Someone is lying to you. Your GM is presenting an NPC as eager or sugary in an environment rife with danger, and your alarm bells are going off. You know something is up. What happens next?
In many systems, you would just make a roll to get the truth. In D&D 5e, it's a Wisdom check with the Insight skill, and the same with Perception for Pathfinder. In many traditional games, there is an equivalent-- roll high enough, and the GM tells you if the character is lying or not.
Let me be as neutral and smiley as possible: this is the most boring, tension-ruining fucking mechanic ever written. I hate it so bad.
What is the purpose of a challenge (i.e. an obstacle presented to you by the GM)? Is it to give your character Aura Points, or to give you a choice? What is the lifeblood of these games we play if not making choices?
I've opined frequently on the point of 'checks'-- catalysts for tension that take an action from potential to answer. Checks are a great answer to when you must address the challenge through your character-- when you break down doors, lie to someone, sneak through shadows, etc. In those moments, the tension of the challenge is being addressed through random chance.
In theory, we could address insight the same way. But-- you're already using your brain. You wouldn't ask for a check if you didn't think something is up. If we call for a roll, we just eliminate the choice here-- you have no interesting choice to make. You know they're bullshitting. You're not choosing to trust them or not. That choice was made for you by random chance.
Anecdotally, of course, I played in a campaign with a player once who would call for an Insight check at the drop. of. a. fucking. hat. Whether any player made a claim, the GM made a claim, if I said 'I purse my lips' that asshole would have a die out to confirm my verisimilitude. It sucked the tension out of every single scene of intrigue, and just made the game 'can we roll high enough to confirm our plan of action' or 'do we have to take risks and use our brains'. That isn't fun. Using our brains is fun. Making choices is fun. Rolling dice to decide what I think is not.
An anecdote in the positive direction happened last night and sparked the idea for this post. I was playing in my friend's Shadowdark game, and we encountered a group of gnomes in a dungeon. We had killed a big bad ogre that was ostensibly hunting them, and they eagerly brought us back to their leader and offered us stew. They were super eager about it, and my alarm bells went crazy.
No Insight check. I had to use my brain. I had to ask questions like 'do I see my party mates react to the stew? Are they drinking the stew?'. Sure enough, my party mates attempt Constitution saving throws against drowsiness, and both succeed. The gnomes are quick to deny any wrongdoing, insisting that they used the wrong mushrooms. Again, I thought this was bullshit, and again, there was no built-in get-out-of-jail-free card to confirm my suspicions. I made some pointed, antagonizing statements to try to get a rise out of them, and then bargained for them for a safe place to rest (we had been looking for a while). They came in the night and tried to firebomb us to kill us.
Suspicions confirmed. I felt awesome, and I was shaky as hell in the moment because I had the worm going 'maybe they are telling the truth. Maybe I'm fucking this up by being so cagey with them.' It was so fun, and in another system it would have been over with a single roll. Fucked up! It was the absence of that mechanic that made my choice meaningful. That was my instinct, my questions that made that encounter real. It was so cool, dude.
Here's my challenge: let your players use their brains as much as you can. That's the real shit. Give them the answers and hints they need to make important choices, and remember that you're their eyes into the world (in more trad games, of course). Tell them what they can observe, what they can sense, what might seem off. Don't tell them who to trust and who not to. Let them make that choice. Let them fuck up, and trust the wrong person! Let them accuse someone of falsehood who's innocent! Your game will be leagues better for it, and your players will feel all the more freer and impactful.
No comments:
Post a Comment