Supernatural Senses: BS Detector

[Mr. Death]

One NPC I'm planning to use in a couple of my games is a minor-talent reporter who has a supernatural sense for detecting bullshit. I'm looking for ideas for how to actually work it. A rolling bonus to Investigation, or some other lie-detecting skill (Empathy, Alertness maybe?)? Lowered difficulty of attempts to determine falsehood in general? Or just moving the trapping to his highest perception skill?

Any thoughts?

[Orladdin]

One NPC I'm planning to use in a couple of my games is a minor-talent reporter who has a supernatural sense for detecting bullshit. I'm looking for ideas for how to actually work it. A rolling bonus to Investigation, or some other lie-detecting skill (Empathy, Alertness maybe?)? Lowered difficulty of attempts to determine falsehood in general? Or just moving the trapping to his highest perception skill?

Any thoughts?

Well, it's suggested in Changes that there is something to having a supernatural lie-detecting skill; the sympathetic FBI agent seems to have it.

How to best model it in-game, though...  hmm...

You could have a stunt that grants a free use once per scene where the GM simply tells you when someone first tells you a lie.  I've never been a fan of the once-per-scene stunts, but with this one it might be handy to have the tip-off; allowing you to start using your Empathy when you might not think to question what you're told otherwise.

[EdgeOfDreams]

Have you read the Supernatural Sense power in the powers section of the book? It specifically says "you must identify whether this is a purely mystical sense (using Lore) or a more physical sense (using Investigation or Alertness as appropriate)." All it's really doing is adding a trapping to either Lore or Alertness/Investigation (or in the case of detecting Lies, which is normally Empathy, it's moving the trapping to a different skill).

I have a police inspector NPC ("Inspector Sharp") in my game who can "hear truth in your voice" with his Supernatural Senses. I consider it a physical sense - he literally hears a different sound when you're telling the truth versus when you're lying. Mainly, this means he can roll Alertness instead of Empathy to detect lies. I suppose he could also roll Investigation to, say, track the sound of truth to someone who is talking nearby, but that's a little silly.

There's also the option of using the "too easy to need to roll" option with Supernatural Senses from time to time. For example, you don't make someone roll Alertness to hear their friend talking to them from two feet away. In the same way, if someone is telling the truth to Inspector Sharp, I usually don't make him roll anything, he just knows. But if they're lying, he should probably roll Alertness most of the time. There's also the situation where someone is telling the truth, but in a deceptive way (Faeries, lying by omission, etc.) - in that case, I would 'tell' Inspector Sharp (if he were a PC) that he's hearing Truth, then see if he wants to try an Empathy roll to pick up on the deception.

Note, also, that a character already should be able to roll Investigation or other skills like Scholarship to prove if something is true or false by actively looking into it. However, that method takes time, so the Supernatural Sense has a significant advantage in that regard.

[Tedronai]

When a character attempts to use their Deceit skill to pass off a falsehood as truth, or to manipulate truth so as to create an incorrect conclusion in the listen, a defending roll is mandatory.  It is not something that the listener must, or even can 'opt' to make. (the player can voluntarily fail the defending roll, or accept a compel to do so, of course)
See the Falsehood and Deception trapping, YS126, for details.

If you houserule otherwise, be warned.  There can be only two outcomes, and neither would be one I consider desirable.
Either:
Characters will be penalized or benefited based not on their capabilities with social interaction but with those of the player (why bother having social skills at all if you're not going to use them in a meaningful way?)
Or
Players will demand rolls on any interaction they deem meaningful regardless of whether they believe the information given to them to be suspect, wasting precious time with unnecessary rolls.

[Orladdin]

When a character attempts to use their Deceit skill to pass off a falsehood as truth, or to manipulate truth so as to create an incorrect conclusion in the listen, a defending roll is mandatory.  It is not something that the listener must, or even can 'opt' to make. (the player can voluntarily fail the defending roll, or accept a compel to do so, of course)
See the Falsehood and Deception trapping, YS126, for details.

If you houserule otherwise, be warned.  There can be only two outcomes, and neither would be one I consider desirable.
Either:
Characters will be penalized or benefited based not on their capabilities with social interaction but with those of the player (why bother having social skills at all if you're not going to use them in a meaningful way?)
Or
Players will demand rolls on any interaction they deem meaningful regardless of whether they believe the information given to them to be suspect, wasting precious time with unnecessary rolls.

