NPC Deception/Persuasion and player agency

[Bill Zebub]

????

Quoting from the rules:

“Insight. Your Wisdom (Insight) check 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.”

It exists to be the mechanical answer for any time a player is like “hey can I tell if this NPC is telling us the truth right now?”

So why do they bother with this indirect language of “determine a creature’s true intentions” and “gleaming clues”? Why not just say “…whether a creature is lying”?

 

[zakael19]

Is this a genuine question that you are unable to reckon the answer to, or is this verging into sealioning territory on purpose?

 

[Umbran]

I did not mean to imply that everyone needs to be things like I do

"Narrate better!" How does advice to do a better job of your preferred way not imply they should do it your way?

To me, the conversation had a very similar form to some discussions I see about food. Like, when I say that I don't like coffee, people always tell me that I "just haven't had good coffee". Never mind that I've had Kona coffee in Hawai'i. I've had espresso in Rome. I've had coffee brewed in the traditional way at the top of a mountain in Costa Rica. I've had coffee and beignets at Café du Monde in New Orleans. The beignets were awesome, the coffee... meh.

... but @pemerton seemed to express incredulity to the idea that it can be done at all.

How much incredulity have people shown to his preferred methods? IIRC, folks in this very thread have questioned whether his methods are roleplaying at all!

 

[Bill Zebub]

Is this a genuine question that you are unable to reckon the answer to, or is this verging into sealioning territory on purpose?

I had to Google "sealioning". Never heard of that before.

You don't really seem very open to ideas that challenge your assumptions, so I'll drop it. Happy gaming.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

So why do they bother with this indirect language of “determine a creature’s true intentions” and “gleaming clues”? Why not just say “…whether a creature is lying”?

They do say it. It's right in the quote (emphasis mine): "Your Wisdom (Insight) check decides whether you can determine the true intentions of a creature, such as when searching out a lie or predicting someone's next move." Presumably, they're trying to show a broader use for the skill than just representing it as a lie detector. It's not my favorite prose, but it's pretty clear as to what it's trying to say.

 

[Bill Zebub]

They do say it. It's right in the quote (emphasis mine): "Your Wisdom (Insight) check decides whether you can determine the true intentions of a creature, such as when searching out a lie or predicting someone's next move." Presumably, they're trying to show a broader use for the skill than just representing it as a lie detector. It's not my favorite prose, but it's pretty clear as to what it's trying to say.

I think they wrote it to try to keep everybody happy. People who had been using Insight (or skills like it) as a lie detector for years can still interpret it that way, but they are encouraging people to play the game with a bit more nuance. "Determine true intentions" doesn't actually mean "whether or not they are lying." And the next part of the quote is the one about body language, speech habits, etc.

In other words, succeeding at Insight could give you hints, without being a binary lying vs. telling the truth.

Besides, how many other skills replicate a 2nd level spell?

I'm not saying its wrong to play this way. I personally stopped playing that way because I found automatic lie detection to not add anything fun to the game. But it's not "wrong," just a way I prefer not to play. (And I suspect the designers of 5e were experienced enough to recognize the same thing.)

I'm not trying to persuade anybody to play a different way, but I also think it's incorrect to conclude that "lie detector" is how Insight is supposed to be used.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So why do they bother with this indirect language of “determine a creature’s true intentions” and “gleaming clues”? Why not just say “…whether a creature is lying”?

Too on the nose to be comfortable?

 

[pemerton]

The test for me is whether I, the player, feel strong emotions that my character would be feeling. If a beloved and trusted NPC betrays me, I want to feel actual jaw-dropping shock and surprise. I don't want to pretend to feel that, because I (the player) actually knew already that the NPC couldn't be trusted, and I was just playing along because my character wouldn't have known that.

Here's an example of what you've just described. It's from my own TB2e play:

The roll for Trouble on the Road was Waylaid!

<snip>

The players took it as given that their Waylaid! result was the bandits they were looking for, and I ran with that: I told them that the bandits had been harassing them from the cover of the rocky overhangs as they (the PCs) trudged through the storm, and now as the storm cleared the bandits confronted them directly, telling them that Megloss had decreed that they should turn back. Fea-bella announced herself; and the NPCs announced themselves (taking a page from the book of Dungeon/Apocalypse World, I'm trying to make sure everyone has a name): Turner the leader, who explained that he was acting at Megloss's behest and who - as I mentioned - had pretty ordinary armour but was wearing nice boots; Roy his offsider; Nutmeg, the red-headed Halfling; and Tiny the Dwarf. (I'd chosen the names while doing prep yesterday - I can't remember where Turner came from, but the other three were named after cats I've known. I'd also determined, via a loot roll, that Turner had nice boots.)

