Recently had a strange encounter in which 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.
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.
Eventually, I realized that we weren't going to get anywhere and so broke disguise and initiated combat.
I'd very much like for this to go differently in the future though. The whole situation felt very meta to me, as though one or more of the players might have known the truth (perhaps by reading the adventure themselves) and were attempting to force the issue even though their characters had no reason to disbelieve her.
What could I have done to make this go more smoothly? What would be some good advice for similar situations in the future, in which an NPC lies to the party?
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hmmm, seems like the players pulled a "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."
also a bit of "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."
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Two lines pop out to me reading how the Lie action works.
You try to fool someone with an untruth. Doing so takes at least 1 round, or longer if the lie is elaborate. You roll a single Deception check and compare it against the Perception DC of every creature you are trying to fool. 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.
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.
Success The target believes your lie.
Failure The target doesn’t believe your lie and gains a +4 circumstance bonus against your attempts to Lie for the duration of your conversation. The target is also more likely to be suspicious of you in the future.
From what you described, the situation sounds like it comes with evidence not to believe the lie. Without knowing the full context, it feels weird that an ordinary researcher would have bribes that gave them a more comfortable room in a prison cell than dungeon leaders have in their personal bedrooms. Which means either the dungeon leaders are doing something suspicious or the researcher is lying. If the party is still suspicious, I'd give the first character a Sense Motive check so see what's going on, and on a failure try to drop hints that reinforce the lie regarding the character of the jailors. Like, maybe the jail is run by demons who use extensive luxuries to appeal to hedonism and eventually corrupt their captives, and perhaps the researcher appears equally confused by her elaborate quarters as the party is.
EDIT: Ninja'd
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Ooof, it sounds like your group needs to hire a contractor to repair their fourth wall buddy.
I honestly don't know what to tell you except to MAYBE have an honest conversation with them about it as this isn't much different than a PC just deciding on their own that the Bugbear they are fighting actually didn't trip them after all.
| 16 people marked this as a favorite. |
Ooof, it sounds like your group needs to hire a contractor to repair their fourth wall buddy.
I honestly don't know what to tell you except to MAYBE have an honest conversation with them about it as this isn't much different than a PC just deciding on their own that the Bugbear they are fighting actually didn't trip them after all.
Sometimes, when the players refuse to stop metagaming, I change the script just to teach them a lesson. Suddenly, the succubus really is just a captive and the important info she has about the real succubus is lost because they kept hounding her and now she won't talk to them.
| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
There is no such thing as metagaming. What GMs mean when they ask players to stop metagaming is 'Please be stupid for me against your best interests.'
False. In previous campaigns:
"I rolled a 1 on my perception check. I am now going to go back to the group and get somebody else to come check too because I know I rolled badly."
We ribbed the player relentlessly about the blatant metagaming.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
1. I as a GM would usually not roll any social skills versus the party, but just tell them the truth or the lies I have prepared. Instead I would have the player(s) roll Perception versus Deception/Diplomacy/Intimidate DC if the player is stating that his character is trying to gauge what is going on while not forgetting to incoporate appropriate modifiers for easy to believe lies, hard evidence and so on.
And while this is not in the description of Deception per se it runs along the line of "no one can ever change the attitude of a player character with these skills. You can roleplay interactions with player characters, and even use Diplomacy results if the player wants a mechanical sense of how convincing or charming a character is, but players make the ultimate decisions about how their characters respond", which is mentioned for Diplomacy and Intimidate.
2. Our gaming group is all for the separation of player and character knowledge, so I see the following player options, which however are strongly depending on table ettiquette. In the given scenario and assuming that nobody was able to discern the lie by hard evidence or made a suitably high Sense Motive roll we would usually do the following.
2.1 The players play their characters as fully believing the lie, cooperating normally with the NPC including acting surprised even when they really aren't.
