Sense Motive - passive or active?

[Thanee]

StalkingBlue, but that still sounds to me like what I meant.

Your players "sense" the "flaw" and then ask for a sense motive roll (or act suspicious, so one is done, which is pretty much the same).

I'm really not implying, that roleplaying social situations is bad, and should be replaced by dice rolls, just that this seems a bit weird to me.

I'd rather roll sense motive secretly (passive) and then, based on the result, give the players clues, either hidden in the way you let your NPCs act or a bit more open.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Kahuna Burger]

There are rules for using it both ways depending on the events. Any bluff check is opposed by a sense motive check so its passive then, but there are guidelines for using it to "feel someone out" making it active.

My feeling is that using it only when the player asks for a check is going to lead to either a very long roleplaying session (as once burned players ask for a s.m. check after every sentance the DM utters) or a more railroaded game than you would have otherwise.

Kahuna Burger

 

[StalkingBlue]

ach, double post

 

[StalkingBlue]

There are rules for using it both ways depending on the events. Any bluff check is opposed by a sense motive check so its passive then, but there are guidelines for using it to "feel someone out" making it active.

Yup.

My feeling is that using it only when the player asks for a check is going to lead to either a very long roleplaying session (as once burned players ask for a s.m. check after every sentance the DM utters) or a more railroaded game than you would have otherwise.

Kahuna Burger

Neither is true for my games.

And forgive me for pointing this out, but players burnt by a GM who's not trustworthy are a problem all by themselves - they need remedies tailored to their maimed condition. The ways burnt players tend to think and act and ways to heal them are hardly relevant for a discussion on rules.
To illustrate: I think we can prob all agree on Search being an active Skill, yes? No Search rolling unless the player states their PC is searching? Players burnt by a bad GM may be found cutting everything and everybody open, and spending an entire gaming night searching and re-searching absolutely every square inch of every floor, wall and ceiling they encounter, whether for treasure or for traps. Using such players' behaviour as an argument for making Search a potentially 'passive' skill like, say, Spot isn't going to work all that well, is it?

 

[Thanee]

To illustrate: I think we can prob all agree on Search being an active Skill, yes?

Not purely, but generally, yes.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I don't think your analogy works the way you want it to work.

If players are burned by a DM who says "you searched the room but you didn't search the box because you said you searched the room not the box" or "you searched the table but not the drawers for traps" or "you searched the chest for traps but not the lock and this trap was on the lock", they will generally (assuming they continue to play with that DM) begin to ask "I search the room. Are there any boxes in the room? I search the boxes. Are there any tables in the room? I search the table. Are there any drawers in the table? I search the outside of the drawer for traps. Is there a lock on the drawer? I search the lock for traps. I open the drawer and search the inside for traps. Then I search the drawers," instead of simply saying "I search the room." That's not an argument for making search a passive skill but it is a very good argument for making search apply generally to things like "rooms" or "chests" rather than specifically to things like "box 1, the table top, the chest's lid, the chest's body, the lock on the chest, the floor under the chest, and the wall behind the chest."

Search is widely recognized as a skill that only works when active. The question is how active it is. As you recognize, that it is active doesn't have to slow the game down as much as the bad example indicates.

Sense Motive, however, is quite different from search. For one thing, it is the opposition skill for bluff. And that "opposed check" use is the one in which there is question about its active/passive status. A better analogy would be to the spot skill which is the opposition skill for Hide. A DM who made a policy of allowing all hide checks to succeed unless the PCs asked for a spot check (while, naturally, all NPCs "ask" for spot checks against the PCs' hide checks) could expect to have every player start each round of combat and each entry into a new area with a dialogue like this:

Player: "I'd like to make a spot check to notice any hiding rogues or assassins--my spot check is a 25."
DM: [pretends to roll a hide check behind his hand] "if there are any invisible assassins or hiding ninjas in the common room of the inn, you don't see them."
Player: "OK, I'd like to make a spot check to notice if anyone in the bar is really a ninja assassin in disguise. This time the spot check is a 19."
DM: [pretends to look through his notes] "If there are any disguised ninja assassins in the room, they are convincingly disguised as dock workers and fishermen."
Player: "OK, I walk through the tavern to the outhouse. I'd like to make a spot check to notice any hiding rogues..."

Clearly, that's a pretty ridiculous level of attention paid to spot checks though it's necessary if spot is to have any use when treated as an active skill.

