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ShortQuests -- Pocket Sized Adventures! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed for 1-2 game sessions.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jgsugden" data-source="post: 1474686" data-attributes="member: 2629">I never use the words 'truth' or 'lie' with sense motive. I find it far better to use words like 'honest' or 'deceptive'. I also require them to spend a little time before they get anything from sense motive, as the book suggests. I do allow 'instant reads', but they are at a significant penalty - usually about a -20 penalty to the sense motive.As an example, the PCs ran into an old man reading a book at a fork in the road and asked him, "Can you tell us which of these roads leads to Shimmer Forest?"The man answered them by pointing towards one of the roads and then went back to his book. One of my (newer) players asked, "Can I use a sense motive to see if he is lying?" I responded, "You havn't really seen enough to get a good sense of whether the man was being deceptive. You'll need to talk to him a bit more to get a good idea."The PCs then began to talk to the man and ask him what he knew about Shimmer Forest. The man, a rather gruff fellow, didn't want to talk to the PCs so he rebuffed their attempts at information gathering by saying, "I don't know anything about that dang forest, other than it is down that road. I think some merchants went down the road just a few minutes ago. Maybe they can help you out if you hurry after them." This was untrue.I then gave the PCs a sense motive roll and revealed (on a successful roll) that he seemed annoyed and deceptive. My experienced player interpreted this correctly as him just trying to get rid of the PCs. They hurried down the road.Anyways, that is how I run it. it works well. I find using 'truth' and 'lie' is a bit too exact. It tends to turn the skill into a lie detector instead a sensing of the motives of the being.</blockquote>

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