Insight-Type Skills

[Catullus64]

I'm seeking a good way to articulate a feeling that's been growing in me across systems, and that's a strong dislike of skills/abilities that tell a player when an NPC is lying, or otherwise inform them about an NPC's mental or emotional state. In D&D 5e, it's called Insight. It used to be Sense Motive. Some non-D&D systems I've played have called it stuff like Scrutiny or Intuition. Whatever it is, I dislike its presence, and I especially dislike the expectations it creates in players.

I'm not one of those players/GMs who dislikes having any social interactions and roleplay be handled by a throw of the dice. Having players roll for things like Persuasion, Deception, Intimidation, etc. seldom bothers me. Those are more about success/failure of an attempted action, and you shouldn't have to be highly charismatic to play charismatic characters, just like nobody is required to deadlift to play strong people.

But I do think it's reasonable to make the same demands of everyone at the table with regards to paying attention to the situation and making decisions about what their character would think/feel about it. When players ask for Insight checks or their system equivalent, it feels like they're asking to have that responsibility waived. Even if they have enough tact not to directly call their own dice rolls, I can tell when they're fishing for one. They'll say something in the neighborhood of "Do I think he's lying?", usually with dice already in hand. For me, the GM who has spent a lot of time preparing the scenario for them to roleplay in, that stings. It might mean I've failed to engage them, and that's on me, but I do believe that the existence of such skills also conditions them not to trust an impression or belief that's not backed up with dice rolls. Either way, it's deflating, if not a little bit insulting.

In fairness to players who exhibit this kind of behavior, I don't think it's meant to antagonize or undercut. I can see it being a natural defensive response to antagonistic DMs who like to play 'gotcha' with double-crossing NPCs every alternate second. And a lot of games, as I've pointed out, have such a skill built in, making its use seem reasonable, especially if a character pays an opportunity cost to invest in such a skill. No doubt there are ways to have such a dice roll merely give more information rather than simply boiling down all the interesting drama, but that's usually not how it shakes out.

What are some peoples' experiences, good and bad, with this type of skill? Any systems that provide good cues about how to handle it? Any suggestions for helping players break the habit of expecting it?

[Jay R]

But I do think it's reasonable to make the same demands of everyone at the table with regards to paying attention to the situation and making decisions about what their character would think/feel about it. When players ask for Insight checks or their system equivalent, it feels like they're asking to have that responsibility waived.

Unless they do it every single time, It seems to me like the direct opposite. They have asked for a die roll specifically because they paid attention to the situation and mad a decision about what their character would think or feel about it.

[If they ask every time an NPC speaks, that's waiving the responsibility to decide -- but only by deciding to always consider it.]

I think a die roll is necessary whenever the PC would have knowledge that the player doesn't have. Since the PC saw the NPC's face and body language, and heard the tone of voice, and the player didn't, it seems justified a lot of the time.

But take my comments with a grain of salt. All of my players are very good about paying attention and drawing conclusions. I just don't have the problem that you are trying to solve.

[Vahnavoi]

There's a subtle different in formulation of the question which may explain why this particular skill rubs you the wrong way.

Insight-type skills are properly called information gathering; they're about deciding whether a character knows something. The correct way to invoke them is to ask, say, "do I know if this character is lying?".

Hence, when a player is (implicitly or explicitly) asking "do I think this character is lying?", they're subtly asking about the wrong thing. Whether a character is lying or not is (in theory) a settled fact of the world that the player (and the player's character) either knows about or not, what the player (and their character) thinks is a separate fact that is up to that player to decide.

Similarly, when a player is rolling for diplomacy, persuasion etc., what the (pseudo)random number generator models is uncertainty in the action itself. The question being asked is either "can I persuade (etc.) this character?" or "do I persuade this character?" and the roll is done because the answer is not a settled fact of the world, nor is it something that would be up to player to decide on their own.

These are distinctions you can explain to your players to weed out the faulty formulation and get them to ask about the right thing.

[Vorpal Glaive]

There are games that don't have Insight checks. Best advice is find and play those games.

[Satinavian]

What are some peoples' experiences, good and bad, with this type of skill? Any systems that provide good cues about how to handle it? Any suggestions for helping players break the habit of expecting it?

I don't really share your issues with those abilities. They generally work fine.

How it is usually used :

roll is successfull :
- "He seems to be unsure"
- "She is hiding something"
- "He seems convinced of what he said"
- "She seems to be pretty angry"
- "He doesn't seem sincere"
- "She always gives party member X side glances but only ever adresses Y"
- "He obviously recognized the name you just used"
- "She seems to be irritated by the slightest breach of etiquette but seeks to hide it"

roll is not successfull :
- "You can't read the person"

If the system has fumble rules, that is where actually wrong imressions have their place.


Can it be used to detect truth/lies ? With successful rolls sure, especially if that is what the players want to know. But it doesn't really prescribe to the players what their characters think. Instead it provides additional contextual information about the stuff beyond the spoken word. What the players do with that is their decision. Even if someone is caught lying that doesn't actually reveal the truth.


