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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Should Insight be able to determine if an NPC is lying?
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<blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 7589972" data-attributes="member: 1465"><p>Yes, it's possibly the most obvious reason for Insight to be in the game. </p><p></p><p>When someone IS lying, normally they roll Deception. You roll Insight against, and typically you only need to provide 2 outcomes: detect the lie or not (standard DM's answer: "he seems to tell the truth"). You don't really need an intermediate outcome like "you are not sure", because even when you tell the player there is no lie, the <em>players </em>won't be sure. The lower their roll, the less confident they will be, but they cannot assume anything. </p><p></p><p>When the NPC is NOT lying, you want to make it look the same so that the players may still be in doubt if they roll poorly, so IMO it's actually a good idea to make them still roll even if success is automatic ( since the NPC is not rolling Deception).</p><p></p><p>For added drama, a DM may also want to have a possible "false reading" outcome when there is no lie, i.e. have a chance that Insight results in "lies!" when there aren't any. If you want this option, my suggestion is NOT to tie this to a low roll (e.g. a natural 1), because that will give it away. Instead, pick a random number each time e.g. 14, so that if they roll a natural 14 then you tell them there is a lie when there actually isn't. You may find that mid-high numbers (10-15) work best for this <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>All these assume you want to let your players roll Insight in the open. If you roll for them and hide the result, you don't need any special idea.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Li Shenron, post: 7589972, member: 1465"] Yes, it's possibly the most obvious reason for Insight to be in the game. When someone IS lying, normally they roll Deception. You roll Insight against, and typically you only need to provide 2 outcomes: detect the lie or not (standard DM's answer: "he seems to tell the truth"). You don't really need an intermediate outcome like "you are not sure", because even when you tell the player there is no lie, the [I]players [/I]won't be sure. The lower their roll, the less confident they will be, but they cannot assume anything. When the NPC is NOT lying, you want to make it look the same so that the players may still be in doubt if they roll poorly, so IMO it's actually a good idea to make them still roll even if success is automatic ( since the NPC is not rolling Deception). For added drama, a DM may also want to have a possible "false reading" outcome when there is no lie, i.e. have a chance that Insight results in "lies!" when there aren't any. If you want this option, my suggestion is NOT to tie this to a low roll (e.g. a natural 1), because that will give it away. Instead, pick a random number each time e.g. 14, so that if they roll a natural 14 then you tell them there is a lie when there actually isn't. You may find that mid-high numbers (10-15) work best for this :) All these assume you want to let your players roll Insight in the open. If you roll for them and hide the result, you don't need any special idea. [/QUOTE]
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Should Insight be able to determine if an NPC is lying?
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