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<blockquote data-quote="Guest 6801328" data-source="post: 7743720">I suppose it might seem that way if you don't understand the arguments.&nbsp; Or consciously misconstrue them.Note the &quot;if you are really going to tell the player what his/her character thinks&quot; part.&nbsp; I'm still not condoning it.In the case of lying, a character with high Insight is no more likely to guess correctly than a character with low Insight.&nbsp; (That is, apart from the game defining it that way.&nbsp; Which I think is dumb.)&nbsp;&nbsp; By saying &quot;you may as well flip a coin&quot; I'm disparaging the whole enterprise of lie-detection-as-skill.&nbsp; I'm also not saying I have a good replacement system. Relatively effective &quot;lie detection&quot; requires things like catching a liar in a contradiction (which even then isn't proof) or correctly evaluating motives/incentives to lie. But, regardless of how you do it, whether you want to end up with a binary &quot;believes/does not believe&quot; or whether you think it should be a more nuanced spectrum of certainty, ultimately what the player thinks should be what the character thinks.EDIT: I'll mitigate the above slightly: if Insight is supposed to represent or abstract the kinds of questioning that leads to contradictions, or unearths motives, then I could see it being useful.&nbsp; (Although it should be called Interrogation not Insight in that case.&nbsp; &quot;Insight&quot; suggests to me just passive observation, not active sleuthing.)&nbsp; But it...and all &quot;detection&quot; skills...should still result in non-binary confidence.&nbsp; Ideally players should be thinking things like, &quot;Ok, I rolled really well, and the DM said I wasn't able to catch him in a contradiction, so he's probably telling the truth...but he still might not be.&quot;&nbsp; It's even ok if the player can put a probability on that.&nbsp; &quot;...there's still a 7% chance he's lying.&quot;Because when people IRL say &quot;I think he's lying&quot; they know there's a chance they might be wrong.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Guest 6801328, post: 7743720"] I suppose it might seem that way if you don't understand the arguments. Or consciously misconstrue them. Note the "if you are really going to tell the player what his/her character thinks" part. I'm still not condoning it. In the case of lying, a character with high Insight is no more likely to guess correctly than a character with low Insight. (That is, apart from the game defining it that way. Which I think is dumb.) By saying "you may as well flip a coin" I'm disparaging the whole enterprise of lie-detection-as-skill. I'm also not saying I have a good replacement system. Relatively effective "lie detection" requires things like catching a liar in a contradiction (which even then isn't proof) or correctly evaluating motives/incentives to lie. But, regardless of how you do it, whether you want to end up with a binary "believes/does not believe" or whether you think it should be a more nuanced spectrum of certainty, ultimately what the player thinks should be what the character thinks. EDIT: I'll mitigate the above slightly: if Insight is supposed to represent or abstract the kinds of questioning that leads to contradictions, or unearths motives, then I could see it being useful. (Although it should be called Interrogation not Insight in that case. "Insight" suggests to me just passive observation, not active sleuthing.) But it...and all "detection" skills...should still result in non-binary confidence. Ideally players should be thinking things like, "Ok, I rolled really well, and the DM said I wasn't able to catch him in a contradiction, so he's probably telling the truth...but he still might not be." It's even ok if the player can put a probability on that. "...there's still a 7% chance he's lying." Because when people IRL say "I think he's lying" they know there's a chance they might be wrong. [/QUOTE]

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