Pathfinder 1E Sense motive became lie detector

[mattcolville]

Problem arises when the player says : "Are you the one who killed the king ?" ["I use sense motive with my +10 oversight bonus"]

I can't really answer that with something else than yes or no:
"I did not kill the king and I ate chicken today." [You sense only half is true] xD

But then the pc can do that with every major NPCs and the plot twists possibilities are reduced..

Is that an actual example that happened in your game?

 

[olshanski]

I don't think I'm seeing the problem here.

If the party narrows the suspects down to one person, and they are able to directly ask that person if they killed the king, then why not let them solve the crime?
They solve the crime, get the rewards, and move on to the next adventure.

If all of your adventures can be solved by asking a single NPC a direct question, then perhaps you need to write new adventures. But adventures are made to be completed, and sometimes you gotta let the players finish an adventures.

 

[Mad Hamish]

Problem arises when the player says : "Are you the one who killed the king ?" ["I use sense motive with my +10 oversight bonus"]

I can't really answer that with something else than yes or no:

Sure you can.

"I am offended that you would even ask me that question."

"You've got a lot of nerve making that accusation of me."

"How dare you accuse me of that!"

 

[Vegepygmy]

Problem arises when the player says : "Are you the one who killed the king ?" ["I use sense motive with my +10 oversight bonus"]

I can't really answer that with something else than yes or no:
"I did not kill the king and I ate chicken today." [You sense only half is true] xD

But then the pc can do that with every major NPCs and the plot twists possibilities are reduced..

And so what if the PC does realize the NPC is the king-slayer? He still has to convince everyone else of it, and that usually takes evidence.

"But he's the murderer! I just know it!"
"Yeah, yeah, Ralph...whatever you say."
"No, wait...I'm really, really good at knowing when people are lying!"
"Uh...okay. But I think the judge is going to insist on something more than your hunch before he, y'know, executes someone."

 

[delericho]

Sense Motive isn't magic. Even if totally reliable, it can only detect deliberate and knowing attempts at deception. A character who lies but believes he is telling the truth and characters who are pathological liars should both register as 'truthful'.

A character who has built such a character has earned the right to be able to use his ability to "read" people so well as one of the 'tools' in his adventuring kit. One should no more think of it as "unfair" for a character to have such a good skill bonus than to think it "unfair" for a character to cast such good spells to blow away hordes of critters or to be able to knock down the best kitted-out NPC with his wedge of steel.

I agree with all of this. And the rest of the post, too , but especially this bit.

Problem arises when the player says : "Are you the one who killed the king ?" ["I use sense motive with my +10 oversight bonus"]

I can't really answer that with something else than yes or no:
"I did not kill the king and I ate chicken today." [You sense only half is true] xD

But then the pc can do that with every major NPCs and the plot twists possibilities are reduced..

There are lots of ways to deal with this.

The first and most obvious is simply to have the NPC not answer - "how dare you ask me that?"

Alternately, have the NPC simply change the subject.

Or, have the NPC admit it... and then call his guards to have the PCs killed. Or, indeed, just point out that they need to be able to prove it, and they can't.

But there's another important key to the "murder mystery" scenario that gets missed far too often in discussions in the D&D context (both in relation to Sense Motive, and indeed to alignment as a whole): everyone has secrets.

If you run a mystery in which there are a bunch of entirely innocent NPCs and one BBEG, you're going to have a pretty damn short and unsatisfying adventure. The paladin uses detect evil, the walking lie detector uses Sense Motive, or whatever, and pretty quickly the truth comes out. Done.

A better approach is this: everyone has secrets. Everyone tells lies. And there need to be villains around who are nothing at all to do with the matter at hand.

So when the PCs start asking about what the seneschal was doing on the night of the murder, he proceeds to get oddly evasive. But not because he's the killer - he doesn't want his affair with the cook's wife to become public knowledge.

When the PCs ask the captain of the guard, he tearfully admits to being responsible. But that's actually not true - he's just overwhelmed by his guilt.

"Everyone lies. The innocent lie because they don't want to be blamed for something they didn't do, and the guilty lie because they don't have any other choice."

 

[sunshadow21]

I would absolutely let the player be able to tell if they were lying. It's still up to the player to frame the question is such a way that my providing that information is actually meaningful. As it has been pointed out many times, just because you know they are lying doesn't mean you know why they are lying. Especially with the example being used, pretty much everyone who might have anything to do with a king's death is going to be terrified out of their mind and probably have some dirty secrets of their own they have no interest in being made public.

 

[Mark CMG]

Although it was many years earlier, the local knight who had taken a vow never to brag or reveal the details was surprised that someone had heard he had killed the king of the goblins to which he flatly answered, "Yes."


Foiling someone's ability might not always be fair but it can be fun sometimes.


To agree and add to the above, be sure to always have some sense of the knowledge limits of the people being questioned and the countermeasures at the disposal of those with resources.

 

[Zezicks]

I tend to dissuade use of the Sense Motive as being a non-magical lie detector by taking a more literal approach to it. Sense Motive is really about understanding a person's expressions and body language to determine that there's more to what they're saying. Often, that translates as having better knowledge of the NPC's emotional state. Is he nervous about what he's saying? Is he fighting back tears? Is he speaking longingly or in a covetous manner regarding the Duke's wife?

Sense Motive does just that, it helps a player to understand that there is an alternative motivation behind what a NPC is saying. Think about why the NPC is lying, and use that to create a response to the player.

There are certainly times when it will be obvious that a person is lying with the proper use of a Sense Motive, but even then, I'll communicate to the player with "it seems to you the NPC is not giving you the whole story, or is attempting to subterfuge the truth."

 

[Animal]

I think the main problem is encrypted in the thread's title.
When players start using sense motive as a lie detector and DM lets them do it, difficulties are to be expected.
I've had the same problem with paladin's detect evil ability. When paladin player says "I sense evil in this man", other players tend to go slightly metagamey like "He's a paladin, paladins can sense evil without error. That fellow is evil".
I had to be creative to stop players from relying on that tool so much.
For example, creating neutral villains and good-aligned rivals, while some evil characters often pursued similar agendas as PCs. Or making LE characters upstanding and well respected members of society, so that the crowd would rather stone the PC accusing the LE NPC than believe him.
Same things could be done to sense motive. Don't be afraid to let your evil mastermind outsmart PCs. Give them leads to pawns and goons. Okay, they've found a murderer, but he is just a pawn. They've talked to some henchman, but he doesn't even know the whole truth. People who see the whole picture - you can't touch them so easily. They avoid meeting PCs, they guards to throw them out instead of answering any questions. And when PCs are pushing it too far, forcing npc to speak (but even when cornered, they have high bluff and potions of glibness) - villain falls back to local laws and PCs now have problems with local authorities. Who's gonna tolerate a bully now? A bunch of thugs breaking into some respectable citizen's home and making wild accusations? That fellow can sense lies? Well, what if he's a liar himself? Maybe we don't need these folks in our town.
You got the idea.