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Message: <blockquote data-quote="swrushing" data-source="post: 1890095" data-attributes="member: 14140">Looking back at the quote, i don't believe i said they were. Did you mean to quote someone else's post?No, not at all. After all, that would be such an easily reuted position to take, that i am amazed you inadvertantly assigned it to... ohhh wait... i get it.scratches head... so the NPCs they were interacting with were hostile? i thought the gnomes working with them were, maybe at least neutral?man, one would have thought a sense motive with a decent check, would have picked that hostility up?Now, of course, had the NPCs they were interacting with been "honestly" intending to work with the PCs and help them, then its possible, just a little possible that those "honest" gnomes working out the agreement (who might have known they did not actually have the power/position to fulfill the agreement) MIGHT have told the PCs something like "hey, we gotta get this cleared by oue bosses" or might have, if they suspected they did not have the actual power to arrange all this, had their  doubts picked up by the more sensitive members of the PCs using sense motive.These are of course, just possibilities.from what i gather, the gnomes the PCs were interacting with...1. were truly intent on working together with the PCs.2. were expressing their own honest intentions.3. apparently had no detectable concerns that the plan would be overturned  by those in charge, which of course, them being hostile-to-the-PCs gnomes seems a definite error on these work-with-PCs gnomes4. were EITHER so convinced their bosses were goina long with the plan they took no efforts to confirm the situation OR were surprisingly, to them, powerless to ensure the agreement was done as they worked out.the combination of coincidental limitation of access to anyone with duplicitous intents, lack of understanding or even doubt among the gnomes negoitiating that they were actually not going to be able to make this agreement work out as planned at all, and so forth made it fairly certain  that the skills use or none use would not really hand the PCs useful info.its wasn't that the PCs used the skills wrong or that the Gm used the skills wrong, its just that the sources of info were just totally wrong, clueless as to the risks, possessing only info that would mislead the PCs... its almost like those nopc characters were crafted/built/sculpted like say bait for a trap. But, of course, that wasn't the case. Right? it just happened that the guys the party could read were unaware of the chance that the other gnomes might not have to honor the agreement.But imagine how this overall situation might have turned out if, instead of getting "hey, they seem trustworthy and aren't deceiving us" hits from those well developed skills, the PCs had gotten also "yeah, but they still seem nervous, unsure, there is still something up here" because the gnomes working with the PCs were not either "flawlessly hiding the fact that they knew they still had to convince the bosses" or 'woefully ignorant of the fact that they still had to convince the bosses" or "totally wrong in their belief that the bosses would suddenly overocme all hostilities and go along with the plan."********At any time as GM, i can hand the PCs a contact who "believes everything he is saying" but who is just plain wrong and use my PCs own skills at reading people and at convincing people against them. Thats simple and easy and requires no more cleverness or fairness that me saying "hey, lets use their skills against them" and then, either before the fact or later when asked, adding to the NPC the relevent lack of knowledge or simply having the NPCs who served as my "info conduit" be just plain totally wrong on everything that mattered.Its really not all that hard to fool someone when i control all the info flow.But, of course, once i do turn their own character's expertise against them, ESPECIALLY if it is in a HUGE for the campaign situation like say blowing the end of a year long quest,  I really ought not to expect them to be willing to trust their abilities or traits the next time.Why should they in the future believe what NPCs are saying when their great skills at reading people and at convincing people to join their cause have proven in the past to be this unreliable?They should learn the lesson the first time, shouldn't they? Especially if its such a costly error for them the first time.The Gm teaches his players, has the world teach their characters, every session. if its not a lesson you want them to learn, you shouldn't make it part of your lesson plan.At least, IMO.</blockquote>

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