Sense Motive: Walking Polygraph Machines?

[amethal]

I don't agree with this at all - unless the group has decided that it is the DM's story and not everyone's.

Hey, I didn't say it was the DMs story. I did mean that it was everyone's story.

Would you prefer it if I said never to let the dice get in the way of the fun?

 

[LostSoul]

Hey, I didn't say it was the DMs story. I did mean that it was everyone's story.

Would you prefer it if I said never to let the dice get in the way of the fun?

Not really.

If you ignore the results of dice rolls because you don't want to derail the plot, you're saying that the players can't affect the plot unless you allow them to.

It's like having a big bad NPC show up to taunt the PCs. If he dies, the plot goes all wonky. Then the Wizard slaps him with a Baleful Polymorph, and he fails the check. Now you could fudge the dice roll, and say that no matter what the players do, they can't change what happens to them. The story goes on as how you planned it no matter what.

Now the "no matter what" is too strong - you could only fudge the rolls at very important times, instead of whenever any action or roll might derail even minor aspects of the plot. But the effect is the same - the players can only affect what happens to them when you allow them to.

 

[amethal]

Not really.

The story goes on as how you planned it no matter what.

Thanks, I was trying to identify the problem and I think I have.

I haven't planned the story in more than very broad terms. I get my enjoyment from
what the players do, not what the NPCs do. The story can go off in any number of directions based on the actions of the players.

What I won't do is let it go off in a direction which spoils the players' (and therefore my) fun, just because of a dice roll.

I hope I've explained myself better (at the third attempt!) even if you still disagree with my syle of DM ing.

 

[LostSoul]

I hope I've explained myself better (at the third attempt!) even if you still disagree with my syle of DM ing.

Yep! I have to say that, while it may not be my style of DMing, I can't really disagree with it. Not if you're having fun! (That idea wasn't present in my previous posts.)

 

[Hammerforge]

But sense motive does not make them a polygraph machine. It only tells them there is falseness about what is being said or there is something being hidden. Lots of people have stuff to hide. What they have to hide may have nothing to do with the subject at hand. Likewise, parts of what are being said may be true and parts false. Just knowing something said was false does not tell you which parts are true and which parts are false.

But isn't that essentially what a polygraph machine does -- it can't determine the truth but it can alert you to something fishy going on with what the subject is saying. That's why I call PCs with the Sense Motive skill walking polygraph machines -- they can sense that some truth is deliberately being hidden, whatever that truth might be.

 

[Meloncov]

When a PC asks for a sense motive check on a truthful NPC, and he roles badly, tell him the NPC was lying when, in fact, he was not. That should teach them to not trust sense motive absolutely.

 

[Peter Gibbons]

I still think Sense Motive is both unrealistic and unbalanced and therefore in need of some modification. You can't get inside someone's mind and tell if they're lying or not no matter how good at "reading in between the lines" you are. There have been plenty of times in my life that I thought for sure someone was lying only to find out later that they had been telling me the truth after all.

Yeah, but you probably don't have any ranks in Sense Motive.

I know some cops who do (i.e., who have actually been trained in interrogation and lie-detection techniques), and I don't think Sense Motive is the least bit "unrealistic." I also don't think it's unbalanced, but I can see how some DMs might make it so (by utilizing it incorrectly).

 

[Pasus Nauran]

But isn't that essentially what a polygraph machine does -- it can't determine the truth but it can alert you to something fishy going on with what the subject is saying. That's why I call PCs with the Sense Motive skill walking polygraph machines -- they can sense that some truth is deliberately being hidden, whatever that truth might be.

I've been watching this thread for a while, and I have to say I don't see any problem with Sense Motive.

I have a Shadowbane Stalker with a good charisma and a maxed out Sense Motive, and yet the party bard can still fool me some of the time (my SM is +16, while her Bluff is +20, thanks in part to a Choker of Eloquence). Without the choker, we're pretty much a match. If she decides to use "Glibness" (which can be often due to it's long duration), we're hard pressed to come across anyone who doesn't believe her lies. Luckily for us, she's relatively harmless (and quite dumb... INT 6).

