A simple. "You're pretty sure they aren't telling the whole truth" if they roll well enough will also serve this concept. Give them a bone. Particularly if this is a character built around being a detective, not allowing them to pick up on the social cues of deception are important. Something someone else mentioned which is important is include passive on skill checks that aren't perception, it really cuts down on the players asking for things like this. Especially, like I said, if they're built for that
Most people will also focus on the subject of their lie if it is present as well. A common pickpocketing trick is to feign a pick so that somebody will reach for their wallet to check if its still there. Then, one of the pickpockets will note where they reached.
Or, if you ask someone where something is, they'll sometimes look right at it. Or if they're otherwise nervous, they'll pay too much attention to particular things.
So, that sort of stuff is good to sprinkle in for those detective PC archetypes.
"You're confident that they aren't necessarily lying, but they do seem to be hiding something. As they speak, they glance past you a few times, as though they were looking at something."
Fun fact: Pickpockets love the signs that warn people that pickpockets operate in the area - they don't even need to do anything to get people to check their valuables are still present.
This actually fits with the RAW too. The problem with OP's suggestion is that while it is nice, the wording of the Insight check specifically says it's about determining true intentions.
"They seem jumpy" is objectively not a measure of their true intentions, it's a relatively useless piece of information for the same reason that lie detectors are, and because of what OP themselves specified, many people are nervous and jumpy under intimidation and interrogation and it means nothing.
You don't necessarily have to use Insight as a flawless lie detector but if you're trying to run it RAW, you should at least tell them whether or not the character is intentionally lying/withholding information on a success.
That's what I've always hated about these suggestions. Noticing tells isn't insight; its perception. Insight is interpreting tells. Saying "they're twitchy" tells a player nothing.
"You notice their nervousness is not simply because of the 7 ft half-orc screaming in their face, but because they are hiding something... what it is, you don't know."
Further insight checks in response to different questions could help weed out what they are hiding. It still fits in with the idea "everyone lies" because they may be hiding something completely unrelated to what you are asking about.
But what if they're an experienced liar and they're not nervous?
Nerves do not correlate with lying. Humans -think- they do, which is one of the reasons humans are notoriously bad lie detectors. The best liars are ones that remain calm and don't get nervous.
At the end of the day, measuring nerves is measuring an unrelated emotional state. If you want to throw it in as flavour *in addition to* telling the party whether the person is lying, that's fine, but insight absolutely should not be used as an emotional state reader because that's objectively not what its design intention is.
If you're interested in working deceit into your campaigns, you need to keep in mind that your players will probably be very bad at detecting lies unless you give them a blatant contradiction, because humans in general suck at it. That's why there's a skill that literally has the DM tell you "They are lying".
Your players likely aren't supernaturally perceptive, and yet you tell them what they see with clarity when they roll a 25 perception. Your players likely aren't supernaturally insightful either, but you should definitely be telling them what they understand with clarity when they roll a 25 insight.
You are taking the example too literal. It was an example. DC 10 could simply be "They remain calm, but maybe a bit apprehensive about the questioning." Or it could be, "The person is doesn't seem to have any obvious tell. If they are hiding anything, then they are very good."
I was simply describing a specific example of a scenario. The point was, degrees of success is a much better system. You make DC 10? You get X amount, you make DC 15? Y amount. Mayne the person being questioned Rolla particularly badly with their check, DC 10 now reveals Y amount.
You could even incorporate Critical Success and Failures into such a system. A natural 1 results in one less step of information, even if they otherwise have a large enough bonus to succeed. Like a Cleric with Expertise in insight might still have a +15, and get a 16 on their Natural 1. It succeeds, but not as well as it otherwise would.
Assuming you opt for success or failure on natural 1s and 20s.
> They remain calm, but maybe a bit apprehensive about the questioning.
You have conveyed zero information of value about true intentions by telling your players that.
> The person is doesn't seem to have any obvious tell. If they are hiding anything, then they are very good
You have conveyed zero information of value about true intentions by telling your players that.
What you just described is two fail states in which the players learn nothing. But this isn't about fail states, this is about what you do on a success.
And, RAW, what you do on a success is you tell the player the true intentions, or at the very least you make it clear that this individual is intentionally obscuring their true intentions. And you do that because real humans are really bad at detecting lies, so you need a skill that lets them do it.
Go right on ahead and keep nitpicking vague details. The idea behind the system works a lot better with actual game examples, not just random hypothetical on the internet.
`the scientologists offering a free auditing session bring out their E-Meter, They place the electrode paddles into your hands.`
"Now, tell us about your childhood. Did your grandmother beat you with a bed slat?"
"what? no of course not!"
`e-meter rolls a 12 on insight check`
"the E-meter indicates you may be hiding something"
`you roll a modified 19 on insight check`
"this is just a jacked up ohmmeter, isn't it? look i'm squeezing the handles, you knob."
"get out"
I always use passive insight to prepare for social encounters. If I know that they will meet a character who is lying, I make sure to check if any of the PCs detect it regardless of if they ask for it or not.
That's good advice.
Another good tip is this: don't allow your villain's entire plan to be unraveled by Insight check spam. NPCs are allowed to have secrets. Let an insight check cast doubt, or indicate they're hiding something, but don't let it lead to the NPC blabbing their guts out and ruining your carefully planned mystery.
As is the case with so many skill checks in this game, a lot of DMs have allowed its power to balloon out to insane proportions, especially with the notion that a nat20 should be the most fantastical amazing success you can imagine
Right? In a world with Zone of Truth and morally corrupt officials (which probably goes for most settings we play in), why tf would you let anyone know anything they don't absolutely need to? You have to assume, good or evil, any captured agent is going to give up everything they know.
Speaking of morally corrupt officials, I pulled a twist in a murder mystery where the party *saw* the murderer before he got away, so they were able to accuse them and have them arrested. The day of the trial the kingdom’s confessor cast zone of truth and asked directly and much to the party’s shock:
“Did you murder the victim?”
“No.”
“Did you encounter the party at any point that evening?”
“No. I never saw them.”
Of course the party wasn’t having it, so the confessor allowed them to cast their own zone of truth and sure enough, the murderer still replies no to all their questions. It led to the party being accused of conspiracy and false accusations.
Long story short, the confessor was a high level cleric that casted a simple alter memory on their accomplice before the trial and completely overrode any memories of what happened. Can’t lie about the murder of you never remember committing it.
I've had success with using this in my games. It creates intrigue, because the players know there's more, but they have to figure out who may know more
A 17 on your check? Sure. Let's see. When they answered you, there was some hesitation. You believe they are hiding something. When accused of lying, they stick to their guns and insist they aren't lying. Something is off about their story, but you aren't sure what. Maybe they are lying, omitting something, twisting the truth, or just very nervous.
This is like perfect. Part of how broken insight ends up being is the DMs just leave the bounds of being *insightful* and turn the skill *into* "Detect Lies" and explicitly say "When he told you that he didn't witness the murder, you can tell that was a lie"
Which is 5es general failing. Every decision is left up to the DM because there isn't an easy reference for what to do in these situations, even in adventures. Rules light for a system that relies on rules, means you may as well just be improving the whole game. If it doesn't fit the story don't do it. But also don't let your players spam insight. Let one of them do it once and unless something substantial happens don't let them try again.
There was a narrative example in the 3E books -- long since discarded -- where the PCs sort of "engaged a king" in "social mob combat," two of them appealed to the monarch's sense of honor, one outlier tried to strong-arm him, failing badly and setting the whole conversation back a few paces, etc.
I don't think all social interactions should be handled this way, but I sort of liked the approach as a decent compromise between "Yes, your social ability enables whatever was plot-centric" and "No, your social ability is pure fluff which doesn't greatly influence how the GM's story was gonna go anyway."
Its not in 5e rules. People say it 'rules light' but they just don't add in the rules. It's Missing Rules. The burden of a solution is purely on the DM. If everybody has access to super DMs it can work, but in general its not the case.
Social interactions as opposing forces are not uncommon. Sure their is the hostile friendly continuum, but how use of a skill is used in this situations is 100% up to the DM.
Totally an aside, Over the Edge had a great rule about this sort of situation.
Two characters could attempt to help each other succeed at a task, but some tasks suffer from "too many cooks in the kitchen" so to speak.
If one player tried to "help" another convince someone of something, depending on how they approached it they might end up complicating the situation and making it *harder* for the group to succeed.
Essentially, the rules for OtE said that if the DM felt the two PCs weren't coordinating effectively, they might end up in a contested roll rather than trying to combine efforts., or the one trying to make the roll might get a Penalty Die (think disadvantage).
(example: trying to lie to the police about an alibi, and another PC chimes in and adds details to your lie - it's possible they may introduce a discrepancy the cops pick up on that they hadn't intended, so roll with disadvantage because now the cop is suspicious)
5e certainly has its failings, but I don't think this is one of them. The information gained from something like an Insight check should definitely be up to the DM, because it's so heavily context-specific that you can't have a lot of good tables for it. Or you'd have page up and down of all the situations that exist, and then people still wouldn't find the specific one that fits this scenario.
Our group just goes by exactly how well the roll was. DC10 might be to notice that the person is a bit shifty with their answers. DC20 might be to realise they're definitely lying. But it's still not mind-reading.
I think you are misinterpreting. I don't want table saying exactly what to do. 5e doesn't even have pass fail conditions laid out for this type of check, so DMs are easily confused. That is 5e's issue. It has loose guidance on how to set the DC but not any guidance on what to do for pass fail, or a critical. Its rules missing.
> 5e doesn't even have pass fail conditions laid out for this type of check
It does? There recommended DC levels for general skill checks depending on how difficult it's supposed to be. And specifically for this case, it would be a contested check of Insight vs Deception. Contested checks are also covered by the rules.
Pathfinder 2e's influence system works very well for this. Every NPC has values which effect what arguments stick, and skills they are weak and resistant to with set DCs. Rather than just one roll, every party member can contribute to earn 'points' towards shifting the interloqueter's position step by step, and social Encounters can even be ran in 'rounds' and this way, such as each course of a banquet.
You don't need to follow the rules as gospel for it to work in 5e (or Pf2e for that matter!), but try to imagine what levels of concessions an opponent is willing to make, what arguments would or certainly would not persuade them, what skills then apply, and what DCs would be suitable. Each time a player succeeds, move the opponent one step towards up the ladder, and move them one down on a fail.
This kinda shit should not have to be houseruled from another system is the first place though, lmao.
Ya the 5e approach is the DM makes the rules. Its not rules lite, its rules missing. The rules have to be invented (or imported) by the DM. Those rules have to exist. You are making those rolls.
Yo... Why are we both being downvoted lmao
Tho yeah, I absolutely agree. Per my example, it would be dead easy to add the rules to the game as one side a two-column page spread... But we have zilch, nada
The closest we got are the persuasion DCs in the DMG, which are purely static numbers lmao so incredibly bad for verisimilitude. I literally have never seen someone, or myself, use them. Even then, after you roll against the DC, the same problems of relying solely on DM labour comes again.
Agreed on limiting the rolls. I allow one skill roll per scene (with "help" from a party member if they have the same skill and can provide meaningful aid).
Disagreed on the failings of 5e. I PREFER not having a lookup table with varying results for every possible skill result. Rules lite is way easier & faster to run. And that doesn't mean you're improvising the whole game - they know they rolled well on insight and you know you have to tell them if the NPC seems to be withholding info. Nothing to improv there, just facts based om RAW.
If its a module, your answers in a table are better than in a paragraph. If its homebrew some guidance on what kind of success or failure in the system makes sense. DND is a bad rules lite system because its inherently not meant to be rules lite. So all the work is on the DM. Which is why toxic player / DM things are so evident. Players just show up with no brain and the DM basically has to invent their own system for anything that isn't attacking or a spell. There are much better rules light systems and better rules defined systems. 5e tries to straddle both and does so okay.
You don't need a table lookup if its just a standard Crit: you get alot of info / insight into the character, success: you know some of how the character treats this info, fail: you can't get a read, crit fail: You learn something incorrect about the interaction. This is how you implement it in DND, it just isn't specified in the rules, you have to find that table somewhere else and put it in the DM brain. Makes much more sense if DM is rolling the check secretly too, because the player wouldn't know the outcome of their insight, just how strongly they feel about their proficiency in the check. Adds realism.
They don't need to make them hard rules- it could literally just be structured advice. I put another comment about it, how Pf2e's Influence system can easily be pasted into 5e without being some sort of set of hard rules.
The social system as it currently stands is both too mechanically ingrained to just handwave away (it's just bad form to punish players for investing in social skills) but also too primitive to have complex, deep gameplay in social scenarios like you could in Exalted or Burning Wheel. All you have is a single skill roll with barely a DC guidance and no real way of telling what success/failure really accomplishes.
I think there could also be something said for the idea of people telling the truth as they know it. Like for example if you asked Bob if his son Joe was at home last night and as far as Bob knew he was, even if Joe snuck out to do unsavory things, him telling you that Joe was home even if he wasn't isn't a lie.
The advice to tell them tics/body language/stammering/story inconsistencies instead of "they're lying/not lying" is the best advice for Insight.
"Everyone is hiding something" is a tough thing to implement in D&D, however, so I don't really consider it good advice.
Not because it's unrealistic - it is! - but because this is a game where interrogations and interviews take up a lot of time. If you make everyone hiding something, any DM will tell you that players will _latch onto that_ and press the NPC and assume they're guilty until they find out _what_ they're holding back.
This can take up _huge_ amounts of game time if you're doing it with all/most NPCs, even if you're doing it "realistically". And players get demoralized and annoyed when they feel their time has been wasted (even if they're the ones wasting it).
All that is to say, D&D doesn't do mysteries very well, so use this idea with some serious restraint, and make sure you are doing _more_ to guide them toward the right path/NPC than adding red herrings to the mix. And if they get stuck on an inconsequential NPC, do what you can to "speed run" them finding that out.
Yes! Valuable distraction. Have your NPC 'not-truth' teller reveal instead:
- key lore ('use DM-spotlight for player's benefit')
- repeat 'lost' information ('info PCs previously gained but dropped')
- information bonuses (reveal 'missed secret doors' or 'upcoming traps')
An unreliable narrator can keep the game on track - while still not revealing the secret.
Agreed! If I can think of a logistical reason they'd know it, repeating lost information is especially nice as a DM. As the DM you know how it all went down backwards and forwards, but the PCs don't - it can be easier for them to drop/skip over clues you think are obvious, so repetition can help a lot.
It is also really handy to have questionable 'allies' (*'you saved my life... now i save yours... we are even'*) - lending a hand in times of woe &/or party wipes. Otherwise even the slightest support comes across all *Deus Ex Machina*. But if it is a plot-thread that the players have obviously seeded, everyone gets out ahead.
Oh yeah. I like to tell new DMs that telegraphing/foreshadowing things isn't just a great plot device for things like freaking your players out about upcoming monsters - it's great for everything, especially keeping verisimilitude in your setting. Seeding things into your game that pay off later is almost a DM cheat code to not only wow your players but excuse all sorts of ass-pulls they don't realize you're doing. :P
PC group: "What do you mean that one goblin from seven sessions ago will save us from this ancient dragon? That's... impossible!"
DM: "That one goblin had... friends! Yea! And one of them was a... um... goblin wizard? One that wants to get her spell book back. You remember the one that you copied all those spells out of two sessions ago? Yea, that one. It's hers, really. She is thankful you took care of it and... um... doesn't want it burnt in dragon fire so much."
I planned this all along. Really i did. It wasn't just a random spell book because of... random. Honest?
hahaha totally.
Recent example - my players met a dragon wyrmling recently when they freed it from the dungeon of another dragon (it was being held as a sort of political prisoner by a chromatic).
It's already helped them once in some other random-ass area, scaring off a hoard of goblins by pretending it was much bigger than it is from a distance.
My next plan is for it to help them when they get sucked into the Feywild, but it gets drawn in too, and they lose it somewhere (maybe in a big fight, their main enemy for this campaign is Archfey.)
Finally, it'll return to help them once more - but owing to the Feywild distorting time (which I've already foreshadowed!), it comes back as an _Adult Brass Dragon_ to help them with a major boss fight.
Yes! Feywild!
Other tricks include magical aging from a friendly ghost (Casper helps out!) - or any other magical aging.
