What do you do when players refuse to believe your lies?


Advice

51 to 100 of 237 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | next > last >>
Liberty's Edge

No dude, this is pure unadulterated metagaming, the GM used the Lie mechanic and it defeats the DC needed to pass against the PCs.

This is no different than a character ignoring an Illusion they failed their save against because of PLAYER knowledge. You cannot just DECIDE to ignore the consequences of the mechanical results... this isn't roleplay, it's ignoring the whole player-GM agreement to abide by the rules.


17 people marked this as a favorite.
Themetricsystem wrote:
No dude, this is pure unadulterated metagaming, the GM used the Lie mechanic and it defeats the DC needed to pass against the PCs.

DM: "Bob the prisoner tells you the sky is red and *rolls dice behind screen* you 100% believe him..."

Player: "But I can see the sky through the window and it's blue."
DM: "Damn meta-gamer not following the rules!"


8 people marked this as a favorite.
Themetricsystem wrote:
No dude, this is pure unadulterated metagaming...

No dude, it isn't.

The GM describes the scene and what's going on - it's suspicious, so the players decide their characters are suspicious. Without mind-control, the GM doesn't get to just say "no actually, your character isn't allowed to be suspicious."

And I'd note that whether the roll was secret or not is irrelevant; both because the OP didn't specify so your assumption that it must not have been secret is exactly the hyper-vigilance-caused false-ID of "metagaming", and because knowing the result of the die roll (or that a die was even rolled) is not necessary for the player to establish that - even if their character can't put their finger on evidence why - their character is suspicious.

Zero rules were broken. Zero mechanics were ignored. The Lie action isn't mind control, despite it's poor choice of being worded as "believes the lie" rather than "has no evidence of a lie".

And presumably the GM didn't actually say the phrase to the players "the NPC got a critical success on the Lie action" so the players aren't actually ignoring that mechanical result, they just don't have any way to know that is the result that happened rather than that the NPC is telling the truth (which they could be just as suspicious of, by the way, further proving no "metagaming" is actually going on and you're doing exactly the thing I previously mentioned of getting hung up not on what a character did, but what you believe the player was thinking at the time)

Liberty's Edge

Hyperbole gray, and you know it. Lots of folks here are getting awful defensive and trying to twist the situation into something it isn't... almost like they know they are frequently guilty of using player knowledge in character.

The Lie here isn't anywhere NEAR that unbelievable NOR impossible and at WORST it would account for something like a +4 to the DC and since the opponent rolled a crit success it doesn't even matter if RD failed to include that in the original check via the the circumstance bonus to the DC since they beat it by 10 or more.

RD: The players broke the unspoken contract and ignored mechanical impacts to their Character deciding not to believe something that they are absolutely SUPPOSED to believe, it doesn't matter if the lie was somewhat far-fetched, the opponent beat the DC, and by your reckoning by a LOT. They did you dirty and if I were you I'd work extra hard from here out to defy expectations at every corner because the players are obviously in an adversarial versus mode against you as the GM given that they're choosing to do the equivalent of ignoring when you tell them to take damage from a failed saving throw.


13 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

The GM telling players how their characters feel (outside magical compulsions) isn't good roleplaying, it's just stripping them of their agency.

The characters believe the prisoner they're interrogating is sincere, but given the circumstances remain suspicious in general. That's perfectly reasonable, it's not 'invalidating' anything (after all, if the NPC had failed the PCs wouldn't have needed to be suspicious in the first place).

Trying to compare it to something like an attack roll is also wildly off base because social encounters are fundamentally more abstract by definition.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
graystone wrote:
Themetricsystem wrote:
No dude, this is pure unadulterated metagaming, the GM used the Lie mechanic and it defeats the DC needed to pass against the PCs.

DM: "Bob the prisoner tells you the sky is red and *rolls dice behind screen* you 100% believe him..."

Player: "But I can see the sky through the window and it's blue."
DM: "Damn meta-gamer not following the rules!"

The Lie action says, "The GM might give them a circumstance bonus based on the situation and the nature of the lie you are trying to tell. Elaborate or highly unbelievable lies are much harder to get a creature to believe than simpler and more believable lies, and some lies are so big that it’s impossible to get anyone to believe them." It later says that more evidence might require a reroll on the lie.

By the way, Lie has no critical success option. All a critical success means is that even a -10 circumstance penalty won't foil the lie.

To judge how unbelievable a lie is, I have the target make a Recall Knowledge roll about the subject. My players cooperate in roleplaying rather than metagaming, so I don't need to keep secrets from them.

