poison on door handle, I dont use that as a care really of "trap disarming" - because it is as much a trap as three guys at the end of an alley. Notice it and you avoid it easily. No real skill needed. No aptitude needed. It's more hazard than trap.

And it's also not a trap someone who knew what they were doing would expect to catch someone who had any skill or caution, unless we have some major mystical poison that really is more than a contact poison.

Like say, maybe it's a layer of contact venom over a layer of reactive gas or spores, so that "I wipe the handle off" or "I pour wine to wash it off" releases the threats just as much as a casual handle grab would.

Of course, that is now describing a "trap" setup by someone with skill at doing this who did spend a few minutes thinking through what solutions there were and counters.

It's like kind of some experiences in Vietnam and other wars, where ambushes were most effective when the seemingly safe place with cover (that was obvious once the shooting started) was Bobby trapped.

So, no, I wont assign too much of "you were tired or counting your chickens" to the failure against the traps myself, instead I might describe a slip up, because like the fighter swing the player describes the attempt at the action not the success at it, but more likely I am describing a new wrinkle that was missed and already accounted for by the one who set it up.

Like I said earlier, few of my "challenges that matter" are of a type where they can be overcome without checks (even passive checks) at all. Most require checks to overcome with opportunities for advantage and disadvantage driven by choices and circumstances. Some can be overcome by checks (passive, active, adv disadv chouces) or choices a- either one. Some can only be overcome by a combination of checks (passive, active, adv disadv chouces) and choices both required.

I find that those rough divisions and considerations tend to provide a world in view to the players that remains consistent, rational in the action of its denizens and a playstyle that provides consistent and meaningful balance between choices made and results.

I do acknowledge tho, it leaves out some old tropes of certain styles of fiction like the crowbar stopping the massive machinery "fix" - and that is intended.

So, its maybe not for everyone.

 

[Ovinomancer]

What some people refuse to accept or acknowledge is that finding/removing traps descriptively is boring for a lot of people. They may have focused their limited options on being the greatest trap finder/remover they can be so they want to be rewarded by using the skill now and then.

No one refuses this. No one is saying doing it your way is wrong, or lesser. We've been asked how we do it and have responded. I find it really weird that there's this pushback that, after asking how we do things, you take it as us telling you that you play wrong. Like, really odd.

I actually love that you play differently from me. I love this because you have fun when you do. That's the best outcome for our shared hobby -- that lots of people enjoy it and tell others. And, that's all I'm doing here, and all [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6776133]Bawylie[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION] are doing: telling others how we enjoy our hobby. I'm not a terrible person for advocating for my play any more than you are. So, can we kindly (and this is for the whole thread) dispense with the outraged imagined injuries -- they don't actually exist. You cannot quote anyone saying that they don't think that some people would find removing traps descriptively boring, you can only impute that yourself. So, stop imputing it.

But describing in detail how they counteract yet another contact poison? Snooze time. Not to mention, why is it always contact poison? And why would pouring fermented grape juice on it do anything at all? Why would anyone else at the table care? I think if anyone started doing this at my table, I'd start throwing in alcoholic mimics that pretended to be poisoned door handles.

In order:

I don't ask them to. I ask for an approach and goal -- in the case of removing contact poison, it can be any reasonable approach, I do not care. It can be detailed or simple, it just has to give the the shape of the attempt so that, on a failure, I'm not assuming what the PC did when I level a consequence. I also don't smear contact poison on every door and require my players to play through that. That would, indeed, be very boring. There's this trend in your complaints that assumes that things are very commonly occurring when they are not. Traps are rare, special, and unique in my games -- and always telegraphed. The challenge is not finding it, or rolling dice at it, it's figuring out how to do what you want in spite of it. If you're assuming that we have a game where there's lots of doorknobs with contact poison and we stop everything for a detailed explanation of how you do the same thing over again, you're not paying attention or trying to understand. You're maintaining your preconceptions in spite of being told they are wrong.

It's definitely not always contact poison. This is disingenuous af. It was an example early in the thread and gets reused so that there aren't many examples to be confused about, as I'm very sure you know.

I don't care -- it's a reasonable approach and I'll take it. I'm not looking for a specific result, and I do not have a complex chemical breakdown of the poison such that I evaluate any proposed action against such a detailed breakdown. Pouring wine on it sounds good in genre logic (which is the only logic I really care about in game), so it's a valid approach. If you had goat's milk, that would work too. Or just water. If I actually specified wine for some reason, it would be because it had been established in play already, and wine was available, because that would fit the genre logic and the established fiction. This isn't rocket science, and I don't make it such. Just about anything works, I just need an approach so I can adjudicate the difficulty and the consequence.

