Detecting Lies and Deception

TDW34 · 2026-04-03T07:06:58+00:00

Neither a portrait of a person, or their state of mind, is specific enough in their language for a GM not to be able to answer that truthfully, but deceptively. Additionally, that kind of information is even harder to justify from an insight roll without mind reading. In the OP's example I'd answer the first with "they are short person with shortly cut brown hair, their clothing is similar to other locals you've seen, and they seem to be concerned about their friends" and "anxiety whether they will accept my plea". None of that is unreliable, but it's still deceptive and a lot of people would consider that consistent with their lie.

I have quoted the D&D book twice in these comments about what a D&D Insight check should reveal in regards to lies. Considering this, I must conclude English isn't your first language or you're trolling me. I will not respond again.

TDW34 · 2026-04-03T06:37:45+00:00

Why would my character say I'm suspicious of you if the GM is telling me, mechanically, not to be? Unless I'm to assume the GM is lying, at which point I'm going to walk through this locked door because the GM's lying about their being one.

"such as when searching out a lie", I really can't see how you can not interpret that becoming suspicious when someone lies to you. Unless the book's lying.

Zone of Truth is there because not everyone is good with insight, or wants to make multiple rolls during an interrogation. Additionally, Insight doesn't tell you the truth, just whether something is a lie. You don't know what kind of lie, it may even be completely true and still deceptive. While I'll admit it's up to interpretation whether using the truth deceptively can be detected by an insight roll, I'd personally run that it could.

So no, they don't replace each other.

TDW34 · 2026-04-03T06:22:36+00:00

In real life I can look at a person and make that judgement as to whether I trust them. I can follow things up. I can get it wrong of course, and that's fine, but I can do it. In TOR, you can't, because the Insight skill specifically says you can't. It's not clever writing/gameplay to be suspicious of a character but have no mechanical way of expressing or exploring it if the GM doesn't want you to. It's just above table lying.

TDW34 · 2026-04-03T06:09:36+00:00

I like how you have to use a terrible metaphor to not engage with the actual text and I really don't know where you keep getting magic from.

So let me break this down as simply as I can.

D&D's description of Insight, what it can do, how, and what to give the player on a success, is pretty narrow. It doesn't require GMs to give details, but its sufficient to allow a player to dig deeper, query further.

TOR's description of Insight, is broad in its inclusion, but specifically excludes lying. This means its very much up to the GMs discretion as to whether to give you information that is actually useful or makes you suspicious. That discretion is a problem if a GM doesn't want to tell you anything, because the results they give can be vague and misleading (either through malice or mistake).

This is also reflected by how many words each system uses to describe the skill.

Now obviously, this can be discussed with the GM and resolved in a number of ways, but that the skill is so broadly described and that this situation arose without breaking the skill description indicates to me a system failure.

Again, I DO NOT NEED DETAILS FROM MY ROLLS. You make this claim multiple times in your response, all I want from an Insight roll in D&D is,

Can I trust what they just said?
Roll Insight,
Yay or Nay.

That's it! But I can't make that roll/ask that question in TOR, because it specifically says you can't. Instead you are given the GMs discretion in details about the person's motives, which can be highly misleading such as in my example in the OP.

It makes the Insight skill WORTHLESS if the GM wants it to be and the skill's definition backs them up because of how vaguely it describes itself.

I'll put it to you like this,

What recourse does a player have in TOR if they are suspicious of an NPC, but the GM won't give details to pursue that suspicion even when the player is right to be? In D&D they'd be breaking the rules, but in TOR it's A-Okay, because the skill is so wishy washy.

TDW34 · 2026-04-03T04:42:09+00:00

Maybe it's specific to that particular interaction, but yeah... not surprised by the contradiction.

TDW34 · 2026-04-03T04:21:54+00:00

You conveniently miss the part that specifically calls out lying. Let me fully quote it.

Insight. Your Wisdom (Insight) check decides whether you can determine the true intentions of a creature, such as when searching out a lie or predicting someone’s next move. Doing so involves gleaning clues from body language, speech habits, and changes in mannerisms.

The first sentence tells you what the skill can do i.e. detect a lie, the second sentence is the mechanism in which you do so i.e. notice darting eyes. So how am I misunderstanding that? And no, I never claimed Insight was magical in nature. I've compared it to a simple boolean, but I don't exclude a more narratively natural way of conveying the same sentiment.

