Chris Perkins doesn't use Passive Insight

[S'mon]

So there's no penalty for a failed check?

Que the entire table rolling Insight and/or everyone piling on the character with the highest Insight bonus with Aid Another checks (and stuff like the half-elf Knack for Success that boosts skill checks by 4).

If anything I'd prefer players to request checks more often. I get tired of reminding them to use their resources. I'd prefer players to pay *more* attention to what is on their PC sheet, not less. Or they can rely on their own ability without regard to their PC's skills if they wish, but those PC abilities are resources available to them.

As for 'aid other', I only allow it if the aiding PC can explain how they are aiding the aided PC. Nothing wrong with 'knack for success', though.

 

[S'mon]

If there's no risk to making a check, there's nothing mechanically stopping them from spamming rolls until they succeed (which is sort of what the passive skill is supposed to represent anyway).

Insight requires interaction, says so in the book. At very least there needs to be some more interaction before you get another insight check.

Where there's no obvious immediate penalty for failure I have a standard "three strikes" rule - fail 3 athletics checks to break the door down & it can't be opened; fail 3 Insight checks and you can't make more, etc. It's derived from the skill challenge approach & works very well for me, it reduces randomness to an appropriate level, without guaranteeing success.

 

[S'mon]

My ability to buy property in Monopoly isn't based on my personal knowledge of real estate in New York City at the turn of the century.

Your ability to win monopoly is based on your ability at playing the game, just like any real game - real games being those which involve an element of player skill (unlike, say, Snakes & Ladders).

Relevant skills for RPGs may include player ability at social interaction, insight, puzzle solving, memory, and for LARPs may include combat and other physical skills.

Edit: This reminds me of playing Savage Worlds recently. I built my PC to be a charisma-monkey in mechanical terms, but when it came time to give the big dramatic speech - 'Nobody needs to die today' - I also made sure to give it my all in-character as a player, too. Unfortunately the GM was running a railroad plot and AIR wouldn't even let me roll a Diplomacy check, the NPCs just went on following the script. A good GM approach would have been to roll my skill check, high DC due to the NPCs' opposing motivation, given me a bonus for my good roleplay, and if I succeeded then let it go off the rails. Apparently he actally did relent and let the game jump the rails later in the session, but I had had to leave early due to my wife phoning: "London's burning!" - it was the night of the big riots.

 

[S'mon]

My ability to buy property in Monopoly isn't based on my personal knowledge of real estate in New York City at the turn of the century. It's dictated by the roll of the dice and the amount of fake paper money I have. Strategy comes into play in spending the money on the things with the highest return.

A character's ability to detect deception in D&D, IMO, shouldn't be based on the player's personal knowledge and feelings. It should be dictated by the roll of the dice and the Insight training/Wisdom Score they have. Strategy comes into play in allocating those limited resources to Insight vs. something else (like Stealth).

That's terrible - you're actually saying that the only strategy is in building the PC, before play even begins?!

BTW AIR Monpoly, if played correctly, has an adversarial bidding-for-property system - any property not purchased is bid for by the rest of the table - but this rule is often forgotten/not noticed, making for a much more boring game.

 

[I'm A Banana]

If anything I'd prefer players to request checks more often. I get tired of reminding them to use their resources. I'd prefer players to pay *more* attention to what is on their PC sheet, not less. Or they can rely on their own ability without regard to their PC's skills if they wish, but those PC abilities are resources available to them.

You often get a situation, when 5 characters are rolling for the same check, where someone inevitably makes it, just with a lucky roll. In that case, it's pointless to even ask for the roll. Just tell them who is lying. They are going to find it out anyway.

As for 'aid other', I only allow it if the aiding PC can explain how they are aiding the aided PC. Nothing wrong with 'knack for success', though.

This results in the same situation as above. Everyone piling on the same check leads to HUGE bonuses that inevitably reveal what the check was for anyway, invalidating the need for a check.

That's just mathematics, man.

Your ability to win monopoly is based on your ability at playing the game, just like any real game - real games being those which involve an element of player skill (unlike, say, Snakes & Ladders).

Relevant skills for RPGs may include player ability at social interaction, insight, puzzle solving, memory, and for LARPs may include combat and other physical skills.

Debatably. Skill plays a vairable role in any game. In Monopoly, forex, success in the game is mostly about the luck of the die roll -- if you hit Boardwalk before anyone else, you're solid, but if you roll low repeatedly and spend most of your time in the purple and orange streets, your investment won't help you out in the long run, unless every other player has a string of bad luck and gets trapped in your slums. I'd think most people would balk at calling Snakes & Ladders "not a game" (in that case, what is it?!), just as they'd balk at saying The Sims is "not a game" (despite not having clearly outlined victory conditions and thus no way for "player skill" to contribute to any concrete goals).

It's also true that the "social interaction, insight, puzzle solvivng, memory" aren't necessarily truly relevant player skills in an RPG. In using Passive Skills, even for social interactions, I'm telling my players that they don't need to worry about determining themselves if every NPC they talk to is being honest or not -- their characters have a failsafe for that. Player strategy comes in when they determine if the failsafe is "good enough" based on how their character feels about the antagonist in question. If the player just thinks it's a normal deception, they may rely on their passive skill; if the player feels that it might be a bigger deal, they'll roll, and risk failure.

That's terrible - you're actually saying that the only strategy is in building the PC, before play even begins?!

The way the game is designed at the moment, that is the place most strategy comes in. It's part of the reason why I miss effects like Charm Person or Detect Lies that let a player spend a resource to affect their chances of success in a noncombat encounter, and why I endeavor to add effects like this back into the game.

BTW AIR Monpoly, if played correctly, has an adversarial bidding-for-property system - any property not purchased is bid for by the rest of the table - but this rule is often forgotten/not noticed, making for a much more boring game.

