D&D 5E Mysteries, Zone of Truth, and Savvy Players?

[Quickleaf]

Okay, but I see it odd that a bunch of less savory types are going to subject themselves both to questioning and to magical compulsion to save face -- that's not how I imagine criminals working because the risks are so high -- what happens if you're asked about something not related to the theft but that exposes some other interest of yours? Heck, what about questions on point but that might risk revealing information to rivals you do not want them to know? Criminals don't save face by subjecting themselves to questioning, usually, but by refusing to answer questions.

Further, even if I, a criminal person, were some way willing to submit to this indignity, you could be sure that I would hold a serious grudge against the person forcing me into this position or involved in that force at all. This seems a good way to earn powerful and dangerous enemies in a job lot, even if they, strangely, agree to the questioning.

I mean, it would appear that this solves your problem nicely -- criminals are not going to willingly submit to questioning, especially under magical compulsion, which renders the Zone of Truth approach moot because of the usual suspects. I'm not sure why you'd decide that these criminals view submission to questioning, in public, in front of their rivals, as somehow saving face just to preserve the dilemma. I'm starting to suspect that what you really want is to challenge the players on the grounds of their choosing and find a way to let them question with ZoT but still thwart it.

Ah, I see your confusion. So the player's proposal is that it's not going to be in public, with rivals looming over their shoulder just waiting to pounce on their every wrong word.

Instead, it's going to be conducted by the priest PC (an one neutral onlooker who is a disgraced priest who can also cast zone of truth to ensure impartiality of the priest PC) in a separate part of the auction house. It's not just one uninterrupted warehouse floor. There are several adjoining rooms. The questioning would be conducted in one of those rooms, away from prying eyes and ears, to avoid exactly the risk you describe.

Additionally, the priest PC is restricted to questions directly pertaining to the investigation – not other criminal activity. That's the agreement with the auction house owner. If he violates that once, he'll get a warning. If he violates it again, the zone of truth proceedings will be called off.

So, you're absolutely right, there certainly is the risk of earning dangerous enemies if the player doesn't play his cards right.

Also, the PC priest =/= "the law." He's a noble, a priest of Osiris, and an advisor to the Pharaoh's court, but not an agent of the law. He's certainly the most upstanding citizen with some high connections in this den of scoundrels, but he doesn't get to make arrests or single out people for arrest.

 

[NotAYakk]

Ok, so obviously the guilty party (and at least 1 other) have a ring of mind shielding.

It is invisible, and renders them immune to the zone of truth. They appear to be effected, but are not.

These rings are also immune to detect magic and see invisibility while the bearer is alive. Because otherwise they wouldn't be very good, now would they.

So the party or parties who did it, well, they lie. The people who didn't do it, tell the truth. The PCs have to figure out who is lieing and who is telling the truth.

There should be inconsistencies between the stories. The guilty party should have an inconsistency, the other wearer should have one (but is otherwise innocent of THIS crime). Oh, a 3rd person should have a ring, but tell the truth anyhow; these are criminals, after all.

Mix in at least one illusion that an innocent person saw. Say, person X saw an illusion of person Y doing something clearly suspicious in hindsight. And person Y maintains their innocence under the zone of truth. Neither have the ring that lets them lie.

This might be pretty cruel.

9 angry criminals:

A: The guilty party. Can lie freely. Makes a mistake at some point, states something inconsistent with Cs and Ys statements.
B: Can also lie freely. Has something else to hide, lies. Makes a mistake, states something inconsistent with D and Y's statements.
C: Can also lie freely, but chooses not to. One of their statements is very slightly inconsistent with one of A's statements, and saw Y when X saw the illusion.
D: Cannot lie. One of their statements is inconsistent with one of Bs and Xs.
E: Cannot lie. Is clueless. Like, out to lunch.
X: Saw an illusion of Y doing something suspicious. Believes it was Y. One of their claims disagrees with one of Xs, due to error.
Y: Maintains they did not do the action, but doesn't know C saw them at the same time, so alibi is poor. One of their statements is inconsistent with one of As and Bs.
Z: Cannot lie. Has and believes in a conspiracy theory, and will claim its tenants as truth under the zone. "I think I saw a shadow gnome. They grab things and frame people you know." Thinks the shadow gnomes are working in cahoots with A.