Why does anyone care about anything happening at the table? My answer to this hypothetical is because they find it fun. Do you have a different answer? Also, in my game, consequences tend to spill out, so other players care if things start going badly.

Really? You'd actually actively thwart successful play at your table because... I don't understand why you'd do this. I get you think you don't like our play (although, in my example above, you said it works the same at your table -- although you then went on to list differences I thought were pretty large) so if it showed up at your table in a way we don't actually play (but you're invested in imagining we do, because.... don't understand that either, honestly) you'd make sure to screw over the players. Yeah, not following that at multiple points.

So when it comes to that kind of stuff ... if people want to describe it and are reasonably entertaining fantastic. Here's a cookie inspiration point. But I don't expect people to play my way. I don't expect them to describe every sword swing or how they read arcane script or decipher religious symbolism. I don't even expect them to describe how they find/disable mundane traps. Even if some doorknob mimics may be disappointed by that.

I also love it when players are entertaining in their descriptions! It's great! I also don't require it, punish it, or reward it (even with an inspiration point). However you chose to address the rarely presented trap in front of you, I'm good.

And, to be frank, I think a large part of the problem here is that we're trying to engage you on examples that really don't exist in our games. I, frankly, can't imagine having just a poisoned doorknob as a trap placed in my dungeon. I can imagine a poisoned doorknob trap, certainly, and would have one, but it would be part of a larger challenge. It might block the way when the party is trying to rapidly exit an area, or be part of a challenge where the party wants to get through an area undetected so the delay is a big deal. But, just a series of trapped doors where the trap is the thing? Nope. But, I've engaged this example because it's one presented, and the setup for a trap in my game requires a huge amount of exposition because they're all tied into bigger things. Even the hallway trap example I provided above elided many things in the overall situation that made it much more important to a bigger challenge than the simple version given. I skipped that because it complicates the question of what happens at the point of contact -- where the mechanics meet the game. The problem this causes is that you then assume our games otherwise look like yours - have lots of traps, maybe, where searching each door for a trap is a very wise way to play, and the individual traps aren't really that important if bypassed, so it makes sense to shortcut and just do the rolls and not waste time on these things. In my game, a trap is a big deal -- it's rare, it's going to be dangerous, and it's going to directly thwart what it is you want to do, so you have to address it. Or, it'll be part of a bigger challenge, where it's an added complication that forces hard choices -- do we deal with the trap and risk this other thing, or deal with the other thing and risk the trap? As such, your imaginings that there are whole complexes of traps that are dealt with with the presented granularity must indeed seem very weird -- but, as we keep telling you, you're missing the bigger point; our games are actually different from yours. Adopting the playstyle also means fundamentally altering how you approach the game and that alters what's important in the game.

 

[5ekyu]

No one refuses this. No one is saying doing it your way is wrong, or lesser. We've been asked how we do it and have responded. I find it really weird that there's this pushback that, after asking how we do things, you take it as us telling you that you play wrong. Like, really odd.

I actually love that you play differently from me. I love this because you have fun when you do. That's the best outcome for our shared hobby -- that lots of people enjoy it and tell others. And, that's all I'm doing here, and all [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6776133]Bawylie[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION] are doing: telling others how we enjoy our hobby. I'm not a terrible person for advocating for my play any more than you are. So, can we kindly (and this is for the whole thread) dispense with the outraged imagined injuries -- they don't actually exist. You cannot quote anyone saying that they don't think that some people would find removing traps descriptively boring, you can only impute that yourself. So, stop imputing it.


In order:

I don't ask them to. I ask for an approach and goal -- in the case of removing contact poison, it can be any reasonable approach, I do not care. It can be detailed or simple, it just has to give the the shape of the attempt so that, on a failure, I'm not assuming what the PC did when I level a consequence. I also don't smear contact poison on every door and require my players to play through that. That would, indeed, be very boring. There's this trend in your complaints that assumes that things are very commonly occurring when they are not. Traps are rare, special, and unique in my games -- and always telegraphed. The challenge is not finding it, or rolling dice at it, it's figuring out how to do what you want in spite of it. If you're assuming that we have a game where there's lots of doorknobs with contact poison and we stop everything for a detailed explanation of how you do the same thing over again, you're not paying attention or trying to understand. You're maintaining your preconceptions in spite of being told they are wrong.

It's definitely not always contact poison. This is disingenuous af. It was an example early in the thread and gets reused so that there aren't many examples to be confused about, as I'm very sure you know.

