Should Insight be able to determine if an NPC is lying?

Elfcrusher said:

My real response is: yes, your'e right, there's no way to use Insight as a lie detector without telling the player, in some form, what their character thinks.

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Satyrn said:

What about how I handle it:

When the player declares he's trying to detect if the NPC is lying,* I tell him to roll an Insight check, and that if he beats the DC he learns if the NPC is lying or not. If the player beats the DC, all I need to say is "he's lying," or"he's not lying" whichever is true.

That's not telling the player what his character thinks, is it?

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Elfcrusher said:

Can you give an example, because I don’t think we are disagreeing.

“The NPC has a bead of sweat running down his forehead even though it’s cold” is evidence that is left up to the player to interpret. I think that’s fine.

EDIT: To rephrase, I think the right approach is to give the player evidence to interpret, but not provide the interpretation.

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Satyrn said:

What about how I handle it:

When the player declares he's trying to detect if the NPC is lying,* I tell him to roll an Insight check, and that if he beats the DC he learns if the NPC is lying or not. If the player beats the DC, all I need to say is "he's lying," or"he's not lying" whichever is true.

That's not telling the player what his character thinks, is it?



*Whether this is by goal/approach method or asking to make an insight check, fill in that blank whatever way you prefer.

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Elfcrusher said:

Well, yeah, in a subtle way it is. Because we don't actually know somebody is lying unless we uncover proof (e.g. we spy on them and hear them talking to somebody else...and even then we often only know that he is lying to one of us.)

Rather, we believe somebody is lying based on evidence. So when you say, "He is lying" you are really saying, "You believe he is lying." You are telling them how they interpret the evidence (often without offering any evidence.) And that's telling somebody what their character thinks.

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Oofta said:

.Same way I don't care if someone says "I study him closely looking for signs of deception" and "Can I use insight?" Poe-tae-toe Poe-tah-toe.

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Satyrn said:

I've never had my say on this topic in this thread yet, so here goes: I hate hate hate "Can I use insight?" with the heat of a thousand [MENTION=6801204]Satyrn[/MENTION]s

But wait! It's not why you think. It's because I don't want my players asking for permission to act. I'm essentially fine with "I use insight." I still need a goal, some inkling of what the player is aiming for. So "I use insight to detect if he's lying" is cool with me.

But don't ask me for permission to act. Nike is the goddess of winged victory, so follow her motto.

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Satyrn said:

I don't think that subtlety applies to the way I'm doing things. How things work on the real world is irrelevant to what I'm doing.

When I'm saying the "NPC is lying" I mean it the same way as if I had said "there's a book of poetry on the shelf." It's an objective fact that I'm telling the player.

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Mort said:

The thread on NPCs and insight checks has taken on a life of its own - so I felt asking this in an new thread might work better.

Straightforward question: Should insight be able to determine if an NPC is lying?

I've also included a rather binary poll, explanations can be had in the comments.

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