Also while the skill can be invoked by a player in the way of particularly paying attention to the body language of someone at a certain occasion, it is usually invoked by the GM who believes the players might notice something specifically about their counterpart or not.

[King of Nowhere]

I'm not one of those players/GMs who dislikes having any social interactions and roleplay be handled by a throw of the dice. Having players roll for things like Persuasion, Deception, Intimidation, etc. seldom bothers me. Those are more about success/failure of an attempted action, and you shouldn't have to be highly charismatic to play charismatic characters, just like nobody is required to deadlift to play strong people.

But I do think it's reasonable to make the same demands of everyone at the table with regards to paying attention to the situation and making decisions about what their character would think/feel about it. When players ask for Insight checks or their system equivalent, it feels like they're asking to have that responsibility waived. Even if they have enough tact not to directly call their own dice rolls, I can tell when they're fishing for one. They'll say something in the neighborhood of "Do I think he's lying?", usually with dice already in hand. For me, the GM who has spent a lot of time preparing the scenario for them to roleplay in, that stings.

So, you agree that one should not have to be charismatic to play a charismatic character... but you want them to be good at reading people to play a character that's good at reading people?

Also, are you such a good actor that your players can tell when an npc lies just by how you act them?

I find your approach very biased. Just like " i roll persuasion" does not have to substitute all social interaction - and should not "waive responsibility" for coming up with good arguments - so the same applies to sense motive.
And, as others pointed out, reading body language clues is absolutely something reasonable for characters to do.
And yes, sometimes sense motive may prevent a betrayal, just like sometimes spot may prevent an ambush. By your same logic, a spot check to detect ambushes is a way to avoid paying attention to the description of the environment

[Vahnavoi]

Now, as for I handle information gathering, I involve minimum of random chance in it. There are no die rolls made by players when figuring out if someone's lying or what their motives - there might be die rolls made by a game master when the game master is procedurally generating new characters, but that's a relevantly different thing. (Once again: figuring out if someone knows a decised fact versus actually deciding new facts.)

Instead, investigation into such matters works by principle of Twenty Questions: the players have limited amount of questions they can ask and get a truthful answer to. If they ask the right questions, they can logically deduce what their exact situation is. If I want to make the deduction harder or easier for a particular character, that's done by giving the player less or more upfront information, which consequently makes the task harder or easier for the player.

The reason I do this is because deduction games are more interesting than dice games. So I don't turn into a dice game aspects of roleplaying that can be modeled by players actually doing that thing.

[Xervous]

I roll players’ insight and award them a number of meta level questions they can ask based on the difference between the roll and the target number. The catch is if the roll is below the TN I don’t have to answer truthfully.

The biggest unsettling detail with insight comes about from the players knowing the result of the die roll. Blind rolls lend more general credibility to the insightful characters and keep the die result from coloring the players’ knowledge of the grand information.

[Catullus64]

Now, as for I handle information gathering, I involve minimum of random chance in it. There are no die rolls made by players when figuring out if someone's lying or what their motives - there might be die rolls made by a game master when the game master is procedurally generating new characters, but that's a relevantly different thing. (Once again: figuring out if someone knows a decised fact versus actually deciding new facts.)

Instead, investigation into such matters works by principle of Twenty Questions: the players have limited amount of questions they can ask and get a truthful answer to. If they ask the right questions, they can logically deduce what their exact situation is. If I want to make the deduction harder or easier for a particular character, that's done by giving the player less or more upfront information, which consequently makes the task harder or easier for the player.

The reason I do this is because deduction games are more interesting than dice games. So I don't turn into a dice game aspects of roleplaying that can be modeled by players actually doing that thing.

That's a pretty neat way to handle it, at least for certain types of games. Might I ask how you determine the allowance of questions? Are players aware of how many they have? Do you do this across game systems?

[KorvinStarmast]

Now, as for I handle information gathering, I involve minimum of random chance in it. There are no die rolls made by players when figuring out if someone's lying or what their motives - there might be die rolls made by a game master when the game master is procedurally generating new characters, but that's a relevantly different thing. (Once again: figuring out if someone knows a decised fact versus actually deciding new facts.)

Instead, investigation into such matters works by principle of Twenty Questions: the players have limited amount of questions they can ask and get a truthful answer to. If they ask the right questions, they can logically deduce what their exact situation is. If I want to make the deduction harder or easier for a particular character, that's done by giving the player less or more upfront information, which consequently makes the task harder or easier for the player.

The reason I do this is because deduction games are more interesting than dice games. So I don't turn into a dice game aspects of roleplaying that can be modeled by players actually doing that thing.

Good technique, I may borrow a few bits of this to add to my approach, which is similar.

I roll players’ insight and award them a number of meta level questions they can ask based on the difference between the roll and the target number. The catch is if the roll is below the TN I don’t have to answer truthfully.

Interesting technique. Might try this out.