I don't care -- it's a reasonable approach and I'll take it. I'm not looking for a specific result, and I do not have a complex chemical breakdown of the poison such that I evaluate any proposed action against such a detailed breakdown. Pouring wine on it sounds good in genre logic (which is the only logic I really care about in game), so it's a valid approach. If you had goat's milk, that would work too. Or just water. If I actually specified wine for some reason, it would be because it had been established in play already, and wine was available, because that would fit the genre logic and the established fiction. This isn't rocket science, and I don't make it such. Just about anything works, I just need an approach so I can adjudicate the difficulty and the consequence.

Why does anyone care about anything happening at the table? My answer to this hypothetical is because they find it fun. Do you have a different answer? Also, in my game, consequences tend to spill out, so other players care if things start going badly.

Really? You'd actually actively thwart successful play at your table because... I don't understand why you'd do this. I get you think you don't like our play (although, in my example above, you said it works the same at your table -- although you then went on to list differences I thought were pretty large) so if it showed up at your table in a way we don't actually play (but you're invested in imagining we do, because.... don't understand that either, honestly) you'd make sure to screw over the players. Yeah, not following that at multiple points.


I also love it when players are entertaining in their descriptions! It's great! I also don't require it, punish it, or reward it (even with an inspiration point). However you chose to address the rarely presented trap in front of you, I'm good.

And, to be frank, I think a large part of the problem here is that we're trying to engage you on examples that really don't exist in our games. I, frankly, can't imagine having just a poisoned doorknob as a trap placed in my dungeon. I can imagine a poisoned doorknob trap, certainly, and would have one, but it would be part of a larger challenge. It might block the way when the party is trying to rapidly exit an area, or be part of a challenge where the party wants to get through an area undetected so the delay is a big deal. But, just a series of trapped doors where the trap is the thing? Nope. But, I've engaged this example because it's one presented, and the setup for a trap in my game requires a huge amount of exposition because they're all tied into bigger things. Even the hallway trap example I provided above elided many things in the overall situation that made it much more important to a bigger challenge than the simple version given. I skipped that because it complicates the question of what happens at the point of contact -- where the mechanics meet the game. The problem this causes is that you then assume our games otherwise look like yours - have lots of traps, maybe, where searching each door for a trap is a very wise way to play, and the individual traps aren't really that important if bypassed, so it makes sense to shortcut and just do the rolls and not waste time on these things. In my game, a trap is a big deal -- it's rare, it's going to be dangerous, and it's going to directly thwart what it is you want to do, so you have to address it. Or, it'll be part of a bigger challenge, where it's an added complication that forces hard choices -- do we deal with the trap and risk this other thing, or deal with the other thing and risk the trap? As such, your imaginings that there are whole complexes of traps that are dealt with with the presented granularity must indeed seem very weird -- but, as we keep telling you, you're missing the bigger point; our games are actually different from yours. Adopting the playstyle also means fundamentally altering how you approach the game and that alters what's important in the game.

One bit I will comment on...

"Traps are rare, special, and unique in my games -- and always telegraphed. "

That would break my player's enjoyment and buy-in to my game world. It's a example is what I refer to as screen door on a submarine.

If all the traps that were challenges that matter were telegraphed, my players would be wondering "WTF are we fighting idjits?" - especially if they were not cases of broken down abandoned crap.

Then also, if when they themselves chose to setup a trap I also applied the "always telegraphed rule to their charscter's traps no matter how skilled their character's were - well - that would lead to some discussion. (As would me handwaving that rule for PC traps but not for skilled NPC traps - even NPCs they hire? Or do hired NPCs making traps for PCs get to waive the "always telegraphed rule?)

Bah... much simpler to let the traps be as easy to spot or to defeat or to avoid as the skills of the creator and the circumstances would suggest and leave the screen doors on the chicken coops where they belong.

But that's my games.

 

[Charlaquin]

What some people refuse to accept or acknowledge is that finding/removing traps descriptively is boring for a lot of people. They may have focused their limited options on being the greatest trap finder/remover they can be so they want to be rewarded by using the skill now and then.

I do not refuse to acknowledge that. Here is me, acknowledging it: I hereby officially acknowledge that finding and removing traps descriptively is boring for many people.

But describing in detail how they counteract yet another contact poison? Snooze time. Not to mention, why is it always contact poison? And why would pouring fermented grape juice on it do anything at all? Why would anyone else at the table care? I think if anyone started doing this at my table, I'd start throwing in alcoholic mimics that pretended to be poisoned door handles.