It's all about how you setup the adventure. Unless the character's SM is ludicrisly <sic> high, you should still be able to have shady character that can fool them (though not always when you want to, depending on the rolls).

 

[arscott]

There's a huge problem regarding everybody's comments on this thread:

Most lies don't require a bluff check, and therefore, can't be opposed by a sense motive

A lie is not the same thing as a bluff. A bluff is a short-term lie designed to provoke a specific action from the person being bluffed. "I'm with the band, could you let me in" is a bluff. "I'm saw him dallying with the mayor's wife" is not. Other than that, sense motive can only be used to determine the general trustworthyness of a character, which is no indication that he or she is lying.

A successful Bluff check indicates that the target reacts as you wish, at least for a short time (usually 1 round or less) or believes something that you want it to believe. Bluff, however, is not a suggestion spell.

A successful check lets you avoid being bluffed. You can also use this skill to determine when “something is up” (that is, something odd is going on) or to assess someone’s trustworthiness.

Hunch
This use of the skill involves making a gut assessment of the social situation. You can get the feeling from another’s behavior that something is wrong, such as when you’re talking to an impostor. Alternatively, you can get the feeling that someone is trustworthy.

The Sense Motive skill can be used for two purposes: to overcome a bluff, and to get a sense of a GM character's trustworthiness. Understanding the difference between this skill and the discern lie class feature begins with understanding the difference between a bluff and a lie.

A lie is a simple misrepresentation of the facts. For example, if a suspect tells you she was in Chicago on the day of the crime, when in fact she wasn't, that's a lie. If a client tells you she'll pay $10,000 for the job when she really intends to stiff you, that's a lie too. Body language and attitude are part of such communication, but not necessarily the major part. A lie may be very sophisticated and well thought-out, and it is intended to deceive someone at least until evidence to the contrary is discovered.

A bluff, on the other hand, is a quick prevarication intended to distract, confuse, or mislead someone -- generally only for the short term. It is intended to momentarily deter an action or decision, not to withstand long-term or careful scrutiny. You bluff your way past a security guard by flashing your video club card as though it were a press pass and acting like you know what you're doing. You bluff your way out of a brawl by acting like you're tougher than the 250-pound biker who's challenging you. Bluffs depend almost completely on attitude and body language. They may or may not involve actual lies, but if they do, those lies usually aren't very sophisticated and aren't intended to deceive the target for more than a few moments.

The first usage of the Sense Motive skill mentioned above allows you to see through a bluff with a successful check, but it doesn't help you determine whether any given statement is a lie. From a purely mechanical standpoint, an NPC should not have to make a Bluff check every time she utters a lie. And if no Bluff check is required, there's nothing for the Sense Motive check to oppose.

The second function of the Sense Motive skill is to determine the general trustworthiness of a character. When the skill is used this way, a successful check might reveal that your suspect is highly -- well -- suspicious, and that she might tend to lie to you. But that doesn't tell you which, if any, of her statements are actually untrue. In fact, an NPC can be highly untrustworthy even if she doesn't happen to be telling any lies at the moment. Again from a mechanical standpoint, this usage of Sense Motive requires a whole minute to use, so it can't be applied to a single statement.

That last quote is from here. It's actually regarding the d20 modern game, but I see nothing to indicate that the rules are different for standard d20.

That also means, by the way, that those folks who mislead without actually telling a lie, should have tripped the sense motive thing anyways, as they weren't being trustworthy.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

The wizards web site, in this particular case, will not be coming within a country mile of my table. Every lie is meant to produce a reaction from your listeners unless you are just lying for fun, which is very rare. "I saw him with the mayor's wife" is meant to produce an emotional or trust reaction involving one or both of the two people in the lie.

"You can lie without a bluff check" is just a way to screw players.