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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Greenfield" data-source="post: 5987033" data-attributes="member: 6669384">My example is a case of someone evading the question by answering something other than the question asked.They were asked, "Do you know where John is?".They answered, "Have you seen John?", which was never asked.I've run into this in some games.  I was running a superhero game, and began a session by telling everyone that it was a Wednesday afternoon, and asking where everyone's character was.One said he was at the studio, rehearsing for a concert.  One said he was driving to his lawyer's.  One said he was working on his spaceship.I told them there was an attempt to break a prisoner out from the courthouse.  Want to guess where the "Studio" was?  Where the lawyer's office was?  Where the guy was testing his spaceship repairs?  Yep, all right at the courthouse in seconds.I'd asked where they were, and they all chose to answer a different question, "What are you doing?", which I never asked.  I learned from that, and try to keep my ears open for the non-answers.Spotting intentional evasion is an excellent example of Sense Motive.  If the person was making casual use of language, with no intent to deceive, there's no ulterior motive to sense, nothing suspicious to observe, no basis for a hunch.  But a person could use the exact same answer in response to the exact same question, as a way of intentionally misleading the listener.  In other words, "Something was up", or to put it more simply, the person isn't trustworthy.The skill isn't Listen, as in hearing and understanding the words, it's Sense Motive, which tells you when they're up to something.This also highlights the fact that spells like Detect Lie and Zone of Truth don't in any way relieve us of the need for skills like Sense Motive.</blockquote>

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