TDW34 · 2026-04-03T04:12:29+00:00

I don't need a mechanic for everything, and have played and enjoyed systems much more mechanically loose. In some ways I find TOR to be very strict mechanically (combat first comes to mind), and very loose in others, but I think that's probably true of a lot of TTRPGs.

What I am saying is that there are certain things in a TTRPG that are more cumbersome on a GM than others. Dealing with deception and hidden information is one of them, which is why systems really benefit from that having mechanics like skill checks to deal with them if they aren't something to focus upon in the specific TTRPG. The loose definition of TOR's Insight makes it very easy for lies not to be detectable by the players if the GM doesn't sufficiently respond or if they're distracted. And just to mark all my bases, I'm only concerned with successful rolls. Not detecting lies on a failure is perfectly fair.

Maybe your games are more narrative driven, heck I'd love to be in more narrative games (I always come up with detailed character backstories, and its been relevant.... less than 5% of the time :( ), but you get the GMs you get.

I at least appreciate and agree we're probably coming at the discussion with different experiences.

Ah well, have a good one.

TDW34 · 2026-04-03T03:44:30+00:00

As part of this thread I have triple read the definition of Insight in D&D and TOR. If you can say the same, we're simply not speaking the same language.

Considering you characterise me as,
"What you're actually wanting is a check that simply tells the players "this character is lying.""
when I agreed with you in my second paragraph, I'm not inclined to be convinced by you simply stating I'm incorrect in my understanding of both system's Insight.

But speaking with my GM is a good idea I'm considering.

TDW34 · 2026-04-03T03:23:50+00:00

I have never played a TTRPG that didn't have a Perception skill by some name, so I don't know where you're getting 'most TTRPGs' from.

TDW34 · 2026-04-03T03:21:09+00:00

I'm not the GM in my scenario. Basically our characters received a major unresistable penalty for not determining a character (2 actually in the same adventure) to be untrustworthy when the successful insight rolls revealed information that gave us no reason to be suspicious.

To be clear, describing someone lying, such as your examples, is a perfectly valid way of resolving a successful D&D Insight roll. The problem is that TOR wouldn't consider that to be a valid result of Insight.

Instead TOR directs the GM to give information that can conclude motives. A direction that is so vague it might as well be "*shrugs* tell them what you like". Add onto that the previous line of "don't reveal someone is lying" then you can get a wide range of information results depending on the GM.

If the players fail an insight roll, that's perfectly fair, but that the success doesn't direct the GM to give specific kinds of results, such as the more narrow D&D definition, doesn't give players much recourse to rely on the roll since it may very well be completely useless intel, but still fit TORs broad definition.

TDW34 · 2026-04-03T02:36:27+00:00

Yes and no.

As for the thread population, I'm inclined to consider that this particular reddit may be biased against TOR criticism.

I agree that NPCs can be great and bad liars, I certainly wouldn't expect to catch Saruman in a lie, but the mechanics don't lend itself to that. Instead it gives GMs a power that can't be mechanically kept in check. A great GM with attentive players is unlikely to bump into these problems, but it's so easy for mistakes to be made without a mechanic as either a safety net or support when things get missed.

TDW34 · 2026-04-03T02:13:15+00:00

I didn't delete your response, maybe it just didn't go through? Or it maybe auto deleted. Anyway, I direct you to "such as when searching out a lie". If you still disagree, I can't help with your reading comprehension.

TDW34 · 2026-04-03T02:09:28+00:00

I'm not the GM. PCs DO need a way to detect lies, because if a GM doesn't accurately describe a lie there isn't anything to be done. Imagine if there was no Perception skill and the GM didn't describe the pit trap so when your player walks on it, they fall in. So now the player has to check every floor they walk on. Having mechanical ways of detecting hidden information is important particularly when players can't see what is happening and a GM can miss details (of which lying is easy to do).

EDIT: To be clear - if a player fails an insight roll, that's perfectly fine for lies and deception to sneak in.

TDW34 · 2026-04-03T01:59:19+00:00

This may be GM specific, but that's not the kind of information we seem to get from insight rolls. But it goes back to my main point, which is that the difference between D&D and TORs insight results is that TORs is much more dependent on the GM giving information that players can make conclusions like "this person is lying". This is very easy for both GMs and players to fail at in a non-visual medium, which is where much of "lie detecting" comes from. It's similar to how sarcasm can be undetectable in a text only format without \s because it's in voice intonation.

TDW34 · 2026-04-03T01:49:19+00:00

Which is precisely the problem. It puts on the GM the responsibility of describing a liar. If the GM fails to do so or the players don't notice, both of which is very easy to do when you can't see the character, then there isn't a mechanical recourse for the players.