[glass]

I'm not one of those players/GMs who dislikes having any social interactions and roleplay be handled by a throw of the dice. Having players roll for things like Persuasion, Deception, Intimidation, etc. seldom bothers me. Those are more about success/failure of an attempted action, and you shouldn't have to be highly charismatic to play charismatic characters, just like nobody is required to deadlift to play strong people.

On the one hand, if if you are making skill rolls for Deception, they need to be against something. But that something does not necessarily need to be another rolled skill, and in fact there are obvious advantages to its not being (in terms of meta-information communicated by the roll itself).

Would you object to the Insight/Sense Motive equivalent being a static defence, or is it just its being a rolled skill that you find disruptive? If it is the latter, then I myself in agreement (which surprises me, because when I first read the OP this morning I didn't think I agreed with it - funny what a bit of time to think can do).

Conversely, if your objection does include static defences, then I agree with King of Nowhere re not requiring a player to be good at reading people for the character to be. And I don't have that much faith in the GM's acting ability (especially if the GM is me).

[Psyren]

Okay, say it with me: Passive Checks

PCs being allowed to boost a skill like Insight is useful, because it lets them roleplay a character with a finely honed BS detector. That is a valid archetype to play, and we see it all over fiction - characters like Toph Beifong, Faramir, Thom Merrillin/Verin Mathwin, Monk (the detective, not the class) etc. But you don't need the players to roll that skill at all - I agree that rolling Insight makes avoiding metagaming nearly impossible. Instead, either roll it for them or simply use their passive score, then pass them a note.

[Xervous]

Interesting technique. Might try this out.

Depending on what sort of system you’re working with, you might want to set the question scaling to be faster above the TN, and slower below the TN. Characters heavily invested in insight are going to rarely touch the deeper false-answer values, so this is mostly for better concealing low rolls. Everyone is going to know the insightful character blew the TN out of the water if they get 3-4 questions. But if the barbarian had a 70/30 unfavorable split giving him 3 bogus questions would get players thinking he can’t have rolled that high so it must be an absolute dud of a roll.

[Catullus64]

On the one hand, if if you are making skill rolls for Deception, they need to be against something. But that something does not necessarily need to be another rolled skill, and in fact there are obvious advantages to its not being (in terms of meta-information communicated by the roll itself).

Would you object to the Insight/Sense Motive equivalent being a static defence, or is it just its being a rolled skill that you find disruptive? If it is the latter, then I myself in agreement (which surprises me, because when I first read the OP this morning I didn't think I agreed with it - funny what a bit of time to think can do).

Conversely, if your objection does include static defences, then I agree with King of Nowhere re not requiring a player to be good at reading people for the character to be. And I don't have that much faith in the GM's acting ability (especially if the GM is me).

The rolled skill part of it is what bothers me for the most part; the way which it seems to condition players to act feels fundamentally different from other active social checks.

I wouldn't object to, say, a GM-facing resolution mechanic in which dice rolls and skills are there to help guide how a GM plays a character in a scene, how many cues they give as to the character's mood or mental state. But that would be a pretty substantial reconfiguring of mechanical assumptions from most games with an Insight-type skill.

[Vahnavoi]

That's a pretty neat way to handle it, at least for certain types of games. Might I ask how you determine the allowance of questions? Are players aware of how many they have? Do you do this across game systems?

I primarily use this for old school D&D retroclones that have minimal or no generalized skill system. You can look at D&D itself for an example of how to determine allowance of questions: spells such as Divination are transparently based on Twenty Questions and give the caster their (caster) level's worth of questions. The difference to how I do it is that in my games, this isn't tied to a spell, it's just general information gathering ability. Another simple way is to give a player a number of questions equal to their character's Intelligence score. It's easy to invent new variations once you grok the basic principle and then pick the one most suited to how a game describes characters.

As for players being aware of their question limit, it's possible to play lt either way, but it changes the nature of the game. When players know their limit, they know to not waste questions, meaning they spend more time on deduction, discussion and action. If players don't know, we need to answer, what happens when they run out? My suggestion would be that the situation changes, obsoleting some or all information gained by prior questions. This means that even if players never figure out their exact limit, they will quickly learn that spending too much time gathering information can mean the situation escapes them, which can be leveraged for great deal of strategic depth.

However, before getting too wild with variants, I suggest playing basic Twenty Questions a few times as warm-up, especially if players are unfamiliar with that game or use of deductive logic in general.

[Atranen]

Okay, say it with me: Passive Checks

PCs being allowed to boost a skill like Insight is useful, because it lets them roleplay a character with a finely honed BS detector. That is a valid archetype to play, and we see it all over fiction - characters like Toph Beifong, Faramir, Thom Merrillin/Verin Mathwin, Monk (the detective, not the class) etc. But you don't need the players to roll that skill at all - I agree that rolling Insight makes avoiding metagaming nearly impossible. Instead, either roll it for them or simply use their passive score, then pass them a note.

