Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
Yeah, I don’t care for “looking out for signs that he’s lying” either. What the Player’s Handbook says about the Insight skill is that it “decides whether you can determine the true intentions of a creature, such as when searching out a lie or predicting someone’s next move. Doing so involves gleaning clues from body language, speech habits, and changes in mannerisms.” My interpretation is that when a player wants to determine a creature’s true intentions, they can attempt to glean clues about its intentions by paying attention to its body language, speech patterns, and mannerisms, and if a Wisdom check is needed to find such clues, they can add their proficiency bonus to it if they’re proficient in the Insight skill.Honestly, I’m not a fan of this whole “looking for signs that he is lying” thing. It’s nearly impossible to play that out such that a successful roll isn’t equivalent to a Detect Truth spell.
And the reality is that if you are looking for signs of lying you are going to find them. Even if all you can come up with is that his act is so perfect it must be an act.
I haven’t succeeded much at this in practice, but what I’d like to see is players trying to come up with schemes to actually catch them in a lie. Like my comments in the secret door thread, instead of just making a dice roll in passing, the whole session could consist of springing a trap to catch the NPC in a lie.
To put it another way, an action with the goal of gaining a clue as to the creature’s intentions by an approach that involves paying attention to their body language, etc. will generally have at least a chance of success. But what you’re looking for (and what you will get) is clues as to the creature’s intentions, not confirmation of whether or not it’s lying.