NPC Deception/Persuasion and player agency

[Bill Zebub]

There's a lot of nuance between "the plot only works if the players are deceived" and "the way the plot plays out is different if the players are deceived".

Totally agree here. I'm only cautioning against designing adventures so that if the players know, or even guess, a certain truth it spoils the DMs preparation. Or at least be the kind of DM that rolls with that change and is able to pivot.

Because sometimes in these discussions about NPC deception and player agency, there is (or there seems to be, to me?) a subtext of "...because it will ruin the story if the players don't go along with the lie."

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The part I struggle with is that I do really believe in both "action declarations" and "no roll unless there's a cost of failure" and so if the player says, "Can I tell if he's lying?" or even "Do I notice anything funny about his behavior?" I want to know what the character is doing and what the cost is of failing. (It's the same problem with knowledge skills, really.)

Some things, such as noticing and knowing are rather passive, and sometimes the cost of failure is just no succeeding.
I think that is fine. Not knowing an important fact, not noticing the crucial clue, not realising that you're being lied to are "costs" to me.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Good thing ive never done any rule enforcement then.

Yes, that is a good thing.

I can't keep track of what everybody says in every thread, but some people (apparently not you) have expressed opinions that players should have to abide by the results of these sorts of rolls. To me that's "rule enforcement".

 

[Bill Zebub]

Both situations involve the DM being the source of truth for for the players.

This is the root of the entire problem. Successfully running an NPC/plot/session based on 'deception' really comes down to the ability of the human DM to deceive the human players, which depends on a number of non-game factors. The alternative is for everybody to pretend to be deceived, which I get is how some people play, but isn't my cup of tea.

To bring up an old can of worms, some people enjoy pretending to not know to burn trolls, and some people do not. I'm in the latter camp. And I agree with @iserith that the way to sustain tension is to let them think they know all about trolls, but sometimes they are wrong.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Some things, such as noticing and knowing are rather passive, and sometimes the cost of failure is just no succeeding.
I think that is fine. Not knowing an important fact, not noticing the crucial clue, not realising that you're being lied to are "costs" to me.

Yeah, this has been debated a lot. And to be honest sometimes I just fall back on the old, "Ok roll to see if you know." But I don't like it. To me, a 'cost' should be a change in game state. If you don't know something before you roll, and you still don't know it after you roll, there's no actual cost. Without a cost there's no reason to not try, and if there's no reason to not try there's no interesting decision to be made. And games should be about 'interesting decisions'.

(Also, the 'cost' doesn't necessarily have to be the result of a failed roll. Another canonical example: you can try to pick the lock, but whether you succeed or fail it is going to take time, and for [insert reason] there is time pressure.)

 

[Celebrim]

I'm building an NPC adversary for a campaign (a cleric of Asmodeus), and their key Deity skill is deception.

But then it occurred to me that rolling to see if the NPC successfully deceived the PC's takes away player agency. That is, the player should be able to decide whether their PC believes the NPC or not.

You've run into the many problems associated with imagining that all skills are equal and roleplaying is meaningless.

The truth is, to really run a deceptive NPC adversary you have to be able to roleplay and cunningly deceive the players and not merely the characters. "Pretend you are deceived by this because your character would have been" just does not and never will hit the same way.

The reality is that the player's mind being present in the game world is necessary for the game to actually be a game.

You can't run a humorous NPC without actually being humorous. You can't run a deceptive NPC without actually being deceptive.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You can't run a humorous NPC without actually being humorous. You can't run a deceptive NPC without actually being deceptive.

Which is fine. I think it is important part of GMing skills to be able to portray such things.

 

[TiQuinn]

Yeap. I was just thinking about one of the best deceptive characters ive run across in media. Elam Garrack from Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Warning, spoilers incoming. For background, Elam was an officer of his nation's clandestine spy network. For reasons, he was banished from his homeland and now resides amongst foreigners in lands not exactly friendly to his people. He, of course, indicates that he served in the basic military, like every member of his people, but that was decades ago. Now, he is a simple shop keep earning a living.

Well, one day a bomb explodes in Elam's shop, nearly killing him. This forces action from the constable to investigate. The constable has suspicions that Elam was directly involved with the bomb, but cant confirm that. Why would somebody try to blow themselves up? Also, its not like Elam doesnt have a lot of dangerous enemies. The types that might assassinate a person. Despite the constables suspicions, he investigates the crime and suspects.

So, a few things here. If Elam was an NPC, and the constable a PC, how would you play this out? The goal for Elam was to throw off suspicions and get the authorities to protect him from his enemies. He couldnt simply tell them he had suspicions that an assassin was there to kill him. Also, he'd have to give up on his "just a shop keep" ruse and/or reveal info he didnt want to provide. So, he concocted an event that forced his unwitting allies to act on instead of convincing them with a simple lie. Now if the constable was a PC, they could just say "nope, this guy is lying not gonna do this at all" despite the facts before the character. What is the justification for that other than meta gaming though?

I know that for me I try not to worry about meta-gaming considerations because particularly around deception, I also don’t let the mechanics override a player’s suspicions, either positively or negatively. So if they’re suspicious, they’re suspicious. I let the game and social interactions play out however the player wants to go with it. Ultimately, I think it still ends up going in interesting directions.

 

[Bill Zebub]

You've run into the many problems associated with imagining that all skills are equal and roleplaying is meaningless.

The truth is, to really run a deceptive NPC adversary you have to be able to roleplay and cunningly deceive the players and not merely the characters. "Pretend you are deceived by this because your character would have been" just does not and never will hit the same way.

The reality is that the player's mind being present in the game world is necessary for the game to actually be a game.

You can't run a humorous NPC without actually being humorous. You can't run a deceptive NPC without actually being deceptive.

Agree 100%, but reading your post made me realize that perhaps some people who disagree are coming from the position of believing that you shouldn't have to have these skills in order to DM. And that's actually a really interesting question. Should you have to be a good actor in order to be a good DM? Or is it fine that some DMs can pull off humor and deception, and other DMs have to rely on other tools?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Agree 100%, but reading your post made me realize that perhaps some people who disagree are coming from the position of believing that you shouldn't have to have these skills in order to DM. And that's actually a really interesting question. Should you have to be a good actor in order to be a good DM? Or is it fine that some DMs can pull off humor and deception, and other DMs have to rely on other tools?

Personally I don't think you should have to have those skills to be a good GM (although GMing is an excellent way to learn those skills). That's literally what the mechanics are for.