If you want to talk about refusal of acknowledgement here, how many times have those of us who ask our players to frame their actions in terms of a goal and an approach said that there is no requirement or expectation of a detailed description l? How many more times will we have to say it before people who “just are honestly curious how we would handle...” get this?

And the only reason contact poison is being discussed right now is because it was the example being used in the comment air responded to and I rolled with it.. I have never used contact poison on a door handle in an actual game.

So when it comes to that kind of stuff ... if people want to describe it and are reasonably entertaining fantastic. Here's a cookie inspiration point. But I don't expect people to play my way. I don't expect them to describe every sword swing or how they read arcane script or decipher religious symbolism. I don't even expect them to describe how they find/disable mundane traps. Even if some doorknob mimics may be disappointed by that.

I don’t give any kind of reward for detailed descriptions of actions, personally. Seems like a very strange thing to do if you find descriptive roleplaying boring, but if it works for you, have fun. It’s also funny that you bring up combat (again), because it’s actually a great example of a context where most DMs run things similarly to how we do the rest of the time. There is no requirement or expectation of a detailed description of how you swing your sword. But you do need to specify your target (goal) and what you are attacking them with (approach). “I Attack the goblin with my sword” is a perfectly acceptable level of detail. Likewise, “I wipe the handle with a cloth” is a perfectly acceptable action out of combat. Strictly speaking it lacks an explicit goal, but it’s easu enough to infer the goal from the context of the example scenario. No detailed description necessary.

I’m happy to acknowledge that detailed description is boring for you. Are you willing to acknowledge that detailed description is not the norm at my table? How about that having control of my character taken away from me (“you rolled a 2, so you just casually glanced at the handle” and/or “You rolled a 2, and that represents your best effort”) is infuriating to me?

 

[iserith]

I think most players would realize the situation where Insight is impossible. Such as trying to Insight a recording or a letter.

But, to get to a question that might have an answer. If they tried, and there was no ambiguity because it is too easy. What do you tell them?

Do you tell them no roll is necessary and just leave it at that, or do you tell them that no roll is necessary because they can easily tell?

Do you mean if they try to determine if what a letter says is true? What is their approach to the goal?

For an 8th level rogue with prof to get an 11... they had to roll low. Player knows it, I know it. So, while narrating the result I don't say "No you failed" I'd say something more like "You're tired of this dungeon, and while you put in a good show of looking you only really glance at the handle while thinking about the fat piles of loot in your future."

We relied on the dice, and the dice tell us the rogue under-performed. So I come up with the reason why they lapsed in that moment.

Only the player may establish if the character is tired of the dungeon or that the character glances at the handle or thinks about loot.

 

[Ovinomancer]

First, this isn't a parody. I honestly want to understand what you would do. I still don't get why there couldn't be a dialog where the PCs are questioning the shopkeeper but since you refuse to give an example of what the dialog would look like I give up.

Sigh, you keep saying this, but then you do not listen and instead insert your imaginings in place, like saying you don't understand why there couldn't be a dialog. Where have I, or anyone else, said there's never a dialog? This is your assumption, and it's wrong.

I'm not interested in imagining a dialog between players and me in my game. I felt yours was fine up until the point I said 'full stop' because it reasonably looked like something that could happen in my game up until that point. It, in fact, at that point that it became farce.

I don't want to put words into your mouth but since you refuse to give a concrete example, I'm assuming something like:

I've given plenty of concrete examples. Are you demanding that it be in the form of dialog now? How does that help?

DM/shopkeeper "So I locked up the store as usual, set the normal traps and went upstairs to bed."
Player: "You sleep above the shop?"
DM/shopkeeper: "Yes, it's part of the compensation, and I'm single so it works well for me."
Player: "So no witness and you didn't hear anything at all during the night."
DM/shopkeeper: "No witnesses and no I didn't hear anything. But this building is very solidly built for a reason."
Player: "And there was no sign of forced entry, the traps were still set."
DM/shopkeeper: "That's right. In fact the traps are supposed to ward against magical entry as well."
Player: "I don't believe him, I think he's hiding something."
DM: "He's telling the truth"
​

This to me would ruin all the mystery of a who-dunnit like this. No thanks. The shopkeeper should be a primary suspect. The reason to ask for an insight check is to maintain that air of mystery and doubt. The shopkeeper is less likely to be involved, but there's no way to be certain.