Golin's player was getting ready to Charge!, but there was some further discussion, and I explained the options for social conflicts (Convince, Convince Crowd, Negotiate, Trick or Riddle). They decided to go for trickery, to leverage Fea-bella's Will 5 and Loremaster 4, and Korvin's Manipulator 4. They settled on a plan: to trick Tiny into thinking that Megloss was going to betray her, as a particular instance of the general history of Elves betraying Dwarves. Disposition started at 7 each. But I was outscripted, and the players run with a mid-ranging compromise. Tiny left the bandits to join with them; they turned back as Turner directed them to.

Following on from the theme of their trickery, Korvin's player suggested that Tiny must be a mocking name given to the Dwarf by her human and Elven bosses. I couldn't find any name lists in the Torchbearer books, but looked up Dungeon World and decided that her real name is Gerda.

We started with a bit of town phase.

<snip>

Golin also wanted to buy a pry bar, to help him break into Megloss's house, but this is not an item ordinarily available for purchase in a wizard's tower settlement. So he attempted a Circles check - his first- to find a "black market" pry bar, in this case a tradesman or labourer willing to sell one to an adventurer. The test failed, and so by the time he learned of a willing vendor he was angry!

<snip>

There was some debate between the players about the merits of making a Resources test to buy a "black market" pry bar, but Golin's player won the debate. The test was Ob 3 Resources test, and the dice pool was Golin's own 2 dice (for Resources 2), +1D for the stimulated economy, and +2D for help from Fea-bella and his new friend Gerda. He also through in a persona point, for 6D total. And failed. I decided to go for a twist rather than a condition: the local with the pry bar in the end wasn't happy with what Golin was offering (ie no sale), and when Fea-bella got home she found that her Elfstone had been stolen!

When the camp phase ended, the characters talked in the dark a bit. Fea-bella's Goal was to get Megloss to help her, and I decided to open up that possibility. Fea-bella had talked multiple times about wanting to find her missing Elfstone, and so I decided that Megloss asked what the Elfstone was that she kept going on about. There was a bit of back-and-forth, and the upshot was a Persuader check, helped by the other PCs (mostly Persuader, but Korvin used Manipulator with some slightly obsequious flattery of Megloss), whereby Fea-bella persuaded Megloss to say what he knew about the Elfstone possessed by the spirit of a Dwarf (ie Mim, the petty dwarf). He responded that that must be the stone that Gerda, Golin's Dwaven protege who used to work for Megloss before the PCs recruited her, keep banging on about.

This was a surprise to the PCs and also the players: it hadn't occurred to them that a relatively innocuous NPC would be the thief, even though she was the only named character (other than two PCs) present when the Elfstone went missing, and was a bandit. I told Golin's player that this probably explained why Gerda didn't seem perturbed by his lack of expediency in getting her a job in the Alchemist Guild, seeming happy to sit in her room and brood. The player was highly amused by this whole turn of events.

Conversely, here's an (imagined) example of the players having to act surprised when they're not. It could come from any version of classic D&D (eg OD&D, B/X, AD&D, etc):

*The GM rolls for a wandering monster, and it comes up positive.

*The GM asks the players to roll for surprise, and rolls for surprise for the monsters;

*The players' roll indicates that the PCs are surprised; the GM's roll indicates that the monsters are not surprised;

*The GM rolls for a reaction, and gets a response that indicates that the monster's attack the PCs;

*The GM tells the players - "The monsters attack you, with surprise!"​

In this situation, of course the players aren't surprised - they've seen the GM rolling all these dice, and they've been asked by the GM to roll their own surprise dice. But they have to "pretend" that their PCs are surprised, and the mechanics - which forbid them from taking actions, enforce this.

Classic Traveller uses a slightly different way of handling surprise, but it could play out in a broadly similar fashion.

But has anyone ever argued that the surprise rules in these well-known, well-established RPGs are an obstacle to roleplaying or a burden on player agency?

 

[pemerton]

So why do they bother with this indirect language of “determine a creature’s true intentions” and “gleaming clues”? Why not just say “…whether a creature is lying”?

I don't quite follow.

Here, again, is the text from D&D Beyond:

Your Wisdom (Insight) check 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.​

Searching out a lie is expressly mentioned. The check determines whether you can determine the creature's true intentions - eg to deceive the listener by lying to them. This is done by gleaning clues - but at least as I read it, this is an explanation of the in-fiction process, not the outcome of the check. The outcome of the check decides whether the PC determines the true intentions of the creature.

