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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: 7588439" data-attributes="member: 6779196"><p>Ok, that’s common ground. That’s a good start. For me, that’s where the conversation ends. When the outcome of the thing the player says their character does is obvious, then the obvious thing is what happens, full stop. The dice are for when what happens as a result is not obvious.</p><p></p><p></p><p>This is why vague statements like, “I check for traps” are a poor strategy. Yes, if I just said I check for traps without saying what I’m doing to check for them, we have little choice but to determine what my character was doing that resulted in that failure retroactively. The dice are generating the story - we didn’t really know what my character was doing until we found out whether it worked or not, and then we came up with a narrative explanation for the result. And if you like to play that way, more power to you! I do not like to play that way, because it puts my successes and failures in the hands of chance. I want my successes and failures to be in my hands. I enjoy the game more when I succeed because I thought of a clever plan or fail because I took a calculated risk and it didn’t pay off.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Yes, absolutely. If we all agree to let the dice decide whether I succeed or fail, we need to come up with an explanation for what the dice say happened. That, to me, is putting the cart before the horse. You’re starting from the result and working backwards to explain how we got there. I prefer to start from the action, and only if we cannot figure out what is most likely to happen as a result, then we turn to the imartial random number generators to help us decide.</p><p></p><p></p><p>The best novels don’t tell you how the characters are feeling, save maybe the POV character. They describe only what can be observed from a 3rd person perspective. When DMing, I try to keep in mind that each PC is the POV character of their player’s story. So I never describe what the characters feel. The players provide that description for themelves (and ideally to themselves, in their own heads). I describe only what they can observe. Its the old “show, don’t tell” adage - don’t tell the players that the dragon is frightening, show them what is frightening about it. Be as evocative as you like in describing the power in its muscles, the malicious intellect in its eyes, the deafening timbre of its voice, the blood stains on its spear-like fangs, the heat of its breath that could turn to hellfire in an instant. Let the players decide for themselves how their characters feel about what you are describing.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Charlaquin, post: 7588439, member: 6779196"] Ok, that’s common ground. That’s a good start. For me, that’s where the conversation ends. When the outcome of the thing the player says their character does is obvious, then the obvious thing is what happens, full stop. The dice are for when what happens as a result is not obvious. This is why vague statements like, “I check for traps” are a poor strategy. Yes, if I just said I check for traps without saying what I’m doing to check for them, we have little choice but to determine what my character was doing that resulted in that failure retroactively. The dice are generating the story - we didn’t really know what my character was doing until we found out whether it worked or not, and then we came up with a narrative explanation for the result. And if you like to play that way, more power to you! I do not like to play that way, because it puts my successes and failures in the hands of chance. I want my successes and failures to be in my hands. I enjoy the game more when I succeed because I thought of a clever plan or fail because I took a calculated risk and it didn’t pay off. Yes, absolutely. If we all agree to let the dice decide whether I succeed or fail, we need to come up with an explanation for what the dice say happened. That, to me, is putting the cart before the horse. You’re starting from the result and working backwards to explain how we got there. I prefer to start from the action, and only if we cannot figure out what is most likely to happen as a result, then we turn to the imartial random number generators to help us decide. The best novels don’t tell you how the characters are feeling, save maybe the POV character. They describe only what can be observed from a 3rd person perspective. When DMing, I try to keep in mind that each PC is the POV character of their player’s story. So I never describe what the characters feel. The players provide that description for themelves (and ideally to themselves, in their own heads). I describe only what they can observe. Its the old “show, don’t tell” adage - don’t tell the players that the dragon is frightening, show them what is frightening about it. Be as evocative as you like in describing the power in its muscles, the malicious intellect in its eyes, the deafening timbre of its voice, the blood stains on its spear-like fangs, the heat of its breath that could turn to hellfire in an instant. Let the players decide for themselves how their characters feel about what you are describing. [/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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