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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AaronOfBarbaria" data-source="post: 6729281" data-attributes="member: 6701872">I find a better way is to always have the goal of a roll be something more specific than would allow for me to phrase failure as "can't read him."To try and use this example of yours about a lying NPC that is, unbeknownst to the player and their character, a master spy. An example of potential failure descriptions that prevent the player seeing a high roll on their die from being tipped off to this master of deception:"You see a solid amount of eye contact, but not too much, no twitches or tells, no micro expressions of stress, and he even looked in the direction you expect when someone is recalling information rather than inventing it on the spot." Or any other description that sounds like "you see evidence that what is being said is true." because that evidence doesn't mean it actually is true, just that any evidence of the fact that it isn't was hidden by the skill of the liar.Here is an example from my own campaign recently: The party was investigating a strange fort that had recently been built, looking to find a renegade cleric that had stolen a religious relic, and as they were walking down one hall they noticed a young dragon chained to the wall at the corner, laying on the ground apparently sleeping. They quietly discussed strategy, and after a few moments one of the players said "Wait... I try to observe the dragon carefully to look for signs that it is only pretending to be asleep," and made a roll (and I rolled an opposed roll for the dragon).The description following the roll was this: "You can see it's eyes are closed, no signs of eyelid fluttering, and it's breathing is slow and steady... but you're not familiar enough with dragons to know if those indicators of a humanoid genuinely sleeping apply."Can you tell whether the PC or the dragon won that opposed roll? If I didn't know from seeing the results at the table, I don't think I could - it sounds both like a failure to find evidence of actual deceit, and like a success to notice evidence of genuine sleep but being unsure because of unfamiliarity since this is the first dragon you've ever seen.</blockquote>

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