The most fun comes when the player characters deceive non-player characters. Once the party needed to enter a place where korreds were holding a festival: "Korreds hold great festivals of music and dance in ancient stone circles deep within forest glades. A few non-korred fey sometimes receive invitations to these dances, but any non-fey who interrupts the dance is berated at best or attacked at worst." Two party members approached the korred guards, the gnome druid who had a bonus to Diplomacy with fey due to his fey-touched heritage and the halfling rogue/sorcerer who was expert in Diplomacy and Deception. The guards explained that only fey were allowed, and they would reluctantly let the gnome in, because he was fey (the fey-touched heritage grants the fey trait). The halfling lied that he was a chergl, a kind of fey, and rolled well above the korreds' passive Perception. I realized that the korreds had never seen a halfling before, so I had them each roll Recall Knowledge (Society) to identify the halfling. They were untrained in Society and both failed. Thus, they accepted that the halfling was a fey chergl, whatever a chergl was, and let him in, too. The gnome and halfling avoided other fey who might recognize a halfling and later helped the rest of the party sneak in unseen.

The halfling has been telling people that he is a chergl ever since.


5 people marked this as a favorite.
Themetricsystem wrote:
Lots of folks here are getting awful defensive and trying to twist the situation into something it isn't...

You, for example?

Tehmetricsystem wrote:
almost like they know they are frequently guilty of using player knowledge in character.

No special knowledge is necessary.

The character is suspicious because people can just be suspicious.

And in almost every other case of "metagaming" that I've ever seen anyone accused of, there was also no necessity for any special knowledge there, either. To reiterate: the player doesn't have to know a lie is being told to believe they are being deceived.

Themetricsystem wrote:
The Lie here isn't anywhere NEAR that unbelievable NOR impossible and at WORST it would account for something like a +4 to the DC and since the opponent rolled a crit success it doesn't even matter if RD failed to include that in the original check via the the circumstance bonus to the DC since they beat it by 10 or more.

If you read the way the Lie action is written, it seems pretty clearly laid out as the GM setting the DC because it's a PC telling the lie so the GM is the one with all of the appropriate knowledge necessary to set the DC appropriately or determine that no check is relevant because the lie is "so big that it’s impossible to get anyone to believe them." according to the character being told it...

so when it's the PC being lied to, why does the player of the character get no say at all in what the DC is or if the lie is too big? Because the GM almost definitely isn't going to ask the player something like "on a scale of 1 to 10, can you rate how unbelievable your character would find this lie?" That leaves two options: A) the GM, rather than the player, is the final arbiter of what a PC thinks/believes so the Lie action is indistinguishable from mind-control or B) the player is the final arbiter of what the PC thinks/believes, so the Lie action shouldn't be used by NPCs or at least the results should be about what evidence is or isn't noticed not about belief.


4 people marked this as a favorite.
Themetricsystem wrote:
Hyperbole gray, and you know it.

Yes it's an exaggerated example, but that doesn't invalidate the point. A Lie roll doesn't turn off the target's brain like you want it to. Maybe the liar are mind controlled. Maybe YOU are under a spell. Maybe there is an illusion. ect. Just because you think the person believes what thy are saying doesn't mean you have to believe the situation, especially in a game like PF2 when the mystical, magical and occult happen every day. It's no different than trying to disbelieve an illusion when you see CLEAR evidence something isn't right.

Themetricsystem wrote:
The Lie here isn't anywhere NEAR that unbelievable NOR impossible

Sure but who are you or the DM to determine HOW unbelievable it is? DC adjustments range from Incredibly easy [-10] to Incredibly hard [+10]. I didn't sound like any adjustment was used. But that doesn't really matter as at best it only would mean that they think the prisoner believed she was telling the truth NOT that when she said was what really happened: those are 2 different things. You can't expect the players to ignore the man clearly behind the curtain...


voideternal wrote:
What prompted the players to not believe in the NPC was the circumstantial evidence.

And what circumstantial evidence was that?

Ravingdork wrote:
a succubus lied to the party, saying that she was a simple human researcher that had been held captive by the other monsters in the dungeon for her knowledge.

Is the idea that evil creatures keep prisoners completely outside the realm of possibility?

Because to me it looks like a plausible scenario.

And if it isn't? Why not?

And if it isn't, how do you introduce a new character into the party when one PC leaves/dies? Isn't finding another adventurer trapped as a hostage in a dungeon one of the common tropes for that?

Scarab Sages

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Squiggit wrote:

The GM telling players how their characters feel (outside magical compulsions) isn't good roleplaying, it's just stripping them of their agency.

The characters believe the prisoner they're interrogating is sincere, but given the circumstances remain suspicious in general. That's perfectly reasonable, it's not 'invalidating' anything (after all, if the NPC had failed the PCs wouldn't have needed to be suspicious in the first place).

Trying to compare it to something like an attack roll is also wildly off base because social encounters are fundamentally more abstract by definition.

You don't have absolute agency in any game with rules, especially this one with discrete actions and feats for everything. You're second point is asinine, you might as well say AC is useless if your opponent misses.

Are there better ways to handle this? Sure, but ignoring the fundamentals of the system just wastes time.


4 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I think the difficult question here to figure out is "what does it mean for the characters to believe another character is telling a truth?" Lie as an action does not change the party's initial disposition to a character, so it is not really the same thing as a make an impression or make a request. In fact, for a PC who was trapped in a box to get a random stranger to let them go would probably require both of those checks, assuming they were telling the truth in the first place. If they were also trying to deceive the NPC, then it would take a deception check as well.