2.2 The players play their characters as believing the lie but due to the special circumstances stay on their toes throughout, cooperating only in save ways, always double checking any of the NPCs statments and actions and closely watching their backs.
| 18 people marked this as a favorite. |
Players come loaded with knowledge about fantasy stories and maybe even specific monsters. Asking them to ignore that is silly.
No, asking them to ignore that is part of the rules of the game.
Sometimes the player knows more than the character; sometimes the character knows more than the player. If you can't put the former aside, don't expect the latter.
I as a player have no idea how to load a crossbow or pick a lock or conjure a firebalk. My characters do, though. And in turn I know things like "the GM has Bestiary 2 book open to one of the middle pages" and "that pawn is a green dragon and not a jungle drake" that my characters don't know.
Separating those two is roleplaying, deliberately mixing the two is metagaming.
It doesn't matter whether the obvious trap was obvious to the players. It wasn't an obvious trap to the characters, and if the players can't deal with that, then I don't really know what to do other than sit down and have a conversation about it.
It'd be super funny to flip the script - change the adventure so that the woman really is a woman, and the PCs' refusal to believe her causes her death and opens the PCs to a surprise attack from the real succubus hiding in a secret passage behind them. But long term that's not really helpful to the campaign and kind of dark to boot. And short term that's hard to do on the fly.
If players want to play "I'm Smarter Than the GM" instead of Pathfinder, that's fine too (especially if it's a paid gig). Either up the ante with more and more elaborate ruses, or put up with this nonsense for a paycheck.
Some players can't emotionally deal with their characters failing at something, you just have to decide whether you want to cater to them or not. (And there are legitimate answers both ways.)
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Lies aren't mind control. No one, no matter how well the roll (or without a roll) actually has to believe anything any NPC says
But Deception specifically states that "Success The target believes your lie."
Rules could not be more clear cut.
So when it comes to the question of "but how do I create situations in which the PCs are successfully misled by NPCs?" the answer is this: make the lies they are told seem not just plausible, but genuinely probable, and hope for the best...
But the lie told was literally the one the adventure said to use...
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Other times, like the "I rolled a 1 so now I'm asking for help" example, the term is used despite a different term being a more accurate fit: cheating (or if you're wanting to avoid that harsh-sounding term, you can call it "not playing in good faith")
There are lines, but when those lines are crossed its called cheating, not metagaming.
Alternatively, the two words are synonyms with similar but slightly different meanings.
| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
Lies aren't mind control. No one, no matter how well the roll (or without a roll) actually has to believe anything any NPC saysBut Deception specifically states that "Success The target believes your lie."
Rules could not be more clear cut.
By this logic however, a success on an NPC's Intimidation to Coerce or Diplomacy to Request, means they could send the paladin to murder their own family members. (An extreme example, I know.)
PC's are somewhat immune to social skills with non-mechanical effects, because the alternative is to turn those skills into mind control.
So when it comes to the question of "but how do I create situations in which the PCs are successfully misled by NPCs?" the answer is this: make the lies they are told seem not just plausible, but genuinely probable, and hope for the best...But the lie told was literally the one the adventure said to use...
I suggest getting a better adventure. Or editing the encounter. Or congratulating your players on being smarter than the designers of said encounter.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, I don't think many of the social rolls should be expected to work on PCs. TBH I'm not even sure you should roll Lie against them at all, as picking up a dice and rolling it is a pretty big tip off that the NPC is lying.
What you CAN do is limit how often the PCs can Sense Motive. Don't let them roll after every question they ask. Let them each roll once per scene. If they all fail the rolls, you just tell them she seems perfectly sincere. But that just means they can't tell if she's lying, and she might be a really good liar. It is up to them if they believe it despite evidence to the contrary.
If they proceed to pressure her or otherwise indicate they are onto her, then she just attacks because the jig is up. Which is exactly what you wound up doing, so good job!
(Also, keep in mind this cuts both ways. PCs can't convince an NPC that they would be better off just committing suicide on the spot. Plausibility is a factor.)