 

[Quickleaf]

I understand the difficulties you are facing. I have often with my group. Basically good players are a challenge and they want to be challenged.

I am wishing other people answered in good faith assuming you are a good GM not assuming you are adversarial, trying to get players or don't know your job.

Hey Delphian Thank you for your empathic and well thought out reply. That means a lot to me.

I know there's a certain degree of miscommunication that inevitably happens over forums, but yes there were several replies that seemed to assume I'm an adversarial DM. It's so dramatically not how I approach D&D that it's almost funny, but it was beginning to wear me down parsing through that chaff to get to the wheat of everyone's good feedback. I don't need people to assume I'm a good DM, but at least assuming I'm not an adversarial jerk would be nice. Thank you for witnessing and acknowledging that! Nice to see you holding the torch of civility high.

To be honest I would take one of the most powerful underworld figures and simply announce the truth. If you ask me questions I will no longer deal with this auctioneer. If one person stands up to this and refuses then threatens the auctioneers business then the spell becomes useless. It seems realistic. As others have pointed out criminals be criminals and would not willingly submit. Strong ones would know this is a slippery slope. Weak ones would be afraid. Others would see it as losing face. Some would go along just to mimic and go along. There are a dozen motivations that all lead to refusal to submit.

I would then put forth the notion that if they want to ask specific individuals that they can show evidence for that may be OK. So don't stop the investigation just delay it and make the players work a bit to get there. Then they can use their resources and be rewarded appropriately while being challenged.

I go to Dresden and Marcone the Mob boss character and think like he would. That is what I think he would do.

To me, the challenge isn't the finding the perpetrator. The challenge is convincing 60 people to cooperate and deal with the fallout. This seems like a great social challenge/adventure. To me, the Zone of Truth is just the backdrop to the adventure. The focus should be the navigating and dealing with the various personalities and factions involved.

I think getting someone (useful) to agree to a zone of Truth should be the victory condition. Not the actual Interview.

Sounds like you're both driving at the same thing – getting the main suspects to agree to submitting to a zone of truth (with caveats!!!!!) should involve some roleplaying, wheeling-and-dealing, and otherwise building that consensus. I like the cut of your jib!

To bring up another issue – more of the decker issue (if you know Shadowrun) – I'm currently brainstorming how I want to handle the other PCs doing investigative footwork while the priest PC handles the zone of truth questioning. I'm thinking I might do it on a suspect-by-suspect level, where (a) the PCs do some footwork about a certain suspect, and then (b) we cut scene to the priest PC who now has knowledge of whatever his fellow PCs learned & passed on to him for the questioning of that suspect... and then repeat for each main suspect.

It's a little timey-wimey, but would avoid most of the player twiddling their thumbs while the one priest player spent 10-15 minutes roleplaying out the zone of truth. And similarly, it would avoid the priest player becoming bored during the rest of the group's turn as he needs to pay attention to what they're uncovering, as it could very well inform his line of questioning. So it would be this back and forth process – investigate, question, investigate, question, etc.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Ah, I see your confusion. So the player's proposal is that it's not going to be in public, with rivals looming over their shoulder just waiting to pounce on their every wrong word.

Instead, it's going to be conducted by the priest PC (an one neutral onlooker who is a disgraced priest who can also cast zone of truth to ensure impartiality of the priest PC) in a separate part of the auction house. It's not just one uninterrupted warehouse floor. There are several adjoining rooms. The questioning would be conducted in one of those rooms, away from prying eyes and ears, to avoid exactly the risk you describe.

Additionally, the priest PC is restricted to questions directly pertaining to the investigation – not other criminal activity. That's the agreement with the auction house owner. If he violates that once, he'll get a warning. If he violates it again, the zone of truth proceedings will be called off.

Then the usual suspects dither and slow roll entering the room to burn off time. Whoever's the culprit arranges allies to step forward first or push rivals to the head of the line so that the PC is out of possible spells before the culprit enters the room.