Generally with NPCs interacting socially with PCs, it is much better to let the role playing pan out, and if the PCs refuse to ever release the prisoner, or attack the prisoner, then they are crossing the line into committing evil acts for sure. But being thorough and not just having the characters adopt a friendly attitude in a suspect situation is really not encroaching on alignment issues.

Scarab Sages

I think you're on the right track Unicore, without some attitude improving the lie only does so much - and that is harder to do to players than just deceiving them.


breithauptclan wrote:
voideternal wrote:
What prompted the players to not believe in the NPC was the circumstantial evidence.
And what circumstantial evidence was that?
Ravingdork wrote:

She crit succeeded her Deception check against the party, and so I told the players that she seemed absolutely sincere when they asked if she were lying.

Even so, the players were extremely skeptical because she was found tied up in an opulent chamber, whereas even the monster's apparent leaders slept on straw beds elsewhere in the dungeon. It just didn't add up. So, despite her lie that the monsters had attempted to bribe her initially with the gifts, the player characters kept asking over and over again who she really was even though--as far as their characters should have been concerned--that had already been established.

Edit: Also

Unicore wrote:

The party starts asking some questions. The NPC responds that she is a captured researcher and the two beasts were her pets, corrupted by the villains of the dungeon, but not enough for her to lose control of them. These creatures made no effort at all to point out that someone was in the crate or otherwise respond to her presence. The PCs are told they believe that the researcher is a researcher, but decide that they want to investigate the crates before freeing her, because they are suspicious of the situation.

The NPCs, who had appeared somewhat frustrated by the party not immediately releasing her, then climbs out of the crate and begins attempting to intimately embrace a PC that was still suspicious of the situation. The player is then told their character is under the effect of a suggestion spell and wants to leave the room with the NPC as quickly as possible, but the rest of the party just saw that a PC went from uncomfortable with an NPC to immediately romantically interested in the NPC, against any similar type behavior ever shown by the character.


4 people marked this as a favorite.

It is also worth pointing out that this player paranoia can be a double edge sword. It can definitely slow down a game and potentially lead to negative consequences if they refuse to listen to an NPC who has their best interests at heart, or play their cards so close to their chest that they don't clue NPCs in on vital information.

But yeah, Lie isn't mind control. This game has actual mind control (and so does the Succubus) but that is not what Lie is. That's what enchantment spells are.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
breithauptclan wrote:


I think it really all comes down to this: If the rolls don't mean anything, why are you rolling?

To create paranoia

To preserve the illusion of choice

Lantern Lodge

5 people marked this as a favorite.
Themetricsystem wrote:

No dude, this is pure unadulterated metagaming, the GM used the Lie mechanic and it defeats the DC needed to pass against the PCs.

This is no different than a character ignoring an Illusion they failed their save against because of PLAYER knowledge. You cannot just DECIDE to ignore the consequences of the mechanical results... this isn't roleplay, it's ignoring the whole player-GM agreement to abide by the rules.

I am a paranoid son of a b_____ and I live in a world that wants to kill me.

Many years ago, I was playing Shadowrun. I was a Troll Adept. I don't remember why, but me and the other PC (there were only two PCs) went to someplace late at night (an abandoned school I think it was). This cute little girl (under 10 years) comes running up to me acting all friendly like. Perfectly normal looking kid. Nothing to suggest anything nefarious. I IMMEDIATELY DROP KICKED HER INTO THE NEXT COUNTY as soon as she reaches me - The GM is VERY SURPRISED... I don't think the word "incredulous" would be inappropriate. I definitely took her out, can't remember if I actually killed her, but I think I did.

Her brother, another cute little kid comes running out, TAKES OUT THE OTHER PC IN ONE ROUND, then I spend several rounds being beaten up by him. I only defeat him because I start dropping grenades at my own feet to catch him in the blast radius (I can't hit him, but the grenade's area of effect can). I survive (barely), but the grenades eventually take him down.

The GM admits after the fact that the little girl was really, really powerful and would likely have taken us down. Certainly, her brother was very extraordinary and by himself nearly took us down.

To be honest, if it had turned out that she really was a cute little girl, my Troll would have felt very, very bad about drop kicking her.

You call that "metagaming". I call it: "I'm a paranoid son of a b_____ who lives in a world that wants to kill me."


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Captain Zoom wrote:

You call that "metagaming". I call it: "I'm a paranoid son of a b_____ who lives in a world that wants to kill me."

And I'd note that this scenario can be used to easily highlight the difference between a GM that lets the player be in charge of what their character believes, and one that is overly-focused on the idea of "metagaming is bad and I have to stop the players from doing it":

The PC beliefs being up to the player plays out as described, even though the GM has the moment of "wow, really?!" reaction to those beliefs.

