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If an NPC is telling the truth, what's the Insight DC to know they're telling the truth?
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<blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 7583082" data-attributes="member: 6779196"><p>Generally, when a player asks to make a check or just makes one on their own, my response is, “I’m hearing that your goal is to [blank]. To know how best to resolve your action, I also need to know what your character is doing to try to achieve that goal.” In this specific example, the player did state a goal and approach, kind of - I can glean from their phrasing that their goal is to get to the top of the wall and their approach is to climb it. If the wall has sufficient hand and footholds, I’d probably say something like “I actually wouldn’t have called for a roll there, you can climb at half your speed.” If the wall is not easily scalable, I might say, “you are unable to find purchase on the smooth marble with your hands and feet alone. Next time I’d appreciate it if you just tell me your goal and approach and if you need to make a check I’ll ask you to.”</p><p></p><p></p><p>Whether or not someone is speaking in character really doesn’t matter to me. First person narration is not necessary for my method, all I need is a goal and an approach. In your early example, a goal and approach was actually stated, so I would consider it a perfectly valid action, the only faux pas was anticipating an Athletics check and rolling it before I could adjudicate the action. And it’s not a bad thing to not want to speak in character, or to prefer to state what kind of skill check you want to make.</p><p></p><p>I have encountered situations like this before, where a player’s preferred style of announcing intent to action and my preferred style of action resolution don’t mesh, and the solution is always to have a talk about it person-to-person. In fact, in my current campaign I had a player push back against my request for an approach when she wanted to check a door for traps. I have my usual response of “I am hearing that you want to determine if there are any traps that might be sprung by opening the door, what does your character do to try to determine that?” and she said “umm... something my character would think of as someone proficient in thieves tools that I wouldn’t?” Sensing some tension, I asked for a Perception check, narrated her character giving the door a thorough visual examination, and told her she didn’t find any evidence of traps (the door wasn’t trapped).</p><p></p><p>After the game, I talked to her and said that my preference as a DM is for a The players’ choices to be the primary factor in determining success and failure, and for the dice to be a tool to resolve actions with uncertain outcomes. And I said that I consider it part of my job as DM is to give the players the information they need to feel confident make those decisions - I told her the door wasn’t trapped, but if it had been, I would have tried to Telegraph that in a way that would have given her a clue about how best to go about trying to detect it. I also reassured her that I understand she’s not an expert trapsmith, and neither am I, so I will always do my best to take that into account and interpret actions generously - I don’t need a detailed account of every move she makes, I’m not waiting for her to say the “wrong thing” so I can spring a gotcha on her, I just need to know generally, is she just visually examining the door, is she pressing on it, is she sliding something under the cracks, etc. because I don’t want to make assumptions about what her character is doing that might not match up with what she’s envisioning.</p><p></p><p>She was very understanding, and since then we have had no further issue. In fact, since that conversation, she’s gotten really creative about how she describes searching for traps.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Charlaquin, post: 7583082, member: 6779196"] Generally, when a player asks to make a check or just makes one on their own, my response is, “I’m hearing that your goal is to [blank]. To know how best to resolve your action, I also need to know what your character is doing to try to achieve that goal.” In this specific example, the player did state a goal and approach, kind of - I can glean from their phrasing that their goal is to get to the top of the wall and their approach is to climb it. If the wall has sufficient hand and footholds, I’d probably say something like “I actually wouldn’t have called for a roll there, you can climb at half your speed.” If the wall is not easily scalable, I might say, “you are unable to find purchase on the smooth marble with your hands and feet alone. Next time I’d appreciate it if you just tell me your goal and approach and if you need to make a check I’ll ask you to.” Whether or not someone is speaking in character really doesn’t matter to me. First person narration is not necessary for my method, all I need is a goal and an approach. In your early example, a goal and approach was actually stated, so I would consider it a perfectly valid action, the only faux pas was anticipating an Athletics check and rolling it before I could adjudicate the action. And it’s not a bad thing to not want to speak in character, or to prefer to state what kind of skill check you want to make. I have encountered situations like this before, where a player’s preferred style of announcing intent to action and my preferred style of action resolution don’t mesh, and the solution is always to have a talk about it person-to-person. In fact, in my current campaign I had a player push back against my request for an approach when she wanted to check a door for traps. I have my usual response of “I am hearing that you want to determine if there are any traps that might be sprung by opening the door, what does your character do to try to determine that?” and she said “umm... something my character would think of as someone proficient in thieves tools that I wouldn’t?” Sensing some tension, I asked for a Perception check, narrated her character giving the door a thorough visual examination, and told her she didn’t find any evidence of traps (the door wasn’t trapped). After the game, I talked to her and said that my preference as a DM is for a The players’ choices to be the primary factor in determining success and failure, and for the dice to be a tool to resolve actions with uncertain outcomes. And I said that I consider it part of my job as DM is to give the players the information they need to feel confident make those decisions - I told her the door wasn’t trapped, but if it had been, I would have tried to Telegraph that in a way that would have given her a clue about how best to go about trying to detect it. I also reassured her that I understand she’s not an expert trapsmith, and neither am I, so I will always do my best to take that into account and interpret actions generously - I don’t need a detailed account of every move she makes, I’m not waiting for her to say the “wrong thing” so I can spring a gotcha on her, I just need to know generally, is she just visually examining the door, is she pressing on it, is she sliding something under the cracks, etc. because I don’t want to make assumptions about what her character is doing that might not match up with what she’s envisioning. She was very understanding, and since then we have had no further issue. In fact, since that conversation, she’s gotten really creative about how she describes searching for traps. [/QUOTE]
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If an NPC is telling the truth, what's the Insight DC to know they're telling the truth?
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