This is my solution too. They can't use active insight on a conversation that just took place.

If they want to make an active insight roll, I make them have their character do something to prompt it. For example, if they're suspicious , they can come up with a specific question and have their character play close attention to the response. Then they get an active roll on that response.

[NichG]

I guess I sort of go the opposite way from the OP, kinda? My general philosophy about social mechanics is that the mechanics should act to augment the player's own social awareness rather than replace it - basically, the same way that part of the gameplay of combat is figuring out tactics and strategy and player skill does play a role there, I see figuring out what to offer NPCs in negotiations, how to manipulate them and to what end, etc as being the equivalent strategic and tactical decisions for which I want player skill to factor in. So what I want out of mechanics is to augment the player's abilities and ideally give a sort of set of training wheels that help them develop skill at the social encounters of the game without replacing the need or benefit of developing such skills. I don't care about how eloquent a player is when talking, nor do I want to model it with dice or skills. I'll assume that the PCs are eloquent enough to express what the player wants them to express - if they say 'I want to be polite' or 'I want to be insulting' or whatever - so its really about what the players choose to have their characters express and offer, not whether you stutter or um when telling me what that is.

So to that end, I tend to make even things like Deception and Persuasion and the like more about information gathering than about projecting force directly. I also lean into those rolls being called by the player, rather than called by the GM - but each roll should correspond to a specific 'move' that the skill allows a character to do, rather than having any sort of open-ended 'roll to not have to think about this' interpretations. Each time those active uses are called on in a given conversation, the DC goes up.

For example, a player could say 'I want to roll Deception to check if the guy I'm speaking to would buy that I'm a royal', as opposed to 'I roll Deception to convince this guy that I'm a royal'. Or 'I want to roll Deception to see if this thing I'm about to say contradicts anything this guy is aware of (including things I've already said) before saying it'. Or even with high DCs 'I want to roll Deception to cold read a name or situation that I need in order to sustain the lie'. Similarly, Diplomacy could be rolled to know in advance what someone would say in response to a sentence without having to speak it (or take back a sentence once spoken and the reaction has been seen), or to know how much a given person would value a given compromise in a negotiation, or to know if there are any contextual factors which constrain a negotiation and what they are (such as the presence of particular other parties observing, rules of decorum and protocol, etc). But you couldn't roll Diplomacy to 'see if you can get them to accept this deal', only to get information which gets you closer to the minimum offer that the NPC would actually accept.

So I'm happy to have something like Insight which would let you roll to know an NPC's emotional state, attitude towards another NPC or towards the party, etc. A skill that encourages players to gather specific kinds of social information in order to intentionally approach a social encounter with a strategy is just the kind of thing I like systems to have, because it helps turn the vague 'I have to socialize and I don't know what the DM thinks makes sense' into 'here are attributes that NPCs have in different situations which determine what those NPCs will or won't believe or accept, and if I know the attributes then I just have to solve the puzzle to figure out how to get what I want out of it'.

But something like 'I want to tell if that was a lie' (roll vs NPC's Deception) isn't how I run it. It'd be more like Vahnavoi's twenty-questions thing, where you could actively use Insight to gain a certain number of pieces of information about the other person like 'what is their emotional state?', 'what is their conversational goal?', etc, but each time you use it the difficulty goes up, and its not really intended to be a per-sentence kind of thing. You could use that to help you figure out if they're lying, sure, but it avoids the metagame information involved in seeing your dice roll and the awkward kind of 'oh, I failed the DC and the DM told me they seem to be telling the truth, that means they're lying'. If you fail the DC, you just don't get anymore questions.

[Reversefigure4]

The 20 Questions version is interesting. A more streamlined (but less interactive) version is just straight DCs.

DC 10: He seems evasive. He's hiding something.
DC 15: His eyes dart to the doorway. He's hiding something, but not from you, from other eavesdroppers.
DC 20: He's evasive, and you believe there are lies in his tale.
DC 25: He's lying when he says the goblins attacked first.
DC 30: He's lying when he says the goblins attacked first, but the lie is not of his making. He's repeating an untruth, and he seems very nervous about it. Someone has threatened him.

Passive Checks also work well to avoid metagaming, if that's a concern. You know automatically that the Barbarian gets an 11, the Rogue a 23, and the Wizard a 14. Give out information accordingly.

One problem I have with running Insight checks is trying not to put words into a PCs mouth or tell players how their characters are feeling. If the player tanks the roll, "He seems trustworthy" is putting thoughts into the characters head as to how to behave (worse yet is "You trust him"). I tend to default to "You receive no further information from the GM" as my failed Insight roll response. Your character skills have not helped you, at which point you the player may draw whatever conclusion you like. Maybe you trust a traitor. Maybe you distrust a loyal ally. Maybe you fail to notice the NPC is hitting on you and so can't react to it in the way your character might want. Then I mix up my acting - the GM plays the NPC as stuttering and refusing to make eye contact with players... but in fact, it's because he's socially awkward instead of lying. Insight will tell you the difference for a fact as a character, or you can guess as a player.

