I've previously said I don't like Passive Insight, it doesn't make sense to me - I'm strongly of the view that NPCs can't force PCs to believe them through a Bluff check, which IMO is the only situation where it would make sense to have NPCs rolling Bluff vs PC Passive Insight - that's how it works when PCs try to bluff NPCs.
I was listening to a bit of the Chris Perkins/Robot Chicken game on youtube and I noticed that Perkins doesn't use it either. He was playing the quest-giver NPC, the players were sceptical of her motivations.
Perkins:
"If you doubt her, you can make an Insight check to see if you think she's telling the truth."
*roll roll*
"With a 16, you're pretty sure she's not lying to you."
I think this is a good approach. It's close to how I've done it, and a good reminder to the DM to remind players that they can choose to use skills like Insight which often get overlooked.
But one issue is, how do you set the Insight DC when the NPC is not Bluffing? I'd probably default to a DC 15, 10 if there was plenty of supporting evidence the NPC was trustworthy, 20 if the PCs had good reason to distrust the NPC. And what if they fail the check? I think the answer should not be "They're lying", more something like "You don't know/You can't get a reading on her".
Thoughts?
I was listening to a bit of the Chris Perkins/Robot Chicken game on youtube and I noticed that Perkins doesn't use it either. He was playing the quest-giver NPC, the players were sceptical of her motivations.
Perkins:
"If you doubt her, you can make an Insight check to see if you think she's telling the truth."
*roll roll*
"With a 16, you're pretty sure she's not lying to you."
I think this is a good approach. It's close to how I've done it, and a good reminder to the DM to remind players that they can choose to use skills like Insight which often get overlooked.
But one issue is, how do you set the Insight DC when the NPC is not Bluffing? I'd probably default to a DC 15, 10 if there was plenty of supporting evidence the NPC was trustworthy, 20 if the PCs had good reason to distrust the NPC. And what if they fail the check? I think the answer should not be "They're lying", more something like "You don't know/You can't get a reading on her".
Thoughts?
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