But the lie told was literally the one the adventure said to use... [
Sad but true: APs rely on a certain amount of villainous incompetence because it otherwise can't control for every action players will take for keeping things on the rails. Almost every AP I have read has a villain who leaves behind a journal if they flee which outlines their evil plan and tells the players where to go next. Because the story can't rely on the PCs successfully capturing and questioning that villain-- or even that it would occur to them. Almost every AP uses sub-optimal tactics. APs need to be completed for the masses, which also means the least common denominator.
The question you should be asking is: Were the PCs ever meant to buy this lie in the first place? Probably not. In fact, I think Paizo deliberately avoids adventures which hinge on a vulnerable NPC successfully lying to a PCs face, because all it takes is one nat 20 sense motive roll to end the ruse.
So you then need to decide if you want a flimsy lie written for the least common denominator, or to change things to improve immersion. I ran an AP which relies on an NPC feeling guilty about betraying the BBEG and writing about it in their journal. They tear the page out but don't destroy it. Given that NPC's intelligence score, I could buy her writing it (journaling helps a lot with bad feelings) but thought she'd be smart enough to burn it afterwards. So I made it so she did, and instead let my Divination happy party get some guidance not only to the journal, but to a wand of Forgotten Lines to let them restore the destroyed pages. And just never told the players this was a change.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think the encounter went as planned.
Succubus tells awesome lie in setting that undermines her lie in multiple ways. So there are two (or more) stories being told and PCs will be inclined to believe the deadliest. Or to interrogate the side which can be interrogated (though a thorough search would be called for too).
She gets caught. Done.
Or yes, the writers underestimated players and/or their paranoia.
Modern hostage rescuers have to account for brainwashed victims, and those people really are the people they say they are. Imagine a world w/ illusions, transmutations, and of course, coaxing fiends. And wily GMs.
One does have to up one's game in such a situation.
-Have other prisoners. Perhaps charmed ones in this instance, but others to establish that yes, these monsters take prisoners.
-Play the victim less straightforward. Maybe she's deranged (though not really) or flees (though not really), etc. Her being reasonable is a most unreasonable situation.
-Tell the lie in an appropriate setting. Perhaps the dungeon was inevitable, but why the posh room? That was silly.
-Make it in the players'/PCs' interests to believe them. Maybe she looks like someone they're searching for (that perhaps the Succubus ate) or might be the type of person that knows some arcane tidbit the party's looking for.
-As mentioned before using layers of lies works well. Ex. She says she's fake ID #1 because she doesn't want to tell you who she is (fake ID #2) since that would put her at risk.
And I think, depending on the publisher, that most adventure authors are aware of much of what I wrote. Which is why I think it played out as expected. Unless later bits hinged on the Succubus infiltrating in which case, yeah, that's bad writing since nothing should depend on PCs being duped, for several mechanical, social, and narrative reasons.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Recently had a strange encounter in which 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.
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.
My method is to tell my players, "Yes, something about the situation does not add up. These are clues that will lead to the truth. However, the human researcher sounded totally sincere and her part of the story appears to be consistent."
My player then know that their characters have been Deceived and will play along.
Players come loaded with knowledge about fantasy stories and maybe even specific monsters. Asking them to ignore that is silly.
And my players enjoy an opportunity to be silly. Pretending to believing false information lets them set up comedy. For example, recently they realized that some important officials were acting strange. They had been replaced by Doppelgangers but the party rolled low on Recall Knowledge (Society) and thought about Intellect Devourers instead. Thus, they took precautions against little monsters that would eat brains. I don't make secret rolls, so they knew that they were wrong, but roleplaying is its own fun.
|
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
Lies aren't mind control. No one, no matter how well the roll (or without a roll) actually has to believe anything any NPC saysBut Deception specifically states that "Success The target believes your lie."
And that rule is, and always has been, insanely stupid.
