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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="iserith" data-source="post: 7588031" data-attributes="member: 97077"><p>The way I look at it is that players tend to try to roll more often if there is no consequence for failure. That's a reasonable behavior given the way the DM is running the game. But the rules say that <em>there is no roll unless there's a meaningful consequence for failure</em> (and an uncertain outcome). So if you <em>just do what the rules say</em>, players will tend to stop trying to roll because rolling has consequences when they fail. That doesn't mean they'll stop trying to do stuff. They'll just try to figure out ways to succeed or at least mitigate the swinginess of the d20 as much as they can. Those are also reasonable behaviors, given the game's rules. Applied to this topic, if the result of a failed Insight check is that the social interaction challenge gets harder or ends in an undesirable outcome (for the characters if not the players), players will tend to be more careful about trying to pile on the Insight checks.</p><p></p><p>Further, the DM would be doing him or herself a favor by making it so Insight is a skill proficiency applied to more than just tasks with uncertain outcomes tied to lie detection. The DMG discusses this in the section on Social Interaction. It can be used to resolve tasks related to uncover the NPC's ideal, bond, flaw, or agenda which can then be leveraged to get the NPC to do what the players want them to do. If you discover that this lying NPC "cares for his baby girl more than life itself," then you can use that to your advantage by offering to protect his baby girl. Then maybe he'll come clean. That's arguably more valuable than trying to tell if the NPC is lying in certain situations. Plus it makes your social interaction challenges deeper and more varied. Prepping the NPC's personality trait, ideal, bond, flaw, and agenda also helps the DM with portraying the NPC faithfully and consistently.</p><p></p><p>Finally, for those who use lies as the primary obstacle in a social interaction challenge and/or don't like to reveal to players that an NPC is lying in a direct manner (with or without a roll), consider this: A lie in a social interaction challenge is like a pit trap in an exploration challenge. You might have the NPC lie and the player's character believes it (falls into the hidden pit trap). Or you might have the NPC lie and the player's character is suspicious (searches for hidden pit traps). The interesting part of play to my mind is not the search for the lie (or the trap), but <em>what the player does with the information if the task is successful</em>. You know the NPC is lying - now what? (You know there's a pit trap blocking the path - now what?) The challenge is not yet done. The characters in the trap scene from my games I mentioned upthread knew there were traps. It was obvious. The hard part was <em>what to do about it</em>. Your social interaction challenges can be largely the same.</p><p></p><p>I'll add that it's easier to deal with this sort of thing if your next plot point isn't hinging on the characters believing an NPC's lie. And in general, DMing is easier if you don't care about any particular solution or outcome except that it's fun for everyone and helps contribute to an exciting, memorable story.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="iserith, post: 7588031, member: 97077"] The way I look at it is that players tend to try to roll more often if there is no consequence for failure. That's a reasonable behavior given the way the DM is running the game. But the rules say that [I]there is no roll unless there's a meaningful consequence for failure[/I] (and an uncertain outcome). So if you [I]just do what the rules say[/I], players will tend to stop trying to roll because rolling has consequences when they fail. That doesn't mean they'll stop trying to do stuff. They'll just try to figure out ways to succeed or at least mitigate the swinginess of the d20 as much as they can. Those are also reasonable behaviors, given the game's rules. Applied to this topic, if the result of a failed Insight check is that the social interaction challenge gets harder or ends in an undesirable outcome (for the characters if not the players), players will tend to be more careful about trying to pile on the Insight checks. Further, the DM would be doing him or herself a favor by making it so Insight is a skill proficiency applied to more than just tasks with uncertain outcomes tied to lie detection. The DMG discusses this in the section on Social Interaction. It can be used to resolve tasks related to uncover the NPC's ideal, bond, flaw, or agenda which can then be leveraged to get the NPC to do what the players want them to do. If you discover that this lying NPC "cares for his baby girl more than life itself," then you can use that to your advantage by offering to protect his baby girl. Then maybe he'll come clean. That's arguably more valuable than trying to tell if the NPC is lying in certain situations. Plus it makes your social interaction challenges deeper and more varied. Prepping the NPC's personality trait, ideal, bond, flaw, and agenda also helps the DM with portraying the NPC faithfully and consistently. Finally, for those who use lies as the primary obstacle in a social interaction challenge and/or don't like to reveal to players that an NPC is lying in a direct manner (with or without a roll), consider this: A lie in a social interaction challenge is like a pit trap in an exploration challenge. You might have the NPC lie and the player's character believes it (falls into the hidden pit trap). Or you might have the NPC lie and the player's character is suspicious (searches for hidden pit traps). The interesting part of play to my mind is not the search for the lie (or the trap), but [I]what the player does with the information if the task is successful[/I]. You know the NPC is lying - now what? (You know there's a pit trap blocking the path - now what?) The challenge is not yet done. The characters in the trap scene from my games I mentioned upthread knew there were traps. It was obvious. The hard part was [I]what to do about it[/I]. Your social interaction challenges can be largely the same. I'll add that it's easier to deal with this sort of thing if your next plot point isn't hinging on the characters believing an NPC's lie. And in general, DMing is easier if you don't care about any particular solution or outcome except that it's fun for everyone and helps contribute to an exciting, memorable story. [/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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