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

Charlaquin said:

Why have the player roll if the result isn’t going to affect the outcome? Seems like this would undermine the players’ confidence in the consistency of your world’s responses to their actions.

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Because there may still be other information they can glean from the situation other than just whether or not the speaker seems sincere. Plus, there may be some people who never seem sincere even when they are. And from the player perspective, that using their skills to analyze someone's mood, truthfulness, etc is pretty much always uncertain.

billd91 said:

Arguments over things like this usually underscore, to me, exactly how much players don't know about the technical aspects of searching thoroughly and finding traps. In order to do a thorough search, you're damn well going to have to touch things! I always assume a visual inspection would precede really digging in. And if your searching check was good enough to find any traps that would have been triggered by touching them, you're golden - I'll take that into account. If it's not, then too bad. You'd have never gotten to the point of finding a more deeply laid trap or the goodies protected by the trap without a bit of touching anyway.

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If that’s the understanding up front, that works too.

S'mon said:

Yes that's what I mean.

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Then why the semantics, if by "give a check on request", you mean the same thing I do by "ask for a check"?

S'mon said:

Situation in which I would not give a check - I might give an auto success if it's blindingly obvious. I might (rarely) not give a check if for some reason the truth can't be down, eg they're using Insight vs a pre-programmed magic mouth or other artificial voice - the check might tell them it's a programmed voice, but probably not if the voice is lying. Normally though I default to say-yes-or-roll.

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Well, to me, a Wisdom (Insight) check represents an attempt to notice clues that hint at someone's intentions that would otherwise be hidden. This NPC isn't trying to hide its true intentions, so this isn't so much an auto-success as it is analogous to searching for a secret door on a section of wall where none exists. It's entirely appropriate for the DM to reply, "You don't notice anything," without calling for a check of any kind.

Oofta said:

This is just a minor pet peeve of mine and I may be the only one who has this problem, but I personally am not trained in removing traps. My PC is. Why should I go into details of how I'm disarming the trap any more than I would describe the methods I'm using to calm a horse with animal handling? I don't deal with horses on a regular basis. Ask me how to approach a skittish cat and I might have some possibilities, but a horse? Not so sure.

So when it comes to traps, how the **** would I know the best approach? As a DM, I may say something like "in order to disable the trap it looks like you need to insert your hand into this hole, do you do it?" As a DM, I try to avoid "gotchas" so I start with the assumption they're just looking and build a scene with the character if it's not clear. That doesn't change whether they're investigating a trap or looking at an old book.

Anyway, it's just a pet peeve and one I've had since my AD&D days. Carry on.

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"How do you get the horse to settle down and behave?"

You are NOT the only one.

"I scream at the horse to shut the f up, stand there and behave!!!"

vs

"I slowly, calmly approach it, offering an apple, no quick moves."

Are these two results gonna get the same DC to an animal handling check? Or are GMs asking for "How do you..." really just rewarding players with knowledge of how to deal with horses?

Obviously, this is an example but the most common examples across games has come from social encounters where what the player says and how the player says it often trumps the character abilities - "by removing uncertainty" is just another form of "you pass the check."

If my ranger gets assigned foraging, I likely dont need to provide much detail beyond "I go out foraging" - well unless I find something interesting or fail the check and get setback.

If I get assigned "keep the horses from freaking out due yo the storm maybe i do.

To each their own.

billd91 said:

Arguments over things like this usually underscore, to me, exactly how much players don't know about the technical aspects of searching thoroughly and finding traps. In order to do a thorough search, you're damn well going to have to touch things! I always assume a visual inspection would precede really digging in. And if your searching check was good enough to find any traps that would have been triggered by touching them, you're golden - I'll take that into account. If it's not, then too bad. You'd have never gotten to the point of finding a more deeply laid trap or the goodies protected by the trap without a bit of touching anyway.

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To me these examples simply highlight lack of communication and common framework between gm and players.

If a gm has as a rule in his game that investigation requires touching, why wasnt it given that way yo the players.

BTW I do not expect my players to actually be informed about the technical aspects of trap finding. They are not in real life active burglars.