Let's turn this around a second. As a GM do you allow PC bluffs to succeed regardless of the situation? "I am the king transformed by a spell" takes a -5 or so? For almost all GMs the answer is a resounding no (especially in PF1 where bluff could get to absurd levels)
I have always altered that rule to "your target detects no lie".
To cite reality for a moment, I personally have an atrocious sense motive. Why, even <lying politician> sounds sincere to me. I still don't believe a word they say because I KNOW they're a liar but they do sound sincere to me.
Players should try and have their characters react appropriately. But that does NOT mean ignoring the evidence. Unless one of the players actively cheated, they are allowed to decide a lie is just too implausible to be believed.
Edit: and, of course, sometimes they will be paranoid and attack the person who really WAS a prisoner. Player agency requires you to allow this kind of mistake.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think the encounter went as planned.
Now that you mention it...that seems extremely plausible.
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
As a player in this encounter, I think the creepiness of the situation is being a little undersold. The whole situation is tin the past so I don’t think it is a problem to participate in this discussion. But if it is a problem, I will back out.
The party had rushed ahead to the end of the dungeon, defeating the leaders of the dungeon and were making their way back through unexplored rooms. All the the rooms encountered thus far have been empty long abandoned types of rooms expected in a ruin, with some added filthy, refuse covered straw matts as the highest comfort addition to the dungeon. Suddenly the PCs walk into an ornately decorated room with fine silk sheets, throw pillows, and two monstrous looking beast creatures standing in the corners. The creatures are not acting hostile to the party so the party gives the monster beasts the benefit of the doubt although two characters stay close incase something happens. The party then hears noise from one of three crates in the room. The party is cautious in their approach to the crate and still trying to figure out what us up with the monstrous looking beasts in the corner. None of the PCs yet start acting with hostility, but no one rushes to free the prisoner either.
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.
Then the other members of the party start asking what she is and refusing to believe that she could be a human researcher.
Had the NPC not basically attacked a PC, the party would have eventually released her, as they were discussing doing when she got impatient and essentially aggressive.
While I agree with the folks that say that NPCs should generally not use the lie action against PCs but PCs should be able to make secret sense motive checks if they are suspicious, I think the bigger issue here is GM patience. If the characters believe the lie, let the players take some time to decide what that means. If there is overwhelming evidence of foul play, the players might remain very suspicious of her, but they would let her go on her own way. Nobody trusts anyone after 3 minutes of talking in an hostile and suspicious environment.
Succubi, and encounters that hinge upon assumptions of physical attraction really cannot be forced onto players. You can have NPCs interact in specific ways, but making assumptions about players willingness to “Play along” is getting into risky territory as far as consent and player boundaries. It is definitely a good idea to let players take the lead on what they are comfortable with and worse case scenario, the Succubi escapes to become a recurring character later on in the story, especially if the encounter happens at a much later point in the story arc than the adventure writer originally intended.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think the encounter went as planned.Now that you mention it...that seems extremely plausible.
Not when the characters crit-failed.
If the characters succeeded, sure, the inconsistencies can be used as the rationale for not believing the lies.
But the whole point of rolling is that there are multiple, interesting outcomes. If there's only one outcome or only one interesting outcome, don't roll.
And crit-failing and swallowing the lie hook, bait, and sinker is absolutely an interesting outcome.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Succubi, and encounters that hinge upon assumptions of physical attraction really cannot be forced onto players. You can have NPCs interact in specific ways, but making assumptions about players willingness to “Play along” is getting into risky territory as far as consent and player boundaries. It is definitely a good idea to let players take the lead on what they are comfortable with and worse case scenario, the Succubi escapes to become a recurring character later on in the story, especially if the encounter happens at a much later point in the story arc than the adventure writer originally intended.
This is a big part of why I felt like I was just kind of stumbling through the encounter. I didn't have any good indicators as to the appropriateness of things (other than the previously agreed "PG-13" rating we discussed in our Session 0) and thus had a great deal of difficulty describing what was happening. The words "passionate kisses" got tossed around a lot as a result.
