DM Question: Zone Of Truth

[JNAProductions]

Your players kill a man. Let's call him Phillip. Later, one of them is in a Zone of Truth, and have failed their save. They are asked "Did you kill Phillip? Answer yes or no-anything else is an attempt at deception."

Would you allow them to say any of the following? (In situation one, they did hire someone to do the dirty deed.)

No, I didn't (hired someone to kill him)
No, I didn't (person was not a man)
No, I didn't (I punished him)
No, I didn't (I only meant to scare him, he tripped and broke his neck)
No, I didn't (we did, as a group)

[Astofel]

1. That works. You didn't kill him, someone else did. The fact that you hired that someone else is irrelevant.
2. Doesn't work, assuming Phillip is a man. If Phillip is not a man, it works. Race isn't an issue here, a male elf or dwarf is still a man.
3. Nope. Whether it was punishment or not, you ended his life, killing him.
4. Works. If actually tripped and broke his neck, you didn't kill him.
5. Depends. If the accused got the finishing blow it doesn't work. If they didn't, it works using the same justification as number 1.

A better question to ask would be: "Did you deliberately work, directly or otherwise, to bring about the death of the person you are suspected of killing?"

[JNAProductions]

1. That works. You didn't kill him, someone else did. The fact that you hired that someone else is irrelevant.
2. Doesn't work, assuming Phillip is a man. If Phillip is not a man, it works. Race isn't an issue here, a male elf or dwarf is still a man.
3. Nope. Whether it was punishment or not, you ended his life, killing him.
4. Works. If actually tripped and broke his neck, you didn't kill him.
5. Depends. If the accused got the finishing blow it doesn't work. If they didn't, it works using the same justification as number 1.

A better question to ask would be: "Did you deliberately work, directly or otherwise, to bring about the death of the person you are suspected of killing?"

Good point. Though with the same "Yes or no" clause.

[PhantomSoul]

2. Doesn't work, assuming Phillip is a man. If Phillip is not a man, it works. Race isn't an issue here, a male elf or dwarf is still a man.
4. Works. If actually tripped and broke his neck, you didn't kill him.

Agreed overall, but these ones would be really situational; for (2) I'd say it strictly doesn't work, since the question didn't require Phillip to be a man. If the answering character doesn't believe you can kill a non-man, then sure, but that seems quite a stretch and I'd say it has to clearly be in the lore/background. For (4), it would have to be fairly indirect; if he tripped as part of you pushing him, that would be too far to me -- but him running away from you, tripping, falling and breaking his neck would be acceptable.

[Astofel]

Agreed overall, but these ones would be really situational; for (2) I'd say it strictly doesn't work, since the question didn't require Phillip to be a man. If the answering character doesn't believe you can kill a non-man, then sure, but that seems quite a stretch and I'd say it has to clearly be in the lore/background. For (4), it would have to be fairly indirect; if he tripped as part of you pushing him, that would be too far to me -- but him running away from you, tripping, falling and breaking his neck would be acceptable.



You're right about 2, I didn't read the question properly and assumed it was worded the same way as in the Glibness thread. As for 4, I agree that it'd have to be a truly accidental death on the part of the deceased, otherwise it opens up all kinds of loopholes (I didn't kill him, my knife did).

[Segev]

You can say you didn't kill him if you did not take the action that ended his life.

Did you push him and he fell and broke his neck? You killed him. Did you startle him, and his mad leap caused him to fall and break his neck? You can technically claim you didn't kill him; you had no control over whether he would react in a way that led to his death.

A better question would be: Were you complicit in murdering Phillip? (Note: a patsy who isn't aware of nor trying to murder Phillip is not complicit, even if he technically was tricked into doing something that led to the murder. e.g. a nurse administering what she thinks is medicine who is really administering the poison that the murderer swapped in for the medicine is not complicit.)

Loading it with "murder" also helps preclude a forced "yes" when the questioned only killed Phillip because Phillip was about to kill him. Self-defense makes it not murder.

[Idkwhatmyscreen]

No*


*(To say that I merely murdered him is an insult to both my skills and talent.)

[RSP]

Not sure if it's meant this way, but ZoT has no way to force compliance. I mention this only because of the added "yes or no - anything else is considered deception" clause.

Nothing in ZoT has anything to do with this statement: those inside can fully answer however they want, including answers that have nothing to do with saying simply "yes" or "no."

Again, not sure how this was meant but just wanted to make sure someone doesn't think you can add commands into the ZoT spell.

[Cybren]

Given my personality (the player, not the character), i'd probably have my character get into a pedantic argument with the asker over whether the "any other answer is an attempt at deception" is true, relevant, or an effective statement, and I know for a fact that I could talk circles around most of the people that I've DM'd for when going off on those kinds of pedantic tangents, so that's essentially inviting me to waste everyone's time until the spell was up


Not sure if it's meant this way, but ZoT has no way to force compliance. I mention this only because of the added "yes or no - anything else is considered deception" clause.

Nothing in ZoT has anything to do with this statement: those inside can fully answer however they want, including answers that have nothing to do with saying simply "yes" or "no."

Again, not sure how this was meant but just wanted to make sure someone doesn't think you can add commands into the ZoT spell.

it's just a prompt to let the person you're questioning know they have to give a direct answer, but as you say, the spell doesn't force compliance, and even innocent people aren't 100% compliant. For example, they could say "I will not answer any questions under this foul magic, for everyone is guilty of something, and for all I know this nonsense about murder is an attempt to lure me into confessing my own moral failures that non here are fit to judge". The last time a huge zone of truth thread happened, everyone arguing that zone of truth was infallible were predicating it on "if you don't answer with a direct yes/no you will be killed", but, if someone is at your mercy to such an extent, the spell isn't really doing much.

[JNAProductions]

Follow up question-I'm not the detective sort, so what would the best questions to ask be?

And assume, for this situation, that you have some way of reasonably forcing compliance. Say, the threat of execution.

[Cybren]

Follow up question-I'm not the detective sort, so what would the best questions to ask be?

And assume, for this situation, that you have some way of reasonably forcing compliance. Say, the threat of execution.

Just, yknow, do what people do in real interrogations. Ask a lot of questions, repeatedly, to try to establish a consistent pattern in their behavior while catching them in a slip-up. "is your name ____" "were you at ___" "when ___ was killed where were you" "Did you meet any of the people involved in the murder of ____" etc.

Of course, threatening execution gives them an out to refuse any compliance, depending on their motivations, resources, etc. The fantasy equivalent of a mob hitman might remain silent, knowing that a confession would get him killed by far worse people in far worse conditions. Or maybe they figure it'll be easier for their friends to raise them after the killing than it would be to break them out of prison.

[BiPolar]

Follow up question-I'm not the detective sort, so what would the best questions to ask be?

And assume, for this situation, that you have some way of reasonably forcing compliance. Say, the threat of execution.

Unfortunately, you're at your DMs mercy here. The text of the spell makes it pretty clear it's easy to weasel out of. Maybe pair it with Suggestion to be honest?

[RSP]

I see it being useful at quick vetting of who is and isn't a suspect: anyone who answers "No" honestly and didn't make the save can go home. Everyone else is sticking around for further questioning.

I'd also keep in mind that anyone who can cast this spell is familiar with its loopholes and probably wouldn't expect more out of it than it does.

So, yeah, you can try to talk in circles but that's not going to give you the 'all clear' to go about your business from the authorities.