[gbaji]

My general approach is to be a bit vague with the information gained via these sorts of skills. I also tend to require the player actually state that they are using them to detect something (ie: the player suspects there might be something amiss, and is rolling to see if they actually picked something up that supports that).

What I'm not a huge fan of is an NPC says something to the PCs, and they accept it and move on, and the later discover that it was a complete lie, and respond with "but I have sense motive! Why didn't I detect it?".

Of course, the flip side is the players who say "I roll <whatever>" every single time I have an NPC say something. So that can absolutely backfire.

I just tend to approach these as being more of a general sense, and not actually some kind of magical lie detector. And at the absolute minimum, I roll these dice in secret for the players. They should have no clue whether they made or missed the roll, how well they made it, etc. And yeah, depending on system being used, if the skill allows for a really poor roll to give false information, I'll totally use that. So you "get the feeling he's holding something back and not being completely honest" could be a correct assessment, or it could be you totally reading the person wrong. Players have to learn to do some additional checking to confirm or dismiss those results. Which is not a bad thing at all IMO.

On the one hand, if if you are making skill rolls for Deception, they need to be against something. But that something does not necessarily need to be another rolled skill, and in fact there are obvious advantages to its not being (in terms of meta-information communicated by the roll itself).

That made me have an interesting thought. For players who insist that skills like inight or sense motive should be effectively a lie detector, do you present them with the opposite condition? So if an NPC uses a deception skill successfully on the PC, do you disallow the player from deciding on his own that the NPC is lying? Or, if the player actually decides, all on their own (or as a result of some investigation) to not trust the NPC, do you just say "Nope. You can't act against him, because you completely believe him, because he made a deception skill against you"?

More importantly, is the player happy if you rule that way? Assuming the answer is: No. Then that's your counter to "I can always detect a lie with insight". Um... No. If the player can refuse to fall for a deception skill used against them, then they can also fail to detect a lie when using insight or sense motive. It has to go in both directions. I kinda assume that these skills aren't just a magic method to see if someone is lying. They represent the ability to pick up when others effectively "slip up" a bit and reveal stuff they should not. In the same way that a PC who has made up his mind to not believe an NPCs lies, despite a successful deception roll, can do so, an NPC who is really determined to pull the wool over the PCs eyes, should be able to do so, most of the time, even if this skill is in use.

And I guess that's why I have some issue with skills like this. It's a skill that effectively forces control over another character in a way. The use of the skill itself somehow magically forces the NPC to develop a facial tic, or start sweating, or otherwise indicate he's lying to you. To me, that's a bit too much. Again. Keep the info really vague. Make it about a general feeling, and not even specifically about one thing that was said. And yeah, it should never be able to be used for single short statements: (I ask the guard if the princess is being held captive in the castle, and sense motive to determine if "no" is a lie). To me, this is more of a conversational thing. Over time, while engaged with someone, you can get a sense about them. It's always going to be a combination of little things over the course of some interaction that provides this information.

To me, that's the best way to handle these sorts of skills. Otherwise, they can really easily be abused (or at least become a crutch used instead of actual player choices and actions). That, or you make all your NPCs have skills that counter it, in which case your PCs have a skill that is never useful anyway. By making it a longer term information gathering thing, it encourages the PCs to do things in the game that count as actual investigation, and the better they do at that, the more clear and precise you make the result. Really restrict what they get if they spend minimal time/effort on it. But then you need to reward them if they actually do things that should net them more details.

[gatorized]

In the system I use, there isn't a specific ability or talent for this - the closest would be either perception, charm, covert, or streetwise, depending on the situation and the characters involved. However, there's a fairly cheap power called Lie Detection anyone can get, which is always on, affects everyone within close range, has no cost, and always works unless the target is somehow protected from it.

But it doesn't actually matter if the players know a given NPC is lying. It doesn't remove roleplay, it just changes it. Since I don't use quest givers and the players are free to make allies or enemies of anyone they choose, it can't break the game.

Remember, knowing someone is lying doesn't tell you anything about why they choseb to lie. And finding that out can be an entire adventure in itself.

[Satinavian]

My general approach is to be a bit vague with the information gained via these sorts of skills. I also tend to require the player actually state that they are using them to detect something (ie: the player suspects there might be something amiss, and is rolling to see if they actually picked something up that supports that).

How is that different from having characters with a huge spot skill or equivalent walking into an ambush without any roll and then saying "but you didn't actively look for an ambush in that situation" ?
In a system where the GM generally calls for rolls that should stay the default. Especially for passive, always on perception abilities.

[Vahnavoi]

What I'm not a huge fan of is an NPC says something to the PCs, and they accept it and move on, and the later discover that it was a complete lie, and respond with "but I have sense motive! Why didn't I detect it?".