Been thinking for a few days now that--as we move onto the next phase of the adventure--it might be a good idea to have another mini-session-0. This would give the players a chance to discuss what they did and did not like about the first chapter of their adventure so that we can all have more fun moving forward. I think it especially important since we've got a few new players who weren't present for the first session 0.
And to be clear, the outcome of the encounter felt fine to me as a player (she basically attacked us and then it turned into a combat encounter) but if selling the lie was important, then just letting the players carry on until they decide to begrudgingly let her go because the players realize their characters aren’t figuring out what is wrong, is a fine conclusion as well.
You have to normalize rolls until players are desensitized. Have everyone rolls, whether or not they are lying. Or preroll before the session so the players don't realize that there is even a roll going on.
Then, let them get suspicious or a perfectly normal NPC (although you might have put in red herrings to get this reaction), and let their paranoia reach a logical conclusion- they realize that the person is telling the truth and was genuinely trying to help them.
This should get them out of the habit of seeing a sense motive as a roll for initiative. Then, sense motive will just get a litmus test that alerts them if it reacts, and all other situations go under the radar.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
And to be clear, the outcome of the encounter felt fine to me as a player (she basically attacked us and then it turned into a combat encounter) but if selling the lie was important, then just letting the players carry on until they decide to begrudgingly let her go because the players realize their characters aren’t figuring out what is wrong, is a fine conclusion as well.
Which was pretty much how it should have gone. In hindsight, I think I overplayed/overemphasized the deception in the encounter. As Castilliano put it, it ultimately went as [the developers] planned.
| 13 people marked this as a favorite. |
Players come loaded with knowledge about fantasy stories and maybe even specific monsters. Asking them to ignore that is ...
called role-playing.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Players are always paranoid. I'm pretty sure I know the encounter you're talking about. My players were paranoid as well.
I kept playing her with the party until she earned their trust and they got used to her being there. They kind of just forgot about her and she traveled with them for a long time setting up a rather nasty surprise that was going to occur at a later time.
The more they asked questions, the more she played up the sad trapped ingenue. You gotta as a DM stick by your guns and play the NPC until the PCs get used to them being there. That's when the fun happens.
|
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Players come loaded with knowledge about fantasy stories and maybe even specific monsters. Asking them to ignore that is ...called role-playing.
The characters also have huge amounts of knowledge that the players do not have. We're talking experienced adventurers and not some farm boy.
It's extremely hard to represent character knowledge by dice rolls and D&D and its variants do a particularly bad job. A description of a monster is likely to trigger SOME knowledge in both characters and players. Eg, bony means use bashing weapons, if it is on fire or throwing fire then fire likely less effective, etc etc.
And then you come to another huge issue. Player agency.
There really is no perfect solution. If the characters reactions to an NPC are all reduced to dice rolls then player agency is lost. And why stop there? Surely it would be better to roll against tactics skill than to let the players decide their plan? And surely dice rolls should mandate what items a character decides to buy? Which weapons to use? Heck, with enough work we should be able to eliminate players decisions completely.
I'm obviously exaggerating but parts of that ARE implemented in various games (GURPS has tactics rolls, Pendragon has personality rolls, etc).
The best solution I've found is to use dice to determine what information the GM gives the players and then let the players decide. The players then do as good a job as they can to decide how their character would react. Given that everybody is human the result is imperfect but it's usually about as good as it is going to get.
And GMs just have to be prepared for the fact that sometimes characters will react in "wrong" ways.
Secrets rolls are a thing. I suggest using them frequently, not just for important story beats.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The entire purpose of die rolls is so that the outcome of the story is not known before hand. The GM has part most of the story that they control, the players each have their part of the story that they control. And in order for there to be surprises and plot twists that none of the players - GM included - are aware of, we use dice to create some uncertainty in the outcome.
I think it really all comes down to this: If the rolls don't mean anything, why are you rolling?
