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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Greenfield" data-source="post: 5987381" data-attributes="member: 6669384">When someone asks where John is, and you know but choose to evade the point by saying, "I haven't seen him today.", how is that not an attempt to mislead, to give a false impression?That is, you're trying to convince the person asking that you don't know, when in fact you do.The essence is in the intent, not the mechanism with which that intent is carried out.  Now you can argue, "He didn't intend to deceive, he just wanted a way to answer without telling the truth", but that's just a long winded way of describing the misleading statement.So when the bartender asks what the Paladin is talking about, he isn't asking because he needs an explanation.  He's asking because he wants to create the false impression that he needs an explanation, that he doesn't already know about the assassin.  He is, in effect, trying to look innocuous. Trying to create a false impression is a "prevarication", exactly as described in the dictionary.Now said Bartender might honestly answer, "Look, if I talk to you, I'm as good as dead.".  It's still a prevarication, of course, in that it's an attempt to make the Paladin thing the Bartender's life is in danger from the Assassin, when in fact it's the Paladin himself who's the threat.  But now we're just discussion how to tell a better lie, which is kinda' off topic. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Of course, the Paladin could just do a Detect Evil and watch the Bartender light up like a Christmas tree.  You have to be Evil to be an Assassin, after all.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Sadly, the people I've met who were the most adept at arguing the technicalities of truth were the most likely to stray from it."Technically I don't know where John is, not exactly.  I'd need to be looking right at him to know that.  I may believe that he's out of town on a trip, but he could have been lying.  Or something could have gone wrong with his car. I mean, he said he was going to be out of town and asked me to cover for him, but he might be at home, just taking a day off, or he might be at the beach, or the Circus, or in court, or...".  See what I mean?The guy who can rationalize like that has had a lot of practice at rationalizing his lies, and should set off Sense Motive like a fireworks show on the "trustworthy" scale.  He'd also probably be a good candidate for law school. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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