If you are the DM, and your player wants to see if their character can pick up on your NPC, why set a DC at? If you know the NPC is being truthful, and the player really wants to roll, let them and just tell them "You believe the person is being truthful."

Some would say that if there are no outward signs of a lie, then no roll is necessary, but players like to roll. Also, if the NPC is still new to them and the players aren't sure if it is friend, foe, or other, a little bit of mystery is good thing.

If the NPC is trying to convince the characters of something, a persuasion or deception roll on their part might apply (depending on the NPC's motives).

billd91 said:

Because there may still be other information they can glean from the situation other than just whether or not the speaker seems sincere.

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Seems like if that were the case, the result of the roll would affect the outcome...

billd91 said:

Plus, there may be some people who never seem sincere even when they are.

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Sure, but then I’d think the result would be that they seem insincere regardless of the result of the roll and we’re back to the question of why call for the roll unless its result can affect the outcome?

billd91 said:

And from the player perspective, that using their skills to analyze someone's mood, truthfulness, etc is pretty much always uncertain.

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This, I think, is one of our fundamental differences. I don’t want my players to feel uncertain about the outcomes of their actions. This, in my experience, is what leads players to actually want to make checks. They see the numbers on their sheet as more reliable than their own mental picture of the fictional world, so they would rather push the “check for traps” button and risk failing because of a low roll than declare an approach with any degree of specificity and risk failing because they couldn’t accurately predict how the world would respond to their actions.

akr71 said:

Some would say that if there are no outward signs of a lie, then no roll is necessary, but players like to roll.

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Not mine! Trying to roll is not a great strategy for success.

5ekyu said:

"How do you get the horse to settle down and behave?"

You are NOT the only one.

"I scream at the horse to shut the f up, stand there and behave!!!"

vs

"I slowly, calmly approach it, offering an apple, no quick moves."

Are these two results gonna get the same DC to an animal handling check? Or are GMs asking for "How do you..." really just rewarding players with knowledge of how to deal with horses?

Obviously, this is an example but the most common examples across games has come from social encounters where what the player says and how the player says it often trumps the character abilities - "by removing uncertainty" is just another form of "you pass the check."

If my ranger gets assigned foraging, I likely dont need to provide much detail beyond "I go out foraging" - well unless I find something interesting or fail the check and get setback.

If I get assigned "keep the horses from freaking out due yo the storm maybe i do.

To each their own.

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I guess I just assume my players aren't complete idiots that will purposely doing something to guarantee they don't succeed. If a wild bear looks like it might attack, maybe charging at it yelling would be the best choice. Maybe standing your ground being careful to not look it in the eye is best. In reality I know it depends on the type of bear (if black the former, if grizzly the latter, if polar just kiss your ass goodbye ).

Taking a slightly different example, there are times when I wouldn't call for a roll (or ignore any roll made even if it's a 20). The wall is smooth with no handholds whatsoever, the boulder is too big to lift, etc. Sometimes I don't call for a roll simply for expediency.

But there are other times when I will because while the outcome is pre-determined by me as a DM, it is not and should not be from the perspective of the PCs.

For example, the PCs suspect there is a secret door in a room. I know there is none, and nothing is going to change that. However, uncertainty can be very important to the story. If I just say "there is no secret door" I've taken away all uncertainty. If I say "he's telling the truth", I've given them a 100% guarantee that (barring magic) they're telling the truth.

This is the way I've always run things since back in my AD&D days. Sometimes a little
paranoia/questioning tells a better story. After all, when I look for my keys that
I know I left in the kitchen, there's always going to be that lingering doubt that maybe I just didn't check thoroughly enough. At least until I find the keys in the bathroom.

The uncertainty factor is something commonly used in TV/Movies/Fiction. The mystery sometimes shows you who dunnit and the story is all about how they get caught. Other times, the identity of the culprit (or even if there was a crime) is hidden from the viewer. If the PCs are left uncertain whether or not the NPC is lying, they may still be a suspect. That's part of the fun of solving a mystery.