Where as if a GM is worried about the ol' metagaming boogyman, the description would have "You can't do that!" interrupting the action and insisting the player is playing in bad faith even though the same GM wouldn't stop the action the same way if the NPC weren't a secret threat because kicking an NPC unexpectedly isn't inherently 'cheating' - it's only 'cheating' because the GM has bought the line metagaming is selling.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Ravingdork wrote:

What exactly was the alternative in the adventure scenario I wonder?

Everyone believes the succubus and she seduces one of them until they die from too much drain, thereby giving away her true nature? Or perhaps she drains each in turn, leaving everyone in the 4th-level party at drained 3 before initiating combat and dispatching everyone with ease?

Succubus:
I had the succubus play the ingenue in distress. The party kept watching her, trying to catch her lying, and trying to roll to disbelieve. She let them tie her up and kept playing dumb. She stayed with the group and started an affair with one of the characters. She started corrupting circus members and customers here and there. Her plan was to eventually fill much of the circus with demons she summoned. Other succubus and tempters. She wanted to turn the circus into the Abyss on Earth. I planned to have this occur after module 5 while the party was gone for some months. They would have returned to the circus to find it completely corrupted and one final orgy of soul destroying circus fun with a Circus of full of demons. The succubus had become the ringmaster and led the circus with her beauty and charisma. It was going to be glorious, but we quit the campaign around book 5 due to lack of momentum. That particular encounter can lead to some very interesting role-playing and encounter building. A succubus makes for a hell of a ringmaster.
Grand Archive

If you want 100% player agency, then don't play a game with rules. Such a statement is hyperbole, but if you think about it, it isn't that much so.

If you don't like how the published adventure is written, either change it, or don't play it. Or, write your own.

Lie is not mind control. That said, there are mechanics for it. In the specific situation from the OP, their suspicion was quite warranted. Maybe instead of just saying "You believe them" you could go for "There is definitely truth to what they say" or "They don't seem to be lying".

Metagaming does exist but, the line between player and character knowledge can be hazy at times.

All of that said, at the end of the day, if you believe that your players are metagaming too hard, find better players. There is a simple economy of players and GMs. Supply and demand. Sometimes players need to be reminded of where they stand. This is not to say that a GM should never be reflective. Make sure that you as a GM are holding up your end of the proverbial bargain. But, if your players are unable or unwilling to hold up theirs, find different ones.


A thought occurred to my brain while distracted by doing other stuff:

The situation of a player saying "my character is suspicious of this person" and the GM responding with "no they are not" because of a high die roll is functionally the same as the situation of a player saying "I rolled a nat 20, so my character has seduced the NPC" - that's not how the game actually works, and it's generally accepted that it's problematic when players expect the latter to happen without the GM being able to dictate that no, the NPC just isn't open to that possibility so it's not happening like that, but yet somehow there are those that it's apparently okay for the GM to override the player's opinion of how their character feels about the situation because of a die roll (that the player may not have even known was rolled, and is almost certainly not aware of the actual result of).

Dark Archive

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

This thread has uh... Lot of different opinions so kinda hard to parse through them all.

I'll just add mine to here: Deception is mostly for whether character believes the other character is lying. The success means they don't have to believe what other character is true, just that other character is being "sincere". For all they know, the other character could be mind controlled or memory modified or something.

So it is valid for players to detective it out that "wait, combination of this with the lie doesn't make sense" but when NPC succeeds at deception GM tells them that they seem to be completely sincere as far as you can tell. GM could of course say that lie is so unbelievable that NPC fails anyway on closer examination, but its also valid to be like "You can tell 100% something is wrong, but she seems 100% sincere"


A situation like that happened in that same AP i think the OP is Gming and i am also, even if i managed a nice Deception roll, of course the party would be suspicious for n reasons, in that AP and in that moment they would got info that a suspicious women would have caused lots of problems before, so of course meeting a "helpless scholar women" in a luxurious room after battling monsters was veryyyyy suspicious indeed.
Specially due to her company in that room...

What they did? They try to see through the lie and failed, so they went and deal with the other menaces on that room, while the poor women was behind the party having running from the monsters of course, the party was keeping an eye on her of course, then the succubus tried to use her dominate on the barbarian of the party (the big dude with the large greataxe), when she saw that things were going poorly for the pets she had in that room, failed that and then the party went also after her.

From my point of view my party did well, at the point in the AP they KNEW there was a women that went into that zone after doing lots of damage in another area of the AP, so if they would not be suspicious that would be the strange thing.

But since it could have been true what she was saying, since she appeared being sincere, they act as such, and of course being ready for a treason act because the situation was still suspicious!


5 people marked this as a favorite.
Themetricsystem wrote:

No dude, this is pure unadulterated metagaming, the GM used the Lie mechanic and it defeats the DC needed to pass against the PCs.

This is no different than a character ignoring an Illusion they failed their save against because of PLAYER knowledge. You cannot just DECIDE to ignore the consequences of the mechanical results... this isn't roleplay, it's ignoring the whole player-GM agreement to abide by the rules.

