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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="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7585458" data-attributes="member: 16814"><p>This presupposes that the only use of the skill is telling if someone is lying. Imagine, for a moment, that you cannot just ask if someone is lying and then press the Insight lever for an answer. How would you go about investigating to tell if someone is lying? Do any of those things seem like they might implicate Insight?</p><p></p><p>To address your question directly, looking for body language may not always yield a good response. If the target is not of your culture or kind, the difficulty is very high, and, with a consequence for any failure, the risk is also very high. Might not be worth it. Instead, you could engage in conversation and see if any of the story changes: "I'll talk to her a bit and review details, looking to see if anything changes." Bam, Insight check. Or, "I want to see if I can find out what bonds the NPC has, so I'm going to try to get them to open up about what they care about." Insight check to see if you successfully glean a bond, which can then be leveraged to find out if they're lying about something, depending on the bond. Or trait, or ideal, etc. Heck, even finding out that an Ideal is "I always serve myself first" can be a powerful indicator of certain lies.</p><p></p><p>There's tons of ways to use Insight that don't involve being a human (elf?) lie detector and also don't rely on studying body language.</p><p></p><p></p><p>This is a perfectly valid way to play, and also one I saw when I played with skill use declarations as the norm after a failed Insight check. The player already had an opinion and, instead of acting on that, used the "free" Insight check to validate. Heck, it was often used as proof of a lie, which is weird to me now. </p><p></p><p></p><p>I think you're being unfairly critical of your ability to imagine things. You're in a rut of thinking, is all, where the way you've been playing has become the way you think about the mechanic. Step back, absolutely forbid "body language observation checks", and see what you come up with for how you could possibly use Insight. It's a common thing for people to confuse how it is right now for how it ought to be, or could possibly be. It takes a moment of setting aside what you already think you know and looking at the problem in a new light, and being open to that. You might find you still prefer how you do it now (I think many do), but, then you'd know why you think that instead of just staying with the comfortable 'how it is nows'.</p><p></p><p>As always, how you enjoy playing is the best, most right, absolutely, irrefutably correct way to play -- for you! How I play should really only be a curiosity. Unless you like talking about how games are played, in which case, let's go!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ovinomancer, post: 7585458, member: 16814"] This presupposes that the only use of the skill is telling if someone is lying. Imagine, for a moment, that you cannot just ask if someone is lying and then press the Insight lever for an answer. How would you go about investigating to tell if someone is lying? Do any of those things seem like they might implicate Insight? To address your question directly, looking for body language may not always yield a good response. If the target is not of your culture or kind, the difficulty is very high, and, with a consequence for any failure, the risk is also very high. Might not be worth it. Instead, you could engage in conversation and see if any of the story changes: "I'll talk to her a bit and review details, looking to see if anything changes." Bam, Insight check. Or, "I want to see if I can find out what bonds the NPC has, so I'm going to try to get them to open up about what they care about." Insight check to see if you successfully glean a bond, which can then be leveraged to find out if they're lying about something, depending on the bond. Or trait, or ideal, etc. Heck, even finding out that an Ideal is "I always serve myself first" can be a powerful indicator of certain lies. There's tons of ways to use Insight that don't involve being a human (elf?) lie detector and also don't rely on studying body language. This is a perfectly valid way to play, and also one I saw when I played with skill use declarations as the norm after a failed Insight check. The player already had an opinion and, instead of acting on that, used the "free" Insight check to validate. Heck, it was often used as proof of a lie, which is weird to me now. I think you're being unfairly critical of your ability to imagine things. You're in a rut of thinking, is all, where the way you've been playing has become the way you think about the mechanic. Step back, absolutely forbid "body language observation checks", and see what you come up with for how you could possibly use Insight. It's a common thing for people to confuse how it is right now for how it ought to be, or could possibly be. It takes a moment of setting aside what you already think you know and looking at the problem in a new light, and being open to that. You might find you still prefer how you do it now (I think many do), but, then you'd know why you think that instead of just staying with the comfortable 'how it is nows'. As always, how you enjoy playing is the best, most right, absolutely, irrefutably correct way to play -- for you! How I play should really only be a curiosity. Unless you like talking about how games are played, in which case, let's go! [/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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