Also, if I were a patron, I'd insist that the staff go first, further burning time. "Make sure the servants are held accountable before me, especially since it's likely one of them!"

Finally, I'm not going to be a criminal to submits to questioning from an unknown source. "How can I be sure that these "priests" aren't in on it and going to frame me? I'm not gonna participate unless I can have one of my trusted agents observe. I'm sure I can send a runner to fetch them within a few hours."

There are so many ways to make this utterly impossible before anyone even sets foot in the circle.

So, you're absolutely right, there certainly is the risk of earning dangerous enemies if the player doesn't play his cards right.

No, you mistake me, the PCs are going to earn enmity merely because they're shaming criminals and forcing them to answer questions under magical compulsion. I would be furious at being forced to do this, and I don't have nearly the reputation or power of the people you're talking about here. This is a serious violation of privacy for very private and powerful people. The enmity will be there even if the PCs are polite -- they're still forcing questioning under compulsion and that's not something a criminal lord is going to let slide. They might suffer it, but the people that did it to them will be paying.

Also, the PC priest =/= "the law." He's a noble, a priest of Osiris, and an advisor to the Pharaoh's court, but not an agent of the law. He's certainly the most upstanding citizen with some high connections in this den of scoundrels, but he doesn't get to make arrests or single out people for arrest.

Cool, at no point in my responses have I assumed the PC is the law or has authority. However, you now have a situation where the criminals can blackmail the priest PC -- he's consorting with criminals in a black market auction, which, if revealed, would embarrass the Pharaoh that one of his courtly advisors consorts freely with common criminal types. The Church may look on it as an embarrassment as well -- Osiris wasn't known for supporting criminals, after all.

 

[Quickleaf]

Goodness. So, yeah, the PC and the auctioneer may e okay with this. But... a whole bunch of criminals at an auction are probably going to be highly suspicious of this. The auctioneer just happened to have a plant in the audience who just happens to be able to cast this spell on the night something gets stolen?

They all only have the PC's word on who made or failed the save. Why should anyone in this group trust that this isn't some sort of setup by the auctioneer to blame someone for something...

Awesome, thanks for thinking like a rogue. So, originally how I framed my question, I was hoping to elicit feedback about other DM's experience running mysteries for savvy players using zone of truth. And for that reason, I cut out many details from my game to focus on the question. However, well, that ship has left harbor...

The setting is Khemti (magical Ancient Egypt).

The priest PC entered the auction under his actual name – and he is a known noble, known member of the Temple of Osiris, and known advisor to the Pharaoh. He's sooo far above the auctioneer's social standing, and sooo publicly visible, it's almost inconceivable that he's the auctioneer's plant.

However, to allay any lingering suspicions, one of the bidders – a disgraced priest of Thoth – has offered to co-cast zone of truth along with the priest PC to sort of "double blind" the proceedings and ensure the priest PC's neutrality.

60 people, The spell lasts 10 minutes. That's 10 seconds per person per casting if they all fail the save - that is no time at all to think up new questions and consider follow-up questions. The PC will get one, maybe two, questions per person? There's exactly zero room there to probe around crafty answers.

How many castings does the PC get? Some people will make the save - they increase the time you cna use on other people, but if anyone makes the save on every casting (likely, in such a large group), then there's always room for doubt that the persons unaffected by the spell are the culprits.

Oh! Great point! He only has 2 castings, so you're right, questioning 50-60 people just wouldn't make sense. He'd need to pick and choose. That dovetails back into @TaranTheWanderer and @TheDelphian's points about needing to strategically convince NPCs on an individual-by-individual basis to submit to zone of truth. Thanks Umbran!

So, what the PC is looking at is a significant likelihood of interviewing 60 members of the underworld... keeping then around for a half hour doing very little but questioning their honor... and it may not result in a clear answer?

The PC is about to make some enemies, I think...

Well, the PC did announce his intentions (re. mass zone of truthing) via thaumaturgy before doing any consensus-building, so he's not doing too hot so far...

 

[dave2008]

A PC who dosen't set a chair or two squarely in the center of the area and have the subject sitting in the chair is kinda dumb...

Well it all depends on the set up doesn't. Who is in control and such.