If an NPC is telling the truth, what's the Insight DC to know they're telling the truth?

[Guest 6801328]

That was actually a pretty good post by 5ekyu. Too bad I can't give him XP because he has me blocked.

 

[Oofta]

Fair enough. Maybe our only point of difference is that I'll just tell the rogue he finds a trap (because he's good at it) but you'll make him roll. I probably wouldn't actually put the trap there in that case, but whatever.

I have a confession. I generally only throw in traps if someone in the party has invested skills (particularly expertise) into disarming traps. Then I throw in traps because I want them to feel like their investment is being rewarded.

In general, I avoid puzzles that can only be solved by the players and traps are frequently implemented as a type of puzzle. In the same way that if I've set up a mystery, I'll give people an investigation or insight check if they seem stuck or are getting frustrated and give them a gentle push in the right direction. Occasionally it's a hard shove because my clues weren't as obvious as I thought they would be.

And look how many people complain endlessly that the fighter is too boring because he doesn't have enough special abilities. I suspect that some of those people are the same people that think the game is played by looking at their character sheet and choosing abilities/actions/skills, not describing what they want to do. But whatever.

I can't imagine how tedious it would be to have a high level fighter describe every blow in detail.

Like I said, sometimes "flair" is fine, encouraged even. But every single swing of the weapon? Repetitive boring snooze-o-rama.

If you're genuinely asking:
1) You don't drop hints about "every door in the entire world": most of them are totally uninteresting.
2) The hints are interesting and significant so they either stick in their minds, or can be recalled when needed.
3) There's something about the special door that tells them they should stop and think.
4) Normal humans put 2+2 together.

I had flashbacks to this conversation the other day. I'm a developer and without going into nitty-gritty details another developer kept stating that we should follow pattern "X" because it had been around a long time and it was "the best way to do something".

I kept trying to get him to show me (on our whiteboard) a simple example of his implementation because I didn't see what value it added in the specific scenario we were discussing.

I'm not saying you are saying your way is "best", but I keep asking for examples and I keep getting "what" and "why" but not "how". What would a real world scenario look like? Because I can see every once in a while the witch throws the bones and intones "beware the door with the carving depicting a smashed fey", but the majority of times that would be overkill. If the owner of a chest is paranoid that his stuff will be stolen it may make logical sense for them to trap it.

So if my party is looting the room of a known rogue, they're going to be rightfully paranoid and searching for traps. But there's nothing special about the closet door vs the chest vs the bureau vs that loose floorboard.

For me it's enough for them to say "we cautiously look for traps as we search the room". I'll let them know it's going to take a while and then call for trap checks as appropriate. But I didn't broadcast that it was the jewelry box that was trapped and I don't know how I would. Or even if I did how I would handle it differently.

If I only used traps when it was so important to the story that I effectively told the party about it beforehand, I would almost never throw traps. Why would anyone invest skills (much less expertise) in a game like that?

EDIT: In case it wasn't clear - an example or two of real-life scenario would be appreciated. From anyone actually.

 

[Sadras]

That was actually a pretty good post by 5ekyu. Too bad I can't give him XP because he has me blocked.

Covered

 

[pemerton]

I've been setting it as their 'Passive Deception' DC. What do you do?

This has the slightly weird result that a more cunning/persuasive NPC is more likely to seem insincere or at leat not to seem sincere.

 

[S'mon]

This has the slightly weird result that a more cunning/persuasive NPC is more likely to seem insincere or at leat not to seem sincere.

Failed check result IMC is "You don't get a read on her" - she seems inscrutable, not insincere.

 

[pemerton]

Failed check result IMC is "You don't get a read on her" - she seems inscrutable, not insincere.

I can see this, but it still seems a bit odd - shouldn't good CHA/Perception/Persuasion make it more likely that the NPC can project an impression of You read me as sincere?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Somewhat out of order to keep people's posts together. Multi-replying is easier than posting 3 or 4 times in a row.

Don't you think, if Insight was intended as lie detection, it would have read something along the lines of, "Insight decides whether you can tell if somebody is lying." Why go through all the circumlocution of "determine the true intentions..."

Maybe, just maybe it's because it's not intended as "lie detection".