It's not what would happen at my table at all, though, which is why I put a full stop in above and explained what needed to happen. Here, the issue for me is that you've decided that the shopkeeper being a suspect is important. That's great! If I did that, there would be all kinds of things going on that led to that, and it wouldn't be 'is he lying.' To me, that would be very boring. If I flat out told the players the shopkeeper isn't lying it would be because it wasn't interesting to anyone at the table except idly. Again, the issue here is that the construct you've built wouldn't happen at all in my game. If I ran this, then the shopkeeper would have many things going on that would not, at all, pivot on if the players think he's lying.

And, this really touches on another point of play -- what does a successful check actually mean in this case? That the player confirms their guess and absolutely knows the shopkeeper is lying. What does this enable that isn't also enabled by the suspicion of lying?

And please don't bother responding if all you're going give me is more platitudes of "I would be such an amazing DM this could never occur" unless you can show how. This is an extremely simple scenario that is very typical of games I've played in or run. It shouldn't be hard. Assume it's a new player and this is the beginning of the session.

Because it's not an scenario that exists in my games, no matter how "awesome" I may or may not be. As I say above, if I ran this scenario, the shopkeeper would have lots of interesting detail, but lying might not be one. This doesn't mean there wouldn't be lots to engage with. Perhaps the shopkeeper's brother used his familiarity to rob the store without the shopkeeper's knowledge, but the shopkeeper suspects, that's a neat thing that would come out in the interaction and could be sussed. Using Insight to discover the shopkeeper's ideal for honesty could help, or maybe a flaw that they always excuse their brother? Lot's of neat things I might do with a heist scenario involving a live-in shopkeep that do not involve using insight to tell if he's not lying.

Well let's talk about three possibilities with my jewel heist scenario.
1) The shopkeeper is really telling the truth and is not particularly nervous or agitated.

This means that the shopkeeper is just ambulatory exposition, and I'd not even bother with this. Or, the issue wouldn't be the shopkeep lying, but some other thing involving the shopkeep. If the sole challenge is "do NPCs lie to us" and the shopkeeper doesn't, then why bother?

I mean, I know why, it's to preserve a sense of uncertainty in the game. I've found that I can straight out give my notes to players (of all calibers), and they'll still create their own uncertainty and will definitely screw up by the numbers. This is why consequences for failures are so critical to my style -- they create roadblocks and adversity without me having to spin the players along with uncertainty that what they rolled means anything at all. My choices to do it this way are my choices, I certainly had a lot of fun in the past playing the other way, I just have less fun now. YMMV, and all that.

2) The shopkeeper is the thief but is not any good at deception.

This is much more interesting. At this point, that the shopkeep is lying is pretty much a foregone conclusion, so I'm not going to make that a crux point -- ie, the shopkeeper getting away with lying will not be that happens if the players investigate. The 'mystery' will be why, to what ends, and what does this mean to the PCs and their goals. Again, I'm not going to have a situation in my game where a store was robbed and the shopkeeper did it as the whole of anything -- this example would be just a front to a larger issue and the shopkeeper lying would not be the challenge.

3) The shopkeeper is the jewel thief but he's really good at deception. Good enough that a passive insight isn't going to catch the deception (which I would handle as an automatic success and let the player know).

Again, interesting. But, as I've said, I'm not going to hinge an investigation on an Insight check to tell if the shopkeep is lying. Insight to get that the shopkeep is smug and unconcerned, maybe, because that would push players to look more closely at other things. And, really, the other things would be what solves this mystery, not an insight check.

And, this leads me back to something I said above: what's the point of the insight check? What does it actually do?

Let's assume we're in #3 above, and the players succeed at a very high Insight check to tell that the shopkeep is lying about the theft. What does this do in your game? Is this proof, of any kind, that allows players to arrest/kill the shopkeeper as a criminal? Normally, this would obviously be false, but I think this is actually what the check does -- it enables the players to have the moral right to punish the wrongdoer. It, in many ways, functions like the old Paladin Detect Evil, which was sometimes used as a crutch to enable killing anything that pinged. I'm not suggesting this is the same, here, because that's extreme, but I do think a successful Insight check to detect lying is really just a gate that provides justification to escalate within the scene. I do not enjoy this for a couple of reasons. One, I don't see that I need to validate your character's thinking so that they can act upon it -- that's up to the players. Two, I don't find that interesting. It's a tell to the player that this person is bad in a game where bad things are usually killed, but many GMs might also use that as a means to then take the expected player action and pervert it by having them get in trouble with the authorities. And, if the authorities are important such that real proof is needed, then why am I validating player suspicions in a pass/fail way if it really doesn't make a difference? This is one big reason why I do not use Insight as a lie detector, nor do I create situations where telling if someone is lying by talking to them is a crucial point of the game.

