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

Swarmkeeper · Apr 24, 2019

5ekyu said:
There are some GMs who (maybe poor form or maybe by design) dont explicitly mark the end of their stage in the play loop with a formal declaration every scene.

Why would a DM "by design" not signal to the players that they need to do something? What does that even mean? Do some DMs just end their sentence or trail off and sit in awkward silence until someone else says something? Maybe some tables develop an "It's your turn" facial expression? Ok, could work. It's not, IMO, difficult or scene breaking to just say "What do you do?" or something similar to indicate the ball is now in the players' court.

Or maybe the players need to roll insight to determine if the DM is really done?

Bawylie · Apr 24, 2019

WaterRabbit said:
Ok, good to know you think that. However, your comment cuts into the overall credibility of any of your arguments here since it has no explanation as to why you think that.

Any of them, huh? Oh well.

5ekyu · Apr 24, 2019

Paul Farquhar said:
DC 50.

If they roll high they may only be 10 feet short of the other side instead of 20.

Uhhh ok. But without more info, not informative. Thanks tho.

5ekyu · Apr 24, 2019

DM Dave1 said:
Why would a DM "by design" not signal to the players that they need to do something? What does that even mean? Do some DMs just end their sentence or trail off and sit in awkward silence until someone else says something? Maybe some tables develop an "It's your turn" facial expression? Ok, could work. It's not, IMO, difficult or scene breaking to just say "What do you do?" or something similar to indicate the ball is now in the players' court.

Or maybe the players need to roll insight to determine if the DM is really done?

Why? Many reasons. But mostly because the group finds it more fun to focus on scene and character roles tasn on the process of the rules and player vs gm roles.

Might have thought it ramped up drama to keep the threat hanging and let the players react to it without killing the mood and tension by stating formally. "At this point the official stage of GM narrations has ended. So as per pagex12 of the codified rules of table conduct, you have 19.3 seconds to declare your intentions." or whatever other code phrase or common statement is agreed to mark the end of one formal stage snd the beginning of the next formal stage.

Really, seriously, games are played lots of ways and in some - it may be shocking - less attention is paid to process, order and sequence of rules than is to tone, scene and tension.

Michael Silverbane · Apr 24, 2019

DM Dave1 said:
Why would a DM "by design" not signal to the players that they need to do something? What does that even mean? Do some DMs just end their sentence or trail off and sit in awkward silence until someone else says something? Maybe some tables develop an "It's your turn" facial expression? Ok, could work. It's not, IMO, difficult or scene breaking to just say "What do you do?" or something similar to indicate the ball is now in the players' court.

Or maybe the players need to roll insight to determine if the DM is really done?

Most of the time, it is pretty easy to tell when someone is done talking. I mean, in most conversations, we don't formally acknowledge that we're done talking and that it is someone else's turn to do so, we simply pause and another person takes that as a cue to start.

If a DM finds themselves frequently interrupted, they may want to adopt a formal, "What do you do?" transition, or perhaps be sure to make appropriate filler sounds when pausing for thought in the middle of a dialogue, or both (assuming that the DM is being interrupted by multiple people in different situations, rather than by a single interrupter or only in a single type of situation).

If a single player is doing the interrupting, then perhaps a different conversation to point out the disruptive behavior should happen, "Gosh [player], you sure seem excited about the game. That's great. Please try not to interrupt when I've got my DM pants on, though. It causes them to bunch up uncomfortably."

Charlaquin · Apr 24, 2019

Hussar said:
No. I wouldn’t. If there was no chance of failure then the roll is superfluous. Doesn’t matter if he scored a 0 (actually happened for an insight check last session lol ). There’s no chance of failure so there is no chance of failure.

But in the example given, an automatic success suddenly became non-automatic because the player rolled. Considering the number of accusations of misinterpretation and willful ignorance, it’s a bit funny and a lot ironic to see.

Ok, cool. That was what I thought, that’s why I said I didn’t think anyone on either side of this argument would rule that way.

Charlaquin · Apr 24, 2019

Michael Silverbane said:
Most of the time, it is pretty easy to tell when someone is done talking. I mean, in most conversations, we don't formally acknowledge that we're done talking and that it is someone else's turn to do so, we simply pause and another person takes that as a cue to start.

Yeah, I try to end my narrations with “what do you do?” as a reminder to myself to always provide the players with something to respond to (if “what do you do?” sounds awkward at the end of my final sentence, it’s a signal to myself that I’m failing in that goal). But the idea that the players might not recognize that its their turn if you don’t ask “what do you do?” feels a bit like insisting that youmust alwaus end your sentence with “over” when you’re using a walkie-talkie.

Michael Silverbane · Apr 24, 2019

Charlaquin said:
Yeah, I try to end my narrations with “what do you do?” as a reminder to myself to always provide the players with something to respond to (if “what do you do?” sounds awkward at the end of my final sentence, it’s a signal to myself that I’m failing in that goal). But the idea that the players might not recognize that its their turn if you don’t ask “what do you do?” feels a bit like insisting that youmust alwaus end your sentence with “over” when you’re using a walkie-talkie.

You forgot to say, "Over." Over.

iserith · Apr 24, 2019

Linking this post again (#995) as there were several non-rhetorical questions in it for @Hussar that may have been overlooked.

Satyrn · Apr 24, 2019

Michael Silverbane said:
This came up in one of the previous threads about 'allowing players to make rolls' or something like that, and I found it somewhat confusing then, as well as now. When I am a player, I'll often say things like...

"I use oral speaking to convince the Troll King to input his dagger of friendship into my player agency slot. If that calls for a check, I got a [rolls dice] result."

Depending on what oral speaking (approach) and input his dagger of friendship into my player agency slot (goal) were, the DM is free to ignore the result to narrate success or failure, as they see fit, or to take result into account to narrate success or failure. How is that rude, and how does it waste time?

For me, the issue is that I don't get the chance to set the DC. I prefer to do that before the player rolls so I can't fudge it, and I can't be seen to be fudging it.