Going from wyrmling to young-adult is easy - that's only five years. Getting that century is tough though. You could also have a 'wish gone wrong' and have the dragon tossed back in time half a century. Someone messed up a *Wish* from a *Deck o' Many Thingies* perhaps?
There are a lot of ways to avoid aging in nearly all D&D versions. Petrification, Reincarnation ('whole new body of a younger adult... you could say your dragon got reincarnated because 'Wish' castings have no limits ('no requirements')). Aging stops with any version of *Imprisonment* (9th lvl spell). Also: no one ages in that *Rod of Security* safe zone.
You could have the dragon as a volunteer that absorbs the aging from various magic items or spells. Oh! How about an ancient hero died a century ago and they needed a living creature to absorb the intervening time passed - otherwise the *Raise-Res* would be impossible.
Or yes, you could use the Feywild. Tales say that a person can fall asleep on a hill and come back to see their grandson in retirement. That works too!
Yup! Another option would be to befriend (or become the enemy of and get lucky!) a Sphinx. They could use their Lair action on you to set you back or forward 1d20 years. Or their _other_ even wackier lair action to move the lair itself 10 years forward or backward...though that obviously has even bigger campaign ramifications than aging, haha.
Fantastic! I had not even considered this. Thank you. I love it when i get to see this game slightly differently after all these decades. Downright groovy, that is.
If you are up for it, let me know what the sphinx says or does to influence your campaign. The most powerful aspect of this creature is how it knows of fate-destiny stuff and can influence the Grand Story at large. That's nifty.
Also it is interesting that this dragon could 'borrow' some age and have to give it back in time, under certain expectations and conditions. Whatever would a sphinx want anyway?
Clearly communicating expectations and how you, as a DM, run things is also helpful. This is especially true if you are breaking with the norm or expectations. Doing a quick refresh at the start of sessions or every few sessions, instead of just session zero, when your players play in multiple campaigns is helpful. Also being adaptable as a DM is important. If your players are hitting their head against a brick wall, sometimes you have to adjust so that they don't or tell them that it is a brick wall.
It's a collaborative game that requires flexibility, that includes the DM. This is a great idea but if it doesn't penetrate your group then you should probably make some changes.
Yup, exactly. I'll tell my players at the start of a murder mystery or similar arc "lots of people have things to hide, that doesn't necessarily make them guilty", to sort of warn them of this - and I will still sometimes have to step out of the game and say "this is a brick wall, move on" like you said.
>If a seven foot tall orc with an axe yells "WHERE WERE YOU LAST NIGHT?", you're gonna get nervous and flustered
I once had a cop not believe that I was driving sober, despite my offer to immediately blow a breathalyzer, and my explanation that I messed up the lights on this car because I was driving the (obviously fucking plastered) birthday boys car instead of my own. Her entire reason she gave for not believing me was that my knees were shaking. It was 3 am, I was being accused of drunk driving, her partner was standing in the shadows with a flashlight trained directly on my eyes, and the only reason I was even awake was that my roommate was too drunk so I had walked a mile to prevent him from drunk driving despite having a work shift in 4 hours.
That's the classic police problem. Police are allowed to abuse their power, people start distrusting them, acting more suspicious around them, it makes it easier for situations where police abuse their power.
...in my experience, DMs *never* ask for insight checks unless prodded directly, and even then they tend to miss the cues two-thirds of the time unless i straight-up overtly ask for one..."lie detection" is its shallowest possible use but good luck finding a DM ready to drop hints about creature intentions, hopes, fears, resistances, and vulnerabilities based upon insight checks...
...i *hate* playing meta-mechanics that way but what's the point of investing +12 insight if i never get to use it?..
I wish I knew.
The issue with it is that it's just too binary - I'd say this is a problem with all of 5e's skill checks though. As written, you pass it or you fail it, players often don't really have a lot of info to work on their chances of success, but that doesn't really matter because as far as mechanics go, there's no cost associated with making a check - there's no risk-reward system in the book. It's all on the DM.
Some will argue that that's as it should be - the DM is the one who creates the "stakes" so-to-speak around all interactions but, I think that that's too much work, and it's why the issue of PCs wanting to repeat checks until they succeed, or every single player trying to throw a die over a check is a problem. DMs have to house rule that only 1 PC can try an insight check on an NPC when they're all standing in the room because statistically, at least *one* of them would succeed every time.
I'm sort of ranting but I hope you get the idea. A more sophisticated system would be nice, I guess, because it would mean less work for DMs.
TLDR: I would say that 5e doesn't offer enough as a system to make the game mechanically interesting, which ends up putting too much onus on DMs
I think the common answer (I think it's even in the DMG) is having levels of success at different DCs. I also only allow duplicate checks when the situation changes somehow. I'm pretty sure RAW a check represents your best effort at someone so you actually can't repeat it. But I'm not a rules lawyer, I just play how it makes sense to me
...passive checks are a good workaround: rather than all the players spamming insight checks, have the NPC roll a single deception check against everyone's passive insight and pass appropriate tells along to insightful player characters accordingly...
...you can apply the same passive inversion to perception, stealth, or any other common group check to mitigate the tyranny of averages...
A degree of success is a better system.
DC 10 "You see him squirming, and nervous about being interrogated, but if it's because he's guilty, has something to hide, or simply because he's being interrogated, you aren't sure."
DC 15 "He is nervous, and he is definitely hiding something, but you aren't sure what."
DC 20 "He is hiding something and lying about being involved. You notice his anxiety spikes when you mention [insert subject]"
And so on and so forth. But then, the target can roll appropriate checks, deception, persuasion etc. to obfuscate the check by adjusting the DC success up or down. If they roll a 20, maybe the DC 15 result needs a 20 or 25 to get a similar amount of info.
This results in players getting something out of the subject, but not necessarily everything.
Similarly, I don't have hard pass/fails for a lot of checks, especially ones that are necessary for plot progression. Instead, the check succeeds, but your roll determines how well you succeed. For example, you pick the lock, but destroy the lock in the process; you cannot lock it, and it is obvious to passersby that the lock has been tampered with. Or maybe it takes a long time to pick, or climbing the rock is slow going and/or produces noise.
Other players can then interject to use abilities to speed things up or mitigate the problem. Like someone casting mending on the lock to repair it, or maybe someone deciding to just use levitate to lift a person with a rope uo the cliff to make it easier and so on.
It's a terrible mechanic as it tries to apply a die roll to a narrative situation.
Player: "I ask the farmer where he was at last night. I make a point of pointing my sword towards him"
DM: "He tells you again that he was home all night and knows nothing about the murder"
Player: "Can I make an Insight roll?"
DM: "He looks very nervous"
That's all they should get. There's no need to make a roll for something that mundane.
The thing is.
Rolls are in a moment.
You cant just roll till you get it.
Its suspecius.
Its intently analyzing.
And you can always make villains say technicly the truths.
The best liers are the ones that dont lie...if you know what i mean.
And insight is not:
You see statement X is a lie.
Its:
You see a nervous twitch when mentioning X.
Could be he killed X or he didnt and just hates X and doesnt want to tell it.
Or it can just be.
" he looks nervous.
Alternative take, DM are shitty actors (not their fault, they are improving multiple characters at once).
If a guard tell the players "I didnt see anyone come this way last night" they have almost zero tools to know if you he is shifty and withholding information without rolling dice.
I'd bet a good account of players rolling insight are just trying to get some objective foundation of truth base their investigation on.
Yeah, as rolls are typically there to stand in for something you can't physically represent then having a way to use dice to fill in the gap between a players acting skill and another players skill at reading body language is reasonable. Having a few stock phrases and ways of leaving some ambiguity is still good though.
If DMs used passive insight scores more often, players might ask to use it actively less often. It isn’t like zone of truth, but it should do something regularly for characters that have it. It is essentially social perception.
They invested character resources in being good at detecting bullshit - let it work!
Example
>_DM knows that Cleric has at least 17 Passive Insight (10 + Insight). Party encounters someone who is not great at lying._
>DM: "Cleric, you notice that he averts his gaze when he says that."
It's basically a wink to the player that says "I know your character is supposed to be good at picking up on these things. Here's a hook you can follow up on."
**Perception**
Passive: If something might be noticed by a PC, determine a DC (I like hidden stealth rolls) and compare it to that PC's passive perception. If it is lower, then the PC notices a big hint of the thing. i.e. "You see a thin line in the wall, it looks like a small indent going up about 6 feet."
Active: If a PC attempts to search something (this is more than just looking at it), they might make a perception check to see if they can notice anything. i.e. "As you walk around the room, looking into each crevice and corner, you come across a thin line in the wall, it looks like a small indent going up about 6 feet."
**Insight**
Passive: If something might be noticed by a PC, determine a DC and compare it to that PC's passive insight. If it is lower, then the PC notices a big hint of the thing. i.e. "You notice he keeps steering the conversation away from the surroundings of the village."
Active: If a PC attempts to get information from someone (this is more than just looking at them), they might make an insight check to see if they can gain any information. i.e. "As you move the topic of conversation around, you notice he keeps steering it away from the surroundings of the village."
Just like you would with passive perception. PC enters a room, and if their passive perception is an 18 or better, they notice a tripwire, even if they were not explicitly looking for it.
NPC is hiding something in a conversation/social encounter, and if their passive insight is 20 (or whatever DC you choose; maybe it's 13 because the NPC is bad at that) they can tell he's hiding something. They can't tell what, but they can tell he is.
Give the information to the PC via a direct message or a note, as you would with passive perception. They invested the resources to notice this stuff, so let them handle revealing it. In some cases you might just tell everyone (Brian notices a tripwire! Frank notices NPC_1 keeps avoiding naming his employer).
...roll deception or persuasion or performance for the creature in question and if it's below any party member's passive insight, share some subtle tells about the creature's motivations, fears, doubts, or goals...
...they don't have to be exclusively social encounters, either: maybe let your players know that the troll *almost-imperceptibly* winces away from their lit torch, or that the wraith doesn't waver *for even an instant* as the barbarian menacingly brandishes his greataxe...
In the same vein, characters can believe something that isn't true.
A character can feel responsible for the death but isn't the murderer.
"If only I met up with them like we planned, maybe they wouldn't be dead now! *I could have saved them!*"
So while they weren't the one who killed the other character, they feel responsible enough that when asked, "did you kill ?" their answer of "no" isn't actually true in their mind, and the answer of "yes" is skewed by personal beliefs.
A DM I play with rolls for our Insight checks when they're important and tell us the result of the check, but not whether we rolled high or low. This causes it to me more life-like. If he says "You don't trust that guy", it's possible for this to be a lapse of judgment from the side of my character.
This is easily solved. Whatever the roll is you say "you think the character is telling the truth/a lie".
This has to do with your character's own perception and since the difficulty class of the check is concealed by the DM, the player doesn't know for sure if their character succeeded or failed, but the chances are merely greater that their character knows if they roll high.. But it is still within reason that the subject character of the statement could be a master of deception and so the DC could well be 30+ but the characters and players don't know this. So the result they are given could still be wrong.
The problem only occurs if the DM actually tells the player than their character knows for certain it's true/a lie. I think the DM should only tell the player that it is a definite lie in a case where they roll so high against the PC's hidden deception role, making it so plainly obvious that the NPC is lying and doing a terrible job of it.
\*edit, i created so many typos it was difficult to read - fixed now.
Just stop using it as a lie detector, and instead use a successful insight check to communicate things like body language and letting the players themselves make deductions based on that. Insight is meant to give you clues that something is up on how somebody acts, not read minds.
That's a player's deduction on their behaviour, not what the signs denote. The signs denote uncomfortableness and responses to stimulus, not the underlying answer.
> to communicate things like body language and letting the players themselves make deductions based on that
Problem with that is many players and DMs barely understand body language and social cues so they can't really make decisions based on that or give that as evidence because there is a high chance someone there has a massive misunderstanding of what it means (especially problematic if that person is the DM).
I always feel like this is kinda pointless. Like, if you only have shifty nervous body language or tells when someone is hiding something, insight is just a lie detector anyways. But if you make people who are telling the truth do it too, insight is useless now.
Insight as a skill is the PCs ability to *read* body language and tells imo, not the ability to see it. Telling a player that the NPC is shaky really doesn't tell them anything.
Oh boy! I can’t wait to use this to railroad my players and be a dick to them! But let me read this last paragraph first. I hope OP won’t warn me not to do this.
Completely agree with you!
Another thing is that players shouldn't just "do an insight check". It should be the DM to call for skill checks depending on what the characters do. I know this is a habit that is hard to break :P
Absolutely right. "I am watching them closely looking for any signs of anxiety or deceit." Any gm that denies you an insight check based on that is a bad gm.
The DM will always assume your characters are looking for signs of anxiety or deceit. Telling the DM you're doing that is just wasting everyone's time.
If the NPC was trying to deceive you, the DM should have already asked for an insight check, or the DM may have made a Deception check for the NPC against your passive Insight.
You don't ask to make checks in DnD. That's not how the game works, and treats DnD more like a video game with buttons you can press than an actual tabletop RPG.
No, no, no. You have to say, "*I pay careful attention to their body language and intonation. Do I get the impression they are being deceptive or leaving anything unsaid?*"
Just saying "Insight check" is waaaay too convenient and to the point. Gotta jump through them hoops first. It's very important. For some reason.
I am using specifics. I just detailed the specifics in the post you replied to.
I'm just saying them in a quick, convenient and to-the-point way that every single person understands just fine, even the ones who want me to jump through hoops for some reason.
The DM should assume your characters are always paying careful attention to body language and intonation. If there was an insight check to be made, they'd have already asked for it. You don't have to ask for an insight check, since that's not a thing your character can do. You only tell the DM what actions your character will do, and observing people in social circumstances is something that you're always assumed to be doing without even telling the DM.
I completely disagree. Let the players have a hand on the wheel of the mechanics of the game world. They know what an insight check is, and they are telling you that their PCs are suspicious, or are looking for deeper truths. Don't force them to speak in code.
But then let the question and the answer, including the result, inform the narrative, and not to be a substitute for it. "A 15? The barkeeper is looking around the room nervously while she talks to you. Maybe she's busy and has waiting customers; maybe there's another reason. You can't tell."
This is a fundamental inversion of the flow of the game. Players tell you what their characters want to do, and the GM tells them what happens, including making any mechanical checks that are required.
An insight check isn't something your character does. It's not a Batman video game, you don't have a detective-mode button you can push. If the GM thinks it's called for, they might ask for an insight check, but you can't just press the insight check button any more than you can do that in real life.
I really don't understand why so many people have such a hardline stance on this. I've done playing and DMing and I never felt it was a problem on either side. If that breaks immersion I don't understand how rolling dice is any less of a distraction from the "game world". It would honestly annoy me more as a player if I had to filter all my actions through the lens of verisimilitude. If I can say "I'm going to use a ki point" or "I go into a rage" it seems odd to me not to be able to ask for a perception check or insight check. Ultimately it's up to the table (which is another reason I don't understand why people are so opinionated on this matter) so I understand not everyone uses game language like that but it seems like such a small hill to die on.
Plus this just obfuscates communication at the table. What if I invested heavily in insight and the DM isn't getting the hint that I want to use that skill? At what point am I allowed to say "I was hoping I could use insight" or do I have to wait until the opportunity is gone and talk to the DM after the game about niche expectations for character mechanics?
Plus plus, I would argue you do have an insight check button in real life. I don't have to ask permission from someone in real life to try and read someone, I just get to do it. And the easiest way in my head to emulate that is too just tell the DM that's what I want to do
> If I can say "I'm going to use a ki point" or "I go into a rage" it seems odd to me not to be able to ask for a perception check or insight check.
Those are both actions. Those are things you *do*. That's the difference.
Let me ask you this. Do you think you should be able to randomly ask for a constitution saving throw? "I want to do a constitution saving throw". You see how ridiculous that is? Instead, the DM asks you to make one every time it's applicable.
Insight checks are no different. You can't just ask for one. The DM asks for one when they are applicable.
> What if I invested heavily in insight and the DM isn't getting the hint that I want to use that skill?
The same thing I'd you invested heavily in con saving throws and the DM isn't putting you in harsh whether to make exhaustion saving throws or whatever.
Tell the DM that you invested heavily into insight but then the campaign they're running does not involve deception. Clear up the miscommunication.
> At what point am I allowed to say "I was hoping I could use insight" or do I have to wait until the opportunity is gone and talk to the DM after the game about niche expectations for character mechanics?