Here's an example: you're talking to your mechanic, who tells you that your rotors are out of true by 3mm, but that there's not enough material left to resurface them so they'll have to be replaced, and it'll take about 5 hours to do all four of them, and with parts and labor that's going to be $1,300.

You succeed at your Insight roll and the DM tells you that he's hoping to make a lot of money off of you. That's his "true intention".

Is he actually lying? You don't know (not unless you succeed at an Arcana check involving brake rotors). And you certainly don't know (as [MENTION=6776133]Bawylie[/MENTION] says) if any one particular statement is a lie (the 3mm, whether or not they can be resurfaced, how long that should take, etc.). Just that you're probably not getting a good deal from this guy.

I think I'm going to have to agree with Hussar on this one a little bit (and with how abrasive their being in this debate, I almost don't want to)

But, I don't know if I'd call this a bad use of the skill, or poor framing on the part of the GM.

See, by responding to an insight by telling me that the mechanic wants to make "a lot" of money, you are setting me up to believe he is lying to get more money.

But beyond that, you are telling me his goals, and if I rolled to find out a merchant wants to make money, I'd probably ask the DM if they want me to roll for realizing water is wet while I'm at it.

But what is their intent? Are they intent on gouging me for as much as I'm worth? Are they intent on providing the best service they can?

Because that is what the player is likely asking anyways, is that price a real price or an inflated price.

And frankly, why do this to someone anyways?

I've had cars that needed to go to mechanics constantly, and I hate dealing with that sort of "toss a coin, you don't know" BS. Are you really advocating putting players through that just for the sake of realism? Is the best they are going to get from insight things like "The farmer doesn't want to die" "The merchant wants to make money" "The King thinks you should listen to him"

The skill says it lets you figure out intentions. Is the mechanic intending to gouge me with false problems or inflated prices is a legit question, and your non-answer of "he wants to make a lot of money" means that we wasted our time, because I didn't need a skill roll to know that.

In any event, the point isn't to "provide extra narration" it's to give the player something to do, something to think about and solve, rather than simply remembering to make a skill check.

Given a choice between:

"Wait a second...what was the poem again, the one we found in the journal? I've got it! Pull out the drawers and look on the bottoms!"

and...

"I roll Investigation...19!...what did I find?"

I'll take the first option every time. If the only choice, perhaps because the DM didn't prepare something cool, is the 2nd option...why even bother with the check? I say just let them find it.

See, that's great and all for when it is a major plot point.

Spy game, the book of poems is a cypher telling them where the secret drop point is, and the spies having the same books of poems is the clue that led them to figuring that out.

Very cool scenario.


What clues did you seed into the world for Horse Trader #54 overcharging them for a riding horses? What series of events led to the clues the players will use when they randomly decide to search a traveling merchant's wagon that you only had pass by to deliver news of an orc presence to the south?

Clues and breadcrumbs work great for major plot points. For minor stuff that your player's blindside you with, not so much.

My players recently broke into an enemy castle to free it from the influence of a cult of Orcus. The criminal asked to search for valuables and loot the place. It makes perfect sense, it also makes sense there are hidden treasures in the royal chambers. Didn't plan on it though, because mostly the paladin and cleric keep him reined in and not stealing everything (players are fine with the dynamic, and they all loved him turning it on them).

So, should I not have allowed him to search for treasures in the royal chambers?

No, that seems a ridiculous answer. But, I also wasn't going to spend 10 minutes coming up with answers and deciding DC's only to have him roll a 1 (or a 2 or a 3, I know auto-fails are a houserule). So he rolled, and I decided based on his roll. It saved time and let him do something in character that made total sense.


And I'll also add, a lot of my players don't have the mental space to remember all my clues. I'm lucky this semester to have a player willing to take notes we can refer back to, but we play in a weekly game and expecting someone to remember a clue that might have been given over 160 hours ago when they had an entire week full of other things to deal with.... Yeah, I'm only doing that for the big things in the main plot, it wouldn't make sense to try it any where else.

That is an important question for GMs to ask, to avoid the following situation.

Player: I search the door for traps.
GM: As you touch it, contact poison seeps into your skin, make—
Player: Hang on, I never said I touched the door! That's not fair!

Yeah, this is an important thing to avoid.

But also, the reason why I prefer not to just let people roll without giving me some details is not just this, but also the fact that if a "master thief" never makes any mistakes then there are no teeth to those sorts of traps.

