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Do you use passive insight?
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<blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 7080822" data-attributes="member: 97077"><p>A passive check doesn't mean you're not doing something actively - it just means you're doing something repeatedly or on an ongoing basis and therefore not rolling. If you're doing something, then chances are you're not also doing something else. The rules for tasks while traveling are built this way, for example. If you're, say, foraging or poking around for secret doors, you don't get to also stay alert for danger, which means you can't apply your passive Perception to determine if you are surprised.</p><p></p><p>This can apply the same way for extended social interaction challenges. Let's say the adventurers are at a feast with the king's court and have some social objective to complete that will take a number of hours. Outside of specific complications the DM sets before the PCs, we might ask each player what his or her character is doing in general as the scene plays out. For those that want to determine the true intentions of the NPCs by gleaning clues from body language, speech habits, and changes in mannerisms, passive Insight may be used to determine a result, assuming the effort has an uncertain outcome. But this can come at the cost of not being able to do some other thing that can reasonably distract from this effort. Someone else is going to have to do the talking or performing to win over the attendees (or whatever). And that's okay because being able to glean an NPC's personal characteristics is a good way to gain advantage on any subsequent checks (if any) to influence the NPC. (See "Social Interaction" in the DMG.) This is why I tend to choose Insight as a trained skill on my combat characters (the ones that didn't dump Wis anyway): The more charismatic characters do the talking, but I can contribute to their success by filling them in on some insights as to the NPC's personal characteristics.</p><p></p><p>That all said, an extended social interaction challenge (which can take many forms) is about the only place a passive Insight check might come into play because, like traveling, it will be something that takes time and has space for someone to perform a task repeatedly. What passive Insight is not an "always on lie detector," just like passive Perception is not an "always on radar." It requires the PC to be performing a task repeatedly, often at the cost of not doing some other useful task. So if you've got a PC with a high passive Insight, that character has to put him or herself in the position to make it useful and not do anything else that distracts from the effort. They don't get to do that and something else useful as well. And it has to be a task performed repeatedly or else it's just a normal ability check. (Notice I don't say "active" check.) As a result, unless your game has a lot of extended social interaction challenges, passive Insight should not be coming up very much at all.</p><p></p><p>As for your example on narrating the result of the successful Insight check (passive or otherwise), I strongly recommend you don't tell players what their characters think. Instead, consider saying "His body language seems to indicate that he's being untruthful..." or "His body language gives nothing away about his truthfulness." It's basically communicating the same thing, but we're not supposed to tell players what their characters think. Stick to narrating just the NPC and you can't go wrong here. A way to do this is to train yourself away from starting out narration with "You..." </p><p></p><p>With regard to secret rolls, you don't really need to do that as long as you're not telling players what their characters think or that they believe a certain thing on a failed check. The NPC either signals that he or she is lying or they don't and then it's on the player to decide what to think in the face of that. You may also want to consider using more meaningful consequences of failure because otherwise there is no cost to failure and therefore no reason everyone shouldn't be trying to suss out lies or personal characteristics (to the extent they can given the other tasks they are performing). A failed check might shut down further attempts from anyone else as the NPC notices the probing and becomes more guarded. Or a bad read might impart disadvantage on the next Charisma check made to influence the NPC.</p><p></p><p>I hope that helps!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="iserith, post: 7080822, member: 97077"] A passive check doesn't mean you're not doing something actively - it just means you're doing something repeatedly or on an ongoing basis and therefore not rolling. If you're doing something, then chances are you're not also doing something else. The rules for tasks while traveling are built this way, for example. If you're, say, foraging or poking around for secret doors, you don't get to also stay alert for danger, which means you can't apply your passive Perception to determine if you are surprised. This can apply the same way for extended social interaction challenges. Let's say the adventurers are at a feast with the king's court and have some social objective to complete that will take a number of hours. Outside of specific complications the DM sets before the PCs, we might ask each player what his or her character is doing in general as the scene plays out. For those that want to determine the true intentions of the NPCs by gleaning clues from body language, speech habits, and changes in mannerisms, passive Insight may be used to determine a result, assuming the effort has an uncertain outcome. But this can come at the cost of not being able to do some other thing that can reasonably distract from this effort. Someone else is going to have to do the talking or performing to win over the attendees (or whatever). And that's okay because being able to glean an NPC's personal characteristics is a good way to gain advantage on any subsequent checks (if any) to influence the NPC. (See "Social Interaction" in the DMG.) This is why I tend to choose Insight as a trained skill on my combat characters (the ones that didn't dump Wis anyway): The more charismatic characters do the talking, but I can contribute to their success by filling them in on some insights as to the NPC's personal characteristics. That all said, an extended social interaction challenge (which can take many forms) is about the only place a passive Insight check might come into play because, like traveling, it will be something that takes time and has space for someone to perform a task repeatedly. What passive Insight is not an "always on lie detector," just like passive Perception is not an "always on radar." It requires the PC to be performing a task repeatedly, often at the cost of not doing some other useful task. So if you've got a PC with a high passive Insight, that character has to put him or herself in the position to make it useful and not do anything else that distracts from the effort. They don't get to do that and something else useful as well. And it has to be a task performed repeatedly or else it's just a normal ability check. (Notice I don't say "active" check.) As a result, unless your game has a lot of extended social interaction challenges, passive Insight should not be coming up very much at all. As for your example on narrating the result of the successful Insight check (passive or otherwise), I strongly recommend you don't tell players what their characters think. Instead, consider saying "His body language seems to indicate that he's being untruthful..." or "His body language gives nothing away about his truthfulness." It's basically communicating the same thing, but we're not supposed to tell players what their characters think. Stick to narrating just the NPC and you can't go wrong here. A way to do this is to train yourself away from starting out narration with "You..." With regard to secret rolls, you don't really need to do that as long as you're not telling players what their characters think or that they believe a certain thing on a failed check. The NPC either signals that he or she is lying or they don't and then it's on the player to decide what to think in the face of that. You may also want to consider using more meaningful consequences of failure because otherwise there is no cost to failure and therefore no reason everyone shouldn't be trying to suss out lies or personal characteristics (to the extent they can given the other tasks they are performing). A failed check might shut down further attempts from anyone else as the NPC notices the probing and becomes more guarded. Or a bad read might impart disadvantage on the next Charisma check made to influence the NPC. I hope that helps! [/QUOTE]
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