I note that this does not happen when using a method similar to mine. The closest equivalent, "why didn't we question veracity of this claim before?", is almost always succintly answered by "because you didn't have grounds to question it before". When spotting lies is a matter of deduction, it does away with the idea that a character can always tell when a person is lying when the lie is made, as opposed to when they encounter a contradiction exposing the lie.

In general, being able to detect lies on the spot without wealth of corroborating evidence is so implausible that it's best left to magic or other literary device, and should never be assumed to happen automatically. The answer to "but I have Zone of Truth, why didn't I spot a lie?" is, after all, straightforward "because you didn't actually cast it, you have to actively use your abilities for them to take effect".

(Don't nitpick the example. I know there are things that would screw with Zone of Truth even if it is, cast, that's besides the point.)

[ciopo]

As someone on the spectrum, I can tell you that my profiency with social cues are.... somewhere between 0 and an arbitrary negative number.

"insight" is invaluable to me, because no amount of "acting shifty" by the GM will actually register as shifty to me.

it takes very blunt/literal description for me to frame this or that NPC as being this or that. I.E. unless you plainly tell me "X looks shifty" I will not think of him as shifty.

Make of this feedback what you want :)

[Ionathus]

I do almost-exclusively 5e, with the occasional Monster Of The Week.

In 5e, I never treat Insight checks like mindreading or misinterpretation. Insight is treated as the ability to pick up on nonverbal and verbal cues, much like Perception is the ability to pick up on physical clues. The penalty for failing either one is the same -- no misinformation or telling the PC what they think; you just don't get the clue.

I always state very explicitly that my players are free to roleplay suspicion against someone even if they whiff on the Insight check. I've seen failing an Insight check get treated like the PC is required to drop their suspicion, and that's just silly; it's an opportunity to get extra clues, not a binary chance to accidentally trust an obvious murderer or something.

MotW is a bit more loosey-goosey and mindread-y because of the narrative-affecting mechanics, but I generally always work to provide concrete indicators of a given clue rather than just saying "you can read their mind and you know XYZ".

As someone on the spectrum, I can tell you that my profiency with social cues are.... somewhere between 0 and an arbitrary negative number.

"insight" is invaluable to me, because no amount of "acting shifty" by the GM will actually register as shifty to me.

it takes very blunt/literal description for me to frame this or that NPC as being this or that. I.E. unless you plainly tell me "X looks shifty" I will not think of him as shifty.

Make of this feedback what you want :)

A very good point. Social cues aren't always universal, and for me this conversation definitely falls into "your character would have picked up on XYZ, even if you as the player didn't" territory. We don't require a player to physically prove that they themselves are strong enough to move a boulder their PC is trying to move; it should be the same with social skills.

[Vahnavoi]

A very good point. Social cues aren't always universal, and for me this conversation definitely falls into "your character would have picked up on XYZ, even if you as the player didn't" territory. We don't require a player to physically prove that they themselves are strong enough to move a boulder their PC is trying to move; it should be the same with social skills.

Here we go again.

Characters are not independent entities; everything they do is modeled by a player doing something. The player always has to prove they meet minimum competence to play, at best you're replacing competence in one skill (social skills, lifting) with another (manipulation of small number and probability).

The reason to replace physical activity, such as moving a boulder, is because you're trying to hold a tabletop game, and physical activity would force you to leave it. If you were trying to hold a live-action game, modeling moving a boulder by actually moving something would be most natural, and if you want to do that with a person who can't move a real boulder, the simple solution is to use a fake boulder that is light enough for them to move.

There is no similar reason to replace social or intellectual activity is because you can do those at the tabletop just fine. A player needs these skills to engage in a multiplayer game in any case. The way to allow a player to punch up is to give them easier social or intellectual tasks to solve, the same principle as making the boulder out of styrofoam. Sure, you can use an Insight score for that, but the (pseudo)random component is a pointless diversion. The simplest way to model a character who knows more than a player, is for the person who does know to just tell that player. Boom, now the player knows and can proceed using their own reasoning. If the specific problem is that the player is on a spectrum and wants to play a character that is not, the best way to do that is to actually look at differences between autistic and allistic people to see what needs to be accounted for, and then just give the player all the information they'd otherwise miss.

[gbaji]

How is that different from having characters with a huge spot skill or equivalent walking into an ambush without any roll and then saying "but you didn't actively look for an ambush in that situation" ?
In a system where the GM generally calls for rolls that should stay the default. Especially for passive, always on perception abilities.

Well, you picked up on the one line I wrote that is a bit different out of context than in context. What I was really going for with that section of my post is that insight is about picking up clues during a longish social interaction, and is not a magic lie detector that goes off the instant someone says or does something with the intent to decieve the PC.

The difference between the use of insight and the use of spot in those cases, is that the first point the player is aware that there may be some reason to use spot to detect an ambush is when the GM starts the ambush encounter. Insight, on the other hand, is used while the PC is already engaged in another known activity (having a conversation/inteaction with an NPC). What I was talking about is that the player actually has the knowledge that they are in an encounter, and that this is an encounter where using their insight skill may assist them, and thus, I tend to have an expectation that the player will actively choose to use the skill.