There is no way you can tell metagaming from not metagaming unless you can read a player's mind. The same action can be done out of good faith or metagaming.

That's why, if metagaming happens, the GM is to blame. Either because he brought metagaming around the table when he could have just shut up or because he brings in a situation where player and character knowledge are so different that everyone has to handle the big elephant in the room.

First rule of metagaming: You do not talk about metagaming.

Liberty's Edge

2 people marked this as a favorite.

I just want to point out to folks trying to say that the Lie action isn't mind control... you're wrong, the Action has the Mental Trait and by definition is an ability that can "alter the target's mind" ... I GET that people don't like social checks and RP consequences of failing checks but the fact is that the players went out of their way to ignore GM direction and the actual rules in play to their advantage disregarding any semblance of fair gameplay.

I don't have all the context on what actually happened or the culture of RDs game table so I might be missing some crucial context here, but I just don't see any situation where acting like this is in any way acceptable. You might as well shrug your shoulders when the Barbarian is targeted by a fear effect that causes them to flee and they just decide "No, I'm so brave I would never run away."

Silver Crusade

4 people marked this as a favorite.
Themetricsystem wrote:
I just want to point out to folks trying to say that the Lie action isn't mind control... you're wrong, the Action has the Mental Trait and by definition is an ability that can "alter the target's mind" ... I GET that people don't like social checks and RP consequences of failing checks but

I think that you're basically right RAW.

But the RAW are insanely stupid and are regularly ignored at a great many tables. In fact, as far as I can recall I've NEVER played at a table where the GM followed this rule for BOTH NPCS AND PCs.

I can only speak for myself but if a GM enforced these particular rules as written I'd first point out my objections and, if that didn't work, I'd exercise my right to only play at games where I had fun.

As part of that discussion I'd make sure that the GM knew that these rules applied to THEM too. Make sure that the GM was quite happy if I got to push diplomacy and deception "I win" buttons too.

I'd THEN quit the campaign anyway :-). As BOTH sides of this coin are no fun to me (and I say that as somebody who has played diplomancers and bluffers in PF1.)

Your argument that this is the same as intimidation is flat out wrong.
1) The downside of intimidation is much, much less. Most of the time, you take a minor penalty. Sometimes you flee. Mind control (whether magical or mundane) is much, much worse
2) This has a far greater impact on player agency. Suddenly, the GM is TELLING you how the character reacts and behaves. The player is no longer in control. This is a huge deal. Virtually every GM guide written tells GMs to be VERY careful when they remove Player Agency as players hate it (for good reason)
3) At least to me (and obviously many others) it just "feels" wrong. We can live with magical mind control. But mundane mind control? That does NOT exist in reality OR in fiction. At least, not quick stuff like this. Long term reprogramming exists in fiction.
4) This makes deception MORE powerful than spells. I'd rather be bit by the 6th level dominate spell than by deception as you are interpreting it (and, as I agree, you probably ARE going by RAW). That is just insanely stupid and unbalanced. At least intimidate is clearly LESS powerful than fear spells.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Themetricsystem wrote:
I just want to point out to folks trying to say that the Lie action isn't mind control... you're wrong, the Action has the Mental Trait and by definition is an ability that can "alter the target's mind"

CAN not does: ALL the trait does by definition is limit it to non-mindless creatures.

Themetricsystem wrote:
I GET that people don't like social checks and RP consequences of failing checks but the fact is that the players went out of their way to ignore GM direction and the actual rules in play to their advantage disregarding any semblance of fair gameplay.

I think you're mistaken here. I think everyone is 100% fine with the roll and it's consequences: we aren't arguing if the players thought the the women was being truthful but if the scenario the woman was in made sense in context and coming to the conclusion that it didn't. It's NO different than believing an illusion and then interacting with it and getting a chance to disbelieve because 'something doesn't add up'.

Themetricsystem wrote:
I don't have all the context on what actually happened or the culture of RDs game table so I might be missing some crucial context here, but I just don't see any situation where acting like this is in any way acceptable.

You have your own unique perspective I guess. IMO, it's darn close to that 'the sky is red' scenario since it was awful blatant that the lie was a lie: I'd find it unacceptable if the DM expected everyone to follow along as if mind controlled with their brain turned off. If Lie = Mind Control then why do casters learn Mind Control?

Themetricsystem wrote:
You might as well shrug your shoulders when the Barbarian is targeted by a fear effect that causes them to flee and they just decide "No, I'm so brave I would never run away."

That's a pretty disingenuous comparison IMO. "At the GM’s discretion, if a creature initially believes your lie, it might attempt a Perception check later to Sense Motive against your Deception DC to realize it’s a lie. This usually happens if the creature discovers enough evidence to counter your statements."

It's BUILT IN that a lucky roll doesn't remove a creatures rational thought JUST like with illusions.

Grand Archive

2 people marked this as a favorite.