I very much agree with Themetricsystem
this isn't much different than a PC just deciding on their own that the Bugbear they are fighting actually didn't trip them after all.
"Bah, the dice outcome is not reality. I didn't actually just get lied to successfully."
And I would also point out that the players not following the role-play guidance of the dice is not all that much different than the players not following the instructions and information given by the GM.
"Oh, this underground bunker is really dark. I don't have darkvision and can't see? Meh, I'm still going to walk confidently across the room directly to the door and open it without any difficulty. What? Well, nowhere in the rules does it actually say that being unable to see gives any penalty to movement or interact actions. Just to targeting enemies since they all become undetected to me."
Can't you at least role-play a little bit? Describe the action as stumbling across the floor and fumbling around for the door handle?
Is separating the player knowledge from the character knowledge difficult? yes. Is making decisions for your character that go against the optimal play based on the knowledge that you as a player knows really hard? absolutely. Is doing so the right thing to do? yeah. But it ultimately makes for a more immersive and entertaining experience.
Otherwise things kind of devolve into a situation where the players are in competition with the GM. It isn't about telling stories any more, it is about winning and beating the other players. Can my selection of feats beat your selection of monsters? A situation where the dice are the enemy. And probably the GM is the enemy too.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Building on what Lucy said, some people know they're bad at lie detection, so account for it by second-guessing their beliefs, especially if they're new ones introduced by an unknown agent.
Similarly, there are those who understand humanity well enough to understand we're all a bit bad at lie detection and that our biases are dangerous when determining truth. They too will want to double check their conclusions. In fact, the more certain they are, the more wary they (might) become. That depends on situation and distraction, etc., yet in a dungeon, living the life of an adventurer, and often having extraordinary or superhuman prowess, seems somebody in the party would fall into one or both of those skeptical camps. Which is to say, even when they believe the liar, they don't necessarily trust themselves enough to accept it fully.
And it sounds like in the scenario it was the impatience of the Succubus that did her in.
Reminds me of a lich in an older setting who would kill even those that befriended him because he was the type of creature willing to kill his friends! Even the highest level of success would amount to him offering to transform the PCs into undead so they could all hang out for eternity. He'd kill them if they refused because them living after having found him simply would not suffice. So sorry.
Most (not all) adventurers seem to fall in a similar niche where even if they believe a lie, that doesn't imply any trust or letting one's guard down. And in the case of the Succubus, sure, she could be a prisoner wanted for her knowledge. That doesn't make her trustworthy!
Nor should it prevent inquiry regarding strange anomalies like the room being opulent (for which she'd hopefully have a story). I don't know that I'd reroll, as I'd see that as part of the lie's narrative, but I might move the DC every time a player points out a new discrepancy so that the lie eventually collapses if unsupported by (the game's) reality.
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?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Secrets rolls are a thing. I suggest using them frequently, not just for important story beats.Secret rolls don't prevent the situation described in the OP.
They are not some magical power that makes players role-play in the way the GM is hoping they do, and seeing the die roll doesn't give the player some special ability to act differently than they can as a response to a secret check or no check at all.
Secret rolls prevent the player from reacting to the die roll itself. If a player rolls a natural 1 on a Perception check, he would be aware that his attention wandered at that point, and the fact that the GM asked for a roll would tell him that there may have been something that he should have been aware of.
But in the case of a check as to how convincing an NPC is, a player always has the option of disregarding what the NPC says because of his character's distrust or bias. The only cure I can think of for this is for an apparently untrustworthy NPC to tell the PC something that is both true and useful once in a while.
|
|
Secret rolls don't do anything in the OP's situation. Let's leave it out of this discussion.
What are you talking about? Lie is literally a Secret Check by every definition applicable and running it any other way would only reinforce this kind of unhealthy metagaming, that's... literally the entire point of Secret Checks.
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?
I don't think there was a set scenario. The book tells you what she attempts, and it is up to the dice and the players to see what happens from there.
Honestly there was more detail on her plans and contingencies than most NPCs get.