You can't just have them trigger on players, and there is no fun if they never accidentally do something dangerous they regret, so sometimes you give them the choice of whether or not they do the potentially dangerous thing if it might mean a better chance at figuring out what the glowing artifact is.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I also want to reiterate something I said earlier, in terms of Quid Pro Quo between Player and DM.


If the fighter wants to lie about having 40 armed soldiers waiting outside the cave to storm the bandit camp if they do not surrender, the Fighter will roll Deception.

This is opposed by either a DC or the Bandit making a roll.

The DC or the Roll would be determined by the Bandit's Insight or Wisdom.

If the Fighter failed to beat that, the bandits will realize they are bluffing, AKA they were lying.



Why then does the Fighter not get to Roll Insight when the Bandit Leader declares they have 80 bandits waiting in the caves to strike down a nearby town? If the Fighter succeeds on that Insight, why does the Fighter not get to say that they know the Bandit Leader is lying?


Skills are equal between Player and DM, they must be used in the same manner for both parties.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I can see this, but it still seems a bit odd - shouldn't good CHA/Perception/Persuasion make it more likely that the NPC can project an impression of You read me as sincere?

Yes. This is a great example of what I've been saying for years: a "good" system for detecting truthfulness would have positives, negatives, false positives, and false negatives. You could never be sure.

 

[iserith]

I also want to reiterate something I said earlier, in terms of Quid Pro Quo between Player and DM.

If the fighter wants to lie about having 40 armed soldiers waiting outside the cave to storm the bandit camp if they do not surrender, the Fighter will roll Deception.

This is opposed by either a DC or the Bandit making a roll.

The DC or the Roll would be determined by the Bandit's Insight or Wisdom.

If the Fighter failed to beat that, the bandits will realize they are bluffing, AKA they were lying.

For funsies, I'm going to rewrite this based on my understanding of the rules of D&D 5e:

The goal here is to get the bandits to surrender and the approach is by deceiving them into thinking the fighter has 40 armed soldiers waiting outside. The fighter's player might roll a Charisma (Deception) check, if the DM determines the outcome of the task is uncertain and there's a meaningful consequence for failure. If the DM does decide an ability check is appropriate, he or she may assign a DC of his or her choosing or perhaps call for a contest using the bandit's Wisdom (Insight).

If the fighter's player fails the check, the bandits may realize they are bluffing or the fighter may make some progress combined with a setback e.g. the bandit leader thinks the fighter could be telling the truth, but can't risk being wrong, so she orders her right hand thug to go outside the cave to verify the fighter's assertion. The DM turns to the players and asks "What do you do?"

Why then does the Fighter not get to Roll Insight when the Bandit Leader declares they have 80 bandits waiting in the caves to strike down a nearby town? If the Fighter succeeds on that Insight, why does the Fighter not get to say that they know the Bandit Leader is lying?

The DM describes the environment as including a bandit leader who declares they have 80 bandits waiting in the caves to strike down a nearby town. The fighter's player, suspecting this is a bluff, describes that he or she wants to search out a lie (goal) by gleaning clues from his body language, speech habits, and changers in mannerisms (approach). The fighter's player might roll a Wisdom (Insight) check, if the DM determines the outcome of the task is uncertain and there's a meaningful consequence for failure. If the DM does decide an ability check is appropriate, he or she may assign a DC of his or her choosing or perhaps call for a contest using the bandit's Charisma (Deception).

If the fighter's player succeeds in that check, the DM may say that the bandit is being untruthful. If the fighter's player fails in that check, the DM may say that the bandit leader gives nothing away and the search for the lie is unfruitful or the fighter may make some progress combined with a setback e.g. the bandit leader is being untruthful, but the bandit leader knows the fighter caught her in a lie, so she escalates the situation by declaring the parley over and demanding the PCs lay down their arms. The DM turns to the players and asks "What do you do?"

Regardless of success or failure on the check, the player always determines what his or her character thinks, does, and says. Therefore, even if the bandit leader is successful in hiding her lie from the fighter, the fighter's player can still choose to have the fighter believe the bandit leader is lying or not. It's up to the player.

Skills are equal between Player and DM, they must be used in the same manner for both parties.

The adjudication process is the same, but many things can differ even in substantially similar situations.