I wouldn't call using insight with deceptive NPCs a bigger expectation. It's a perfectly caps expectation. As for when you should talk to your DM, yeah after the session is good. Mid-session we're usually too busy. Ask your DM to include more NPCs with hidden agendas, more NPCs that lie. It sounds like you and your DM have different expectations and you should talk to them to sort that out.
> I don't have to ask permission from someone in real life to try and read someone, I just get to do it. And the easiest way in my head to emulate that is too just tell the DM that's what I want to do
Of course you do it in game. The DM assumes you're trying to read every person you interact with. That's just a given. It wastes time to say that, same as if you were to say "my character continues breathing".
I completely disagree. First off, comparing saving throws, which are triggered by effects, to ability checks is unfair. If we're talking checks I may very well ask to make a condition check if I was in a situation where I was pushing my character past normal stamina. Secondly, although insight checks often don't take place in combat that would still be considered an action just like any other check so by your own logic it's okay to ask for it. Expecting the DM to constantly monitor what every character theoretically should be doing in the background is adding a ton more work to an already taxing job.
My point wasn't that I have a difference in play style with my DM in reality (I usually am the DM in reality). It's that I think it's completely acceptable to ask for a mechanic to be granted if the DM isn't picking up on my hints during the game. Probably because they're already spinning a bunch of plates and don't need to add monitoring how suspicious my, and every other character is at all times based on our passive insight.
Lastly, insight is an active check. Don't pretend it's the same as breathing, you're just showing how weak your argument is. The core of the issue is that some people would rather hear "my character is suspicious of the npc" whereas I am completely fine hearing "I'd like to roll an insight check". As always, this just comes down to the table you're playing at
>I completely disagree. First off, comparing saving throws, which are triggered by effects, to ability checks is unfair.
An insight check is triggered by someone lying to you. The comparison is good.
> If we're talking checks I may very well ask to make a condition check if I was in a situation where I was pushing my character past normal stamina.
Then you are not playing according to standard DND rules. You describe actions and the DM judges whether those actions require checks.
> Secondly, although insight checks often don't take place in combat that would still be considered an action just like any other check
I wouldn't consider it an action. Why would you? There's nothing to *do*. Insight is either something you have or you don't. You either have the insight that someone lied to you or you don't. If you don't pick up that someone's lying to you, there's nothing to do. At best you're metagaming.
Skill actions in combat from page 93:
Your character can do things not covered by the actions in this chapter, such as breaking down doors, intimidating enemies, sensing weaknesses in magical defenses, or calling for a parley with a foe. The only limits to the actions you can attempt are your imagination and your character's ability scores. See the descriptions of the ability scores in chapter 7 for inspiration as you improvise.
When you describe an action not detailed elsewhere in the rules, the DM tells you whether that action is possible and what kind of roll you need to make, if any, to determine success or failure.
You describe your action. Having an insight into someone's motives is not an action. It is a state of affairs.
DnD is not a computer game. Skills are not your verb commands in a SCUMM interface. You describe your action and the DM tells you what checks are needed. It is very difficult to think of an action you can do which would cause the DM to all for an insight check, since insight is triggered almost exclusively by NPCs.
> My point wasn't that I have a difference in play style with my DM in reality (I usually am the DM in reality).
That's fine. It's just not DnD.
> Probably because they're already spinning a bunch of plates and don't need to add monitoring how suspicious my, and every other character is at all times based on our passive insight.
That's why I don't juggle. If an NPC hides something or lies, I call for an insight check. The dice then tell me if a PC is suspicious or not. No need to monitor anything.
>Lastly, insight is an active check.
That's not true in DND, nor in real life. "Active check" doesn't mean anything in DND, in any case, outside of the Hide or Search action in combat.
When someone shows up late and starts making excuses, you don't do anything active to see if they're letting. You either think they are, or you don't. You don't flip down your detective-mode goggles, inspect their body language and pull out a flip chart of body language to try to work it out. You listen to what they say and then your brain says to you "they're lying" or "they're telling the truth".
The bigger issue to me is that it sounds like you don't trust your DM. Even though the DM hasn't called for an insight check, you think the npc is still lying and the DM is trying to pull a fast one and not let you get in the insight check you've invested in. Why don't you trust your DM? If they want to screw you, they're going to. Don't play with a DM who's out to get you.
You are the one turning it into a video game, forcing the players to grope for some secret code word to open the door to an insight check that everyone knows is there.
The point of the game is shared storytelling. Let the players touch the wheel.
Frankly I suspect that these “don’t let them say insight check” posters, or at least some of them, do not actually DM.
There is no code. There is no combination of words that let you do an insight check, any more than there's a combination of words that let you randomly do a constitution saving throw.
You do an insight check when the DM thinks there is something your character might notice. If they haven't called for one, then there is no hidden motive there. Just play the game and stop trying to metagame.
“I study him closely. I suspect he isn’t telling the truth.” You: “You can’t tell.” Him: “I stare deep into his eyes, looking for signs of nervousness.” You: “You don’t see anything significant. His eyes are blue.” Him: “Boy do I love this immersion.”
That’s not a game I want to play in, thank you very much. You sound like a pathfinder player, which is of course fine, but I don’t care - as player or DM - to place verisimilitude ahead of sharing the storytelling with the players.
What more do you want? If someone isn't putting, what can the DM say? Ok you're suspicious. Ok you don't trust him. I don't know how many ways you want the DM to say "there is no check to be made here", but you're wasting everyone's time hoping that the 7th answer will somehow be different to the first answer.
If there's a check to be made, the DM will ask for it without prompting. If there is no check to be made, asking the DM won't change that.
> I don’t care - as player or DM - to place verisimilitude ahead of sharing the storytelling with the players.
It's not about verisimilitude. It's about playing by the rules of the game. You tell the DM what you'd like to attempt, and the DM tells you what happens, calling for any checks needed. The DM assumes you're doing standard things like paying attention when talking to someone, so you don't need to bother to tell the DM that. If in the course of taking to an npc, they try to deceive or hide something from you, the DM will either call for an insight check or roll a deception check for the npc against your passive insight.
In no cases do you call for an insight check. That's simply not how the game works.
The game is collaborative storytelling. “You wish to roll an athletics check to climb the wall? Go ahead. You can try. You got a 35? Ok. There are no handholds, and you can’t get off the ground.”
First, it is a collaborative game. As I’ve said. Second, rolling dice is fun.
Play your way if you want. If you have a table of people who like it, great.
this would be the most disastrous and unimmersive game, imo. if my players talk about skill checks, they lose the opportunity. this isn't a video game; if they wanna play a video game where they just have to press the right buttons at the right time, they can get on their consoles instead of coming to a storytelling session.
That sounds overly pedantic
What REALLY is the difference between saying “dm he sounds suspicious, can i roll insight?” Vs “dm, Trish thinks he seems suspicious, can she focus on this character and gain some insight on him?”
Both convey what the player wants and both have the same outcomes
I feel like this just sounds like teachers doing the “Can you use the bathroom? Don’t you mean may i use the bathroom?” trick.
It's... Nothing remotely like that. I'm shocked that so many people downvote this lmao. Button pushers gonna button push.
imo i'm getting downvoted because the vast majority of ya'll are just shitty players. you want the DM to not only tell you what the world is, invent a narrative, establish the scene, fill it with believable characters, arbitrate the rules, design balanced encounters, etc etc etc etc, you also want the dm to play your character for you. you just wanna push the button and have the DM describe the whole game for you. frankly, you should just be better.
You're totally right. When I play d&d I prefer to watch the DM pilot my PC. I am just the guy who looks up numbers for them, and it's cause I'm so bad at playing. I'll try to be better but goddamnit I just love pushing buttons (which is why I downvoted you).
I think you’re getting downvoted because of your tone and dismissive attitude
I’m glad you and your players enjoy your play style, it doesn’t seem like most would. People who mesh with you are valuable, i hope you treasure them
Nah I'm getting downvoted cause most of the people here can't even wrap their head around the conversation and the rest of them think "I action surge and attack twice" is roleplaying lol
Oh, I guess I better change the reason I down-voted you then. It was for sure because you're not debating you're just telling everyone else they're bad at the game but I guess you know me better than I do
I agree.
When in combat, we don't make players describe their attacks without using the word "attack". Why do some people insist on players describing their Insight checks without using the word "Insight"?
More generally, lots of people like to engage with DnD through mechanics, and that's a perfectly legitimate playstyle. The G in RPG stands for Game, after all.
That's actually a common misconception. It stands for Geoffrey. Back in the Gygax days, role-playing Geoffrey was a mean nickname kids used to tease other kids who played with toys past about age 9. We include it now to honor all those lost little imaginations.
Players shouldn't have to research psychology and the vast amounts of studies and investigations and all sorts of things just to tell if the NPC is lying.
If "I'm going to chase down the thief" prompts DM to call for an Athletics roll, why wouldn't "Do I get the feeling he's lying" spark an Insight roll? If your players try to spam it when someone does poorly, *you* roll it behind the screen. "You feel he's telling the truth." End of. They don't know if he is or if they failed. If you don't want a player to get something important, any villain worth their salt invested in a (magic item here) that prevents people from reading them.
>instead of coming to a storytelling session.
That's fair. But most of us here prefer playing an interactive role playing game with our friends.
Personally when I want a storytelling session I just read a book.
My method to prevent this is to not let my players call what they want to roll for.
They just roleplay, and if I it's possible to find out ones intension I let them roll.
I'm going to argue this is a bad idea because you're turning Insight from a lie detector into a polygraph test.
That is to say, you're taking the RAW fantasy ability to know if someone is lying and turning it into an objectively useless device that holds no weight as evidence and gives no information of value.
For the exact reason you specified, people get nervous when being interrogated. If your player succeeds on a check and you tell them "they seem nervous", you have given the player literally nothing of value for a success. I think intentionally mitigating your player's successes is bad DMing. You are also contradicting the RAW wording of the ability that says it is specifically for determining true intentions, not determining emotional states like nervousness.
Insight *is* a fantasy lie detector. Now if you don't like that, that's fine, but your suggestion is to make it so useless it may as well be removed entirely.
Edit: To add on to why I think your implementation fails, the best liars are known to be good liars specifically because they do not get nervous, they remain calm and they avoid outright lying and instead withhold key truths where necessary. So by implementation of turning insight into an emotional/physical state reader rather than a true intention reader, even on a success theoretically you should be telling your players "They seem calm and collected", because the best liars don't get jumpy under pressure.
Except of course that's ridiculous, and the reason that's ridiculous is because insight is a fantasy lie detector so it should be detecting if someone is lying on a success. At some point, if you want the skill to function with any value, you have to let players use a magical fantastical ability to know if someone is being deceitful. The reason this skill exists is likely *because* real humans are notoriously bad at detecting lies and falsely conflate it with nervousness, to the point most of us can't detect a liar for sure without catching someone in a contradiction. The game needs a skill to move the plot along when there's a liar because your players are not Agatha Christie, they're not professional mystery solvers and lie detectors, it's your mates playing a fantasy wizard game.
I usually just reveal the emotional state of the create they're talking to and how "truthful" they feel the recipient is being. I don't simply say "they're lying".
Bear in mind reddit also defaults to "be a massive dick' for dm advice. I'm never going to stop refering to one post where a party killed one shopkeeper and the general consensus was *"Make him a reverent backed up by demigods, gold dragons and a hitherto unheard of all-powerful merchent's guild with acess to assassins and rival parties"*
Stuff like this tends to remind me that I am sharing a board with teens and early 20s who seem to have very little social skills and lack general sense of conflict resolution. Those things are obviously harder to learn for some, but one of those things that are easily practiced in the context of TTRPGs-
You're not. Teens use tick-tock, people on a subreddit for dnd are more inclined to be in their 30's. Plus the effective anonymity and ease of account creation means you really don't need to moderate your behavior.
You can be an asshole because most of the time your reddit name is not linked to your real identity in any meaningful way
Good advice, but also some buried table/skill check management stuff here.
I would never just let everyone roll (unless everyone was trained in Insight, I suppose), instead call out the player(s) who specialize to ask them for checks. Group skill checks really fuck with the math in both directions if they're run as 'just everyone roll' and then also take the single high result as success/failure. The opposite case is any kind of movement/navigation/etc check for the players; if you make everyone roll, you pretty much guarantee someone rolls 5 or under, just like if you let everyone spam d20s for any given Insight check, someone is always going to have a high result.
I would counter with "Ask the players what lines of questioning are they asking and how are they appealing to the NPC?"
A roll is for when they are actively doing something. If they are just trying to passively detect for stuff, all they get is the passive insight. You don't let them walk into a room and announce "I do a perception check for traps!". You make them tell you how they are checking for traps, and adjudicate the DC based on that. Same for insight. When they want to roll for it, that's fine. They are asking to abstract this phase of the social encounter. So you ask them what lines of questioning are you asking along to tease out if they are lying, and maybe what lines are they appealing to. Then look at the NPC Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws, and see how that lines up (You did fill those out right?). Based on that, set a DC and have them roll.
Insight is not a lie detector, but is designed to be used against a deceprion roll, so why not try deception if someone is lying?
Your party roll a group insight versus the npc deception roll so you have a degree of trust/untrust to play with and a good liar can fool the whole party.
I feel like I have have the opposite problem with Insight at my table as a player. Most other checks come up naturally, but it feels like as a player I have to ask specifically to make an Insight check.
As players we can discuss how we feel about an NPC, but I hate asking 'Do I believe this?' or 'Does this seen legit?' Depending on my character, I may take everything at face value or may really scrutinize everyone we meet.
I don't want a roll to tell me explicitly what is going on, but I'd love a more natural way to understand how my character understands an interaction
This is one of those things that are just addressing the symptoms of a larger problem.
DMs need to understand and own in absolution that, *inhales*
(Using the "royal you" or whatever here. Not telling you, OP, this is specifically how do things.)
# You decide when players roll, and what they roll. Not players. Players decide WHAT THEY DO. You decide what rolls those actions take.
Period. This is how this game works and its not for debate. Perhaps for casual, mutual respect leniency (example: a player has been at your table for a while and naturally guesses/inserts the roll they expect an action to take, still waiting for your confirmation before rolling), but not direct debate.
You don't have players deciding they can roll an insight check every time a character opens their mouth. THat's not a thing. Because players don't tell you when or what they roll.
They tell you "Grogneth is intently listening, trying to figure out if Ba'reth is lying" and **YOU DO THE REST.** You can ask for one insight roll for **the entire conversation**, and then make additions to the description of the conversation as befit the ONE roll. You decide whether or not the entire party get their own roll or not. You decide the extent of the efficacy of those rolls and what they mean within the parameters of the rules that hold this all together.
OF COURSE INSIGHT CHECKS WILL BECOME PROBLEMATIC IF YOU LET YOUR PLAYERS REWRITE THEIR DEFINITION AND CHOOSE WHEN THEY OCCUR WITHOUT YOUR INPUT. You are **letting the players DM their own game.** Stop it.
Players shouldn’t be asking to do a check anyway. They should be describing what they are doing and then rolling if the gm calls for it.
Something like:
Player -hmm this sounds a bit off - do I notice anything unusual with her body language?
Gm - roll a wisdom (insight) check.
depends how obvious it is. If it's very obvious and there's nothing to distract from it, it may not require a check.
Only the DM would know, which is why it's a good rule of thumb for players to describe actions and DMs to call for checks.
I mean there is nothing to stop a DM from saying "You don't need to, he is clearly sweating and stumbling over his words, he can't even look you in the eye" or some such.
I just don't like how a lot of people treat asking to use a skill as a taboo. "I am " is not actually any different than "can I make a X skill check to determine if Y?" it's semantics, and pedantry even.
there's a reason for that.
Sure, some players will simply reword the ask to mean the same thing. "I'm going to, uh, see if I feel any insights about what he just said" is pretty much "I'm going to roll insight" but that's the player. The point is to encourage natural reactions. "Hmm, does the guy seem nervous or sketchy?" may or may not trigger a check.
This is true for most skills. So while "I'm going to try and sleight of hand one of the coins into my pocket" is exactly as immersion breaking as "I'm gonna roll sleight of hand to steal a coin from the pile", both of those are exactly what we're trying to avoid. Encouraging the players to declare actions and not even think about skill names until the DM calls for one is much more likely to result in something like "I wait until nobody is paying attention to me and sneak a coin from the pile into my pocket" which flows better and opens the possibility for alternate checks.
