Passive Insight Dispute

[FendenKrell]

oh yeah i think we've all been guilty of accidently, or intentionally using meta-game info fer our characters. but in this peticular case it wasnt a meta game situation. if it had been, then i wouldnt have bothered posting about it. i woulda know i was jerk and moved on. lol. thanks everyone for your input. is there a way to close this thread, as i think i have my answer.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

is there a way to close this thread, as i think i have my answer.

This should remain open as a shrine to good questions.

We could salute the OP and how much he meant to the community.

I still remember FlenderKren's first post... gonna miss that guy...

 

[Syrsuro]

from what i hear then i shouldnt have been denied the check. thats what i figured. but also i'd like to add that i technically did not have any good reason to be suspicious other than my characters personality. does that have any bearing?

The only other thing I would add (besides agreeing with the others that, as long as your reason for wanting to use insight was in-game, not meta-game, you should have been allowed to roll is this:

I don't much like skills like insight (or sense motive in 3E). As written they give too much of an advantage to the player.

First of all - they should always be rolled by the GM, and secondly false positives should occur as often as negatives. In other words, if you blow the roll you should be as likely to distrust him when he is hiding nothing as you are to trust him when he is lying.

Especially if you character is described as 'suspicious by nature'.

To do otherwise is to encourage the player to spam the insight skill, using it every time an NPC says anything - dragging down the game and annoying the DM in the process.

And if you have been guilty of this (using insight in every single conversation because you are 'suspicious by nature') I can certainly understand his annoyance and decision to limit when and how you can use it. (Although not how he went about imposing that limit).

Carl

 

[the_redbeard]

The only other thing I would add (besides agreeing with the others that, as long as your reason for wanting to use insight was in-game, not meta-game, you should have been allowed to roll is this:

I don't much like skills like insight (or sense motive in 3E). As written they give too much of an advantage to the player.

You are assuming perfect communication of the situation in the DM's mind to the players. So often, what is clear as day to the DM is not transferred to the players. Sometimes this is the DM's fault, but often it is just simply that language is imprecise and that the converse of a picture being worth 1000 words is also true - it can take 1000 words to communicate a picture.

Given that, I think Insight/Sense Motive are useful as a crutch.

Myself, my gut reaction was that Bluff would be against passive insight and that insight would get an active roll if the player questioned the bluffer (not merely suspected). But I can read that the PHB states that it is an active opposed check (unlike stealth, which is versus passive perception.)

 

[On Puget Sound]

A possible consequence of being "suspicious by nature" and checking insight constantly might be that you SEEM suspicious..."hmm, he doesn't seem to trust me." Perhaps the suspicious person's PASSIVE bluff should also be checked against the npc's PASSIVE insight to see whether the pc conceals his doubts well enough to avoid angering or alerting the npc. I'd normally only pull this out and thwack a player with it in extreme circumstances, though.