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

Elfcrusher said:

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It was a thread from a couple of years ago. I described a warlock who was brilliant, but at key moments (specifically, when called upon to make Int checks or saving throws) she often hid her genius from her companions.

Some people howled and screamed and called this cheating; others thought it was totally fine. Revealed a big divide.

Bringing this back on topic, it seems like a bunch of people only have one conception of what 8 Cha means. Maybe it’s a charming, eloquent character with a hot temper. Whenever she rolls low it means she can’t help herself and lashes out at the person she is talking to.

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Whereas I think someone with an 8 charisma may think they're charming but really come off as a slime ball.



But that's just how I would picture it.

Hussar said:

And my motto remains:

Play the character you brought to the table, not yourself.

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I agree here - and will expand on that thought.

Why create a character with flaws and a low ability score or two if you are not going to roleplay those at the table? There's a good deal of fun to be had there - don't miss out on it because you are trying to "win"! Frankly, it will backfire when, for example, the low CHA barbarian describes an approach and goal to a social interaction that the DM deems worthy of a roll. Well... actually there's some fun to be had there, too, since the player may be playing a barb who is somewhat delusional about their social skills. Anyway... that brings me to a related point...

It's not up to the DM to say "your character wouldn't do that". It's not up to the DM to police how the player plays their character at all. The DM has enough to do describing the environment and adjudicate actions according to the rules (of the table). The players are in charge of how their PCs think and act.

Hussar said:

I have zero interest in challenging the player. Nor, as a player am I interested in the DM challenging me rather than my character.

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IMO, it's a game that should be challenging - and entertaining - to the players (and DM). The PCs are the players' avatars in the campaign world that they use to overcome said challenges. As a DM, I am challenging the players, not keeping track of ability scores (other than Passive Perception/Investigation/Insight) and builds and such in en effort to "challenge the character" - there's too much on my plate as is. The players can tell me when one (or more) of their traits/ideals/bonds/flaws or skill proficiencies is pertinent to my adjudication before the dice are rolled - and I then might grant advantage or even inspiration accordingly.

Bawylie said:

Yeah, insulting the king doesn’t go over well no matter what your charisma is.

Let’s take 2 adventurers. One with Cha 20 and Persuasion and one with Cha 10. Both wish to convince the king to lend them a vanguard for use in a dance competition in the slums. The king feels this is a terrible use of trained soldiers. Both adventurers decide they will attempt to persuade the king to lend the vanguard by convincing him it will show a friendlier side of the guard to the people. The king sort of cares about his soldiers’ rep but not much.

As DM, I judge this to be a difficult task. The goal is clear - get the king to lend the vanguard. The approach is clear - try to convince him of the reputation benefits. The DC is clear - 20 for a hard task.

The adventurer with 20 Cha and Persuasion needs to hit a 12. The adventurer with 10 Cha needs to hit a 20.

It’s way more likely our silver-tongued ally will succeed than our more blunt ally. But the DC is a 20 regardless. What’s more, it doesn’t matter how good of an explanation either Player gives. No matter how many eloquent words the player of the blunt character uses, the DC is still 20 for this particular approach to this particular goal. And no matter how much of a mumble-mouth our player of the Cha 20 character is, they’ll still have a +8 to the roll.

Pretty neat, eh? The scenario challenges the players. The difficulty of the task challenges the characters.

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Couple of things.

One is that I run campaigns with a lot of RP, a lot of back-and-forth. So trying to persuade or convince people happens on a pretty regular basis. I don't want to stop someone from contributing because they run a low charisma character, but if I rely on a straight roll in a lot of times that is the result. This is something I've experienced from both sides of the DM's screen. I'm just not sure there's a good answer. Or at least not for me.

Second (and I think [MENTION=6919838]5ekyu[/MENTION] brought this up) what a person says does matter. If they make a cogent argument, bring up salient points I'll give them advantage or lower the DC. I may also give the player some insight, history or straight intelligence checks to remember things that might be important.

I also don't usually have a predetermined DC in mind. I run a sandbox campaign most of the time, I know who's who and what's going on but the PCs largely drive the story. I may have never foreseen that they'd try diplomacy with the rat king, but they're free to do so. So I'm making up the DC on the fly and I'm simply acknowledging that what the player says will probably affect the DC.