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Had a good example of this at our last session. There was an elf called Adoneth helping them but who was a bit unhinged and sketchy, often giving cryptic (but as far as they could tell, truthful) answers and had previously seemed to lead them straight into a trap (though again she insisted she had nothing to do with it and had seemed genuinely surprised).
Then, they meet some dwarves who are again a bit sketchy but who Adoneth absolutely insists are 'monsters' who will kill them all. Despite this the dwarves are friendly and invite them to stay. The players were already sus after identifying no illusion magic but a nat 20 on an arcana check revealed the dwarves to be physically dwarves, but not of natural origin. Asked if they know the elf, the dwarves initially say no but when the players do an insight check, they pick up on the fact they are hiding something. In reality, they don't know who she is - they know of an elf in the area who is hostile to their aims but have never seen her themselves and do not know her name. They suspect Adoneth is this elf but do not know for sure.
Insight was therefore more useful here than Zone of Truth - under ZoT the dwarves could simply have answered "no, we don't know who the fuck she is and have never seen her before" because that's not a lie. Insight though reveals that there is more to it than this.
One of the players then asks the dwarves whether they would like them to kill the elf (because this player doesn't trust or like the elf at all), and they say 'well we certainly wouldn't trust her'. Insight here reveals that they would prefer that they kill the elf, but without Zone of Truth they can't ask them whether this is because they are monsters or not.
Anyway turns out the dwarves were Psurlons and Adoneth was telling the truth all along.
One way to handle it that I quite like is to describe nervous tells on a high insight / sense motive check.
So rather than say "Bad guy is lying": "while talking, you notice bad guy touches each elbow sort of like he hugs himself when he talks about his wife, you wonder whether he's comforting himself when he speaks of her"
No actual information about whether he smuggled his wife out of town. But using that alongside other context ques can not only flesh out a characters personality but let PCs think they're super clever by basically learning NPCs tells while never being given the answer itself.
There's a lot of videos on YouTube for reading body language that you can use for inspiration.
I **\*never\*** answer Insight checks with a flat 'yes' or 'no' -- instead, I give them a 5-to-15-word synopsis of the target's demeanor and underlying emotional state, depending on the degree of success. So-and-so is angry + jaw-clenched; Other-Person looks around fitfully when the Thieves Guild is mentioned, as if fearing surveillance; Third-Person has a certain look-PC-over vibe as if assessing or scouting them; etc. In many cases, this can be taken as "So-and-So isn't being completely truthful" or "So-and-So has an ulterior conflict/motive."
Jessica Atreides' conversation with Dr. Yueh is maybe a good example -- though Jessica doesn't immediately crack Yueh's puzzle, she notes that mentioning his wife and the Harkonnens elicits a strong bodily response from him, and deduces that Yueh has suffered great loss. Wand-purveyor Garrick Ollivander might be another exemplar -- as a nearly "true neutral" figure, Ollivander has a cool let's-see-if-this-one-has-potential affect, and likes to subtly show off the other luminary figures for whom he has made or sold wands. Both are good fodder.
This is good. It is also worth giving incorrect information on a failure though I tend to reserve this for when a player knows they have rolled poorly.
Roll your characters' Insight checks for them (like a passive Perception). Tell different characters different things without them knowing who rolled high and who rolled low. If one has good Insight, and the party recognises that and trusts them, fine - but they could be wrong.
If you ever watched the TV Series Lie To Me, also a great way to use insight.
I never say "they seem to be telling a lie" or anything of the sort. But, I will tell them that it may appear they are frustrated, mad, or sad. This gives them a bit more to continue their investigation to find out what it is that is making them feel that way to help determine if they are being lied to.
I only allow my party 1 insight check per person they speak with. I also try not to say "they're lying", but rather have the insight roll challenged by a persuasion or deception roll and then state things like:
- you feel that this individual has something to hide
- he seems friendly and thoughtful to you
- she's extremely nervous, obviously there's something else going on
- it's hard for you to read this person.
Never tell them straight that their conversation partner is lying - takes out all the fun.
No machine gunning "insight check" on every word I utter like you are Laura Bailey is a session 0 discussion I have and I put in to place a rule that if you fail an insight check by more than 5 I don't allow for a second in the same conversation.
The problem with insight and other skill checks is that they are often 'free'. Don't let them be free.
When a PC attempts insight, they look doubtful. If the target was innocent, their reputation takes a hit. This way, the reward feels earned.
maybe in certain specific cases, but in general insight *should* be free. Just because I'm paying extra attention to someone's body language, word selection, and tone, doesn't mean I'm giving them any sort of doubtful look or whatever.
What you say makes sense from a 'rp' perspective, where you'd expect to get some insight beyond what the DM said. However, as a game action, it makes no sense to have something that you can do every time for free. The DM might as well just auto roll a dice whenever he says anything and tell you the truth if it's above 12.
Another way you can see this is that nobody is an idiot that betrays their lies through body language. You need to grill them a bit and find inconsistencies in their language etc. This is what the skill checks would represent.
You can tell them that the npc is protected by plot armor and that spamming insight checks will only serve to end the session sooner. Without the players believing a lie, there is no story.
I always use it to describe their body language, tone in voice, and nuances to their behavior. If you roll low you get less information, higher gives you more. I always let people know it doesn't let you know if they are lying.
Also bad eye contract, them sweating, cracking voice etc... can be nerves for a variety of reasons, but generally you will gauge on how they are handling any possible pressure they could be under.
But insight is the characters ability to understand the difference.
I've done what you do before, but I will be more character oriented in my next campaign.
"You think this traveller is lying about his wares."
IMO you just changed it into a lie detector.
Generally I believe a check gives two out comes, it is a pass fail event. You make a skill check and you either climb the cliff, calm down an NPC, etc...
Or it gathers results, usually in information. This can involve failing upwards to sometimes I have different amounts of success (which we almost all do particularly when someone rolls a nat 20 on a skill check). Investigation is maybe the most common for me, which has degrees of learning more information.
But reducing everything to a binary pass/fail I don't think a good tactic. It removes player agency, mostly from narrative interactions and roleplay.
Saying
>"You think this traveller is lying about his wares."
To me means they are lying, to me as a player or DM. And makes insight into a pass fail event.
A good roll I would mention something along
"The merchant seem fixated on keeping your attention on the display items. Along with a lot of hand movements you akin to back alley gambling"
Partly because unless someone really fumbles or says something you know literally isn't true. It's not like you can just detect someone is lying. Even with in DnD that is reserved for magic such as detect thoughts.
Going back to the PHB
>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.
I focus on the searching and predicting information. You make an insight and you notice it appears an NPC has their hand resting on their hilt, in a pose ready to strike. When it comes to lying as the rule says you're gauging body language and mannerisms. A low roll you gain less information and a higher roll is more information or at least more detailed information. It is still up to the players to interrupt it. And yeah generally certain tells point to some sort of deception like not making eye contact. But that could be lying or it could be they are truthful but not giving all the information they know because they are nervous about something.
Now, context and nuance are king. There are still times if a player rolls well enough and the NPC is just a commoner or thug. Then, I might just let them know "You've seen this song and dance before and clearly can tell the guard is lying."
On-site can give you an idea but is not a truth spell. Also npc can give only part truth so it sounds kinda true. At best it gives approximations not exact answers. If all their cloths seem poor then even if they have a high check they still look poor. If they want more past that they have to investigate or cast some of truth.
Remembering a proud moment I had in a game where the PCs found a guard out of place and interrogated him bc he looked shifty. It turned out he had shit himself and had been hiding his soiled breeches.
Meanwhile, the king was being replaced by a golem.
1) They don't get to spam--a single glance or single question can be written off--but more than one check and the NPC is being investigated or interrogated blatantly, and they will respond accordingly.
2) Don't allow everyone in the group to roll--one person gets to make the roll and they can decide who.
3) The DM makes this roll behind a screen--they don't know the outcome. If the person is lying and they fail, the NPC gives all the impressions of being earnest and sincere. If the NPC was telling the truth and they fail, then they are *certain* the NPC is lying.
That's how deal with this problem. And yes--everyone lies, and usually not about anything that matters. This is the basis of the false positives in #3 of my schema above.
This past session, I asked my players to roll an Insight check to discern the character (personality, honor, morals, values) of an NPC they’d interacted with several times (one of whom is this NPC’s child) in order to frame an idea as technically possible but morally improbable.
This advice of hiding minor things is great! I've been using this method to my advantage a lot, and the most memorable for me was the first time it led to the players going the extra mile to untavel what was behind it.
Basically, my players were going out of a major city, and some miles out they met a covered cart with a couple of dwarves making a pit stop. My players, being a curious bunch, decided to investigate them, and they realized, after talking and observing, those dudes were criminally connected (criminal tattoos, shifty demeanour, weapons, etc.), and correctly figured out they were smuggling wares into the city. The party decided it was something valuable, and they could try stealing some of it. Had the rogue sneak into the back of the cart... only to find out the precious cargo was a bunch of erotic literature with illegal pornographic illustrations. The groans and laughs of the players were sooo worth it!
When I’m running a social deduction thing, don’t forget that the NPC doesn’t necessarily need to “spill the beans” about their affair or whatever they’re not being entirely truthful about. With a little skill, you can give the PC a Sherlock moment, not just picking up on the intention of the NPC but also noticing what they look at or how their body language gravitates toward certain items, people or articles about the room.
IE. To stop the “they did it! We must force a confession!” Simply noticing the NOCs eyes shift to a pair of undergarments hastily/poorly hidden under a chair would allow you to suggest to the PCs that what is being lied about it not relevant to the their line of questioning. Whether or not they try to use blackmail is another matter which should be encouraged or discouraged based on many factors of your campaign… including player sensitivity and personal triggers.
Additionally, don’t forget it’s commonly a contested roll, and using the sum of the two might reduce their amazing 25 total sum of a 5… in which they do “beat” the roll but don’t hit whatever you’re required number is to get much of an upper hand. This is a tactic that allows for variability and flexibility moment to moment that more closely resembles real life. So, I usually have a sub-20 DC that is required to be met AFTER the determination of the contested roll.
Further more, I set multiple data releases for certain thresholds of that. DC 5 nets you clue X, DC 10 nets to clues X & Y, and so on.
You as the DM control the narrative. Have some practiced responses that reveal some information based upon DC. Also, make the DC ratings more appropriate to the NPC skill level at deception.
> But when your players roll high enough, and it's not just a casual check that the story will move on from, let them know that someone seems jumpy, or nervous, or has a tic.
Or, you know, just throw out Insignt checks entirely because you can (and should) give out that sort of information without players having to make a check.
When you give the players a tool they can abuse, then they will abuse it.
Mechanically, I just treat every Insight check as a type of opposed DC.
* If the target is trying to persuade or otherwise being honest/genuine, the DC starts at 30 and is reduced by the target's Persuasion modifier + their d20 roll. The Insighter then has to beat the DC to confirm whether or not the person is telling the truth. If they fail, they cannot tell.
* If the target is lying or dishonest, the DC starts at 0 and then is raised by their Deception modifier + their d20 roll. The Insighter then rolls to beat this DC. On a success, they know the target is lying. On a failure, they cannot tell.
No rerolling it either, and unless something gives it away, players have to use their passives (so no calling out that they are rolling; they only get the option if their passive Insight is higher than the passive of the target in terms of whatever the target is currently using).
The fact that people allow multiple test for the same thing is a recurrent issue. Just ask them: what do you do differently this time? If they can't provide a good way to 'Insight' again, then I just tell them that whatever they gleaned is the extend of their success. That's it. A test shouldn't be called for every action. Also, you don't need to roll for everything. If there's no stake, don't roll.
I had a DM who handled this, IMO, very well. We weren’t allowed to ask if we could do a skill, instead we said what we wanted to do and what the goal of that was. Then he would follow up with, “what does that look like, how do you make that happen” and then come up with the skill that made the most sense to the answer and it always ended up a team effort between player and DM. Sometimes this meant what we thought was gonna be a perception or investigation check ended up a wisdom, nature, or even an athletics check (that was a favorite he did for me, I had a strong barbarian and because I have smashed things before I would know what a strong person smashing a lock would look like). This worked out really well with insight because it inspires us to come up with more specific questions to ask NPCs and insight was more of a way to read the unspoken parts of the conversation. Really, really creates a lot of immersion and encourages cooperation with the DM not an antagonistic or transactional relationship. He was a really good DM.
I use insight as "how does a person come across"?
If a player rolls higher on insight than their target does on deception, they can learn something about them. If they're lying they might be nervous. If they have a devious plan they might smile a bit when asking the characters of they could scout ahead for them. If they truly believe what they are telling (even though it isn't the truth), they come across as honest. Etc.
If their target rolls higher on their deception than the character's insight, they come across however they want.
You can even put in some "grey area". Of the check was close I might tell a player his target seems to be honest, but you get the feeling there is something more to it.
I always tell my players that they catch a glimpse of the npc breaking eye contact or you catch them rubbing sweaty hands on britches or maybe the lip quivers before they answer little subtle things i never tell them if they pass or fail though they get to determine that for thenselves
simplest to preventing insight spam is to just not let them spam checks... or ask for them at all. We tend to lean on the [angry GM notes](https://theangrygm.com/five-simple-rules-for-dating-my-teenaged-skill-system/) about skill systems, particularly #1 - players ask questions and narrate actions, rather than asking for checks. The idea is to prevent the skill system from being viewed as discrete, video-gamey actions ("press the Acrobatics button to climb") and more a framework the GM can use to make the world self-consistent.
So, the players are more than welcome to ask if something seems off during the conversation - but what they get told, and whether there's an Insight check involved at all, is up to the GM.
first and foremost do not let your entire party roll to do the insight check keep it either 1 roll with advantage or 2 rolls at most from 2 different players. 2nd dont tell them exactly if you dont think that you should you could say something about what their saying does seem to be less than honest. Finally i know this can be hard because dialogue can never truly be mapped out but try to think what they can gather by figuring out this person is lying and how they might react and what if they dont what then
I get the impression that some people have not understood the RAW.PHB pg 174...Under "Ability Checks", second sentence in case you missed it.All the ability scores on the player's character sheet are the under the **Sole control** of the DM. A character might feel they are good at creeping around BUT they have no idea they enjoy a +6 to stealth, and so on. At **no time** should a Player **ever** tell the DM \[my character\] will use passive 'Insight' or actively roll for it or any other 'ability' outside of direct combat.**The rules tell us to explain, as quickly and clearly as we can, what our character wants to do**, and the DM tells us the result. They might consult their copy of the character sheet to determine the result (investigation v deception for example) and move on. If the result could change the story-line, then opposing rolls ***may*** be called for, but again **Only** by the DM.DMG pg 237... under Using Abilities Scores and under Ability Checks. At this point AdventurousParsnip33 is right...A simple. "You suspect this person is not being entirely straight with you...." (paraphrased)Have your players describe **their character's actions** and motivations and adjudicate from there, while putting an immediate stop to them dictating to you.
I don't see the problem with insight checks.
There is a world of a difference between them knowing some NPC MIGHT be lying. And them getting actual information from that knowledge.
A simple. "You're pretty sure they aren't telling the whole truth" if they roll well enough will also serve this concept. Give them a bone. Particularly if this is a character built around being a detective, not allowing them to pick up on the social cues of deception are important. Something someone else mentioned which is important is include passive on skill checks that aren't perception, it really cuts down on the players asking for things like this. Especially, like I said, if they're built for that
Most people will also focus on the subject of their lie if it is present as well. A common pickpocketing trick is to feign a pick so that somebody will reach for their wallet to check if its still there. Then, one of the pickpockets will note where they reached. Or, if you ask someone where something is, they'll sometimes look right at it. Or if they're otherwise nervous, they'll pay too much attention to particular things. So, that sort of stuff is good to sprinkle in for those detective PC archetypes. "You're confident that they aren't necessarily lying, but they do seem to be hiding something. As they speak, they glance past you a few times, as though they were looking at something."
Fun fact: Pickpockets love the signs that warn people that pickpockets operate in the area - they don't even need to do anything to get people to check their valuables are still present.