If it's not a rule that is often included in play, but it's very important, it's not a very well-designed rule. Possibly, in this case, it is because it abandons mechanics in favor of personal persuasion power and favoritism, leading to the sense that the winner is just the most charismatic person at the table, or the person with the most friends. Which is accurate to the world of real estate, certainly, but it doesn't make for the most fun play for a lot of folks.

 

[S'mon]

You often get a situation, when 5 characters are rolling for the same check, where someone inevitably makes it, just with a lucky roll. In that case, it's pointless to even ask for the roll. Just tell them who is lying. They are going to find it out anyway.

1. Insight checks require interaction.
2. That 3 strikes rule of mine refers to the group, not per PC. So typically no more than 3 PCs would get to make Insight rolls.

 

[S'mon]

deleted

 

[S'mon]

abandons mechanics in favor of personal persuasion power and favoritism, leading to the sense that the winner is just the most charismatic person at the table, or the person with the most friends. Which is accurate to the world of real estate, certainly, but it doesn't make for the most fun play for a lot of folks.

I guess that's why computer games are so popular then - the computer can't possibly show favouritism! I refuse to accept that the best DM is the DM most like a computer, or that the best game is the one with the least role for player ability - or charisma. RPGs are a great venue for normally shy people to practice being charming.

 

[Ketjak]

There's a lot of truth in this. However, there are four ways to handle it:

1) The DM makes the check for the players. This eliminates the issue, but does feel somewhat unsatisfactory.

2) The players make the check, but the DM hides the DC. This is a little more satisfactory, but doesn't avoid the players knowing if they've rolled really badly.

3) The DM subtracts 10 from the DC and then adds the result of his own d20 roll - effectively turning all such checks into opposed checks. This may be slightly better even than #2, but is a bit more time-consuming.

4) Just trust your players to play fair. (Oh, and don't let them guide the conversation round to another Insight check - in effect, that's cheating, and shouldn't be permitted.)

In general, I find #4 is the best way to go - even in the worst case, it's only one roll, and generally not worth worrying about.

5) I require my player to roll behind my screen or in a box or cup or something to preserve the mystery. I don't screw them, but I don't want them knowing for sure -and they appreciate the uncertainty, generally knowing they've succeeded or not through my description.

I'm still catching up to the rest of the thread, sorry.

 

[Balesir]

Job interviews is an obvious example of a situation where people - the Interviewers - will definitely be using their Insight. Having a friendly beer in the pub later and chatting among themselves, they probably won't be, unless pathologically suspicious.

Job interviewers will be using "active" insight, sure - but passive insight works just the same. Have you really never anticipated a "birthday surprise" because freinds and/or family were "acting funny"? An off-the-cuff remark might be difficult to spot as deliberate deception - but such a remark is not that likely to be a deliberate deception in the first place.

Hm, we clearly have different views on the DM-NPC relation. When I speak in character as an NPC, I get in character, same as when playing my PC.

If you are telling a falsehood you will give tells, no matter how "immersed" you are. If the falsehood is a game feature where the NPC believes the false information, you will just be giving off false tells. If you normally make NPC lying blatantly obvious, your players might read the tell as meaning exactly what it does mean - or they might just be confused, or they might miss the tells entirely. None of that seems that helpful to game play, to me.

As far as "challenging the player, not the character", I think this is a false dichotomy. The character does not exist; the player is the one deploying the character's skills and abilities, so testing the character's abilities when they are deployed by the player is just a specific manner of challenging the player.

That's terrible - you're actually saying that the only strategy is in building the PC, before play even begins?!

I don't know what KM meant, but it seems to me that character building is only one place that players use strategy. They also use considerable strategy in our games when deploying the skills and abilities their characters have. The out of combat systems could be better designed to support this, it's true, but they still manage it to a degree.

Debatably. Skill plays a vairable role in any game. In Monopoly, forex, success in the game is mostly about the luck of the die roll -- if you hit Boardwalk before anyone else, you're solid, but if you roll low repeatedly and spend most of your time in the purple and orange streets, your investment won't help you out in the long run, unless every other player has a string of bad luck and gets trapped in your slums.

Ah, now, here I'll agree with S'mon; you clearly have not played Monopoly seriously. I don't know which properties are orange in your local version of the game, but the orange properties in the UK version are the best on the board. They are not the most expensive; they are the ones around 6-8 spaces (i.e. an average 2d6 roll) away from "Jail". And purchasing individual properties in Monopoly means nothing - if you are playing to win you must get a set and build houses and hotels on them. This is seldom achieved through luck alone; you have to beg, steal, borrow and trade for them.

The way the game is designed at the moment, that is the place most strategy comes in. It's part of the reason why I miss effects like Charm Person or Detect Lies that let a player spend a resource to affect their chances of success in a noncombat encounter, and why I endeavor to add effects like this back into the game.

The problem I have with these sorts of effects is precisely the problem you seem to have with player blarney giving "auto-success" in social challenges. They are open to interpretation, which means it becomes a game of swinging your desired interpretation by the DM. I agree that more "game" depth would be a benefit for non-combat challenges, but I want to see the resultant game be more clearly defined, similar to the way that 4E combat is clearly defined.

For me, the style of roleplaying best supported by D&D is player-challenging "boardgame" type challenges overlaid on a "substrate" of a game world political-strategic situation. Games within a grand game, if you like. The players play these layered games through the agency of their characters, whom they imbue with personality and goals as they see fit in the pursuit of that play. If real-life interpersonal competitions or favour-seeking creep into that play, my experience is that it is counterproductive and distracting. As a result, "open" systems are fine if we are seeking to simply explore an alien world collaboratively, but are unhelpful if we are playing for some (lightly) competitive challenge busting.