For those that believe that metagaming isn't a thing, I would be happy to join you in a game session some time and prove otherwise.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Themetricsystem wrote:

I just want to point out to folks trying to say that the Lie action isn't mind control... you're wrong, the Action has the Mental Trait and by definition is an ability that can "alter the target's mind" ... I GET that people don't like social checks and RP consequences of failing checks but the fact is that the players went out of their way to ignore GM direction and the actual rules in play to their advantage disregarding any semblance of fair gameplay.

I don't have all the context on what actually happened or the culture of RDs game table so I might be missing some crucial context here, but I just don't see any situation where acting like this is in any way acceptable. You might as well shrug your shoulders when the Barbarian is targeted by a fear effect that causes them to flee and they just decide "No, I'm so brave I would never run away."

A few things to note:

1) This is also "rules as written": "If a rule seems to have wording with problematic repercussions or doesn’t work as intended, work with your group to find a good solution, rather than just playing with the rule as printed." So no, we're not wrong that the GM shouldn't be able to say "I'm in charge of what your character thinks because I rolled high and the book can be read to say that makes me in charge."

2) There was no GM direction ignored, because the GM did not actually say "you must believe and trust this NPC" because the GM wasn't actually being an unreasonable jerk - and if they actually were and just didn't mention it, then we are in the territory of it being absolutely okay to ignore garbage directions rather than cave to whoever says they have authority just because they say they have authority.

3) "fair gameplay" in this case is clear: and it completely disagrees with your assesment of what should have gone down because it is not at all fair for the player to not be able to have their character remain suspicious of a suspicious scenario because the GM says "...but I rolled that you're not suspicious."

4) You're still doing the thing I mentioned before that you've yet to actually respond to: insisting bad behavior must have happened despite it not being the actions of the characters that were 'bad' but the thoughts you believe the players had in their heads.

5) Your constant insistence on comparison to other mechanics is deeply flawed because there is no such thing as, to use your most recent example, fleeing without fleeing - but believing something without or despite the evidence is both a real thing and common.

Trust me, I've been through tons of cases of it from a girlfriend being absolutely certain I was cheating on her when I had not, to my own mother not believing most of what I say unless someone else says "he's being serious", to an EMT not believing that I was in the car when it crashed into a tree because the totaled car and me appearing completely unharmed made them think I had actually showed up after the crash and was trying to claim being in the car so that my roadside assistance plan would apply (and I didn't even have one).

So when the GM describes a situation and the players decide their character's are suspicious of it, it's irrelevant to determining if being suscipcious is possible what check the GM decided to roll or what the result of that roll was.

6) You are, as most people that try to "stop metagamers from metagaming" end up doing, metagaming yourself. You can't definitively determine that the players are using their out-of-character knowledge to decide their character's actions without you also using their out-of-character knowledge to decide what their character's actions are allowed to be.

Liberty's Edge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Let me flip the script then.

You have a PC, they're HYPER specialized into Deception and find themselves in an RP situation where they want to lie to an NPC about something and for the sake of argument it's a rather far-fetched lie but the GM allows the roll for the purpose of being allowed into some restricted area.

The PC rolls a total of 29 versus the DC of 19, a critical success. The NPC believes the Lie but nonetheless still outright refuses to allow them entrance and begins interrogating the PC accusingly and acting suspicious of them despite believing the Lie that the PC IS allowed into the area. Would you as a player not be upset by this?

This is utterly inappropriate to do within the rules, if the GM allows the roll to happen in the first place and compares it against a DC that is set according to the NPC level and the circumstances then the result should be respected, deciding AFTER the results are determined that it's unbelievable after all is just ret-conning your decision to set a DC or follow the rules that govern this kind of interaction.

In this situation, if it were supposed to ACTUALLY be so unbelievable then the DC should have either been astronomically high it was impossible to attain or no Skill check should have been made in the first place... but this scenario was explicitly factored into the adventure, sure it might stretch the imagination but the idea that a beautiful woman was taken hostage and locked in bedchamber against their will with the implication that they're being "kept" for a rather obvious yet unstated purpose that I won't get into here isn't exactly off-theme for heroes vs bad guys tropes. The only reasonable justification for just flat-out overriding your belief in their story after you'd been successfully lied to is metagame info that the publisher wouldn't ACTUALLY write an NPC into an adventure that stars as this type of extremely sensitive victim role... Metagaming and dirty play on the part of the players by asserting player knowledge over what their character knows, believes, and experiences.


4 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Themetricsystem wrote:

I just want to point out to folks trying to say that the Lie action isn't mind control... you're wrong, the Action has the Mental Trait and by definition is an ability that can "alter the target's mind" ... I GET that people don't like social checks and RP consequences of failing checks but the fact is that the players went out of their way to ignore GM direction and the actual rules in play to their advantage disregarding any semblance of fair gameplay.

I don't have all the context on what actually happened or the culture of RDs game table so I might be missing some crucial context here, but I just don't see any situation where acting like this is in any way acceptable. You might as well shrug your shoulders when the Barbarian is targeted by a fear effect that causes them to flee and they just decide "No, I'm so brave I would never run away."