Sense motive is more like Spot than it is like Search. Like NPCs always know to ask for a Spot check vs. the PCs' Hide, the NPCs always know to ask for a Sense Motive vs. the PCs' bluffs. On the other hand, it's quite reasonable to suspect that an NPC would not think to search square 37 in a 50 square long corridor. Also, like Spot (and unlike search), Sense Motive, is something that is primarily useful when you don't necessarily have reason to suspect that something is up. The character walking out of the tavern has little reason to suspect that there may be hiding or disguised ninja assassins in this particular tavern at this particular time even if he has good reason to suspect that sneaky ninja assassins are after him. Similarly, the character being hired for a dangerous archaeological expedition has little reason to suspect that this particular employer is setting him up as a patsy on this particular mission even if he has good reason to suspect that one of his employers might try to set him up as a patsy at some time in the future. Like Spot, Sense Motive needs to be used constantly if it's to be helpful. And Search, unlike Spot or Sense Motive, is the kind of thing characters only do in exceptional circumstances (exploring a dungeon or looting a room).

Since Sense Motive is more akin to Spot than to Search, it is reasonable to believe that making Sense Motive active only is going to result in "is he lying; my sense motive is a 27" as soon as an NPC so much as says "My name is Bob and I have a proposition for you" in any game that involves intrigue.

Neither is true for my games.

And forgive me for pointing this out, but players burnt by a GM who's not trustworthy are a problem all by themselves - they need remedies tailored to their maimed condition. The ways burnt players tend to think and act and ways to heal them are hardly relevant for a discussion on rules.
To illustrate: I think we can prob all agree on Search being an active Skill, yes? No Search rolling unless the player states their PC is searching? Players burnt by a bad GM may be found cutting everything and everybody open, and spending an entire gaming night searching and re-searching absolutely every square inch of every floor, wall and ceiling they encounter, whether for treasure or for traps. Using such players' behaviour as an argument for making Search a potentially 'passive' skill like, say, Spot isn't going to work all that well, is it?

 

[frankthedm]

both sides take 10 on bluff sencemotive and diplomacy in most situations. Players automaticly fail thier bluff and diplomacy checks if they fail to keep straight face. it is fair since none of my players believe my NPCs if I can't keep a straight face.

 

[S'mon]

For PCs I would generally treat it as an active skill - roll if requested. I don't see it as my job to keep track of all the PC's skills & they do all their rolls, telling them "make a sense motive roll" is pretty much tantamount to saying "He's lying". For NPCs I'll make a Sense Motive roll if I think they might be suspicious of the PC; opposed by the PC's bluff check, but if there's no reason the NPC would be suspicious I won't roll - ergo it works out about the same for PCs & NPCs. Likewise if it's very obvious the PC is lying I won't roll either, unless the player requests a Bluff check.

Edit: I basically take the same approach as Stalkingblue I think, we tend to agree on these things. If an NPC is very persuasive I'll play him that way, within the bounds of my ability, if he's lying and has poor Bluff skill, or is otherwise unconvincing - might be truthful but just have low CHA - I'll play him that way too, and players can request a Sense Motive roll if they like.

 

[S'mon]

I do treat PC's Spot & Listen skills as passive, though - although the players know when they've been asked to make a check, and will tend to become suspicious even if the roll fails - or there's really nothing there to spot or hear. . I treat that as the "hairs on the back of the neck" feeling where you sense something's wrong, but can't tell what.

 

[Synchronicity]

Generally, I treat it as a passive skill. Sense Motive is supposed to be the character's ability to pick up on subtle nuances of conversation, nervous tics, voice tremors and whatever that tell you something's off about what the other person is doing or saying.

*However.* If the person they're talking to *is* lying, but the players have no reason to suspect that they're lying, I generally give the NPC a bonus on their Bluff check *unless* the players specifically ask for Sense Motive checks. For me, the effective penalty to the player's roll represents that the character isn't 'on guard' and so isn't carefully scrutinising everything the NPC does: he's just getting a roll for his natural gut instinct. However, if the player asks for a roll, then I assume his character is more 'on the ball' than he is normally, and so the NPC gets no bonus.

An example of this: The players go to an audience with the mayor of a town. They've never been in this town before, and they don't know the mayor. When they go to his house, a man stops them in the entrance hall, states that he's the mayor's secretary, and that due to important business coming up, the meeting will have to be rescheduled for tomorrow. The man's an assassin, who doesn't want them wandering into the study and discovering the mayor's freshly-dead body. However, since this is a plausible occurence and the players aren't expecting any foul play, the assassin gets a bonus on his Bluff check because the players aren't trying to actively detect if he's lying. Any player asking for a Sense Motive check in this situation negates the bonus. If, on the other hand, they'd gone to the mayor's house expecting trouble, the assassin wouldn't get the bonus in the first place.

Needless to say, the most important thing about this particular house rule is that you don't tell the players about it. This prevents them asking for
Sense Motive on *everyone* they meet, but makes sure that there's a difference between 'passive' and 'active' Sense Motive.