Should Insight be able to determine if an NPC is lying?

[iserith]

Re playing 5e, my play time is finite and there are some features of 5e that make it quite unattractive to me as a set of RPG rules.

But as far as the topic of this thread is concerned - roughly, the adjudication of ability checks - is concerned, I don't see what you do in 5e that makes it particularly distinctive from (say) 3E. (I can see the differences from 4e: fewer ways to mitigate the dice rolling; no tendency to assume a closed scene resolution framework.) My experience with 3E is pretty modest, though, so perhaps there's some subtle (or even gross!) feature that I've missed. But I don't see why your approach wouldn't be fairly easily deployable in 3E, perhaps in RQ or Rolemaster, even in 4e if one (as many did) ignored the skill challenge mechanics.

I'd have to read the D&D 3e books again to see how compatible it would be. I haven't looked at them in over 10 years and back then I did what many seem to do now - play that game as I had played some other game since I came from AD&D 2e background and that's what I knew. Just as I did when I started to run D&D 4e and became dissatisfied with the game until I realized that it was my 3e-influenced approach that was holding me back as it was not appropriate to that rules set. Reading them with my understanding of games today would be interesting, but like you playing D&D 5e I lack the time and inclination. Off the top of my head, certainly there was a culture of players asking/declaring to make checks in D&D 3e (if not rules), for example, and that is not supported by the D&D 5e rules. So that's at least one difference which seems minor but has pretty big impacts on the play experience.

 

[pemerton]

Off the top of my head, certainly there was a culture of players asking/declaring to make checks in D&D 3e (if not rules), for example, and that is not supported by the D&D 5e rules. So that's at least one difference which seems minor but has pretty big impacts on the play experience.

I can see that that would make a practical difference to play culture, but is not a distinctive feature of the mechanics. And it seems that that is still a part of the 5e play culture (at least at Hussar, etc's tables) and so affects how 5e plays there.

A possible system difference for 3E would be the list of skill DCs associated with various tasks/obstacles. Do 5e modules or the 5e DMG associate a skill DC with various tasks/obstacles?

 

[Maxperson]

An insight can determine general intent, I don't treat it as a lie detector. Best players get from me is "Seems to be telling the truth", "You feel like they're hiding something" or "They keep glancing nervously at the captain of the guard before answering".

Useful for indicating generalities but not specifics.

This.

 

[Hussar]

/snip
Again, saying how I play and where that approach is supported by the rules is in no way saying the way you play is inferior. Such a conclusion would be the reader attaching intent to my words that I do not have.

If that's not your intent, then why repeat it pretty much every post?

 

[Maxperson]

I disagree!!!

(I don't even know WTF we are talking about anymore, I just don't want to feel left out.)

I totally agree.

 

[Yardiff]

I can see that that would make a practical difference to play culture, but is not a distinctive feature of the mechanics. And it seems that that is still a part of the 5e play culture (at least at Hussar, etc's tables) and so affects how 5e plays there.

A possible system difference for 3E would be the list of skill DCs associated with various tasks/obstacles. Do 5e modules or the 5e DMG associate a skill DC with various tasks/obstacles?

The answer to the bold part is 'yes' there are many list DC checks in various modules. Haven't taken the time to page through the DMG yet.

 

[iserith]

I can see that that would make a practical difference to play culture, but is not a distinctive feature of the mechanics. And it seems that that is still a part of the 5e play culture (at least at Hussar, etc's tables) and so affects how 5e plays there.

A possible system difference for 3E would be the list of skill DCs associated with various tasks/obstacles. Do 5e modules or the 5e DMG associate a skill DC with various tasks/obstacles?

Yes, modules often include DCs for specific tasks in the context of the adventure. The DMG also suggests some DCs for some tasks like Navigating, Tracking, and the like. It's quite limited compared to what I recall of D&D 3e. With regard to players calling for "skill checks," I know that D&D 4e said outright players will do this and DMs should accept it. I also know that D&D 3e was commonly played that way, but cannot check the rules to see if that expectation was codified. So if you're playing in my 4e games, you'll see players ask to make checks. If you play in my 5e games, they do not.

 

[iserith]

If that's not your intent, then why repeat it pretty much every post?

