Player Characters As Lie Detectors

[NewJeffCT]

I really hope the Sense Motive (3e) / Insight (4e) skill doesn't make it into 5e. I think it clobbers the heck out of roleplaying and common sense when PCs can just ask "is he telling the truth?" and roll a d20 and find out the answer.

(Yes, even if the DM makes the roll instead of the PC, it's still a really dumb mechanic that's stupidly harmful to roleplaying and plot development.)

If you wanna think a guy is lying, then sure, think that. Come up with a reason he's lying. Prove him wrong on something, call him out. But let's drop the idea that everyone has a fair-to-good chance to measure someone's heart rate and sweaty palms and instantly tell who is deceitful.

I feel just the opposite. I think if it's done well, Insight/Sense Motive can really add to the role-playing, especially if the players are in a situation where bluffing is not expected (i.e., meeting the high priest of a local Lawful Good church or while having an audience with the kind-hearted king, etc) You can't really call out the king while he's giving you plaudits in front of 100 of his knights, and similarly, you can't immediately prove the lawful good high priest is leaving something out while he's giving a sermon. In older editions, players would make INT or WIS checks, or similar.

Also, while spells like Detect Lie can work in some cases, you can't really have the party cleric start chanting out magic words and waving his or her symbol around while being presented to the king or high priest.

Going back to 1E days, I've also never played as player or DM that the paladin's Detect Evil as some sort of invisible evil finding radar - if a paladin wants to Detect Evil, he or she must get out their holy symbol and boldly present it in the directs where they want to detect the evil, which doesn't go over well in a rough & tumble dockside tavern...

Also, if the DM is not good at lying IRL and he's running a high bluff NPC, or maybe not adept at role-playing certain types of NPCs, a roll of the dice can also help out in those cases as well.

I don't play it as an auto-win, though. So, if somebody rolls a high Sense Motive or Insight, I would say something like, "You think the king is not telling you the whole truth," or "You have a hunch the barkeep is bluffing."

 

[kitsune9]

What determines the strengths of Oakdale's Bluff and Bob's Insight is stated by the system.

What Bob gets out of the result should never be complete lie detection unless Bob wins by a huge amount. I agree with that. But I prefer to roll and describe the result of the roll if a roll is possible.

I agree with this. If the DM wants to roleplay out the exchange and drop clues about deception, that's up to him. However, there needs to be a mechanic so characters who are built to be very intelligent and know when BS is being shoveled to them when the player may not be as perceptive.

I need such mechanics because my group has serious ADD when it comes to the major details let alone the minor details or nuances of the NPCs. They are good roleplayers and will roleplay, but ask them to remember names, locations, etc. it's like pulling teeth. I listen to them recap previous sessions to other players with the explanations like, "So last time, we got that dude and turned him over to that church beyond that town we visited and then we went and explored some catacombs and killed some undead stuff. Then we met some other dude who was like in our face yo. He said some stuff about going to a dungeon or a swamp or something like that and he wants to give us 500 gold to recover some staff or ring and like kill everything in the castle. We took the mission but stopped at some village along the way." What's annoying is that one of the players always interrupts me with the spelling of each and every name of the NPC or location, writes down notes, and then promptly forgets everything. He doesn't even look back at his notes or shares them with the group unless it's direly important (like a PC who died).

If I didn't have mechanics to deal with the interactions, then the players would believe whatever crap I dished out.

 

[Henry]

I am one of those young punks who thinks that "social" skills are a good idea for the same reason that "strength score" is a good idea. If we based our characters' strengths off our actual physical fitness, half of the player base would be exhausted or dead by the end of our first monster encounter, and have NO business being in a dungeon. Though you control your character's actions, you are not your character, and not having social skills represented in some fashion separate from your own personal skill is as unfair as the active duty soldier getting a stat boost.