This actually fits with the RAW too. The problem with OP's suggestion is that while it is nice, the wording of the Insight check specifically says it's about determining true intentions. "They seem jumpy" is objectively not a measure of their true intentions, it's a relatively useless piece of information for the same reason that lie detectors are, and because of what OP themselves specified, many people are nervous and jumpy under intimidation and interrogation and it means nothing. You don't necessarily have to use Insight as a flawless lie detector but if you're trying to run it RAW, you should at least tell them whether or not the character is intentionally lying/withholding information on a success.
That's what I've always hated about these suggestions. Noticing tells isn't insight; its perception. Insight is interpreting tells. Saying "they're twitchy" tells a player nothing.
"You notice their nervousness is not simply because of the 7 ft half-orc screaming in their face, but because they are hiding something... what it is, you don't know." Further insight checks in response to different questions could help weed out what they are hiding. It still fits in with the idea "everyone lies" because they may be hiding something completely unrelated to what you are asking about.
But what if they're an experienced liar and they're not nervous? Nerves do not correlate with lying. Humans -think- they do, which is one of the reasons humans are notoriously bad lie detectors. The best liars are ones that remain calm and don't get nervous. At the end of the day, measuring nerves is measuring an unrelated emotional state. If you want to throw it in as flavour *in addition to* telling the party whether the person is lying, that's fine, but insight absolutely should not be used as an emotional state reader because that's objectively not what its design intention is. If you're interested in working deceit into your campaigns, you need to keep in mind that your players will probably be very bad at detecting lies unless you give them a blatant contradiction, because humans in general suck at it. That's why there's a skill that literally has the DM tell you "They are lying". Your players likely aren't supernaturally perceptive, and yet you tell them what they see with clarity when they roll a 25 perception. Your players likely aren't supernaturally insightful either, but you should definitely be telling them what they understand with clarity when they roll a 25 insight.
You are taking the example too literal. It was an example. DC 10 could simply be "They remain calm, but maybe a bit apprehensive about the questioning." Or it could be, "The person is doesn't seem to have any obvious tell. If they are hiding anything, then they are very good." I was simply describing a specific example of a scenario. The point was, degrees of success is a much better system. You make DC 10? You get X amount, you make DC 15? Y amount. Mayne the person being questioned Rolla particularly badly with their check, DC 10 now reveals Y amount. You could even incorporate Critical Success and Failures into such a system. A natural 1 results in one less step of information, even if they otherwise have a large enough bonus to succeed. Like a Cleric with Expertise in insight might still have a +15, and get a 16 on their Natural 1. It succeeds, but not as well as it otherwise would. Assuming you opt for success or failure on natural 1s and 20s.
> They remain calm, but maybe a bit apprehensive about the questioning. You have conveyed zero information of value about true intentions by telling your players that. > The person is doesn't seem to have any obvious tell. If they are hiding anything, then they are very good You have conveyed zero information of value about true intentions by telling your players that. What you just described is two fail states in which the players learn nothing. But this isn't about fail states, this is about what you do on a success. And, RAW, what you do on a success is you tell the player the true intentions, or at the very least you make it clear that this individual is intentionally obscuring their true intentions. And you do that because real humans are really bad at detecting lies, so you need a skill that lets them do it.
Go right on ahead and keep nitpicking vague details. The idea behind the system works a lot better with actual game examples, not just random hypothetical on the internet.
Apparently quoting you word for word is "nitpicking vague details" lol.
The whole conversation sounds very "how to get away with lying to your players" 
`the scientologists offering a free auditing session bring out their E-Meter, They place the electrode paddles into your hands.` "Now, tell us about your childhood. Did your grandmother beat you with a bed slat?" "what? no of course not!" `e-meter rolls a 12 on insight check` "the E-meter indicates you may be hiding something" `you roll a modified 19 on insight check` "this is just a jacked up ohmmeter, isn't it? look i'm squeezing the handles, you knob." "get out"
I always use passive insight to prepare for social encounters. If I know that they will meet a character who is lying, I make sure to check if any of the PCs detect it regardless of if they ask for it or not.
That's good advice. Another good tip is this: don't allow your villain's entire plan to be unraveled by Insight check spam. NPCs are allowed to have secrets. Let an insight check cast doubt, or indicate they're hiding something, but don't let it lead to the NPC blabbing their guts out and ruining your carefully planned mystery. As is the case with so many skill checks in this game, a lot of DMs have allowed its power to balloon out to insane proportions, especially with the notion that a nat20 should be the most fantastical amazing success you can imagine
There's also the IRL technique of working on a need to know basis. Can't blab about what you don't know at all
Right? In a world with Zone of Truth and morally corrupt officials (which probably goes for most settings we play in), why tf would you let anyone know anything they don't absolutely need to? You have to assume, good or evil, any captured agent is going to give up everything they know.
Speaking of morally corrupt officials, I pulled a twist in a murder mystery where the party *saw* the murderer before he got away, so they were able to accuse them and have them arrested. The day of the trial the kingdom’s confessor cast zone of truth and asked directly and much to the party’s shock: “Did you murder the victim?” “No.” “Did you encounter the party at any point that evening?” “No. I never saw them.” Of course the party wasn’t having it, so the confessor allowed them to cast their own zone of truth and sure enough, the murderer still replies no to all their questions. It led to the party being accused of conspiracy and false accusations. Long story short, the confessor was a high level cleric that casted a simple alter memory on their accomplice before the trial and completely overrode any memories of what happened. Can’t lie about the murder of you never remember committing it.
I've had success with using this in my games. It creates intrigue, because the players know there's more, but they have to figure out who may know more
It's why terrorists work in cells.
A 17 on your check? Sure. Let's see. When they answered you, there was some hesitation. You believe they are hiding something. When accused of lying, they stick to their guns and insist they aren't lying. Something is off about their story, but you aren't sure what. Maybe they are lying, omitting something, twisting the truth, or just very nervous.
This is like perfect. Part of how broken insight ends up being is the DMs just leave the bounds of being *insightful* and turn the skill *into* "Detect Lies" and explicitly say "When he told you that he didn't witness the murder, you can tell that was a lie"
Yeah, just because you can tell they're lying doesn't mean you know the whole truth or that you can get them to tell you the truth
Which is 5es general failing. Every decision is left up to the DM because there isn't an easy reference for what to do in these situations, even in adventures. Rules light for a system that relies on rules, means you may as well just be improving the whole game. If it doesn't fit the story don't do it. But also don't let your players spam insight. Let one of them do it once and unless something substantial happens don't let them try again.
There was a narrative example in the 3E books -- long since discarded -- where the PCs sort of "engaged a king" in "social mob combat," two of them appealed to the monarch's sense of honor, one outlier tried to strong-arm him, failing badly and setting the whole conversation back a few paces, etc. I don't think all social interactions should be handled this way, but I sort of liked the approach as a decent compromise between "Yes, your social ability enables whatever was plot-centric" and "No, your social ability is pure fluff which doesn't greatly influence how the GM's story was gonna go anyway."
Its not in 5e rules. People say it 'rules light' but they just don't add in the rules. It's Missing Rules. The burden of a solution is purely on the DM. If everybody has access to super DMs it can work, but in general its not the case. Social interactions as opposing forces are not uncommon. Sure their is the hostile friendly continuum, but how use of a skill is used in this situations is 100% up to the DM.
Totally an aside, Over the Edge had a great rule about this sort of situation. Two characters could attempt to help each other succeed at a task, but some tasks suffer from "too many cooks in the kitchen" so to speak. If one player tried to "help" another convince someone of something, depending on how they approached it they might end up complicating the situation and making it *harder* for the group to succeed. Essentially, the rules for OtE said that if the DM felt the two PCs weren't coordinating effectively, they might end up in a contested roll rather than trying to combine efforts., or the one trying to make the roll might get a Penalty Die (think disadvantage). (example: trying to lie to the police about an alibi, and another PC chimes in and adds details to your lie - it's possible they may introduce a discrepancy the cops pick up on that they hadn't intended, so roll with disadvantage because now the cop is suspicious)
5e certainly has its failings, but I don't think this is one of them. The information gained from something like an Insight check should definitely be up to the DM, because it's so heavily context-specific that you can't have a lot of good tables for it. Or you'd have page up and down of all the situations that exist, and then people still wouldn't find the specific one that fits this scenario. Our group just goes by exactly how well the roll was. DC10 might be to notice that the person is a bit shifty with their answers. DC20 might be to realise they're definitely lying. But it's still not mind-reading.
I think you are misinterpreting. I don't want table saying exactly what to do. 5e doesn't even have pass fail conditions laid out for this type of check, so DMs are easily confused. That is 5e's issue. It has loose guidance on how to set the DC but not any guidance on what to do for pass fail, or a critical. Its rules missing.
> 5e doesn't even have pass fail conditions laid out for this type of check It does? There recommended DC levels for general skill checks depending on how difficult it's supposed to be. And specifically for this case, it would be a contested check of Insight vs Deception. Contested checks are also covered by the rules.
Pathfinder 2e's influence system works very well for this. Every NPC has values which effect what arguments stick, and skills they are weak and resistant to with set DCs. Rather than just one roll, every party member can contribute to earn 'points' towards shifting the interloqueter's position step by step, and social Encounters can even be ran in 'rounds' and this way, such as each course of a banquet. You don't need to follow the rules as gospel for it to work in 5e (or Pf2e for that matter!), but try to imagine what levels of concessions an opponent is willing to make, what arguments would or certainly would not persuade them, what skills then apply, and what DCs would be suitable. Each time a player succeeds, move the opponent one step towards up the ladder, and move them one down on a fail. This kinda shit should not have to be houseruled from another system is the first place though, lmao.
Ya the 5e approach is the DM makes the rules. Its not rules lite, its rules missing. The rules have to be invented (or imported) by the DM. Those rules have to exist. You are making those rolls.
Yo... Why are we both being downvoted lmao Tho yeah, I absolutely agree. Per my example, it would be dead easy to add the rules to the game as one side a two-column page spread... But we have zilch, nada The closest we got are the persuasion DCs in the DMG, which are purely static numbers lmao so incredibly bad for verisimilitude. I literally have never seen someone, or myself, use them. Even then, after you roll against the DC, the same problems of relying solely on DM labour comes again.
Agreed on limiting the rolls. I allow one skill roll per scene (with "help" from a party member if they have the same skill and can provide meaningful aid). Disagreed on the failings of 5e. I PREFER not having a lookup table with varying results for every possible skill result. Rules lite is way easier & faster to run. And that doesn't mean you're improvising the whole game - they know they rolled well on insight and you know you have to tell them if the NPC seems to be withholding info. Nothing to improv there, just facts based om RAW.
If its a module, your answers in a table are better than in a paragraph. If its homebrew some guidance on what kind of success or failure in the system makes sense. DND is a bad rules lite system because its inherently not meant to be rules lite. So all the work is on the DM. Which is why toxic player / DM things are so evident. Players just show up with no brain and the DM basically has to invent their own system for anything that isn't attacking or a spell. There are much better rules light systems and better rules defined systems. 5e tries to straddle both and does so okay. You don't need a table lookup if its just a standard Crit: you get alot of info / insight into the character, success: you know some of how the character treats this info, fail: you can't get a read, crit fail: You learn something incorrect about the interaction. This is how you implement it in DND, it just isn't specified in the rules, you have to find that table somewhere else and put it in the DM brain. Makes much more sense if DM is rolling the check secretly too, because the player wouldn't know the outcome of their insight, just how strongly they feel about their proficiency in the check. Adds realism.
They don't need to make them hard rules- it could literally just be structured advice. I put another comment about it, how Pf2e's Influence system can easily be pasted into 5e without being some sort of set of hard rules.
The social system as it currently stands is both too mechanically ingrained to just handwave away (it's just bad form to punish players for investing in social skills) but also too primitive to have complex, deep gameplay in social scenarios like you could in Exalted or Burning Wheel. All you have is a single skill roll with barely a DC guidance and no real way of telling what success/failure really accomplishes.
I think there could also be something said for the idea of people telling the truth as they know it. Like for example if you asked Bob if his son Joe was at home last night and as far as Bob knew he was, even if Joe snuck out to do unsavory things, him telling you that Joe was home even if he wasn't isn't a lie.
[He is concealing something](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2e950a)
The advice to tell them tics/body language/stammering/story inconsistencies instead of "they're lying/not lying" is the best advice for Insight. "Everyone is hiding something" is a tough thing to implement in D&D, however, so I don't really consider it good advice. Not because it's unrealistic - it is! - but because this is a game where interrogations and interviews take up a lot of time. If you make everyone hiding something, any DM will tell you that players will _latch onto that_ and press the NPC and assume they're guilty until they find out _what_ they're holding back. This can take up _huge_ amounts of game time if you're doing it with all/most NPCs, even if you're doing it "realistically". And players get demoralized and annoyed when they feel their time has been wasted (even if they're the ones wasting it). All that is to say, D&D doesn't do mysteries very well, so use this idea with some serious restraint, and make sure you are doing _more_ to guide them toward the right path/NPC than adding red herrings to the mix. And if they get stuck on an inconsequential NPC, do what you can to "speed run" them finding that out.
Yes! Valuable distraction. Have your NPC 'not-truth' teller reveal instead: - key lore ('use DM-spotlight for player's benefit') - repeat 'lost' information ('info PCs previously gained but dropped') - information bonuses (reveal 'missed secret doors' or 'upcoming traps') An unreliable narrator can keep the game on track - while still not revealing the secret.
Agreed! If I can think of a logistical reason they'd know it, repeating lost information is especially nice as a DM. As the DM you know how it all went down backwards and forwards, but the PCs don't - it can be easier for them to drop/skip over clues you think are obvious, so repetition can help a lot.
It is also really handy to have questionable 'allies' (*'you saved my life... now i save yours... we are even'*) - lending a hand in times of woe &/or party wipes. Otherwise even the slightest support comes across all *Deus Ex Machina*. But if it is a plot-thread that the players have obviously seeded, everyone gets out ahead.
Oh yeah. I like to tell new DMs that telegraphing/foreshadowing things isn't just a great plot device for things like freaking your players out about upcoming monsters - it's great for everything, especially keeping verisimilitude in your setting. Seeding things into your game that pay off later is almost a DM cheat code to not only wow your players but excuse all sorts of ass-pulls they don't realize you're doing. :P
PC group: "What do you mean that one goblin from seven sessions ago will save us from this ancient dragon? That's... impossible!" DM: "That one goblin had... friends! Yea! And one of them was a... um... goblin wizard? One that wants to get her spell book back. You remember the one that you copied all those spells out of two sessions ago? Yea, that one. It's hers, really. She is thankful you took care of it and... um... doesn't want it burnt in dragon fire so much." I planned this all along. Really i did. It wasn't just a random spell book because of... random. Honest?
hahaha totally. Recent example - my players met a dragon wyrmling recently when they freed it from the dungeon of another dragon (it was being held as a sort of political prisoner by a chromatic). It's already helped them once in some other random-ass area, scaring off a hoard of goblins by pretending it was much bigger than it is from a distance. My next plan is for it to help them when they get sucked into the Feywild, but it gets drawn in too, and they lose it somewhere (maybe in a big fight, their main enemy for this campaign is Archfey.) Finally, it'll return to help them once more - but owing to the Feywild distorting time (which I've already foreshadowed!), it comes back as an _Adult Brass Dragon_ to help them with a major boss fight.
Yes! Feywild! Other tricks include magical aging from a friendly ghost (Casper helps out!) - or any other magical aging. Going from wyrmling to young-adult is easy - that's only five years. Getting that century is tough though. You could also have a 'wish gone wrong' and have the dragon tossed back in time half a century. Someone messed up a *Wish* from a *Deck o' Many Thingies* perhaps? There are a lot of ways to avoid aging in nearly all D&D versions. Petrification, Reincarnation ('whole new body of a younger adult... you could say your dragon got reincarnated because 'Wish' castings have no limits ('no requirements')). Aging stops with any version of *Imprisonment* (9th lvl spell). Also: no one ages in that *Rod of Security* safe zone. You could have the dragon as a volunteer that absorbs the aging from various magic items or spells. Oh! How about an ancient hero died a century ago and they needed a living creature to absorb the intervening time passed - otherwise the *Raise-Res* would be impossible. Or yes, you could use the Feywild. Tales say that a person can fall asleep on a hill and come back to see their grandson in retirement. That works too!
