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

[5ekyu]

I guess I just assume my players aren't complete idiots that will purposely doing something to guarantee they don't succeed. If a wild bear looks like it might attack, maybe charging at it yelling would be the best choice. Maybe standing your ground being careful to not look it in the eye is best. In reality I know it depends on the type of bear (if black the former, if grizzly the latter, if polar just kiss your ass goodbye ).

I wont get into whether my players or yours are idiots, but am pretty sure I have a handle on whether or not their characters are, especially at things they are proficient at. That's why I dont get too bogged down with asking players to describe "the right way to do..." the things their characters know well and they dont.

As you observe - aggression is the right approach for some animal handling checks against some types even subtypes but the wrong one against others. What do I gain by requiring the player *and me* to both know that and be on the same page by changing around their DCs on that description as opposed to letting "Andratti has a +7 in Animals" cover it?

 

[billd91]

Sure, but then I’d think the result would be that they seem insincere regardless of the result of the roll and we’re back to the question of why call for the roll unless its result can affect the outcome?

An appropriately insightful read of the speaker would enable the PC to realize that the shifty guy actually seems to be sincere in this case. Insight helps a PC read someone's intentions, mood, and so on. And that should be able to see sincerity through an insincere reputation or veneer as much as it can see insincerity on a liar.

This, I think, is one of our fundamental differences. I don’t want my players to feel uncertain about the outcomes of their actions. This, in my experience, is what leads players to actually want to make checks. They see the numbers on their sheet as more reliable than their own mental picture of the fictional world, so they would rather push the “check for traps” button and risk failing because of a low roll than declare an approach with any degree of specificity and risk failing because they couldn’t accurately predict how the world would respond to their actions.

That has not been my experience. My players scrutinize NPCs or search for traps regardless of whether I tell them the results with or without a die roll.

 

[Charlaquin]

Taking a slightly different example, there are times when I wouldn't call for a roll (or ignore any roll made even if it's a 20). The wall is smooth with no handholds whatsoever, the boulder is too big to lift, etc. Sometimes I don't call for a roll simply for expediency.

But there are other times when I will because while the outcome is pre-determined by me as a DM, it is not and should not be from the perspective of the PCs.

For example, the PCs suspect there is a secret door in a room. I know there is none, and nothing is going to change that. However, uncertainty can be very important to the story. If I just say "there is no secret door" I've taken away all uncertainty. If I say "he's telling the truth", I've given them a 100% guarantee that (barring magic) they're telling the truth.

If the players suspect there is a secret door in the room, they describe their search for it with a goal and an approach, and without calling for a roll you tell them they don’t find anything out of the ordinary, that only tells them that their approach had no chance of turning up evidence of a secret door, not that there is no secret door. They can always attempt a different approach. That said, I’m personally not super interested in speding a long time adjudicating attempts to search a room for something that isn’t there. I prefer to telegraph that when there is something to be found.

This is the way I've always run things since back in my AD&D days. Sometimes a little
paranoia/questioning tells a better story. After all, when I look for my keys that
I know I left in the kitchen, there's always going to be that lingering doubt that maybe I just didn't check thoroughly enough. At least until I find the keys in the bathroom.

The uncertainty factor is something commonly used in TV/Movies/Fiction. The mystery sometimes shows you who dunnit and the story is all about how they get caught. Other times, the identity of the culprit (or even if there was a crime) is hidden from the viewer. If the PCs are left uncertain whether or not the NPC is lying, they may still be a suspect. That's part of the fun of solving a mystery.

Sure, I get that. There are definitely times when keeping certain information hidden can enhance the experience. Those are the times when I make checks behind the screen.

 

[Oofta]

If the players suspect there is a secret door in the room, they describe their search for it with a goal and an approach, and without calling for a roll you tell them they don’t find anything out of the ordinary, that only tells them that their approach had no chance of turning up evidence of a secret door, not that there is no secret door. They can always attempt a different approach. That said, I’m personally not super interested in speding a long time adjudicating attempts to search a room for something that isn’t there. I prefer to telegraph that when there is something to be found.