I also require that players state they are using spot or search skills when they are inside a room and there are objects in the room they may find, if they use such skills. Same thinking applies. They know they are in an encounter/scene. They may wish to do something ("look for hidden/secret stuff"). They have the opportunity to declare that intention. So instead of me assuming that they are looking for stuff, I expect the player to tell me they are searching for stuff, if they want to actually find stuff that is hidden. Depends on game system too, since some have different skills for "spotting" versus "searching".

When and whether skills should be applied actively or passively, is an entire conversation of it's own. And yeah, it's not as easy or clean cut as that. But that's all I was talking about. Again. The main focus I was going for in my post was that insight is something that should provide information based on a reasonable amout of social interaction with someone, and not just a quick/instant thing. My actual sorta expecation/hope for the use of this kind of skill is a player actually stating something like "I'm going to go over and chat with the Duke's guards, while they are off duty in the bar, and see if I can pick up some useful information". In that situation, we can assume that the PC is (hopefuly casually) asking leading questions, and getting the NPCs to give responses that may provide additional clues. And I might tell the player "While you were talking, you noticed that every time the subject of the Duke's upcoming meeting with the visiting Baron came up, they seemed to act as though there's something going on there. You suspect that there may be some additional plans and they wont go well for the Baron".

So I'm not requiring them to tell me what they are looking for, but I do require that they have their characters engage in some sort of social interaction/conversation with the intent to "learn some information". And it's not like I'm literally hinging this off of them declaring exactly when they are using the insight skill. Telllng me that they are getting into said conversation (or dragging out one they are already in) with the intent to dig up info, is plenty sufficient. There does usually have to be some level of interaction though, and the ability of the PC to actuallly lead the conversation/interaction in some way in order to get useful information. I'm not going to allow someone to use insight during the King's speech to determine if he's lying about something in the speech, for example.

I've seen failing an Insight check get treated like the PC is required to drop their suspicion, and that's just silly; it's an opportunity to get extra clues, not a binary chance to accidentally trust an obvious murderer or something.

Yeah. I've seen it used that way too. Hence my caution about the use of such skills being some sort of absolute "this is what you think about the NPC" things. To me, the player should always be in control of their character (dominate type effects excepted of course).


I guess I would also add that these sorts of skills should really be used by the GM to help the players navigate the scenario. Sometimes, you put something in there, and you think it should be obvious to the players what their characters could do. You laid out the clues, and they should follow them. Well, sometimes that just doesn't work (what's obvious to the GM is not always so obvious to the players, that's just a normal thing). Skills like insight can help the GM give little prods to the players to point them in the right direction. But you do have to be careful that it doesn't become something the players just rely on to tell them what to do, so it's a bit of a balancing act.

[BRC]

I do almost-exclusively 5e, with the occasional Monster Of The Week.

In 5e, I never treat Insight checks like mindreading or misinterpretation. Insight is treated as the ability to pick up on nonverbal and verbal cues, much like Perception is the ability to pick up on physical clues. The penalty for failing either one is the same -- no misinformation or telling the PC what they think; you just don't get the clue.

I always state very explicitly that my players are free to roleplay suspicion against someone even if they whiff on the Insight check. I've seen failing an Insight check get treated like the PC is required to drop their suspicion, and that's just silly; it's an opportunity to get extra clues, not a binary chance to accidentally trust an obvious murderer or something.

I wouldn't say REQUIRED, but I do enjoy it when a player rolls a 1 on their insight, and, knowing that they just whiffed, decide to role-play trusting the NPC anyway.

I'd never say "Oh, you can't be suspicious of them, you failed insight", but I appreciate it when players choose to do that anyway.


That said, while sometimes insight is "Oh yeah, they're lying", I prefer to use it to give hints about what somebody ISN'T saying than as a pure lie detector. Like, sometimes, "Yes, they're lying", but I find that even that can always be presented in a more interesting way.


Example scenario

The PC's are camping at night, when two men and a woman stumble into the firelight shouting for help! All bear signs of injury, but the older man has an arrow sticking out of him and claims that they just escaped from a gang of bandits! He begs for the PCs to protect them and help rescue his family.

PC's roll insight checks.

You could say "The two uninjured people are bandits, they've forced the older man to help them with this ruse, and are hoping to catch you offguard when you turn to protect against the bandits 'Chasing them' "


But you could be more interesting

The Woman has a bandage wrapped around her left leg, but appears to be favoring it without any sign of pain.

After he finishes speaking, the older man glances backwards in fear. At first you think he's watching the woods for pursuers, but it becomes clear, he's watching his companions, seeing how they're reacting to what he just told you.


When he asks for help rescuing his family, his voice almost cracks in desperation.

as soon as they got into the camp, you spotted the younger man's eyes dart around, lingering in turn on each of your companions and their weapons.

