Does Sense Motive allow you to detect lies?

[RigaMortus]

Alright, well here is a scenario I'm talking about... I'll borrow from your scenario...

So the shop keeper wants to sell this sword to the PC. The PC lost his sword in a battle with a rust monster, so he really does need a sword now. Well, what the PC doesn't know is, it's a cursed sword, and the shop keeper is cursed. The only way to lift the curse is if someone willingly takes the sword. So the shop keeper is trying desperately to get rid of it. However, the shop keeper is so insistant about selling the sword, the PC gets a little leary of purchasing it. He rolls sense motive as you suggested, but can't catch this guy in a lie, and can't seem to get any more info out of him about the sword. He really has no reason to disbeleive him, and he really does need a sword, but the player decides that there is just something going on here with the shop keeper, and decides not to buy the sword.

To me, this is like a Catch 22. There really is no reason why the CHARACTER shouldn't buy the sword. He can afford the sword, he's be getting a good deal on it, and he does need a replacement one. But he didn't need to roll sense motive to notice how insistant the shop keeper was being, that was sort of obvious. So what is the correct "roleplay" response? Either the dice dictates that the character should have bought the sword, as there was no reason he shouldn't have. OR it doesn't matter what you rolled on Sense Motive, the player is going to do what he wants to do anyway.

 

[DarkMaster]

Alright, well here is a scenario I'm talking about... I'll borrow from your scenario...

So the shop keeper wants to sell this sword to the PC. The PC lost his sword in a battle with a rust monster, so he really does need a sword now. Well, what the PC doesn't know is, it's a cursed sword, and the shop keeper is cursed. The only way to lift the curse is if someone willingly takes the sword. So the shop keeper is trying desperately to get rid of it. However, the shop keeper is so insistant about selling the sword, the PC gets a little leary of purchasing it. He rolls sense motive as you suggested, but can't catch this guy in a lie, and can't seem to get any more info out of him about the sword. He really has no reason to disbeleive him, and he really does need a sword, but the player decides that there is just something going on here with the shop keeper, and decides not to buy the sword.

To me, this is like a Catch 22. There really is no reason why the CHARACTER shouldn't buy the sword. He can afford the sword, he's be getting a good deal on it, and he does need a replacement one. But he didn't need to roll sense motive to notice how insistant the shop keeper was being, that was sort of obvious. So what is the correct "roleplay" response? Either the dice dictates that the character should have bought the sword, as there was no reason he shouldn't have. OR it doesn't matter what you rolled on Sense Motive, the player is going to do what he wants to do anyway.

Well the roll provided him with that extra information, they feel like the shopkeeper is really insistant, without the roll they would not have notice anything and would have assumed that this is just another shopkeeper and would have bought the sword.

But they felt something fishy and did otherwise. This scenario show you that it pays off to have someone in the group with a strong sense motive. it made the difference between having your strong fighter stuck with a cursed sword and him buying a normal sword elsewhere. Also if the second roll would have been succesfull they could have learned (because the other guy would have mention something that only someone present at a certain battle the PC fought could have known)that this guy is actually an emissary of their archrival that killed the actual shopkeeper and used an alter self to sell them the sword and gather more info on their next movement.
But since they failed they don't know that and might get tricked by him when he asked them why they don't want to buy the sword

and so on....

 

[Saeviomagy]

To me, this is like a Catch 22. There really is no reason why the CHARACTER shouldn't buy the sword. He can afford the sword, he's be getting a good deal on it, and he does need a replacement one. But he didn't need to roll sense motive to notice how insistant the shop keeper was being, that was sort of obvious. So what is the correct "roleplay" response? Either the dice dictates that the character should have bought the sword, as there was no reason he shouldn't have. OR it doesn't matter what you rolled on Sense Motive, the player is going to do what he wants to do anyway.

The character got turned off by a hard sell. Perhaps if he'd caught the shopkeeper in a specific lie (ie - the sword wasn't owned by a little old lady who just used it to kill kobolds on sundays), then he'd have simply lowered the price he was willing to pay, and bought the sword.

Because he can't work out what the guy's up to, he just backs away from the sale entirely.

 

[UltimaGabe]

Regardless of a Sense Motive roll, the players decide whether they're going to believe someone or not, or how they're going to react to someone. This of course gives way for tons of metagamers who saw the DM's notes to cheat, but any player worth their salt will keep in mind that if his character has no reason other than his metagame knowledge to disbelieve the person, then he has to try and think of it without that in mind. If he's simply weirded out by the shopkeeper trying as hard as he can to sell the sword, regardless of his Sense Motive roll, he decides if he wants to buy it or not. If someone convinced me that buying a rock was the greatest deal in the world, even if I actually believed that it was the greatest deal in the world, chances are I wouldn't be convinced to buy a rock.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

When I DM, my favorite response to either a failed sense motive roll or a sense motive attempt against the truth is "if this guy is lying, he's a very good liar." If the roll is 20+, that may be good enough to get a hunch about the character which can help in the "he's really telling the truth" scenarios. (If the roll is 20+ but not high enough to beat the bluff, I think that would be enough for a vague feeling that everything isn't on the up and up even though the NPC seemed to believe everything he was saying.

WRT the specific question of buying the sword, I think the player still has the option of not buying the sword. It would be one of those this is a great deal and everything seems to add up but I'm sure there must be a catch I didn't see so I'll risk missing out on a great opportunity rather than risk getting taken by the shopkeeper. If the PC had made the sense motive rolls, he would know that he's not really missing out on a great opportunity.

 

[DarkMaster]

When I DM, my favorite response to either a failed sense motive roll or a sense motive attempt against the truth is "if this guy is lying, he's a very good liar." If the roll is 20+, that may be good enough to get a hunch about the character which can help in the "he's really telling the truth" scenarios. (If the roll is 20+ but not high enough to beat the bluff, I think that would be enough for a vague feeling that everything isn't on the up and up even though the NPC seemed to believe everything he was saying.

WRT the specific question of buying the sword, I think the player still has the option of not buying the sword. It would be one of those this is a great deal and everything seems to add up but I'm sure there must be a catch I didn't see so I'll risk missing out on a great opportunity rather than risk getting taken by the shopkeeper. If the PC had made the sense motive rolls, he would know that he's not really missing out on a great opportunity.

Agree, with you what I meant is if he failed the roll and the guy has bluff 10 for say. He knows how to fool them. Their will not notice anything wrong about the price, the guy, the place, I will play this encounter like any other. Regular shop, with good prices, and the guy will give them a good explanation on why all his prices are low, he will actually lower the prices on all items to let them believe that everything is fine. And I have to keep a poker face so that they don't suspect anything, that is part of being a good DM. Basically I won't make more fuss about this encounter then when the entered their first shop when they started at 1st level.

Since they already went to shop were prices were a bit lower with a good explanation they will usually don't ask anymore question and buy the sword.

I am not asking my Player to be as skillfull as their PC on any aspect. But I think that if you want to be a good DM you have to possess great skills in Bluff,sense motive, Diplomacy, perfom(acting) and knowledge(D&D).