I discuss why I play the way I do where it is relevant. There are a couple threads where the same half-dozen posters are questioning how I play the game at the moment which may be why you see a lot of it lately.

 

[Hriston]

I want to unpack this a bit.

Page 61 of the Basic PDF says "A Wisdom check might reflect an effort to read body language, understand someone’s feelings, notice things about the environment, or care for an injured person." And page 58 says "The DM calls for an ability check when a character or monster attempts an action (other than an attack) that has a chance of failure. When the outcome is uncertain, the dice determine the results."

Putting these together, it seems that the following is true:

If a player declares that his/her PC attempts to read body language, understand someone’s feelings, notice things about the environment, or care for an injured person, and if the GM takes the view that that action by the PC has a chance of failure and/or an uncertain outcome, then the GM should call for a WIS check to determine the result of the character's action.​

Now, page 62 says that "Your Wisdom (Insight) check decides whether you can determine the true intentions of a creature, such as when searching out a lie or predicting someone’s next move. Doing so involves gleaning clues from body language, speech habits, and changes in mannerisms."

Putting that together with the above, we get:

If a player declares that his/her PC attempts to glean clues from body language, speech habits and changes in mannerisms, so as to understand someone's feelings and true intentions (including where these pertain to telling a lie or to the being's next move), and if the GM takes the view that that action has a chance of failure and/or an uncertain outcome, then the GM should call for a WIS (Insight) check to determine the result of the character's action.​

Some resulting complexities inlcude: on what basis ought the GM to take the view that the action has a chance of failure and/or an uncertain outcome?

There seem to be few cases in which a player would declare such an action and success be automatic: eg if the GM narrates that a NPC is rolling around in laughter, or has tears streaming down his/her face, then either the player would know why (because it's been already communicated in play) and hence not declare this sort of action, or else the cause of the mirth or the upset would be uncertain to the player, in which case I find it hard to think of a scenario (given my conception of how RPGs are normally played) in which the PC would be certain simply by studying the body language etc of the NPC.

It's quite conceivable, on the other hand, that there could be many cases where there is no chance of success - eg if an NPC is as inscrutable as the sphinx - but on the other hand the very presence of the rules for WIS and WIS (Insight) checks in the game seems to imply that actions of this sort might sometimes succeed, and it would seem a bit of a hosing for the GM to rule very frequently that this or that NPC is too inscrutable to be "read".

To bring this back to a player declaring that their character is attempting to search out a lie by reading an NPC's body language, for example, one situation in which there is no chance of success is if the NPC isn't telling a lie, so leaves no clues to be gleaned.

Here's another complexity: what should we take to be the result of such an action, if successful? Presumably it's not that the PC knows the NPC's body language. That's what is read; it's not itself the reading. Presumably it's either the clues (which is perhaps what the Insight description on p 62 points towards) or its the feelings and true intentions (which is perhaps what the WIS check description on p 61 points towards). I certainly think the language on p 62 ("such as when searching out a lie or predicting someone’s next move") indicates that the feelings, true intentions etc which the character is (as per p 61) attempting to "understand" might include an intention to lie/deceive or an intention to make this or that next move.

So whether or not Insight can be used to determine that a NPC is speaking with the intention to lie deceive seems to me to turn on whether the table takes the result of these sorts of actions to be gleaning certain clues or understanding certain intentions/feelings to which the gleaned clues point. Given the ambiguity in this respect between pp 61 and 62, I think a table could reasonably run it either way. Personally I would favour the second of those approaches, because generally I think a RPG works better when players are able to declare actions that (if they succeed) substantially improve their PCs' positions. And I worry that simply telling the player the clues may not add very much to what a savvy player can discern from the GM's framing of the situation, which seems to make declaring the action (and hence risking whatever consequences might flow from failure) somewhat pointless.

That's my preference too. If the player's goal is to "search out a lie", then a successful result would indicate to me that the clues gathered do indeed reveal that the NPC is lying.

 

[pemerton]

To bring this back to a player declaring that their character is attempting to search out a lie by reading an NPC's body language, for example, one situation in which there is no chance of success is if the NPC isn't telling a lie, so leaves no clues to be gleaned.

Can you say a bit more about how you would narrate this outcome?

What I've got in mind is the following: would you narration distinguish between an absence of clues because the NPC is inscrutable and an absence of clues because the NPC is not lying?