Since you've asked for examples, let me present a shopkeeper example I might run:

Initial PC information:
The shop has been burgled. There are numerous mundane and magical traps that have neither been disabled nor set off. The shopkeeper lives in the store and was present all night long.

Initial DM information:
The shopkeep didn't have anything directly to do with the burglary. He didn't hear anything, and didn't see anything. He does, however, do occasional fencing work for the local thieves guild, and so is guarded when answering questions. He suspects that his brother may have been involved, and, indeed, he was. The shopkeep's brother is a wanted jewel thief, but uses a different name so it's not obvious. The shopkeeper has the following BITFs: Trait: guarded with authorities and those representing them; Bond: will do anything for his daughters; Flaw: I've always made excuses for my brother's behavior.

There now I'm done with prep. In play, this can go a huge number of ways. If the players inspect the traps, they might discover evidence that they've been disabled and expertly reset. Pointing this out to the shopkeeper would result in the shopkeeper being surprised and then suspicious and pointing out that he'd not have needed to do it that way as he has a much easier way to disable and reset the traps that wouldn't leave that evidence. Further questioning on this line wouldn't result in much, as the shopkeeper has no reason to reveal anything else. The party might then look at what wasn't stolen, and could find out that some of the left merchandise was previously stolen and confront the shopkeeper about his fencing. Having a party member affiliated with the guild would make this go very easily, and thus the connection with the guild would be exposed, indicating that it's not likely a guild job and thus likely an outsider. Looking around the shopkeeper's apartment would uncover that he has daughters he's supporting (a letter, or painting, or kid's drawings, etc.). Using this, and asking how he could possibly continue to support his daughters if the party doesn't recover the merchandise could result in the shopkeeper revealing his jewel-thief brother.

Or, something totally different might happen, depending on the player's stated goals and approaches to those goals. I do not ever write solutions, I write problems and then enjoy seeing what happens in the game.

To give you another example that actually happened in my game, here's some of that dialogue you asked for:

Scene: the dwarven barbarian and his cleric companion have entered a seedy bar seeking information about the person that murdered the dwarf's entire clan, leaving him the only survivor. The dwarf doesn't know why this happened, only that it did and the person responsible is named Terak. The dwarf has information that Terak has been in the city recently and is searching for him. They enter the bar looking for Butcher, who, in a previous scene, they were told might have information. The bar is dimly light, close, and full of regulars at the end of a hard workday (picture a coal-miner's bar and you're not far off). They immediately notice Butcher, who is immense, occupying two bar stools, heavily muscled and overweight, with bright red skin, a single curling horn, and is wearing a butchers apron with a massive cleaver on his belt. The duo approach and sit at the bar next to Butcher.

As they sit:
Butcher: [without looking] what do you want.
Cleric: who says we want something?
B: you don't belong here, you don't want to be here [turns to look at the cleric], and you sat next to me. That means you want something. [turns back to his pitcher sized mug] So, what is it?
Dwarf: We want to know where Terak is.
B: [visibly pales, starts, tries to cover it] Why would you want to know that?
C: So, you know who he is?
B: [winces] I might.
Dwarf's player: Okay, I'm going to activate my smoking armor and my glowing eyes helmet and then threaten him.
D: [now with smoking armor and glowing red eyes] You'll tell us or else!
Me, as GM: Okay, cool, make an intimidate check. You don't get advantage for your gear because this is Butcher's stomping grounds and you've notice quite a few thugs around paying attention, so you're pretty sure he'll have some support if you start something.
D's Player: sounds fair, I got a... 4. Darn it.
Butcher: [glancing at the dwarf before turning back to his ale] That's a cute trick. Why don't you get out of here before something bad happens you'll regret. {I'm attempting to close the scene here.}
Cleric's Player: I'm going to look around and see if I can notice anything that might help fix this. The butcher has friends here, clearly, anything about them jump out?
Me: Sure, you look around and notice that there's a plaque opposite Butcher's spot at the bar that says, "In appreciation of Butcher and the support he provided after the Foundry accident. The families of the Foundry thank him for his generous assistance in their time of need."
Cleric's Player: Oh. So, he helps around the community, I guess. I'm going to try to leverage that.
Cleric: Please forgive my friend, Mr. Butcher, he's lost his entire clan to this Terak. I'm sure you understand how hard it can be to suffer a tragedy like that and try to do anything to help. Are you sure there's nothing you can tell us to help us stop this Terak from destroying another community like my friends'?
Me: Ooh, super nice. He's pretty pissed though, so make a persuasion attempt but definitely get advantage on it.
Cleric's Player: An 18!
Butcher: [deep sigh, looks at the plaque] Yeah, I get it. [turns to the dwarf] I'm sorry that happened to you. This person you're seeking is very bad news, and I'm sorry I ever got mixed up in anything with him, even if it was just supplying rare meats to his household. He's put those shipments on hold indefinitely, and I have it on good authority he's left town, and I don't know where, sorry.
Dwarf: Is there anything you could tell us that might give a clue as to where he's gone?
Butcher: I overheard a conversation I wasn't supposed to between some of his goons when I made my last discovery. They said that their boss was looking for an artifact called the Great Wheel and had just gotten a lead on a piece of it so they were packing up to go. All I know, I tried to not learn anything at all. I suggest you grieve for your lost and forget about it.
D & C: Okay, thanks, have a good day.
{scene}