EDIT: And I see that @Old Fezziwig has made the same point above.

I mean, if an WIS (Insight) check didn't decide whether or not the PC is able to determine the true intentions of a creature, why would the rules say that it does?

 

[pemerton]

It was not above doorway, but our warlock has been distracted by occult carvings. They pretty often get distracted by their attraction to esoteric and need to be reminded by others about more pressing priorities.

So this is not the player actually being distracted because emotionally moved. This is the player making decisions in the play of their PC about what is interesting to their PC. I think this sort of thing is very common-place in RPGing.

Our rogue gets distracted by pretty people quite often.

But does the player get distracted? Which is what, above, you said should be happening in these cases - just as the viewer of a horror film gets scared.

Or does the player decide to play their rogue as attending to the beautiful person? My assumption is that this is what is happening.

In any case, do you roll for such things in your game? Roll saving throw against a sculpture or be mesmerised by it?

As I already posted upthread (twice), it depends on the system, and what aspects of the fiction the system makes the focus of uncertainty in play.

So in The Dying Earth (Pelgrane version), absolutely. In Prince Valiant, likewise - I've already given examples upthread. I've not played very much Pendragon, but it's another RPG which has rules for this - rolls against the appropriate Passion or Virtue.

In Torchbearer, this sort of thing would more likely be a narration of a failed test. Likewise in Burning Wheel, although these could be matters that call for a Steel test in some contexts (depending on further details of the situation and the PC build).

And here's an example of play from my LotR/MERP-ish adaptation of Marvel Heroic RP:

In the session that we played I ran an action scene in which one of the Scene Distinctions was Uncertain Of What to do Next, and as the scene unfolded the player of the ranger declared actions that succeeded in eliminating that Distinction, meaning that he was then able to dictate to the table what the next step was. That was a nice alternative to (say) a BW Duel of Wits - the uncertainy being more about the situation than a disagreement between two characters - and I felt it emulated some of those parts of LotR where Aragorn in particular can see the range of options but is unsure what is the right choice of next action.

This would annoy me quite a bit. Not because my character was inconvenienced, but because the GM or the game designers do not seem to trust me to roleplay my character properly unless the rules force me to.

I don't know what "properly" means here - as if there is some Platonic standard of roleplaying? As opposed to a variety of different RPGs which establish different parameters for what sorts of choices players are expected to make in their play of their PCs.

But, as per my post just upthread, D&D relies on mechanics rather than player decision-making to determine of a PC is surprised by an approach NPC or creature. I've never heard it suggested that this means the game doesn't trust players to "properly roleplay" their PCs.

They probably do not literally panic, they however might be experiencing some level of genuine fear for their characters' well being.

<snip>

Narrate better then! This certainly has happened in my games and I have had the player to tell me that they really had no choice in the matter; from their immersed point of view of the character, the NPC just felt captivating to them.

Retreating because the player is concerned for the wellbeing of their PC is not analogous to panicking. It is a reasoned response to circumstances, not an involuntary emotional response.

And your description of having no choice from their immersed point of view sounds to me closer to a player making choices for their PC as an author makes choices in writing a story - they can't see any other way for things to proceed - than it does like the player themself genuinely being captivated.

If the player can set stakes in a manner the character could not, then they're not really making decision from the PoV of the character, are they?

Why not? The character is Injured, Sick, perhaps also Exhausted and Afraid. They do not want to risk dying, so they choose not to launch a lethal attack. Especially because their Goal is to get out of the swamp.

The player considers the situation, including their PC's conditions and Goal. And so decides to approach the bandits with a lie, about being emissaries from Roy, to try and persuade the bandits to host them in their moathouse. The player does not choose to threaten, or to push towards escalation. They choose to speak, and to defuse, with the help of the Dire Wolf trying to push the bandits to favour the PC's proposal.

How is this not making a decision from the point of view of the character? In what way would a decision from the point of view of the character be different? What aspect of that point of view is being neglected?

Oh, so now it is possible to escalate? Earlier you implies it was not. I remain confused...

As I have repeatedly said, the players exercise a lot of control over what is at stake in a conflict. They did not attempt to push towards lethality. They had a strong desire to avoid lethality, and deliberately pushed events in that direction.

As I've already posted, to me you seem to be having trouble envisaging genuinely binding stakes, perhaps outside of death by D&D-style hit point reduction.