I think what is being missed here is that the transition to full disbelief (and asking what she was) occurred after she easily climbed out of the crate she was supposedly being kept captive in and began affectionately embracing a PC who had specifically said that he wanted to examine the other 2 crates in the room before deciding to cut the researcher free. He was resistant to her advances and then immediately capitulated to those advances right in front of the other players eyes.

You seem to be indicating that the very first roll, to get the players to believe that she was a researcher in need of rescue justifies changing the attitude of all 4 PCs to immediately friendly and ignoring a growing body of observable evidence that the situation is not what it seems. Where does it say you can accomplish this with a single deception check?

Again switch the situation. One PC decides to hide and attempt to deceive 4 NPCs that are coming into the situation assuming anyone they encounter is going to be associated with bad things, and have been told to be on the look out for someone who deceived an entire religious order into demon worship. At a minimum the PC is going to have to make an impression on 4 separate NPCs after lying to them, and then possibly make a request of one or more of them to free them and let them go.

The creature's deception DC is high enough that the encounter can be a fair challenge for the PCs, allowing them to make secret checks against the static DC and then leaving them in control of their own reactions to the information they receive, with potential alignment and future interaction consequences for being overly distrusting. The players have to be prepared for the possibility that this NPC is who they say they are and that they will forever be hostile to the party, working to undermine their future efforts with associated organizations.

Just like players don't like being told what tactics they can employ in combats, they don't like being told how their characters have to react in a social encounter. Instead, the GMs goal needs to be presenting clues and evidence that the PCs can use to come to their own outcomes, positive and negative consequences for any choice they make. Resolving entire social encounters with 1 die roll is like just rolling initiative and then deciding who ever goes first just wins.


4 people marked this as a favorite.
Leomund "Leo" Velinznrarikovich wrote:
For those that believe that metagaming isn't a thing, I would be happy to join you in a game session some time and prove otherwise.

One of my players was making the map of the dungeon (Abomination Vaults). At some point, he pointed a wall and said: "There's a secret door here that goes into a storage room". He then proceeded to open the door to everyone astonishment. Turned out he was completely lost in his own map and mistakenly thought he was in another room. But the secret door was damn real.

Great moment that would have been ruined if I had spoken of metagaming.

Metagaming is a thing, but one that's better left burried.

Themetricsystem wrote:

Let me flip the script then.

You have a PC, they're HYPER specialized into Deception and find themselves in an RP situation where they want to lie to an NPC about something and for the sake of argument it's a rather far-fetched lie but the GM allows the roll for the purpose of being allowed into some restricted area.

The PC rolls a total of 29 versus the DC of 19, a critical success. The NPC believes the Lie but nonetheless still outright refuses to allow them entrance and begins interrogating the PC accusingly and acting suspicious of them despite believing the Lie that the PC IS allowed into the area.

Been there, done that.

One of my players told the NPC he was an ally, rolled a critical success on the Deception check. The NPC stopped its action (attacking the party) and proceeded into interrogating the PCs as the lie was highly suspicious. After a few other checks (Religion as they were impersonating religious characters and a second Deception check, another critical success) I considered the NPC was definitely convinced.
I don't see an issue with that. If we speak of an entire encounter being bypassed, I prefer to ask for a few rolls.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Themetricsystem wrote:
Would you as a player not be upset by this?

You've made a bad scenario because you are presenting two different reasons to potentially be upset and conflating them as one reason.

I would not be upset that the GM determined a lie wouldn't work, because that's still a real thing. For example, if the guard is on strict orders not to allow anyone to come in the area, even the absolute most sincere belief that you are supposed to be allowed to be in the area doesn't mean the guard won't be conflicted over the situation because they feel like they are going to get in trouble for letting you pass even though you're supposed to have permission.

I would be upset that the GM were calling for a die roll and only pretending that the die roll could have any impact, because that's not in-character lying, that's the person playing the game with me lying to me out of character, and I'm not into that.

Themetricsystem wrote:
The only reasonable justification for just flat-out overriding your belief in their story after you'd been successfully lied to is metagame info...

That's still BS. You're still on a metagaming witch-hunt and refusing to acknowledge that the "override" in discussion isn't the player having their character be suspicious, it's the GM trying to override that suspicion with a die roll.

The player isn't doing anything but determining what their character believes based on the scenario at hand as described by the GM. It is the GM trying to exert control over the PC that is the cause of the discrepancy.

Silver Crusade

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Themetricsystem wrote:

Would you as a player not be upset by this?

No, I would NOT be upset by this. I do not want bluff to become an "I win" button. Not as player and not as GM.

Now, I would be irked if my bluffs NEVER worked. But I'm completely fine with them sometimes just failing. Maybe they really are unreasonable due to reasons the GM knows that I don't, maybe they just disrupt the story TOO much to be allowed. I trust my GM to make judgement calls like this.

