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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="pemerton" data-source="post: 7591651" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I think these things are closely related: what for some RPGers is "playing the game" or "framing the scene with sufficient specificity" is, for others, an excessive focus on detail, and an excessive insistence by the GM on precision of description (which is described, pejoratively, as "pixel bitching" or "Mother may I?").</p><p></p><p>The Basic PDF (p 61) offers the following on searching rooms, desks and the like:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">When you look around for clues and make deductions based on those clues, you make an Intelligence (Investigation) check. You might deduce the location of a hidden object, discern from the appearance of a wound what kind of weapon dealt it, or determine the weakest point in a tunnel that could cause it to collapse. Poring through ancient scrolls in search of a hidden fragment of knowledge might also call for an Intelligence (Investigation) check. . . .</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">When your character searches for a hidden object such as a secret door or a trap, the DM typically asks you to make a Wisdom (Perception) check. Such a check can be used to find hidden details or other information and clues that you might otherwise overlook.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">In most cases, you need to describe where you are looking in order for the DM to determine your chance of success. For example, a key is hidden beneath a set of folded clothes in the top drawer of a bureau. If you tell the DM that you pace around the room, looking at the walls and furniture for clues, you have no chance of finding the key, regardless of your Wisdom (Perception) check result. You would have to specify that you were opening the drawers or searching the bureau in order to have any chance of success.</p><p></p><p>There are several things I notice about this. First, the "you" in the description of the Investigation skill pretty clearly refers to the player and his/her PC (treated as something of a gestalt entity) and it refers to certain action declarations involving the making of a check without any suggestion of GM mediation. Presumalby this is a slip on the part of the rules authors, but it does undermine the idea that what we are getting from the rules is anything like a perfect codification of play procedures.</p><p></p><p>Second, the discussion of finding hidden objects seems incomplete at best. For instance, if a player declares "I open the bureau drawers looking for signs of anything hidden in them" that seems like it could be a trigger for a INT (Investigation) check rather than a WIS (Perception) check, as trying to deduce the presence of a hidden thing at the bottom of a drawer from the rumpled (because frequently disturbed) clothes that sit on top of it seems to me a paradigm of <em>looking around for clues and making deductions based on those clues</em>.</p><p></p><p>Third, <em>looking at the furniture for clues</em> is presented as an action declaration that might trigger a WIS (Perception) check even though the very same page says "When <strong>you look around for clues</strong> and make deductions based on those clues, you make an Intelligence (Investigation) check" (emphasis added). These second and third points, to my mind, reinforce the sense that we are not dealing with a canonical codification. (Or are we suppose that the player who is looking at the furniture for clues is also resolute that his/her PC won't draw any deductions from them? That's counterintuitive at best!)</p><p></p><p>Fourth, the authors of the rules seem to be drawing some fine distinctions that (i) aren't self-evident and (ii) don't to my mind easily generalise. For instance, they contrast <em>looking at the furniture for clues</em> with <em>searching the bureau</em>. That's not a self-evident contrast. For instance, a detective novel which contained the following passage, "Holmes looked at the furniture for clues. As he searched the bureau, he noticed the rumpled clothes in one of the drawers," wouldn't smack of non-sequitur between the first and second sentence.</p><p></p><p>Now suppose that, in a game, what is taking place is not the search of a bedroom with bureaus but (say) the search of a workouse that was the site of arson; or the search of a town to see where some stolen horses are stabled; or the search of a library containing hundreds of feet of shelving holding many hundreds of volumes. None of these would be out of place in a D&D game. How is the bedroom search example to be extrapolated to those cases? What details is the GM obliged to narrate in framing the situation? What details is a player obliged to narrate in declaring an action? In the rulebook example, the GM doesn't seem to have described what clothes are in the bureau; does the GM have to describe what books are on the library shelves? Where the shelves are in the building? Whether the building has north or south facing windows? If so, which volumes are faded by the sun to what degree?</p><p></p><p>I think framing this discussion as one of <em>following vs disregarding the rules</em> as opposed to, say, [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s and [MENTION=467]Reynard[/MENTION]'s <em>dfferences of preference and playstyle</em>, is actively unhelpful.