Charlaquin said:

I used to struggle with questions like this a lot. Eventually, I found that the best answer (for me - obviously others will have different experiences) was “don’t worry about it.” Just adjudicate the players’ actions and don’t sweat what the characters “would do” or “wouldn’t do.” Let the players decide that for themselves, and focus on adjudicating those actions as best you can. The game won’t fall apart because the 8-Cha fighter is a smooth talker or the 20-Int Wizard isn’t a genius. And to boot, most players will enjoy the game more. At least that’s been my experience.

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I will sometimes give players running high intelligence PCs hints now and then. It really depends on how the player reacts, and I don't do it all the time. It is their character after all.

Oofta said:

Whereas I think someone with an 8 charisma may think they're charming but really come off as a slime ball.

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But that's just how I would picture it.

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That's a good characterization, too. Somebody like that is NOT tongue-tied and shy, and it should be no surprise that they come up with strategies that involve fast-talking and charm, just like the high charisma individual. But at key moments (read: when the dice get rolled) they fail.

Look, I don't think anybody would have a problem with an 8 Str fighter who was roleplayed as the gallant knight, threatening to smite ne'er-do-wells, and in generally acting like a mighty warrior, because they know that when it really mattered...again, when the dice hit the table...his 8 Str is going to shine through.

Why do so many people have a problem with 8 Cha or 8 Int characters being roleplayed other than stereotypically?

(Now Warlords really are the only contentious issue this thread hasn't touched on.)

Hussar said:

Now, OTOH, if, as say, [MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION] says, we are playing to the player and not the character, then what I say absolutely matters. If I can say it right, I won't even have to make a check, or, depending on how well I do it, my DC will be reduced (which effectively grants me bonuses on my die roll). Again, and I think I stated this way, way back in the early pages of this thread, it makes me, the DM, too visible as now I'm judging performances, which I don't want to do.

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So even though I keep repeatedly saying that the performance doesn't matter, and that it's the content of the idea (the "approach") that counts, not how well it was delivered, you simply don't believe me?

FWIW, you can't challenge the character. The character doesn't exist. You can only challenge the player. Part of resolving the challenge can use the numbers on the character sheet, but that still does not challenge the character.

Now, the player can do their best to pretend to be the character when addressing the challenge, and that's great, but I don't want to get into a game of arbitrating what is good and bad, or valid and invalid, roleplaying.

Elfcrusher said:

So even though I keep repeatedly saying that the performance doesn't matter, and that it's the content of the idea (the "approach") that counts, not how well it was delivered, you simply don't believe me?

FWIW, you can't challenge the character. The character doesn't exist. You can only challenge the player. Part of resolving the challenge can use the numbers on the character sheet, but that still does not challenge the character.

Now, the player can do their best to pretend to be the character when addressing the challenge, and that's great, but I don't want to get into a game of arbitrating what is good and bad, or valid and invalid, roleplaying.

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Performance is a loaded word with way too much to be meaningful here.

It can mean "its acting" but it can also mean most any measure of success.

You seem to want to protest it on the "its acting" level, but I know for me and I anpm pretty sure for Hussar its being used in the more quantitative aspect. That's the little dance that seems to have been going on when these issues get discussed.

Many pages back you highlighted an actual play session that you brought up to spotlight the benefits of goal and approach and went thru this long example of escape room like (to me) play where not one PC "stats" even got worth being mentioned. It was all player vs scene as you described it and really carried with it (to me, maybe not others) a sense of it having been played out much the same with totally different PCs. The PCs were irrelevant to the scene.

Pretty sure that is what Hussar was referencing above, not performancing as Shakespearean dialog.

But it's an easy swerve to always try and defend as if that's the claim.

Did the player say it right, as in, include enough ticks to hit "gm declares auto success" score and avoid a reference to character stats at all?

Now, it does seem some want to claim proudly yep, that's how approach works - keep it from getting to referencing stats cuz stats only matter if you dont get high enough on auto-success score. Seems others take it a bit back down, where stats apply even at that auto score stage, but then they may post this big highlight scene to show the differences and never once bring a PC stat in.

To me, and perhaps Hussar as well, when "Jim the player" can get "Jorune the character" an auto-success on a challenge that matters without reference to Jorune's definition within the game world, it makes Jorune irrelevant and all those choices that went into defining Jorune pointless and that is not what we might see as the middle ground.

Hussar said:

repeating it so often does look very much like an appeal to authority.

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As you've mentioned me committing this logical fallacy a couple of times, I should mention I don't think it actually applies here. If I make a claim of what is in the rule books, I'm not appealing to an authority. I'm just making a factual claim. If I said that I'm obviously right because I am Iserith, a High Profile DM, then you'd be right. But I haven't, and I'm not comfortable throwing my weight around in this regard, even with all that High Profile DM money coming in.