Maybe I just like paranoid players. However, as I stated, I don't expect someone to describe details of how they're trying to accomplish the task at hand. But let's say they're searching a prison cell for a secret door, thinking that might be how people keep disappearing. There's not much ambiguity of room content (if there was there may be some feedback on my part). The PCs are competent at searching. If they have to sweep the straw back on the floor to find the secret door, they're going to do that even if I forgot to mention the floor was covered in straw.

I don't play "if you don't describe things the way I expect you to describe them you fail" and the players know that. Therefore if they say they're searching the room, I may ask if they sweep back the straw but they will never fail because they don't say they aren't moving the straw even if I did add it to the description. So if they search the room, they search it. If they try to avoid fighting the bear, they do so without having to describe how.

If I say "there is no secret door" they know there's no secret door. Sometimes that's okay, sometimes it's not.

 

[Charlaquin]

An appropriately insightful read of the speaker would enable the PC to realize that the shifty guy actually seems to be sincere in this case. Insight helps a PC read someone's intentions, mood, and so on. And that should be able to see sincerity through an insincere reputation or veneer as much as it can see insincerity on a liar.

Again, sounds like the result of the roll can affect the outcome, then.

That has not been my experience. My players scrutinize NPCs or search for traps regardless of whether I tell them the results with or without a die roll.

I may not have communicated my point effectively here. I don’t mean to say that players stop searching rooms when I tell them what they do or don’t find without a roll. I mean to say that when I give players as much information as possible - telegraphing traps, telling them DCs and consequences of failure, not asking them to make rolls when the result won’t change anything, etc., I find that the tendency to ask to make skill checks disappears. When my players can confidently predict the potential results of their actions, they are more keen to try to avoid introducing the random element of a die roll into the resolution of their actions. Like I said, since my talk with the player who initially didn’t like being asked to describe her approach to searching for traps, she has gotten quite creative in the approaches she now describes. She has caught onto the fact that, the way I run the game, her understanding of the fictional world and her ability to predict how it will respond to her actions is more reliable than the dice roll. She’s no longer worried about her character having a better understanding of how to look for traps than her, because she knows with confidence that the world behaves in a logical and consistent way, and if she describes something that makes sense to her as a reasonable way to detect something hidden, she has a better chance of that working than a contextless d20 roll will give her.

Like Iserith, my players don’t want to make checks. A check has a risk of failure and failure results in complications, where a goal and approach that makes sense in their brains is more likely to just work, and less likely to cause a setback if it doesn’t. In the event that I determine their approach has a chance of failing at achieving their goal and a consequence for failing to do so, I give them the DC and the consequences as a warning. As if to say, “if you go through with this action, these are the odds of success and this is what will happen if you fail. Are you sure you want to do that?” That gives them the chance to weigh their options, maybe consider spending Inspiration, casting Guidance, working together, or coming up with a different approach that might not be so risky.

 

[Hjorimir]

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

Disclaimer: I didn't read this entire thread.

I let the player know what they think. I don't let them know if they were successful or not. I think it's a good roll to make on behalf of the player (like old school hidden detect trap rolls).

 

[iserith]

Like Iserith, my players don’t want to make checks.

It's amazing to me that more players don't think this way.

I suspect it's due in part to DMs not having any meaningful consequences for failing, which is a prerequisite for there being a roll in the first place. If it rarely costs you anything to fail, you may as well just offer up half an idea and ask to roll.

 

[Charlaquin]

It's amazing to me that more players don't think this way.

I suspect it's due in part to DMs not having any meaningful consequences for failing, which is a prerequisite for there being a roll in the first place. If it rarely costs you anything to fail, you may as well just offer up half an idea and ask to roll.

That’s probably part of it, but I think the bigger issue is players not being able to accurately predict the results of their actions. A lot of players are used to a situation where their approach to achieving a goal has no visible impact on their chances of success. They might describe an approach they think is sure to achieve their desired goal, such as climbing a knitted rope to get to the top, only to be asked to make a check, not told the DC, get a lowish result, and get told something like “you don’t get very far on your first try.” They’re left scratching their heads because they’re not sure why they failed to climb the rope beyond the low number on the die, they don’t know if they would have had a better chance if they had done something differently, if they would have had a worse chance had the rope not been knotted, and nothing about their situation seems to have changed as a result of their roll.