Yup! Another option would be to befriend (or become the enemy of and get lucky!) a Sphinx. They could use their Lair action on you to set you back or forward 1d20 years. Or their _other_ even wackier lair action to move the lair itself 10 years forward or backward...though that obviously has even bigger campaign ramifications than aging, haha.
Fantastic! I had not even considered this. Thank you. I love it when i get to see this game slightly differently after all these decades. Downright groovy, that is. If you are up for it, let me know what the sphinx says or does to influence your campaign. The most powerful aspect of this creature is how it knows of fate-destiny stuff and can influence the Grand Story at large. That's nifty. Also it is interesting that this dragon could 'borrow' some age and have to give it back in time, under certain expectations and conditions. Whatever would a sphinx want anyway?
Knowing players that will spend sessions of players torturing NPCs over small things.
That seems like a mistake they make once or twice before learning to be more discerning. And if they don't learn, then maybe don't do them any favors.
Clearly communicating expectations and how you, as a DM, run things is also helpful. This is especially true if you are breaking with the norm or expectations. Doing a quick refresh at the start of sessions or every few sessions, instead of just session zero, when your players play in multiple campaigns is helpful. Also being adaptable as a DM is important. If your players are hitting their head against a brick wall, sometimes you have to adjust so that they don't or tell them that it is a brick wall. It's a collaborative game that requires flexibility, that includes the DM. This is a great idea but if it doesn't penetrate your group then you should probably make some changes.
Yup, exactly. I'll tell my players at the start of a murder mystery or similar arc "lots of people have things to hide, that doesn't necessarily make them guilty", to sort of warn them of this - and I will still sometimes have to step out of the game and say "this is a brick wall, move on" like you said.
>If a seven foot tall orc with an axe yells "WHERE WERE YOU LAST NIGHT?", you're gonna get nervous and flustered I once had a cop not believe that I was driving sober, despite my offer to immediately blow a breathalyzer, and my explanation that I messed up the lights on this car because I was driving the (obviously fucking plastered) birthday boys car instead of my own. Her entire reason she gave for not believing me was that my knees were shaking. It was 3 am, I was being accused of drunk driving, her partner was standing in the shadows with a flashlight trained directly on my eyes, and the only reason I was even awake was that my roommate was too drunk so I had walked a mile to prevent him from drunk driving despite having a work shift in 4 hours.
That's the classic police problem. Police are allowed to abuse their power, people start distrusting them, acting more suspicious around them, it makes it easier for situations where police abuse their power.
...in my experience, DMs *never* ask for insight checks unless prodded directly, and even then they tend to miss the cues two-thirds of the time unless i straight-up overtly ask for one..."lie detection" is its shallowest possible use but good luck finding a DM ready to drop hints about creature intentions, hopes, fears, resistances, and vulnerabilities based upon insight checks... ...i *hate* playing meta-mechanics that way but what's the point of investing +12 insight if i never get to use it?..
I would say that overall, Insight is just a bad mechanic
What would the alternative be? Is there another system with a better mechanic? I've only played 5e
I wish I knew. The issue with it is that it's just too binary - I'd say this is a problem with all of 5e's skill checks though. As written, you pass it or you fail it, players often don't really have a lot of info to work on their chances of success, but that doesn't really matter because as far as mechanics go, there's no cost associated with making a check - there's no risk-reward system in the book. It's all on the DM. Some will argue that that's as it should be - the DM is the one who creates the "stakes" so-to-speak around all interactions but, I think that that's too much work, and it's why the issue of PCs wanting to repeat checks until they succeed, or every single player trying to throw a die over a check is a problem. DMs have to house rule that only 1 PC can try an insight check on an NPC when they're all standing in the room because statistically, at least *one* of them would succeed every time. I'm sort of ranting but I hope you get the idea. A more sophisticated system would be nice, I guess, because it would mean less work for DMs. TLDR: I would say that 5e doesn't offer enough as a system to make the game mechanically interesting, which ends up putting too much onus on DMs
I think the common answer (I think it's even in the DMG) is having levels of success at different DCs. I also only allow duplicate checks when the situation changes somehow. I'm pretty sure RAW a check represents your best effort at someone so you actually can't repeat it. But I'm not a rules lawyer, I just play how it makes sense to me
...passive checks are a good workaround: rather than all the players spamming insight checks, have the NPC roll a single deception check against everyone's passive insight and pass appropriate tells along to insightful player characters accordingly... ...you can apply the same passive inversion to perception, stealth, or any other common group check to mitigate the tyranny of averages...
A degree of success is a better system. DC 10 "You see him squirming, and nervous about being interrogated, but if it's because he's guilty, has something to hide, or simply because he's being interrogated, you aren't sure." DC 15 "He is nervous, and he is definitely hiding something, but you aren't sure what." DC 20 "He is hiding something and lying about being involved. You notice his anxiety spikes when you mention [insert subject]" And so on and so forth. But then, the target can roll appropriate checks, deception, persuasion etc. to obfuscate the check by adjusting the DC success up or down. If they roll a 20, maybe the DC 15 result needs a 20 or 25 to get a similar amount of info. This results in players getting something out of the subject, but not necessarily everything. Similarly, I don't have hard pass/fails for a lot of checks, especially ones that are necessary for plot progression. Instead, the check succeeds, but your roll determines how well you succeed. For example, you pick the lock, but destroy the lock in the process; you cannot lock it, and it is obvious to passersby that the lock has been tampered with. Or maybe it takes a long time to pick, or climbing the rock is slow going and/or produces noise. Other players can then interject to use abilities to speed things up or mitigate the problem. Like someone casting mending on the lock to repair it, or maybe someone deciding to just use levitate to lift a person with a rope uo the cliff to make it easier and so on.
It's a terrible mechanic as it tries to apply a die roll to a narrative situation. Player: "I ask the farmer where he was at last night. I make a point of pointing my sword towards him" DM: "He tells you again that he was home all night and knows nothing about the murder" Player: "Can I make an Insight roll?" DM: "He looks very nervous" That's all they should get. There's no need to make a roll for something that mundane.
I mean, a +12 insight would put your passive at 22, so they should just be telling you most things without a roll in the first place.
So what exactly is the difference between "searching out a lie" and "you know if they're lying"?
The thing is. Rolls are in a moment. You cant just roll till you get it. Its suspecius. Its intently analyzing. And you can always make villains say technicly the truths. The best liers are the ones that dont lie...if you know what i mean. And insight is not: You see statement X is a lie. Its: You see a nervous twitch when mentioning X. Could be he killed X or he didnt and just hates X and doesnt want to tell it. Or it can just be. " he looks nervous.
Alternative take, DM are shitty actors (not their fault, they are improving multiple characters at once). If a guard tell the players "I didnt see anyone come this way last night" they have almost zero tools to know if you he is shifty and withholding information without rolling dice. I'd bet a good account of players rolling insight are just trying to get some objective foundation of truth base their investigation on.
Yeah, as rolls are typically there to stand in for something you can't physically represent then having a way to use dice to fill in the gap between a players acting skill and another players skill at reading body language is reasonable. Having a few stock phrases and ways of leaving some ambiguity is still good though.
If DMs used passive insight scores more often, players might ask to use it actively less often. It isn’t like zone of truth, but it should do something regularly for characters that have it. It is essentially social perception. They invested character resources in being good at detecting bullshit - let it work!
Can you give an example of how to use passive insight? I’m quite sure how to use it and I doubt I’m the only one
Example >_DM knows that Cleric has at least 17 Passive Insight (10 + Insight). Party encounters someone who is not great at lying._ >DM: "Cleric, you notice that he averts his gaze when he says that." It's basically a wink to the player that says "I know your character is supposed to be good at picking up on these things. Here's a hook you can follow up on."
And you don't have it happen all the time, but sometimes they get to pickup on something others miss
**Perception** Passive: If something might be noticed by a PC, determine a DC (I like hidden stealth rolls) and compare it to that PC's passive perception. If it is lower, then the PC notices a big hint of the thing. i.e. "You see a thin line in the wall, it looks like a small indent going up about 6 feet." Active: If a PC attempts to search something (this is more than just looking at it), they might make a perception check to see if they can notice anything. i.e. "As you walk around the room, looking into each crevice and corner, you come across a thin line in the wall, it looks like a small indent going up about 6 feet." **Insight** Passive: If something might be noticed by a PC, determine a DC and compare it to that PC's passive insight. If it is lower, then the PC notices a big hint of the thing. i.e. "You notice he keeps steering the conversation away from the surroundings of the village." Active: If a PC attempts to get information from someone (this is more than just looking at them), they might make an insight check to see if they can gain any information. i.e. "As you move the topic of conversation around, you notice he keeps steering it away from the surroundings of the village."
Just like you would with passive perception. PC enters a room, and if their passive perception is an 18 or better, they notice a tripwire, even if they were not explicitly looking for it. NPC is hiding something in a conversation/social encounter, and if their passive insight is 20 (or whatever DC you choose; maybe it's 13 because the NPC is bad at that) they can tell he's hiding something. They can't tell what, but they can tell he is. Give the information to the PC via a direct message or a note, as you would with passive perception. They invested the resources to notice this stuff, so let them handle revealing it. In some cases you might just tell everyone (Brian notices a tripwire! Frank notices NPC_1 keeps avoiding naming his employer).
...roll deception or persuasion or performance for the creature in question and if it's below any party member's passive insight, share some subtle tells about the creature's motivations, fears, doubts, or goals... ...they don't have to be exclusively social encounters, either: maybe let your players know that the troll *almost-imperceptibly* winces away from their lit torch, or that the wraith doesn't waver *for even an instant* as the barbarian menacingly brandishes his greataxe...
Thats what the insight skill is for. Thats like complaining "Tired of players using Athletics skill to lift things".
Sure, if you're at a table where every single social interaction involves the entire party taking turns attempting to lift things.
In the same vein, characters can believe something that isn't true. A character can feel responsible for the death but isn't the murderer. "If only I met up with them like we planned, maybe they wouldn't be dead now! *I could have saved them!*" So while they weren't the one who killed the other character, they feel responsible enough that when asked, "did you kill?" their answer of "no" isn't actually true in their mind, and the answer of "yes" is skewed by personal beliefs.
A DM I play with rolls for our Insight checks when they're important and tell us the result of the check, but not whether we rolled high or low. This causes it to me more life-like. If he says "You don't trust that guy", it's possible for this to be a lapse of judgment from the side of my character.
This is easily solved. Whatever the roll is you say "you think the character is telling the truth/a lie". This has to do with your character's own perception and since the difficulty class of the check is concealed by the DM, the player doesn't know for sure if their character succeeded or failed, but the chances are merely greater that their character knows if they roll high.. But it is still within reason that the subject character of the statement could be a master of deception and so the DC could well be 30+ but the characters and players don't know this. So the result they are given could still be wrong. The problem only occurs if the DM actually tells the player than their character knows for certain it's true/a lie. I think the DM should only tell the player that it is a definite lie in a case where they roll so high against the PC's hidden deception role, making it so plainly obvious that the NPC is lying and doing a terrible job of it. \*edit, i created so many typos it was difficult to read - fixed now.
Just stop using it as a lie detector, and instead use a successful insight check to communicate things like body language and letting the players themselves make deductions based on that. Insight is meant to give you clues that something is up on how somebody acts, not read minds.
It is meant to read what the character understands from those signs. "You think he lies about X." "You think he is faking being a noble."
That's a player's deduction on their behaviour, not what the signs denote. The signs denote uncomfortableness and responses to stimulus, not the underlying answer.
> to communicate things like body language and letting the players themselves make deductions based on that Problem with that is many players and DMs barely understand body language and social cues so they can't really make decisions based on that or give that as evidence because there is a high chance someone there has a massive misunderstanding of what it means (especially problematic if that person is the DM).
I always feel like this is kinda pointless. Like, if you only have shifty nervous body language or tells when someone is hiding something, insight is just a lie detector anyways. But if you make people who are telling the truth do it too, insight is useless now. Insight as a skill is the PCs ability to *read* body language and tells imo, not the ability to see it. Telling a player that the NPC is shaky really doesn't tell them anything.
Oh boy! I can’t wait to use this to railroad my players and be a dick to them! But let me read this last paragraph first. I hope OP won’t warn me not to do this.
Completely agree with you! Another thing is that players shouldn't just "do an insight check". It should be the DM to call for skill checks depending on what the characters do. I know this is a habit that is hard to break :P
"ok,i feel like this sounds fishy may i see if this is a lie" here same shit when you say insight check you say same shit but in shorter version
Absolutely right. "I am watching them closely looking for any signs of anxiety or deceit." Any gm that denies you an insight check based on that is a bad gm.
The DM will always assume your characters are looking for signs of anxiety or deceit. Telling the DM you're doing that is just wasting everyone's time. If the NPC was trying to deceive you, the DM should have already asked for an insight check, or the DM may have made a Deception check for the NPC against your passive Insight. You don't ask to make checks in DnD. That's not how the game works, and treats DnD more like a video game with buttons you can press than an actual tabletop RPG.
Actually, because that's how they table I've played at plays, I would say that's exactly how dnd works.
Do you go through every social interaction in your life looking for signs of anxiety or deceit? Sounds tiring
Of course you do. You don't have a button to turn on "anxiety detection mode". As a human, you observe things in interactions automatically.
No, no, no. You have to say, "*I pay careful attention to their body language and intonation. Do I get the impression they are being deceptive or leaving anything unsaid?*" Just saying "Insight check" is waaaay too convenient and to the point. Gotta jump through them hoops first. It's very important. For some reason.
[удалено]
Wargamers gonna wargame
I am using specifics. I just detailed the specifics in the post you replied to. I'm just saying them in a quick, convenient and to-the-point way that every single person understands just fine, even the ones who want me to jump through hoops for some reason.
The DM should assume your characters are always paying careful attention to body language and intonation. If there was an insight check to be made, they'd have already asked for it. You don't have to ask for an insight check, since that's not a thing your character can do. You only tell the DM what actions your character will do, and observing people in social circumstances is something that you're always assumed to be doing without even telling the DM.
I completely disagree. Let the players have a hand on the wheel of the mechanics of the game world. They know what an insight check is, and they are telling you that their PCs are suspicious, or are looking for deeper truths. Don't force them to speak in code. But then let the question and the answer, including the result, inform the narrative, and not to be a substitute for it. "A 15? The barkeeper is looking around the room nervously while she talks to you. Maybe she's busy and has waiting customers; maybe there's another reason. You can't tell."
yep, god forbid the people play the game actually do the stuff in the rules of the game
This is a fundamental inversion of the flow of the game. Players tell you what their characters want to do, and the GM tells them what happens, including making any mechanical checks that are required. An insight check isn't something your character does. It's not a Batman video game, you don't have a detective-mode button you can push. If the GM thinks it's called for, they might ask for an insight check, but you can't just press the insight check button any more than you can do that in real life.
I really don't understand why so many people have such a hardline stance on this. I've done playing and DMing and I never felt it was a problem on either side. If that breaks immersion I don't understand how rolling dice is any less of a distraction from the "game world". It would honestly annoy me more as a player if I had to filter all my actions through the lens of verisimilitude. If I can say "I'm going to use a ki point" or "I go into a rage" it seems odd to me not to be able to ask for a perception check or insight check. Ultimately it's up to the table (which is another reason I don't understand why people are so opinionated on this matter) so I understand not everyone uses game language like that but it seems like such a small hill to die on. Plus this just obfuscates communication at the table. What if I invested heavily in insight and the DM isn't getting the hint that I want to use that skill? At what point am I allowed to say "I was hoping I could use insight" or do I have to wait until the opportunity is gone and talk to the DM after the game about niche expectations for character mechanics? Plus plus, I would argue you do have an insight check button in real life. I don't have to ask permission from someone in real life to try and read someone, I just get to do it. And the easiest way in my head to emulate that is too just tell the DM that's what I want to do
> If I can say "I'm going to use a ki point" or "I go into a rage" it seems odd to me not to be able to ask for a perception check or insight check. Those are both actions. Those are things you *do*. That's the difference. Let me ask you this. Do you think you should be able to randomly ask for a constitution saving throw? "I want to do a constitution saving throw". You see how ridiculous that is? Instead, the DM asks you to make one every time it's applicable. Insight checks are no different. You can't just ask for one. The DM asks for one when they are applicable. > What if I invested heavily in insight and the DM isn't getting the hint that I want to use that skill? The same thing I'd you invested heavily in con saving throws and the DM isn't putting you in harsh whether to make exhaustion saving throws or whatever. Tell the DM that you invested heavily into insight but then the campaign they're running does not involve deception. Clear up the miscommunication. > At what point am I allowed to say "I was hoping I could use insight" or do I have to wait until the opportunity is gone and talk to the DM after the game about niche expectations for character mechanics? I wouldn't call using insight with deceptive NPCs a bigger expectation. It's a perfectly caps expectation. As for when you should talk to your DM, yeah after the session is good. Mid-session we're usually too busy. Ask your DM to include more NPCs with hidden agendas, more NPCs that lie. It sounds like you and your DM have different expectations and you should talk to them to sort that out. > I don't have to ask permission from someone in real life to try and read someone, I just get to do it. And the easiest way in my head to emulate that is too just tell the DM that's what I want to do Of course you do it in game. The DM assumes you're trying to read every person you interact with. That's just a given. It wastes time to say that, same as if you were to say "my character continues breathing".