5ekyu said:

Performance is a loaded word with way too much to be meaningful here.

It can mean "its acting" but it can also mean most any measure of success.

You seem to want to protest it on the "its acting" level, but I know for me and I anpm pretty sure for Hussar its being used in the more quantitative aspect. That's the little dance that seems to have been going on when these issues get discussed.

Many pages back you highlighted an actual play session that you brought up to spotlight the benefits of goal and approach and went thru this long example of escape room like (to me) play where not one PC "stats" even got worth being mentioned. It was all player vs scene as you described it and really carried with it (to me, maybe not others) a sense of it having been played out much the same with totally different PCs. The PCs were irrelevant to the scene.Pretty sure that is what Hussar was referencing above, not performancing as Shakespearean dialog.

But it's an easy swerve to always try and defend as if that's the claim.

Did the player say it right, as in, include enough ticks to hit "gm declares auto success" score and avoid a reference to character stats at all?

Now, it does seem some want to claim proudly yep, that's how approach works - keep it from getting to referencing stats cuz stats only matter if you dont get high enough on auto-success score. Seems others take it a bit back down, where stats apply even at that auto score stage, but then they may post this big highlight scene to show the differences and never once bring a PC stat in.

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You apparently missed my response the first time you leveled this accusation. This thread has grown so long that it's easier to re-type it than go searching for it, but here's the gist:

- I was focusing on the problem solving, not on character differentiation, so didn't try to address that. But since you bring it up:
- The wizard (who took on the task of figuring out the house, while the other characters focused on other stuff) used both Investigation and Arcana in finding the clues I mentioned.
- In the interactions with the "Lady" I mentioned, leading up to the dramatic rescue, other characters used both Wisdom and Charisma based skills, as well as some class and subclass abilities.
- Although the players followed one particular path of breadcrumbs (that I expected, knowing how they were playing their characters) there were some other possible solutions that I had left clues for, and if they had come up with something totally unexpected I would have adapted to that as well.

To me, and perhaps Hussar as well, when "Jim the player" can get "Jorune the character" an auto-success on a challenge that matters without reference to Jorune's definition within the game world, it makes Jorune irrelevant and all those choices that went into defining Jorune pointless and that is not what we might see as the middle ground.

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You seem to have this picture in your head of us/me only ever resolving things by players using their own mental faculties.

Then again, I have a picture in my head of your players only ever resolving things by rolling dice, without ever doing any thinking for themselves.

Probably both images are wrong.

But I will say that I care about "Jorune the character" far more in terms of the personality and quirks that the player has created, than I do about the numbers written on a character sheet. And maybe that's the biggest difference between the way the two factions see the game.

Hussar said:

See, to me, this is a perfect example of why I don't play this way. If, as [MENTION=6776133]Bawylie[/MENTION] says, " it doesn’t matter how good of an explanation either Player gives", then why am I giving any explanation at all? If the DC is static, then what's the point? I can be as silver tongued or as tongue tied or just say, "I persuade the King, Persuasion X" and the end result is identical. Me, I would much, much rather that the player narrates the results than the lead up to the roll. The lead up may be contradicted by the roll. The results won't be.

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I think there is a misunderstanding here. What [MENTION=6776133]Bawylie[/MENTION] is saying is that no matter how it is presented by the players, as long as the goal and approach is the same, the DC is the same. So let's say you have the Cha-10 character's player give a first-person in-depth reasoning for why the king would benefit from lending the vanguard to the dance competition. Tears are in the eyes of everyone else at the table after this thespian finishes his or her speech. In an alternate reality where the same situation is playing out at the table, a Cha-20 character's player just says "Hex Arcana tries to convince the king to lend the vanguard to the dance competition because it will show a friendlier side of the guard to the people and improve their reputation."

The resulting uncertainty is the same as is the difficulty since the Cha-10 character's player has said the same thing with more (and perhaps more stirring) words. The DM is judging the goal and approach, not the word count or acting ability of the player. So it does matter what you say. It does not matter how you say it, provided you have at least said what you want to do and how you want to do it. (Although it might matter in another way, such as if you might earn Inspiration by using flowery speech or perhaps by being blunt and to the point.)

"I persuade the king, Persuasion X" is insufficient here because the DM cannot judge the goal and approach and decide if there is uncertainty, a meaningful consequence of failure, or set a DC. Further, the "lead up" would never be contradicted by the roll in the method described above since the roll determines the outcome - the king does or does not approve the request (or approves it at a cost or with a setback for the PCs).