Player .vs player

[Indur Dawndeath]

Thanks all for your ideas. I should explain the situation better as the group are a tight fellowship but . . .

One of the characters has been under the influence of the Nazgul and was seen by an npc about to do something heinous. That PC came out of the "shadow" effect and made his excuse and left. That PC is going down the route that the npc was lying as he wasn't there. (He was but he's maintaining he wasn't)He will get shadow for lying to the party but . . .

The PC needs to uphold his lie. The other Fellowship members are naturally now suspicious.

The question I'm faced with - if a PC has good Insight into body language etc, and the PC being accused is skilled in Persuade - should I let them have some kind of roll to determine if they can sense a lie or just let it roleplay out?

Thanks

I understand the issue.
Opposed tests are as previously mentioned Insight vs Riddle.
But I think that these things are better resolved in this way:
When the enemy take control of a character, then the Loremaster should do the same. Kind of like a Bout of Madness.
The player will be in the dark together with the rest of the fellowship, and they can work together trying to find out what happend.
Its your table, so feel free to do it your way. This is just a suggestion.

Cheers

[Glorelendil]

I recognize that both characters and players will sometimes be at odds, I just don't believe in rolling dice for social skills to resolve those conflicts. If one player (and presumably his character) wants to do one thing, and somebody else another, I don't have them roll Persuade.

Now that we have more details it makes the call tougher, though. "Under the influence of a Nazgul" sounds an awful lot like a bout of Shadow Madness, making the character a temporary LMC. So maybe a roll is appropriate.

With zero irony intended, I bet Stormcrow will have a good insight on this.

EDIT: Indur kind of beat me to it.

[Lorimez]

Thanks for all the input. It is an unusual position for the Fellowship to be in.

Playing tonight, so will discuss these ideas with the players and let you know how it goes.

Thanks again for your time.

Regards

[Stormcrow]

I recognize that both characters and players will sometimes be at odds, I just don't believe in rolling dice for social skills to resolve those conflicts. If one player (and presumably his character) wants to do one thing, and somebody else another, I don't have them roll Persuade.

Now that we have more details it makes the call tougher, though. "Under the influence of a Nazgul" sounds an awful lot like a bout of Shadow Madness, making the character a temporary LMC. So maybe a roll is appropriate.

With zero irony intended, I bet Stormcrow will have a good insight on this.

I agree with your assessment. I don't favor characters forcing other characters to make certain decisions (as I stated earlier), but I see no problem with characters acting at odds with other characters. I would never let one character use Persuade to make another character do what he wants. But not all social skills are beyond the pale. I would allow, for instance, one character to roll Insight to see if he thinks another character is lying (if you can tell whether an NPC is lying, you can tell whether a PC is lying). Only those things that directly involve the decision-making of the player are disallowed.

I also agree that being under the influence of the Shadow takes away from player-agency, and is not really a pure player-versus-player situation.

[Glorelendil]

As an aside, I never allow non-magical skills to be used for lie detection, in any system. Humans are just bad at detecting lies in strangers, and there's just no simple and good way to model the complexity of false positives and false negatives. I only allow Insight/Perception to notice clues and I leave it up to the player to decide how to interpret it. (The perennial problem of traps derives from some of the same logic.)

Another reason for not allowing lie detection is that it trivializes decisions. We wouldn't reduce combat to a single binary roll (Quivering Palm notwithstanding) so why do it for social interaction.

Anyway, one final complication is that it sounds like the other player already knows the answer and wants to know if his character also knows. That introduces metagaming vs immersion arguments that I won't go into on my phone.

[Stormcrow]

I tend to resist rolls to detect lies, but I also recognize that realistically detecting lies depends on vocal and physical cues that simply don't exist when playing an RPG. Players simply can't witness MY bumbling speeches for NPCs and get any sense of their veracity, so it's only fair to include an "is he lying" mechanism.

I don't usually let players ask to check if someone is lying; I'll either decide they sense someone is lying or I'll ask them to make a test—and only when an NPC seems uncomfortable about something.

[Glorelendil]

...realistically detecting lies depends on vocal and physical cues...

My understanding (from cursory research) is that there is no such thing as realistically detecting lies. One source I read said that pretty much everybody is no better than random at detecting lies. One exception is police officers who have received 'training' in detecting lies (often using the Reid technique): they are actually worse than random.

Sure, some people (many children) are just bad liars, especially when caught off-guard. Maybe the liar should have to roll. At least that way the LM can secretly roll the dice (another thing I dislike is a GM secretly rolling dice for a player.)

[Stormcrow]

My understanding (from cursory research) is that there is no such thing as realistically detecting lies. One source I read said that pretty much everybody is no better than random at detecting lies.

There's no such thing as OBJECTIVELY detecting lies. But everyone gives off subtle cues to one extent or another which listeners may notice. Sometimes, you can just TELL that someone is lying without any objective evidence. That's the sort of thing that won't come across in an RPG, so a roll to substitute for that lack makes sense. It's definitely more about the ability of a person to lie than the ability of a person to tell when someone is lying. A single lie may be told to multiple people, some of whom believe it and some of whom can tell the person is lying.

[Glorelendil]

Sometimes, you can just TELL that someone is lying without any objective evidence.

Unless you're talking about kids lying about their homework or taking the trash out, you really just THINK you can tell. Again, research seems to show that your guess is really no better than random when interacting with strangers.

But, anyway, it's the fact that so many people do think they can tell that makes this so interesting and hard to model in an interesting but simple way. You want rules where the player doesn't get a binary yes/no but a confidence range, ideally without the need for the DM to keep a straight face. (Unlike the NPCs he's representing, a DM will be doing this same thing repeatedly with people who know him well, which is exactly where "lie detection" ability becomes better than random.)

[Otaku-sempai]

Unless you're talking about kids lying about their homework or taking the trash out, you really just THINK you can tell. Again, research seems to show that your guess is really no better than random when interacting with strangers.

Ah, but we are not necessarily discussing strangers here. The odds of detecting a lie might increase significantly if we are speaking with someone we know--especially if we are well acquainted.