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<blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 7535254" data-attributes="member: 97077"><p>Another thing you can do is <em>stop having all of your NPCs lie to the characters</em> so that you can avoid this:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH]103635[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>In other words, <em>make better social interaction challenges</em>. In my games, Wisdom (Insight) comes up when an NPC is trying to keep its agenda or ideal, bond, or flaw hidden and the players, during the interaction, are trading off their part in the conversation to observe the NPC and try to ascertain these elements so they can then turn it to their advantage. Which translates to advantage on subsequent related Charisma checks, if there are any.</p><p></p><p>And like how I would telegraph a trap during an exploration challenge, I am telegraphing lies in a social interaction challenge. Facts that don't add up. Strange twitch. A stutter. Changing the story. If you're not hinting that the NPC is lying while describing the environment, then you're basically playing gotcha and encouraging the players to "Insight check!" every time they speak to someone, just like how they'll search for traps on every door and 10-foot pole every hallway when you don't telegraph traps. In the absence of information, that is reasonable behavior. If you don't want that behavior, increase the information flow.</p><p></p><p>As well, make failing an Insight check cost something. In addition to making this a task you have to do at the cost of not contributing to the conversation in a meaningful way, my go-to is that, on a failed attempt, the NPC knows the PC is suspicious which causes him or her to dummy up or at least make it harder to suss out the agenda and ideal, bond, or flaw. It's not just "The NPC has no apparent tells." There's no cost to that result. So of course the players will want to spam it, if they can.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="iserith, post: 7535254, member: 97077"] Another thing you can do is [I]stop having all of your NPCs lie to the characters[/I] so that you can avoid this: [ATTACH=CONFIG]103635._xfImport[/ATTACH] In other words, [I]make better social interaction challenges[/I]. In my games, Wisdom (Insight) comes up when an NPC is trying to keep its agenda or ideal, bond, or flaw hidden and the players, during the interaction, are trading off their part in the conversation to observe the NPC and try to ascertain these elements so they can then turn it to their advantage. Which translates to advantage on subsequent related Charisma checks, if there are any. And like how I would telegraph a trap during an exploration challenge, I am telegraphing lies in a social interaction challenge. Facts that don't add up. Strange twitch. A stutter. Changing the story. If you're not hinting that the NPC is lying while describing the environment, then you're basically playing gotcha and encouraging the players to "Insight check!" every time they speak to someone, just like how they'll search for traps on every door and 10-foot pole every hallway when you don't telegraph traps. In the absence of information, that is reasonable behavior. If you don't want that behavior, increase the information flow. As well, make failing an Insight check cost something. In addition to making this a task you have to do at the cost of not contributing to the conversation in a meaningful way, my go-to is that, on a failed attempt, the NPC knows the PC is suspicious which causes him or her to dummy up or at least make it harder to suss out the agenda and ideal, bond, or flaw. It's not just "The NPC has no apparent tells." There's no cost to that result. So of course the players will want to spam it, if they can. [/QUOTE]
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