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7591651, member: 42582"] I think these things are closely related: what for some RPGers is "playing the game" or "framing the scene with sufficient specificity" is, for others, an excessive focus on detail, and an excessive insistence by the GM on precision of description (which is described, pejoratively, as "pixel bitching" or "Mother may I?"). The Basic PDF (p 61) offers the following on searching rooms, desks and the like: [indent]When you look around for clues and make deductions based on those clues, you make an Intelligence (Investigation) check. You might deduce the location of a hidden object, discern from the appearance of a wound what kind of weapon dealt it, or determine the weakest point in a tunnel that could cause it to collapse. Poring through ancient scrolls in search of a hidden fragment of knowledge might also call for an Intelligence (Investigation) check. . . . When your character searches for a hidden object such as a secret door or a trap, the DM typically asks you to make a Wisdom (Perception) check. Such a check can be used to find hidden details or other information and clues that you might otherwise overlook. In most cases, you need to describe where you are looking in order for the DM to determine your chance of success. For example, a key is hidden beneath a set of folded clothes in the top drawer of a bureau. If you tell the DM that you pace around the room, looking at the walls and furniture for clues, you have no chance of finding the key, regardless of your Wisdom (Perception) check result. You would have to specify that you were opening the drawers or searching the bureau in order to have any chance of success.[/indent] There are several things I notice about this. First, the "you" in the description of the Investigation skill pretty clearly refers to the player and his/her PC (treated as something of a gestalt entity) and it refers to certain action declarations involving the making of a check without any suggestion of GM mediation. Presumalby this is a slip on the part of the rules authors, but it does undermine the idea that what we are getting from the rules is anything like a perfect codification of play procedures. Second, the discussion of finding hidden objects seems incomplete at best. For instance, if a player declares "I open the bureau drawers looking for signs of anything hidden in them" that seems like it could be a trigger for a INT (Investigation) check rather than a WIS (Perception) check, as trying to deduce the presence of a hidden thing at the bottom of a drawer from the rumpled (because frequently disturbed) clothes that sit on top of it seems to me a paradigm of [I]looking around for clues and making deductions based on those clues[/I]. Third, [I]looking at the furniture for clues[/I] is presented as an action declaration that might trigger a WIS (Perception) check even though the very same page says "When [B]you look around for clues[/B] and make deductions based on those clues, you make an Intelligence (Investigation) check" (emphasis added). These second and third points, to my mind, reinforce the sense that we are not dealing with a canonical codification. (Or are we suppose that the player who is looking at the furniture for clues is also resolute that his/her PC won't draw any deductions from them? That's counterintuitive at best!) Fourth, the authors of the rules seem to be drawing some fine distinctions that (i) aren't self-evident and (ii) don't to my mind easily generalise. For instance, they contrast [I]looking at the furniture for clues[/I] with [I]searching the bureau[/I]. That's not a self-evident contrast. For instance, a detective novel which contained the following passage, "Holmes looked at the furniture for clues. As he searched the bureau, he noticed the rumpled clothes in one of the drawers," wouldn't smack of non-sequitur between the first and second sentence. Now suppose that, in a game, what is taking place is not the search of a bedroom with bureaus but (say) the search of a workouse that was the site of arson; or the search of a town to see where some stolen horses are stabled; or the search of a library containing hundreds of feet of shelving holding many hundreds of volumes. None of these would be out of place in a D&D game. How is the bedroom search example to be extrapolated to those cases? What details is the GM obliged to narrate in framing the situation? What details is a player obliged to narrate in declaring an action? In the rulebook example, the GM doesn't seem to have described what clothes are in the bureau; does the GM have to describe what books are on the library shelves? Where the shelves are in the building? Whether the building has north or south facing windows? If so, which volumes are faded by the sun to what degree? I think framing this discussion as one of [I]following vs disregarding the rules[/I] as opposed to, say, [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s and [MENTION=467]Reynard[/MENTION]'s [I]dfferences of preference and playstyle[/I], is actively unhelpful. [/QUOTE]
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Should Insight be able to determine if an NPC is lying?
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