The woman's coat is oddly heavy for this time of year, and moves as if weighted down by something hidden.

Despite the humid night and the fact that they've supposedly been sprinting through the woods, the young man doesn't appear to be sweating in the slightest, and his heavy breathing seems to slow when he thinks nobody is looking at him.


For extra fun, try to tie in the PC's experiences


[Sorceror] The younger man smells of ozone and smoke, as do you every time you cast lightning magic.

[Ranger] The arrow in the man's shoulder doesn't make sense if it was fired while he was fleeing. The angle is all wrong, it almost looks like it was pushed in by hand.

[Bard] The cadence of the older man's voice when he talks about escaping the bandit camp. It reminds you of somebody reading through a script, measuring out each word rather than speaking on instinct.

[Criminal Background] This whole scenario sounds a little too familiar. It's a common ploy for bandits to force a hostage to get people to drop their guard.


ect ect.

[Satinavian]

The difference between the use of insight and the use of spot in those cases, is that the first point the player is aware that there may be some reason to use spot to detect an ambush is when the GM starts the ambush encounter. Insight, on the other hand, is used while the PC is already engaged in another known activity (having a conversation/inteaction with an NPC). What I was talking about is that the player actually has the knowledge that they are in an encounter, and that this is an encounter where using their insight skill may assist them, and thus, I tend to have an expectation that the player will actively choose to use the skill.

I don't see the difference. Both groups are already busy in another activity, whether talking or overland travel. And in the same way as spot is "always on" as you still look around when you travel a road, Insight is always on as you still take in nonverbal clues whenever you are in a conversation. I have even problem imagining what actively using insight is supposed to be : "I now look for body language which i always ignore in any other instance" ? Makes no sense.

The reason insight does not get rolled in every conversation even if the insight skill is always active is that you should not roll if the result is not interesting. So if the GM thinks the situation has something interesting to reveal via insight he calls for a roll. The only situation a player should ever ask for a roll if he thinks that the impression of an NPC is of interest when the GM does not. And of course there is no problem with revealing a detail a player would want to know more about that the GM has not alaborated on. Happens all the time.

The main focus I was going for in my post was that insight is something that should provide information based on a reasonable amout of social interaction with someone, and not just a quick/instant thing. My actual sorta expecation/hope for the use of this kind of skill is a player actually stating something like "I'm going to go over and chat with the Duke's guards, while they are off duty in the bar, and see if I can pick up some useful information". In that situation, we can assume that the PC is (hopefuly casually) asking leading questions, and getting the NPCs to give responses that may provide additional clues. And I might tell the player "While you were talking, you noticed that every time the subject of the Duke's upcoming meeting with the visiting Baron came up, they seemed to act as though there's something going on there. You suspect that there may be some additional plans and they wont go well for the Baron".

I play several systems with an insight skill equivalent but the described is not a use case for insight in any of them. There are always other skills for "asking around", "gathering information" or "using leading questions". Insight/sense motive etc are purely observational and have nothing to do with directing the flow of a conversation. Or even actually talking yourself, it is totally fine to roll insight on an interaction of other people.

Yeah. I've seen it used that way too. Hence my caution about the use of such skills being some sort of absolute "this is what you think about the NPC" things. To me, the player should always be in control of their character (dominate type effects excepted of course).

I and several others have mentioned an easy solution to that : failed insight means "no information". The same as all the other sensory skills. A failed spot/search/listen/whatever only means you missed something, not that you suddenly start to hallucinate.

[Pauly]

It depends a lot on the game and what the expectation is regarding what the character is supposed to figure out and what the player is expected to figure out.

I don't play D&D, but my recollction of the way D&D handles it is that the character is expected to handle detection via various insight roles.

In other genres such as Shadowrun or CoC the expectation generally is that it is up to the player to find deception through taking note of hints and discrepancies.

[Jakinbandw]

What are some peoples' experiences, good and bad, with this type of skill?

I'm playing a home brew system right now, and last night we ran into a monster pretending to be angelic. Amusingly, this didn't make us like it more, as the last angel we encountered had mind controlled a city, and killed us. One of my classes is the Wise Attribute, which has a specific ability that allows me to pick up when someone or something is presenting a false persona. It felt good to use that to find out that the angel wasn't benevolent. Then I spent a point of Effort (a currency that measures how much more your character can do at any given time, a bit like spell point in 5e) to learn a sentence about it's true personality. The GM told us that it was a monster that fed on chaos and despair, so we immediately entered combat with it. This also felt awesome. I was substantially weaker in the fight due to having spent a third of my Effort pool to learn that information, but it felt good to be on firm footing.

Now, I do want to point out that part of what made this work, was the adventure design principles behind the game. The GM didn't have any of their prep work wasted, and the monster wasn't the main point of the adventure, with the entire encounter existing as a stepping stone to other parts of the adventure. Part of what made it feel good was knowing that it wasn't disrupting the GMs prep. I got to be cool, have solid information, and it didn't even cause any problems for the adventure.