So, in there, there were a bunch of possible checks. A few automatic successes based on approach (the mood in the bar, noticing the plaque), and two that had checks called for: the intimidate attempt and the persuasion one. The intimidate failed, and I moved to end the scene with no success to the overall goal of finding information on Terak. The persuasion succeeded, because it leveraged a bond, and so reversed the move to close the scene (it's intent) and also automatically succeeded at eliciting further information. The dwarven barbarian has this Terak as a central conflict in their backstory, so I'm leveraging that to provide hooks. This whole scene occurred because of a previous hook I had set, and now the players are driving this plotline, not me. I don't know where Terak is, but I know he'll show up, likely at the worst time. We're gonna play some more and find out. For instance, right after this another member of the party found information on a possible location of another piece of the Wheel, so they've cowboyed for a hop to the near Astral and a fragment of what was once a Primordial Cult temple from before current recorded histories in case that's the piece that Terak's after as well. I wonder if it is...

 

[Oofta]

It's difficult to have this conversation and not occasionally make posts sound like attacks. If I've done that I apologize.

So let me put this another way. If you use a descriptive style of play why would anyone ever invest in a skill beyond proficiency? If all I need is proficiency in thieves tools, then would it matter if my cleric with the correct background was the trap finder/remover? Assuming the player could describe how his PC disables the trap what does it matter that he has an 8 dex and doesn't have expertise? Or for that matter the 8 wisdom fighter who happens to have proficiency with insight played by someone eloquent? Why would someone with an +1 insight who's proficient with an 8 wisdom automatically get information over someone with a +5 insight because of their high wisdom?

Speaking of traps, I don't use them all that often unless someone has invested heavily in the skills. In that case I like to play to people's strengths now and then. If I used a descriptive approach where your actual number didn't really matter I'd feel like I was cheating them. Some people might find it boring to find/disable traps by simply rolling but if handled that way it's such a insignificant percentage of the time we spend playing I don't see why it would matter.

In general traps are more window dressing to the scenario we're working through than a focus. If someone spending a minute or so on a trap is so boring you want to quit the game, I don't think that's
a problem with the style of play. On the other hand if you're the trap expert and you have fun giving detailed descriptions (and don't go overboard) then more power to you.

Description, dialog, choices, interactions all matter. But so do the mechanics of the character's PC. I want to reward both. I want to cater to people who enjoy both aspects or either aspect of the game. When I hear people say "if you can describe a valid approach no roll is needed" it feels like the mechanics of the PC are being ignored.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It's difficult to have this conversation and not occasionally make posts sound like attacks. If I've done that I apologize.

So let me put this another way. If you use a descriptive style of play why would anyone ever invest in a skill beyond proficiency? If all I need is proficiency in thieves tools, then would it matter if my cleric with the correct background was the trap finder/remover? Assuming the player could describe how his PC disables the trap what does it matter that he has an 8 dex and doesn't have expertise? Or for that matter the 8 wisdom fighter who happens to have proficiency with insight played by someone eloquent? Why would someone with an +1 insight who's proficient with an 8 wisdom automatically get information over someone with a +5 insight because of their high wisdom?

Speaking of traps, I don't use them all that often unless someone has invested heavily in the skills. In that case I like to play to people's strengths now and then. If I used a descriptive approach where your actual number didn't really matter I'd feel like I was cheating them. Some people might find it boring to find/disable traps by simply rolling but if handled that way it's such a insignificant percentage of the time we spend playing I don't see why it would matter.

In general traps are more window dressing to the scenario we're working through than a focus. If someone spending a minute or so on a trap is so boring you want to quit the game, I don't think that's
a problem with the style of play. On the other hand if you're the trap expert and you have fun giving detailed descriptions (and don't go overboard) then more power to you.

