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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: 7595696" data-attributes="member: 6779196"><p>See, in my experience the goal and approach style leads players to be more willing to try things, because they see that trying things doesn’t always lead to a check. Things that seem likely to work often just do, and when things require a check to do, you get fair warning first. Of course, if you ask for checks for most actions, and you don’t give players a heads up about the risk and potential consequences of failure, then every check having consequences for failure probably would lead to turtling. If you can’t easily predict whether or not an action will require a roll to resolve (or alternatively, if you can reliably predict that most actions will require a roll to resolve), you don’t get fair warning before having to make a check, and checks always make the situation worse on a failure, naturally doing anything will be scary. But that’s not how most of us who use goal and approach do it. You’ve got to evaluate the technique holistically, instead of evaluating wach individual element as if it was brought over to your game on its own.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Is this disagreement based on direct experience, or theory?</p><p></p><p></p><p>See, I wouldn’t tell the players, “the ritual circle will blow up if you fail,” because as you say, it doesn’t really make sense for them to know that. Maybe if one of the PCs is familiar with the ritual, but let’s assume that’s not the case for the sake of argument. I’d tell them that failing to properly disrupt the circle will cause a dangerous magical disturbance. And that might prompt the players to want to prove further before rushing ahead and trying to disrupt the circle.</p><p></p><p>“What kind of magical disturbance,” on player might ask.</p><p>“Hard to say, are you proficient in Arcana?”</p><p>“Yes!”</p><p>“Ok, you’d be familiar enough with ritual circles to know that the magic involved is extremely volatile. All kinds of strange effects can happen if the magical energy is not diffused properly. Any more than that would require a more thorough examination of the circle.”</p><p>“Ok, I study the runes ti see if I can figure out what might happen.”</p><p>“That will take 10 minutes and a successful Intelligence check. Your Arcana proficiency would apply.”</p><p>“What happens if I fail?”</p><p>“Nothing beyond the wasted 10 minutes. Of course, that will bring us closer to the next check for random encounters.”</p><p>“Alright, lets do it.”</p><p>“Anyone else have anything they would like to do while Alora examines the runes?”</p><p></p><p>Very much like in the earlier example with the ogre behind the door, I didn’t say “if you fail, an ogre on the other side of the door is going to know your here and prepare to attack you as soon as you opened it.” I said that trying to break the door down would be very loud and would alert any nearby enemies to their presence. Immediate, direct consequences are sufficient to inform the player of what could go wrong, without having to give them details they would have no ability to predict.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I disagree. I feel like whether or not a chandelier is sturdy enough to support the weight of a human(oid) should be pretty obvious at a glance. I also feel like the majority of the time it should be obvious that it can’t. I probably wouldn’t even make that a consequence for failure, I’d make that a cost for the attempt. “The chandelier will definitely fall if you swing from it, but with success on a Hard Dexterity check, you can swing to the other end of the balcony and let go before it snaps.” Or something like that. In any case, “the chandelier might break and fall with you on it” seems very much like “are you <em>sure</em> you want to do the obviously dumb thing?” kind of information to me.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Charlaquin, post: 7595696, member: 6779196"] See, in my experience the goal and approach style leads players to be more willing to try things, because they see that trying things doesn’t always lead to a check. Things that seem likely to work often just do, and when things require a check to do, you get fair warning first. Of course, if you ask for checks for most actions, and you don’t give players a heads up about the risk and potential consequences of failure, then every check having consequences for failure probably would lead to turtling. If you can’t easily predict whether or not an action will require a roll to resolve (or alternatively, if you can reliably predict that most actions will require a roll to resolve), you don’t get fair warning before having to make a check, and checks always make the situation worse on a failure, naturally doing anything will be scary. But that’s not how most of us who use goal and approach do it. You’ve got to evaluate the technique holistically, instead of evaluating wach individual element as if it was brought over to your game on its own. Is this disagreement based on direct experience, or theory? See, I wouldn’t tell the players, “the ritual circle will blow up if you fail,” because as you say, it doesn’t really make sense for them to know that. Maybe if one of the PCs is familiar with the ritual, but let’s assume that’s not the case for the sake of argument. I’d tell them that failing to properly disrupt the circle will cause a dangerous magical disturbance. And that might prompt the players to want to prove further before rushing ahead and trying to disrupt the circle. “What kind of magical disturbance,” on player might ask. “Hard to say, are you proficient in Arcana?” “Yes!” “Ok, you’d be familiar enough with ritual circles to know that the magic involved is extremely volatile. All kinds of strange effects can happen if the magical energy is not diffused properly. Any more than that would require a more thorough examination of the circle.” “Ok, I study the runes ti see if I can figure out what might happen.” “That will take 10 minutes and a successful Intelligence check. Your Arcana proficiency would apply.” “What happens if I fail?” “Nothing beyond the wasted 10 minutes. Of course, that will bring us closer to the next check for random encounters.” “Alright, lets do it.” “Anyone else have anything they would like to do while Alora examines the runes?” Very much like in the earlier example with the ogre behind the door, I didn’t say “if you fail, an ogre on the other side of the door is going to know your here and prepare to attack you as soon as you opened it.” I said that trying to break the door down would be very loud and would alert any nearby enemies to their presence. Immediate, direct consequences are sufficient to inform the player of what could go wrong, without having to give them details they would have no ability to predict. I disagree. I feel like whether or not a chandelier is sturdy enough to support the weight of a human(oid) should be pretty obvious at a glance. I also feel like the majority of the time it should be obvious that it can’t. I probably wouldn’t even make that a consequence for failure, I’d make that a cost for the attempt. “The chandelier will definitely fall if you swing from it, but with success on a Hard Dexterity check, you can swing to the other end of the balcony and let go before it snaps.” Or something like that. In any case, “the chandelier might break and fall with you on it” seems very much like “are you [i]sure[/i] you want to do the obviously dumb thing?” kind of information to me. [/QUOTE]
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