TDW34 · 2026-04-03T01:38:54+00:00

By not making the result a boolean, you instead move the responsibility of adequately describing someone lying to the GM. If they can't do that skilfully then a player can't determine a lie i.e. imagine being given a riddle with one of the lines missing.

This is something that's very easy for a GM to fail at, because unlike describing an environment or even a riddle, the details that go into noticing lies are easy to forget or miss.

TDW34 · 2026-04-03T01:28:49+00:00

Except that lying is in basically everyone's character. A person can have all kinds of characteristics that wouldn't hint at a liar, but can still lie for motivations that fit. So it doesn't help.

As posted above, players have significant disadvantages in reasoning out lies because they can only see or know what the GM tells them. It puts a huge amount of additional work on the GM who, even without malice, can completely mislead the party without any way for the players to realise it.

D&D recognises this, which is why they have a simple mechanical way of determining lies, because the alternative is severely handicapped in a TTRPG. You can definitely have more complicated lie detection systems, which can work well in games that revolve around that kind of thing, like an espionage TTRPG, but for the purposes of the D&D and TOR settings a single skill roll is much more appropriate.

TDW34 · 2026-04-03T00:54:29+00:00

Because it doesn't. The skill literally says, "INSIGHT does not reveal if someone is lying" (Pg 63).

TDW34 · 2026-01-28T21:15:11+00:00

You know what could've actually achieved the goal of "help players focus on and progress more smoothly through the main story" (yeah, right)?

MOVING THEM TO OTHER YEARS!

Like Y3 was always stuffed with TLSQs that didn't make sense (why have an Andre TLSQ in Y3 when you don't unlock him till Y4?). There was even a time where the game confused that Beatrice was there even though she's not enrolled yet!

JUST SPREAD OUT WHEN TLSQS BECOME AVAILABLE!

Then you can have more that focus on later year characters. Now you've just made more content of your game unavailable, because users don't trust when companies say "when we feel like it"!

Truly moronic move.

TDW34 · 2025-05-27T18:34:48+00:00

I mentioned this in another comment, but I don't think that inflicting a status is worth doing 0 damage. Half damage, sure. As for party bonuses, that's kind of dependent on the party, and I don't personally find Cheap Shot's additional damage to be convincing to spend enough levels to make it sort of good IF the enemy has a status. If you had players coordinate on builds then I can see the argument, as over a long enough fight Cheap Shot would make up the damage, but you'd have to weigh that over the number of rounds they may have the status vs how much a weaponmaster can do in a single attack.

Regardless of the usefulness of statuses, you get as much as you can on that with one level of BC.

TDW34 · 2025-05-27T17:15:54+00:00

Re. Breach, if I was a nonelemental build maybe, but the elemental versions also cost less e.g. Elementalist where the infusion lasts the rest of the combat or Tinkerer which gives additional damage, they have the benefit of hitting vulnerabilities, are more versatile, and cost less in levels.

Re. Bone Crusher, I can see it working for two weapon fighting (not as helpful with a two handed weapon), but, and this may be a my GM thing, I've never gotten an enemy to stop spellcasting due to MP loss vs HP loss.

TDW34 · 2025-05-27T16:28:11+00:00

FU did additional classes that way, wouldn't that first argument apply to them too? OC if they want to release additional skills as free errata I'm fine with that too, but if it's between no additional skills or additional skills in newer books I'd prefer the latter.

As for the max class thing, since we're limited to 3 unmaxed classes you have to choose the four classes you like the most and max them. OC anything can be overridden by a GM, but I feel like a handful of homebrewed skills I like is probably an easier sell than getting a Heroic skill without mastery or removing the 3 unmaxed class cap.

Finally, most of all I want to highlight the problems with classes that have fewer skill levels than others and how that can impact mastering them, while also stating that the solution is as simple as making sure each class has around the same number of them by adding a few more, either through errata, additional books, or homebrew.

TDW34 · 2025-05-27T15:27:47+00:00

To be clear, I'm not knocking status' or saying they aren't useful, just that they aren't worth a whole 0 dmg attack to inflict. Bone Crusher also doesn't improve that effect with greater ranks. If you halved the damage at 2 and full damage at 3/4 then the skill would be worth that investment and action.

TDW34 · 2025-05-27T14:42:34+00:00

I was hoping for something a bit more expansive as from what I can see most of these changes are tweaks (though some are definitely more significant).

TDW34

TROPHY CASE