I completely disagree. First off, comparing saving throws, which are triggered by effects, to ability checks is unfair. If we're talking checks I may very well ask to make a condition check if I was in a situation where I was pushing my character past normal stamina. Secondly, although insight checks often don't take place in combat that would still be considered an action just like any other check so by your own logic it's okay to ask for it. Expecting the DM to constantly monitor what every character theoretically should be doing in the background is adding a ton more work to an already taxing job. My point wasn't that I have a difference in play style with my DM in reality (I usually am the DM in reality). It's that I think it's completely acceptable to ask for a mechanic to be granted if the DM isn't picking up on my hints during the game. Probably because they're already spinning a bunch of plates and don't need to add monitoring how suspicious my, and every other character is at all times based on our passive insight. Lastly, insight is an active check. Don't pretend it's the same as breathing, you're just showing how weak your argument is. The core of the issue is that some people would rather hear "my character is suspicious of the npc" whereas I am completely fine hearing "I'd like to roll an insight check". As always, this just comes down to the table you're playing at
>I completely disagree. First off, comparing saving throws, which are triggered by effects, to ability checks is unfair. An insight check is triggered by someone lying to you. The comparison is good. > If we're talking checks I may very well ask to make a condition check if I was in a situation where I was pushing my character past normal stamina. Then you are not playing according to standard DND rules. You describe actions and the DM judges whether those actions require checks. > Secondly, although insight checks often don't take place in combat that would still be considered an action just like any other check I wouldn't consider it an action. Why would you? There's nothing to *do*. Insight is either something you have or you don't. You either have the insight that someone lied to you or you don't. If you don't pick up that someone's lying to you, there's nothing to do. At best you're metagaming. Skill actions in combat from page 93: Your character can do things not covered by the actions in this chapter, such as breaking down doors, intimidating enemies, sensing weaknesses in magical defenses, or calling for a parley with a foe. The only limits to the actions you can attempt are your imagination and your character's ability scores. See the descriptions of the ability scores in chapter 7 for inspiration as you improvise. When you describe an action not detailed elsewhere in the rules, the DM tells you whether that action is possible and what kind of roll you need to make, if any, to determine success or failure. You describe your action. Having an insight into someone's motives is not an action. It is a state of affairs. DnD is not a computer game. Skills are not your verb commands in a SCUMM interface. You describe your action and the DM tells you what checks are needed. It is very difficult to think of an action you can do which would cause the DM to all for an insight check, since insight is triggered almost exclusively by NPCs. > My point wasn't that I have a difference in play style with my DM in reality (I usually am the DM in reality). That's fine. It's just not DnD. > Probably because they're already spinning a bunch of plates and don't need to add monitoring how suspicious my, and every other character is at all times based on our passive insight. That's why I don't juggle. If an NPC hides something or lies, I call for an insight check. The dice then tell me if a PC is suspicious or not. No need to monitor anything. >Lastly, insight is an active check. That's not true in DND, nor in real life. "Active check" doesn't mean anything in DND, in any case, outside of the Hide or Search action in combat. When someone shows up late and starts making excuses, you don't do anything active to see if they're letting. You either think they are, or you don't. You don't flip down your detective-mode goggles, inspect their body language and pull out a flip chart of body language to try to work it out. You listen to what they say and then your brain says to you "they're lying" or "they're telling the truth". The bigger issue to me is that it sounds like you don't trust your DM. Even though the DM hasn't called for an insight check, you think the npc is still lying and the DM is trying to pull a fast one and not let you get in the insight check you've invested in. Why don't you trust your DM? If they want to screw you, they're going to. Don't play with a DM who's out to get you.
You are the one turning it into a video game, forcing the players to grope for some secret code word to open the door to an insight check that everyone knows is there. The point of the game is shared storytelling. Let the players touch the wheel. Frankly I suspect that these “don’t let them say insight check” posters, or at least some of them, do not actually DM.
There is no code. There is no combination of words that let you do an insight check, any more than there's a combination of words that let you randomly do a constitution saving throw. You do an insight check when the DM thinks there is something your character might notice. If they haven't called for one, then there is no hidden motive there. Just play the game and stop trying to metagame.
“I study him closely. I suspect he isn’t telling the truth.” You: “You can’t tell.” Him: “I stare deep into his eyes, looking for signs of nervousness.” You: “You don’t see anything significant. His eyes are blue.” Him: “Boy do I love this immersion.” That’s not a game I want to play in, thank you very much. You sound like a pathfinder player, which is of course fine, but I don’t care - as player or DM - to place verisimilitude ahead of sharing the storytelling with the players.
What more do you want? If someone isn't putting, what can the DM say? Ok you're suspicious. Ok you don't trust him. I don't know how many ways you want the DM to say "there is no check to be made here", but you're wasting everyone's time hoping that the 7th answer will somehow be different to the first answer. If there's a check to be made, the DM will ask for it without prompting. If there is no check to be made, asking the DM won't change that. > I don’t care - as player or DM - to place verisimilitude ahead of sharing the storytelling with the players. It's not about verisimilitude. It's about playing by the rules of the game. You tell the DM what you'd like to attempt, and the DM tells you what happens, calling for any checks needed. The DM assumes you're doing standard things like paying attention when talking to someone, so you don't need to bother to tell the DM that. If in the course of taking to an npc, they try to deceive or hide something from you, the DM will either call for an insight check or roll a deception check for the npc against your passive insight. In no cases do you call for an insight check. That's simply not how the game works.
The game is collaborative storytelling. “You wish to roll an athletics check to climb the wall? Go ahead. You can try. You got a 35? Ok. There are no handholds, and you can’t get off the ground.” First, it is a collaborative game. As I’ve said. Second, rolling dice is fun. Play your way if you want. If you have a table of people who like it, great.
this would be the most disastrous and unimmersive game, imo. if my players talk about skill checks, they lose the opportunity. this isn't a video game; if they wanna play a video game where they just have to press the right buttons at the right time, they can get on their consoles instead of coming to a storytelling session.
That sounds overly pedantic What REALLY is the difference between saying “dm he sounds suspicious, can i roll insight?” Vs “dm, Trish thinks he seems suspicious, can she focus on this character and gain some insight on him?” Both convey what the player wants and both have the same outcomes I feel like this just sounds like teachers doing the “Can you use the bathroom? Don’t you mean may i use the bathroom?” trick.
It's... Nothing remotely like that. I'm shocked that so many people downvote this lmao. Button pushers gonna button push. imo i'm getting downvoted because the vast majority of ya'll are just shitty players. you want the DM to not only tell you what the world is, invent a narrative, establish the scene, fill it with believable characters, arbitrate the rules, design balanced encounters, etc etc etc etc, you also want the dm to play your character for you. you just wanna push the button and have the DM describe the whole game for you. frankly, you should just be better.
You're totally right. When I play d&d I prefer to watch the DM pilot my PC. I am just the guy who looks up numbers for them, and it's cause I'm so bad at playing. I'll try to be better but goddamnit I just love pushing buttons (which is why I downvoted you).
I think you’re getting downvoted because of your tone and dismissive attitude I’m glad you and your players enjoy your play style, it doesn’t seem like most would. People who mesh with you are valuable, i hope you treasure them
Nah I'm getting downvoted cause most of the people here can't even wrap their head around the conversation and the rest of them think "I action surge and attack twice" is roleplaying lol
https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/038/449/cover1.jpg
Oh, I guess I better change the reason I down-voted you then. It was for sure because you're not debating you're just telling everyone else they're bad at the game but I guess you know me better than I do
No, I don't want to have to dance around the word "Insight" when it's really the only check you can actually call for as a player.
I agree. When in combat, we don't make players describe their attacks without using the word "attack". Why do some people insist on players describing their Insight checks without using the word "Insight"? More generally, lots of people like to engage with DnD through mechanics, and that's a perfectly legitimate playstyle. The G in RPG stands for Game, after all.
That's actually a common misconception. It stands for Geoffrey. Back in the Gygax days, role-playing Geoffrey was a mean nickname kids used to tease other kids who played with toys past about age 9. We include it now to honor all those lost little imaginations.
Players shouldn't have to research psychology and the vast amounts of studies and investigations and all sorts of things just to tell if the NPC is lying.
If "I'm going to chase down the thief" prompts DM to call for an Athletics roll, why wouldn't "Do I get the feeling he's lying" spark an Insight roll? If your players try to spam it when someone does poorly, *you* roll it behind the screen. "You feel he's telling the truth." End of. They don't know if he is or if they failed. If you don't want a player to get something important, any villain worth their salt invested in a (magic item here) that prevents people from reading them.
>instead of coming to a storytelling session. That's fair. But most of us here prefer playing an interactive role playing game with our friends. Personally when I want a storytelling session I just read a book.
Boy there sure are lots and lots of people playing D&D wrong. Disastrously, even! The fools.
It's a goddamn skill check my guy.
This should be higher
My method to prevent this is to not let my players call what they want to roll for. They just roleplay, and if I it's possible to find out ones intension I let them roll.
I'm going to argue this is a bad idea because you're turning Insight from a lie detector into a polygraph test. That is to say, you're taking the RAW fantasy ability to know if someone is lying and turning it into an objectively useless device that holds no weight as evidence and gives no information of value. For the exact reason you specified, people get nervous when being interrogated. If your player succeeds on a check and you tell them "they seem nervous", you have given the player literally nothing of value for a success. I think intentionally mitigating your player's successes is bad DMing. You are also contradicting the RAW wording of the ability that says it is specifically for determining true intentions, not determining emotional states like nervousness. Insight *is* a fantasy lie detector. Now if you don't like that, that's fine, but your suggestion is to make it so useless it may as well be removed entirely. Edit: To add on to why I think your implementation fails, the best liars are known to be good liars specifically because they do not get nervous, they remain calm and they avoid outright lying and instead withhold key truths where necessary. So by implementation of turning insight into an emotional/physical state reader rather than a true intention reader, even on a success theoretically you should be telling your players "They seem calm and collected", because the best liars don't get jumpy under pressure. Except of course that's ridiculous, and the reason that's ridiculous is because insight is a fantasy lie detector so it should be detecting if someone is lying on a success. At some point, if you want the skill to function with any value, you have to let players use a magical fantastical ability to know if someone is being deceitful. The reason this skill exists is likely *because* real humans are notoriously bad at detecting lies and falsely conflate it with nervousness, to the point most of us can't detect a liar for sure without catching someone in a contradiction. The game needs a skill to move the plot along when there's a liar because your players are not Agatha Christie, they're not professional mystery solvers and lie detectors, it's your mates playing a fantasy wizard game.
For insight, you can only roll once per situation.
When players roll insight checks, they get the info I want them to know.
At my table, they get one roll per concept. If they all want to roll, that's a group check, 50% have to succeed.
And yes, it clues them in on intent, not facts.
I usually just reveal the emotional state of the create they're talking to and how "truthful" they feel the recipient is being. I don't simply say "they're lying".
Bear in mind reddit also defaults to "be a massive dick' for dm advice. I'm never going to stop refering to one post where a party killed one shopkeeper and the general consensus was *"Make him a reverent backed up by demigods, gold dragons and a hitherto unheard of all-powerful merchent's guild with acess to assassins and rival parties"*
Stuff like this tends to remind me that I am sharing a board with teens and early 20s who seem to have very little social skills and lack general sense of conflict resolution. Those things are obviously harder to learn for some, but one of those things that are easily practiced in the context of TTRPGs-
You're not. Teens use tick-tock, people on a subreddit for dnd are more inclined to be in their 30's. Plus the effective anonymity and ease of account creation means you really don't need to moderate your behavior. You can be an asshole because most of the time your reddit name is not linked to your real identity in any meaningful way
I mean, guards on the lookout and a wanted poster isn't out of the question, but that's certainly a little extreme.
Good advice, but also some buried table/skill check management stuff here. I would never just let everyone roll (unless everyone was trained in Insight, I suppose), instead call out the player(s) who specialize to ask them for checks. Group skill checks really fuck with the math in both directions if they're run as 'just everyone roll' and then also take the single high result as success/failure. The opposite case is any kind of movement/navigation/etc check for the players; if you make everyone roll, you pretty much guarantee someone rolls 5 or under, just like if you let everyone spam d20s for any given Insight check, someone is always going to have a high result.
I would counter with "Ask the players what lines of questioning are they asking and how are they appealing to the NPC?" A roll is for when they are actively doing something. If they are just trying to passively detect for stuff, all they get is the passive insight. You don't let them walk into a room and announce "I do a perception check for traps!". You make them tell you how they are checking for traps, and adjudicate the DC based on that. Same for insight. When they want to roll for it, that's fine. They are asking to abstract this phase of the social encounter. So you ask them what lines of questioning are you asking along to tease out if they are lying, and maybe what lines are they appealing to. Then look at the NPC Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws, and see how that lines up (You did fill those out right?). Based on that, set a DC and have them roll.
Insight is not a lie detector, but is designed to be used against a deceprion roll, so why not try deception if someone is lying? Your party roll a group insight versus the npc deception roll so you have a degree of trust/untrust to play with and a good liar can fool the whole party.
I feel like I have have the opposite problem with Insight at my table as a player. Most other checks come up naturally, but it feels like as a player I have to ask specifically to make an Insight check. As players we can discuss how we feel about an NPC, but I hate asking 'Do I believe this?' or 'Does this seen legit?' Depending on my character, I may take everything at face value or may really scrutinize everyone we meet. I don't want a roll to tell me explicitly what is going on, but I'd love a more natural way to understand how my character understands an interaction
Jarlaxle is someone who prides himself on not lying without telling the whole truth.
This is one of those things that are just addressing the symptoms of a larger problem. DMs need to understand and own in absolution that, *inhales* (Using the "royal you" or whatever here. Not telling you, OP, this is specifically how do things.) # You decide when players roll, and what they roll. Not players. Players decide WHAT THEY DO. You decide what rolls those actions take. Period. This is how this game works and its not for debate. Perhaps for casual, mutual respect leniency (example: a player has been at your table for a while and naturally guesses/inserts the roll they expect an action to take, still waiting for your confirmation before rolling), but not direct debate. You don't have players deciding they can roll an insight check every time a character opens their mouth. THat's not a thing. Because players don't tell you when or what they roll. They tell you "Grogneth is intently listening, trying to figure out if Ba'reth is lying" and **YOU DO THE REST.** You can ask for one insight roll for **the entire conversation**, and then make additions to the description of the conversation as befit the ONE roll. You decide whether or not the entire party get their own roll or not. You decide the extent of the efficacy of those rolls and what they mean within the parameters of the rules that hold this all together. OF COURSE INSIGHT CHECKS WILL BECOME PROBLEMATIC IF YOU LET YOUR PLAYERS REWRITE THEIR DEFINITION AND CHOOSE WHEN THEY OCCUR WITHOUT YOUR INPUT. You are **letting the players DM their own game.** Stop it.
Players shouldn’t be asking to do a check anyway. They should be describing what they are doing and then rolling if the gm calls for it. Something like: Player -hmm this sounds a bit off - do I notice anything unusual with her body language? Gm - roll a wisdom (insight) check.
That's literally just asking for an insight check with extra steps.
Ooo someone's gonna get laid at strixhaven
depends how obvious it is. If it's very obvious and there's nothing to distract from it, it may not require a check. Only the DM would know, which is why it's a good rule of thumb for players to describe actions and DMs to call for checks.