As an aside it's not all that important but I'll quite often roll dice without thinking through all the modifiers (it's a lot quicker). Sometimes, after the dice hit the table and I see a 1 or a 20 I'll think things through and realize there really was no chance of failure or success. Yes, I shouldn't have rolled but I didn't realize that until I gave it considerable thought.

Silver Crusade

SuperBidi wrote:
Metagaming is a thing, but one that's better left burried.

SO you're okay with people reading the Bestiary during a fight with a monster or telling everyone its stats that they've memorized without making any knowledge checks or anything?


7 people marked this as a favorite.

Metagaming has no instrict value and is not inherently bad. The GM metagames every single times they makes a level-appropiate encounter. A player that chooses to not steal from the party because it's an a$%%#~$ thing to do is engaging in metagaming. Making a monk for Fists of the Ruby Phoenix because it's a fighting tournament is also metagaming.
Looking up the monster on Nethys would be metagaming as well but also cheating which is the worse issue.

What a character knows isn't really defined in the rules and you aren't really expected to use Recall Knowledge to notice it's a dwarf standing in front of you or that the rotting zombie might be an undead. So naturally stuff like that is going to vary table from table what is considered experience and what is considered cheating. Being genre-savvy could similarly be chalked up to adventuring experience in a dangerous world.

Ultimately it's always good to talk about your expectations with your group since they often differ from person to person.

Silver Crusade

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Onkonk wrote:
Metagaming has no instrict value and is not inherently bad. The GM metagames every single times they makes a level-appropiate encounter. A player that chooses to not steal from the party because it's an a@@+**! thing to do is engaging in metagaming. Making a monk for Fists of the Ruby Phoenix because it's a fighting tournament is also metagaming.

... absolutely none of those are metagaming.


5 people marked this as a favorite.

Of course they are, if you choose to not act with your character because how it would be affecting other players you are making a decision with your player knowledge that your character doesn't have and doesn't even have anything to do with your character in the first place and is as much metagaming as making that decision based on other out of character knowledge such as knowing vampires are typically weak to sunlight because of popular tropes. Same amount of out of character knowledge was acted upon.

When creating a character that fits a campaign you are acting on information outside the game to make it as fitting as possible, if the GM says there will be no undead and you avoid making your undead slaying character that is acting on meta knowledge.


9 people marked this as a favorite.
Rysky wrote:
SuperBidi wrote:
Metagaming is a thing, but one that's better left burried.
SO you're okay with people reading the Bestiary during a fight with a monster or telling everyone its stats that they've memorized without making any knowledge checks or anything?

I don't understand how observing context clues that throw an NPC's testimony into question is in any way equivalent to looking up a monster's stat sheet in the bestiary

Silver Crusade

Arachnofiend wrote:
Rysky wrote:
SuperBidi wrote:
Metagaming is a thing, but one that's better left burried.
SO you're okay with people reading the Bestiary during a fight with a monster or telling everyone its stats that they've memorized without making any knowledge checks or anything?
I don't understand how observing context clues that throw an NPC's testimony into question is in any way equivalent to looking up a monster's stat sheet in the bestiary

The equivalency came about when the conversation drifted to metagaming in general.

Silver Crusade

The GM forbidding or advising against character concepts before the game even starts is not metagaming.


3 people marked this as a favorite.

I think the conversation's diverged because of two definitions of metagaming. I'm not taking sides on which is correct since IMO they both are depending on context.

There's the root meaning which would be approaching the game as a game while inside the game, much like metafiction. The movie Scream is an example of a meta-slasher. On the comedic side there are Order of The Stick, Discworld, & Stranger Than Fiction. The characters may or may not know they're in a work of fiction, yet their actions/choices/assumptions/etc. are a commentary on fiction itself. In that sense, most anything the PCs do that makes assumptions based on the fantasy genre or gaming qualifies. The crux is though that PF2 characters do exist in the fantasy genre so it's hard to separate what's meta and what they'd observe from within, i.e. a Ustalav citizen re: vampire weaknesses w/o rolling or how physics does seem to change based on a PC's/NPC's "spirit" (a.k.a. level).

Then there's usage of word which seems to revolve around gaining unfair advantage (though I've also seen it used to disadvantage oneself or to augment the narrative, both of which I indulge in and approve of). This definition deals with the player making conscious choices for their PC based on out-of-game knowledge so it's a narrower version of the above and carries a negative connotation.

In the OP's context I'd say we're working more with gaining an unfair advantage via out-of-game knowledge, yet from the rundown it sounds like that didn't necessarily happen.
The players were told X by the Succubus and believed her.
The context gave a conflicting message which they also believed.
There was no reason for them to change their initial attitude about the stranger (as that does take magic vs. a PC).
The cognitive dissonance put them on guard and it was the Succubus that attacked, not the players.

What I find funny is that a few monsters have meta-knowledge, i.e. Lesser Death.

Grand Archive

2 people marked this as a favorite.
thenobledrake wrote:
In some cases that result is genuine cheating.

That is the point that many are making.

51 to 100 of 237 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder Second Edition / Advice / What do you do when players refuse to believe your lies? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.