Description, dialog, choices, interactions all matter. But so do the mechanics of the character's PC. I want to reward both. I want to cater to people who enjoy both aspects or either aspect of the game. When I hear people say "if you can describe a valid approach no roll is needed" it feels like the mechanics of the PC are being ignored.

Bluntly, few approaches will result in automatic success, so having a good skill bonus and using approaches that leverage those skills is immensely beneficial when the very likely skill check is asked for.

I don't know how often I have to say that approach is used so I don't have to assume anything, to set DCs appropriately, and to set up appropriate consequences. Apparently, it's at least once more.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Well, that would certainly make it hard to play using "goal and method".

(Or, as I now like to call it, "The Medellin Interpretation.")

A little bit, but I don't need them to be exhaustive or descriptive, I just need an idea.

For example, my players just recently wanted to make disguises to sneak into an enemy city. Slightly difficult since one of them has a cloak they can't take off that constantly shines with light.

So, I asked them who they wanted to be disguised as. It was a bit of a discussion, but once they settled on a Lord and his entourage that was good enough to start resolving the check.

I know this is sarcasm, and it is quite well done too, but it does lead me to a good point on DM presentation.

Oof. That gets a hard Nope from me. No, I do not only glance at the handle. I told you I looked closely, sniffed the air, and wiped the handle with a cloth to see if there was any residue. I get control over one thing and one thing only in this game, and that’s my character’s actions. Take that away from me and what am I even here for?

See, this is hard to turn into a proper discussion, because the original scenario was terribly sarcastic on purpose.

Yeah, if you say you wipe the handle, then you are going to find a contact poison. That's just obvious to me.

But, if you say you check the door for traps, and we agree that you roll the dice, and you roll low even with all your bonuses... how else do you explain it? We all can look at the die sitting on the table, and see that it is an incredibly low number. For some reason your thief with poison trap specialty missed the poison trap, it is a low die number, maybe you just didn't give it your best effort on that one?

But if my description of why you failed offends you, then you can call me out on it and we can discuss the real reason you failed. But, if we roll the dice, and the dice say you failed, then you failed. You can't say "but I looked really closely and I'm really good at this, I couldn't have failed". We rolled, you failed. The question is just how and why you failed. And if you have a reason you like for the why, then great, we'll go with yours. But, a lot of my players don't have those ideas. They can't conceive of why they failed when they are so good at the thing, so I have to provide the answer.

Do you mean if they try to determine if what a letter says is true? What is their approach to the goal?

The example talks about times when Insight is impossible. Insight is about reading body language and tone and the like.

A letter says what is says, to determine if what the letter says is true you have to figure out what the facts are. In my experience when I run into people trying to Insight a letter, they aren't thinking of an approach. They are forgetting that they are dealing with the written word instead of the person talking to them.

After all, they can't see the letter, they just hear me talking. So, a reminder that it is a letter and you can't see if a letter is lying about what it says, usually is enough to get people thinking of other approaches to figuring out if the information is true that will actually yield results.

Only the player may establish if the character is tired of the dungeon or that the character glances at the handle or thinks about loot.

Yeah, look, I get it. Really I do. Some people are like rabid dogs defending a bone when it comes to their character's autonomy. Because of whatever reasons.

But I'm not going around making stuff up out of nowhere when I do this. I play off of the recent events in the story, off of the established pattern of your character's personality. I don't tell the selfless paladin he's thinking about murdering that guy in the bar who spilled his drink, but the barbarian whose established he's a vindictive jerk who holds even the smallest grudge? That's perfectly in character for him to think that.

And, again, if you don't like my description. If it offends you, then we can come up with something else. But, we know something had to have happened, because you failed at your goal.

Edit: I'm coming across a little harsh here, and I want to step back for a moment.

I also get annoyed when DM's tell me what actions my character takes. I'm still salty about a DM ruling where a fellow player was trying for a non-lethal takedown, but because a crticial hit the DM ruled it was a maiming blow that left the target footless.

But at the same time, I've also had players who bristle at the slightest hint of me doing anything with how their character feels. IE:

"As the terrifying form of the dragon rises over the-"
"Wargros isn't scared. You can't tell me how he feels, he's seen way more terrifying things than that dragon"

And the momentum of the scene is ruined, because some guy had to get upset that his warrior might feel fear. Or awe. Or any emotion at all.

It is frustrating as a DM to end up with a player with whom you can use no descriptive language at all, because you can't tell them how their character feels about anything at all. And I've dealt with that, and it annoyed the crap out of me.