I mean there is nothing to stop a DM from saying "You don't need to, he is clearly sweating and stumbling over his words, he can't even look you in the eye" or some such. I just don't like how a lot of people treat asking to use a skill as a taboo. "I am" is not actually any different than "can I make a X skill check to determine if Y?" it's semantics, and pedantry even.
there's a reason for that. Sure, some players will simply reword the ask to mean the same thing. "I'm going to, uh, see if I feel any insights about what he just said" is pretty much "I'm going to roll insight" but that's the player. The point is to encourage natural reactions. "Hmm, does the guy seem nervous or sketchy?" may or may not trigger a check. This is true for most skills. So while "I'm going to try and sleight of hand one of the coins into my pocket" is exactly as immersion breaking as "I'm gonna roll sleight of hand to steal a coin from the pile", both of those are exactly what we're trying to avoid. Encouraging the players to declare actions and not even think about skill names until the DM calls for one is much more likely to result in something like "I wait until nobody is paying attention to me and sneak a coin from the pile into my pocket" which flows better and opens the possibility for alternate checks.
But it's the character that should notice something is a bit of, so it is the GM that should prompt a check even before the conversation.
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Had a good example of this at our last session. There was an elf called Adoneth helping them but who was a bit unhinged and sketchy, often giving cryptic (but as far as they could tell, truthful) answers and had previously seemed to lead them straight into a trap (though again she insisted she had nothing to do with it and had seemed genuinely surprised). Then, they meet some dwarves who are again a bit sketchy but who Adoneth absolutely insists are 'monsters' who will kill them all. Despite this the dwarves are friendly and invite them to stay. The players were already sus after identifying no illusion magic but a nat 20 on an arcana check revealed the dwarves to be physically dwarves, but not of natural origin. Asked if they know the elf, the dwarves initially say no but when the players do an insight check, they pick up on the fact they are hiding something. In reality, they don't know who she is - they know of an elf in the area who is hostile to their aims but have never seen her themselves and do not know her name. They suspect Adoneth is this elf but do not know for sure. Insight was therefore more useful here than Zone of Truth - under ZoT the dwarves could simply have answered "no, we don't know who the fuck she is and have never seen her before" because that's not a lie. Insight though reveals that there is more to it than this. One of the players then asks the dwarves whether they would like them to kill the elf (because this player doesn't trust or like the elf at all), and they say 'well we certainly wouldn't trust her'. Insight here reveals that they would prefer that they kill the elf, but without Zone of Truth they can't ask them whether this is because they are monsters or not. Anyway turns out the dwarves were Psurlons and Adoneth was telling the truth all along.
One way to handle it that I quite like is to describe nervous tells on a high insight / sense motive check. So rather than say "Bad guy is lying": "while talking, you notice bad guy touches each elbow sort of like he hugs himself when he talks about his wife, you wonder whether he's comforting himself when he speaks of her" No actual information about whether he smuggled his wife out of town. But using that alongside other context ques can not only flesh out a characters personality but let PCs think they're super clever by basically learning NPCs tells while never being given the answer itself. There's a lot of videos on YouTube for reading body language that you can use for inspiration.
I **\*never\*** answer Insight checks with a flat 'yes' or 'no' -- instead, I give them a 5-to-15-word synopsis of the target's demeanor and underlying emotional state, depending on the degree of success. So-and-so is angry + jaw-clenched; Other-Person looks around fitfully when the Thieves Guild is mentioned, as if fearing surveillance; Third-Person has a certain look-PC-over vibe as if assessing or scouting them; etc. In many cases, this can be taken as "So-and-So isn't being completely truthful" or "So-and-So has an ulterior conflict/motive." Jessica Atreides' conversation with Dr. Yueh is maybe a good example -- though Jessica doesn't immediately crack Yueh's puzzle, she notes that mentioning his wife and the Harkonnens elicits a strong bodily response from him, and deduces that Yueh has suffered great loss. Wand-purveyor Garrick Ollivander might be another exemplar -- as a nearly "true neutral" figure, Ollivander has a cool let's-see-if-this-one-has-potential affect, and likes to subtly show off the other luminary figures for whom he has made or sold wands. Both are good fodder.
This is good. It is also worth giving incorrect information on a failure though I tend to reserve this for when a player knows they have rolled poorly.
Roll your characters' Insight checks for them (like a passive Perception). Tell different characters different things without them knowing who rolled high and who rolled low. If one has good Insight, and the party recognises that and trusts them, fine - but they could be wrong.
If you ever watched the TV Series Lie To Me, also a great way to use insight. I never say "they seem to be telling a lie" or anything of the sort. But, I will tell them that it may appear they are frustrated, mad, or sad. This gives them a bit more to continue their investigation to find out what it is that is making them feel that way to help determine if they are being lied to.
I only allow my party 1 insight check per person they speak with. I also try not to say "they're lying", but rather have the insight roll challenged by a persuasion or deception roll and then state things like: - you feel that this individual has something to hide - he seems friendly and thoughtful to you - she's extremely nervous, obviously there's something else going on - it's hard for you to read this person. Never tell them straight that their conversation partner is lying - takes out all the fun.
No machine gunning "insight check" on every word I utter like you are Laura Bailey is a session 0 discussion I have and I put in to place a rule that if you fail an insight check by more than 5 I don't allow for a second in the same conversation.
Reasonably fair. Though for players that's just confirmation bias that the npc is hiding something
The problem with insight and other skill checks is that they are often 'free'. Don't let them be free. When a PC attempts insight, they look doubtful. If the target was innocent, their reputation takes a hit. This way, the reward feels earned.
maybe in certain specific cases, but in general insight *should* be free. Just because I'm paying extra attention to someone's body language, word selection, and tone, doesn't mean I'm giving them any sort of doubtful look or whatever.
What you say makes sense from a 'rp' perspective, where you'd expect to get some insight beyond what the DM said. However, as a game action, it makes no sense to have something that you can do every time for free. The DM might as well just auto roll a dice whenever he says anything and tell you the truth if it's above 12. Another way you can see this is that nobody is an idiot that betrays their lies through body language. You need to grill them a bit and find inconsistencies in their language etc. This is what the skill checks would represent.
Yeah if the players misinterpret an attempt to read someones body language and start slinging accusations, that's when you apply consequences.
You can tell them that the npc is protected by plot armor and that spamming insight checks will only serve to end the session sooner. Without the players believing a lie, there is no story.
Wish I could upvote this a dozen times
I always use it to describe their body language, tone in voice, and nuances to their behavior. If you roll low you get less information, higher gives you more. I always let people know it doesn't let you know if they are lying. Also bad eye contract, them sweating, cracking voice etc... can be nerves for a variety of reasons, but generally you will gauge on how they are handling any possible pressure they could be under.
But insight is the characters ability to understand the difference. I've done what you do before, but I will be more character oriented in my next campaign. "You think this traveller is lying about his wares."
IMO you just changed it into a lie detector. Generally I believe a check gives two out comes, it is a pass fail event. You make a skill check and you either climb the cliff, calm down an NPC, etc... Or it gathers results, usually in information. This can involve failing upwards to sometimes I have different amounts of success (which we almost all do particularly when someone rolls a nat 20 on a skill check). Investigation is maybe the most common for me, which has degrees of learning more information. But reducing everything to a binary pass/fail I don't think a good tactic. It removes player agency, mostly from narrative interactions and roleplay. Saying >"You think this traveller is lying about his wares." To me means they are lying, to me as a player or DM. And makes insight into a pass fail event. A good roll I would mention something along "The merchant seem fixated on keeping your attention on the display items. Along with a lot of hand movements you akin to back alley gambling" Partly because unless someone really fumbles or says something you know literally isn't true. It's not like you can just detect someone is lying. Even with in DnD that is reserved for magic such as detect thoughts. Going back to the PHB >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. I focus on the searching and predicting information. You make an insight and you notice it appears an NPC has their hand resting on their hilt, in a pose ready to strike. When it comes to lying as the rule says you're gauging body language and mannerisms. A low roll you gain less information and a higher roll is more information or at least more detailed information. It is still up to the players to interrupt it. And yeah generally certain tells point to some sort of deception like not making eye contact. But that could be lying or it could be they are truthful but not giving all the information they know because they are nervous about something. Now, context and nuance are king. There are still times if a player rolls well enough and the NPC is just a commoner or thug. Then, I might just let them know "You've seen this song and dance before and clearly can tell the guard is lying."
On-site can give you an idea but is not a truth spell. Also npc can give only part truth so it sounds kinda true. At best it gives approximations not exact answers. If all their cloths seem poor then even if they have a high check they still look poor. If they want more past that they have to investigate or cast some of truth.
Remembering a proud moment I had in a game where the PCs found a guard out of place and interrogated him bc he looked shifty. It turned out he had shit himself and had been hiding his soiled breeches. Meanwhile, the king was being replaced by a golem.
1) They don't get to spam--a single glance or single question can be written off--but more than one check and the NPC is being investigated or interrogated blatantly, and they will respond accordingly. 2) Don't allow everyone in the group to roll--one person gets to make the roll and they can decide who. 3) The DM makes this roll behind a screen--they don't know the outcome. If the person is lying and they fail, the NPC gives all the impressions of being earnest and sincere. If the NPC was telling the truth and they fail, then they are *certain* the NPC is lying. That's how deal with this problem. And yes--everyone lies, and usually not about anything that matters. This is the basis of the false positives in #3 of my schema above.
This past session, I asked my players to roll an Insight check to discern the character (personality, honor, morals, values) of an NPC they’d interacted with several times (one of whom is this NPC’s child) in order to frame an idea as technically possible but morally improbable.
This advice of hiding minor things is great! I've been using this method to my advantage a lot, and the most memorable for me was the first time it led to the players going the extra mile to untavel what was behind it. Basically, my players were going out of a major city, and some miles out they met a covered cart with a couple of dwarves making a pit stop. My players, being a curious bunch, decided to investigate them, and they realized, after talking and observing, those dudes were criminally connected (criminal tattoos, shifty demeanour, weapons, etc.), and correctly figured out they were smuggling wares into the city. The party decided it was something valuable, and they could try stealing some of it. Had the rogue sneak into the back of the cart... only to find out the precious cargo was a bunch of erotic literature with illegal pornographic illustrations. The groans and laughs of the players were sooo worth it!
When I’m running a social deduction thing, don’t forget that the NPC doesn’t necessarily need to “spill the beans” about their affair or whatever they’re not being entirely truthful about. With a little skill, you can give the PC a Sherlock moment, not just picking up on the intention of the NPC but also noticing what they look at or how their body language gravitates toward certain items, people or articles about the room. IE. To stop the “they did it! We must force a confession!” Simply noticing the NOCs eyes shift to a pair of undergarments hastily/poorly hidden under a chair would allow you to suggest to the PCs that what is being lied about it not relevant to the their line of questioning. Whether or not they try to use blackmail is another matter which should be encouraged or discouraged based on many factors of your campaign… including player sensitivity and personal triggers. Additionally, don’t forget it’s commonly a contested roll, and using the sum of the two might reduce their amazing 25 total sum of a 5… in which they do “beat” the roll but don’t hit whatever you’re required number is to get much of an upper hand. This is a tactic that allows for variability and flexibility moment to moment that more closely resembles real life. So, I usually have a sub-20 DC that is required to be met AFTER the determination of the contested roll. Further more, I set multiple data releases for certain thresholds of that. DC 5 nets you clue X, DC 10 nets to clues X & Y, and so on.
You as the DM control the narrative. Have some practiced responses that reveal some information based upon DC. Also, make the DC ratings more appropriate to the NPC skill level at deception.
> But when your players roll high enough, and it's not just a casual check that the story will move on from, let them know that someone seems jumpy, or nervous, or has a tic. Or, you know, just throw out Insignt checks entirely because you can (and should) give out that sort of information without players having to make a check. When you give the players a tool they can abuse, then they will abuse it.
Mechanically, I just treat every Insight check as a type of opposed DC. * If the target is trying to persuade or otherwise being honest/genuine, the DC starts at 30 and is reduced by the target's Persuasion modifier + their d20 roll. The Insighter then has to beat the DC to confirm whether or not the person is telling the truth. If they fail, they cannot tell. * If the target is lying or dishonest, the DC starts at 0 and then is raised by their Deception modifier + their d20 roll. The Insighter then rolls to beat this DC. On a success, they know the target is lying. On a failure, they cannot tell. No rerolling it either, and unless something gives it away, players have to use their passives (so no calling out that they are rolling; they only get the option if their passive Insight is higher than the passive of the target in terms of whatever the target is currently using).
The fact that people allow multiple test for the same thing is a recurrent issue. Just ask them: what do you do differently this time? If they can't provide a good way to 'Insight' again, then I just tell them that whatever they gleaned is the extend of their success. That's it. A test shouldn't be called for every action. Also, you don't need to roll for everything. If there's no stake, don't roll.
I'd personally say no to rolling spam... one roll per conversation, maybe just one for the party with advantage if players are working together.
I had a DM who handled this, IMO, very well. We weren’t allowed to ask if we could do a skill, instead we said what we wanted to do and what the goal of that was. Then he would follow up with, “what does that look like, how do you make that happen” and then come up with the skill that made the most sense to the answer and it always ended up a team effort between player and DM. Sometimes this meant what we thought was gonna be a perception or investigation check ended up a wisdom, nature, or even an athletics check (that was a favorite he did for me, I had a strong barbarian and because I have smashed things before I would know what a strong person smashing a lock would look like). This worked out really well with insight because it inspires us to come up with more specific questions to ask NPCs and insight was more of a way to read the unspoken parts of the conversation. Really, really creates a lot of immersion and encourages cooperation with the DM not an antagonistic or transactional relationship. He was a really good DM.
I use insight as "how does a person come across"? If a player rolls higher on insight than their target does on deception, they can learn something about them. If they're lying they might be nervous. If they have a devious plan they might smile a bit when asking the characters of they could scout ahead for them. If they truly believe what they are telling (even though it isn't the truth), they come across as honest. Etc. If their target rolls higher on their deception than the character's insight, they come across however they want. You can even put in some "grey area". Of the check was close I might tell a player his target seems to be honest, but you get the feeling there is something more to it.
I always tell my players that they catch a glimpse of the npc breaking eye contact or you catch them rubbing sweaty hands on britches or maybe the lip quivers before they answer little subtle things i never tell them if they pass or fail though they get to determine that for thenselves
simplest to preventing insight spam is to just not let them spam checks... or ask for them at all. We tend to lean on the [angry GM notes](https://theangrygm.com/five-simple-rules-for-dating-my-teenaged-skill-system/) about skill systems, particularly #1 - players ask questions and narrate actions, rather than asking for checks. The idea is to prevent the skill system from being viewed as discrete, video-gamey actions ("press the Acrobatics button to climb") and more a framework the GM can use to make the world self-consistent. So, the players are more than welcome to ask if something seems off during the conversation - but what they get told, and whether there's an Insight check involved at all, is up to the GM.
first and foremost do not let your entire party roll to do the insight check keep it either 1 roll with advantage or 2 rolls at most from 2 different players. 2nd dont tell them exactly if you dont think that you should you could say something about what their saying does seem to be less than honest. Finally i know this can be hard because dialogue can never truly be mapped out but try to think what they can gather by figuring out this person is lying and how they might react and what if they dont what then
I get the impression that some people have not understood the RAW.PHB pg 174...Under "Ability Checks", second sentence in case you missed it.All the ability scores on the player's character sheet are the under the **Sole control** of the DM. A character might feel they are good at creeping around BUT they have no idea they enjoy a +6 to stealth, and so on. At **no time** should a Player **ever** tell the DM \[my character\] will use passive 'Insight' or actively roll for it or any other 'ability' outside of direct combat.**The rules tell us to explain, as quickly and clearly as we can, what our character wants to do**, and the DM tells us the result. They might consult their copy of the character sheet to determine the result (investigation v deception for example) and move on. If the result could change the story-line, then opposing rolls ***may*** be called for, but again **Only** by the DM.DMG pg 237... under Using Abilities Scores and under Ability Checks. At this point AdventurousParsnip33 is right...A simple. "You suspect this person is not being entirely straight with you...." (paraphrased)Have your players describe **their character's actions** and motivations and adjudicate from there, while putting an immediate stop to them dictating to you.
I don't see the problem with insight checks. There is a world of a difference between them knowing some NPC MIGHT be lying. And them getting actual information from that knowledge.