This undermines their confidence that the game world will behave in a logically consistent way. They get the impression that, at the end of the day, the d20 roll is all that really matters, and their approach just introduces the possibility that the DM might tell them to make a check with a skill they’re not as good with. They turn to their stats instead of their decisions as a more reliable way to influence their chance of success, and instead of thinking about “what can my character do to have the best chance of success?” they think about “what skills do I have the best chance of success with?” instead of describing an approach that they think will lead to achieving their goal, they state their goal and announce that they want to make a check using the skill they have the highest bonus with that seems reasonably applicable to the situation (note that my player who wasn’t comfortable describing an approach to searching for traps at first pointed to her proficiency with Thieves’ Tools, rather than Perception or Investigation.)

Now, to be perfectly clear, I’m not saying that anyone here would necessarily handle the above rope climbing scenario the way I described above. It is not my goal to set up a straw man about anyone’s DMing style. It’s actually an example of the kinds of calls I often made as a new DM.

 

[billd91]

I may not have communicated my point effectively here. I don’t mean to say that players stop searching rooms when I tell them what they do or don’t find without a roll. I mean to say that when I give players as much information as possible - telegraphing traps, telling them DCs and consequences of failure, not asking them to make rolls when the result won’t change anything, etc., I find that the tendency to ask to make skill checks disappears. When my players can confidently predict the potential results of their actions, they are more keen to try to avoid introducing the random element of a die roll into the resolution of their actions. Like I said, since my talk with the player who initially didn’t like being asked to describe her approach to searching for traps, she has gotten quite creative in the approaches she now describes. She has caught onto the fact that, the way I run the game, her understanding of the fictional world and her ability to predict how it will respond to her actions is more reliable than the dice roll. She’s no longer worried about her character having a better understanding of how to look for traps than her, because she knows with confidence that the world behaves in a logical and consistent way, and if she describes something that makes sense to her as a reasonable way to detect something hidden, she has a better chance of that working than a contextless d20 roll will give her.

Definitely not my style. I'll telegraph certain things, like when PCs are heading for an area that's particularly dangerous (like the lair of a powerful monster they aren't powerful enough to survive), but if I telegraphed most traps, what would have been the point of hiding them in the first place? That said, I don't usually toss them about randomly like a deranged Grimtooth - they sit in likely-enough places. I also definitely don't tell them most DCs or consequences unless the consequences are obvious (falling off a cliff, for example). I will tell them if the task looks easy or hard (or even impossible given their current state) and I'll tell them if steps they take to mitigate risks are improving their odds, but I'm content to leave their understanding of exactly what their odds are obscure.

 

[Charlaquin]

Definitely not my style. I'll telegraph certain things, like when PCs are heading for an area that's particularly dangerous (like the lair of a powerful monster they aren't powerful enough to survive), but if I telegraphed most traps, what would have been the point of hiding them in the first place? That said, I don't usually toss them about randomly like a deranged Grimtooth - they sit in likely-enough places. I also definitely don't tell them most DCs or consequences unless the consequences are obvious (falling off a cliff, for example). I will tell them if the task looks easy or hard (or even impossible given their current state) and I'll tell them if steps they take to mitigate risks are improving their odds, but I'm content to leave their understanding of exactly what their odds are obscure.

In my view, the point of hiding traps in dungeons and then telegraphing their presence is to give players something cool to interact with. To me, the primary appeal of D&D is getting to make decisions as you imagine you or a fictional character would in various fictional situations. I put traps in dungeons because some players want to live out that scenario of being Indiana Jones seeing the skeleton and realizing that he needs to stay out of the light, trying to avoid disrupting the pressure plate the idol is on by getting the sand bag to just the right weight. They don’t get to do that if I don’t describe the skeleton, or if I just have them roll Dex + Thieves Tools to disarm the rolling boulder trap.