Actually, I don't find either of these to be the case.

If you automatically roll deceit and give empathy rolls on every deception the PCs even encounter, it harms the capability to have surprising mysteries.  Players will be tipped-off out of character that rolls are taking place.  It requires all of the players to be that much better roleplayers and penalizes those that can't keep in-character and out-of-character information separate.  The classic examples of D&D rogues searching a room, the DM making a hidden roll and saying "you don't find anything" and the player saying, "well, I search again; harder!"  I find it's much more satisfying to only call for unrequested rolls when the plot would be improved by the players discovering misdirection. 

It also rewards players of wily ccharacters who suspect something is up on their own and ask for one.  If players are unrealistically hard-headed enough to constantly request rolls even in unmeaningful encounters (the corner store clerk when buying a pack of smokes) then I don't even roll and tell them there's nothing to find here. 

Game moves quickly, story is maintained, players feel like they make meaningful choices.  Everyone wins.

[Edit] Though, I feel I should point out: I lay the basics of this philosophy out to the players before we start.  I don't like blind-siding my PCs with unfamiliar rulings.

[Mr. Death]

Eh, I have to disagree on that. It basically has the GM choosing when and where he wants the PCs to figure out who's lying, which is kind of railroading. You could have someone with a Deceit skill of 2 put one over on someone with an Empathy score of 5 just by 'forgetting' to ask for a roll.

Also, yeah, the guy in Changes is kind of where I got the idea.

@EdgeOfDreams: I have, but it's been a while and don't have the books with me. In this guy's case, it would likely be a physical thing, so he'd be rolling it from Investigation or Alertness (don't have his sheet on hand, so I don't remember what his better skill would be). Though part of me feels like it should have some boost to the roll--the guy in Changes said he always knew if someone was lying, not that he was only usually good at figuring it out.

[Orladdin]

Eh, I have to disagree on that. It basically has the GM choosing when and where he wants the PCs to figure out who's lying, which is kind of railroading. You could have someone with a Deceit skill of 2 put one over on someone with an Empathy score of 5 just by 'forgetting' to ask for a roll.

Also, yeah, the guy in Changes is kind of where I got the idea.

@EdgeOfDreams: I have, but it's been a while and don't have the books with me. In this guy's case, it would likely be a physical thing, so he'd be rolling it from Investigation or Alertness (don't have his sheet on hand, so I don't remember what his better skill would be). Though part of me feels like it should have some boost to the roll--the guy in Changes said he always knew if someone was lying, not that he was only usually good at figuring it out.

There are plenty of times when this happens in real life and in the books... if someone appears to be unimportant you often don't give them a second thought.  How do you suppose those theifs who bump-and-grab in subways get away with it?  It's not that they're particularly good at bluffing-- it's because they blend into the background because they're entirely forgettable.

[Mr. Death]

Those would be compels, or--in the case of the pickpocket--successful Deceit rolls, not the result of the GM sneaking something past while the players weren't looking.

Though I will agree that keeping the characters in the dark without alerting the players is a tough one. One of my upcoming scenarios partly depends on someone being able to lie to them for at least a little while, and it's probably going to be tough to pull off while maintaining the surprise and drama.

[Haru]

If you want it to be a bit more powerful than just adding a single trapping, you could model it as a social armor against deceit attacks. It would not actually increase the roll, but it would still be pretty useful in a social setting (interrogation for one thing). I think armor:2 for 1 refresh should be well within range.

[Orladdin]

Let me ask this then:  if you put a puzzle in the game, do you let the players sort it out themselves (meta-gaming) or do you simply have them make investigation rolls until they solve it?  To illustrate:

You come across a room with platforms and levers, laid out like this: <draw picture>.  There's a glowing doorway behind some fog.  The runes on the wall look reminiscent of the ones on Johnathan Dogood's bow in the last scene.  what do you do?

... or...

You come across a room with levers and platforms and a glowing door.  Go ahead and roll investigation.  Oh, a 2?  You have no idea how to solve it.  Oh, a 4?  You manage to get through the room.

Which sounds more fun?  What we're discussing in the above posts is the social equivalent of the puzzle room I just mentioned.  Some things are more fun if they are meta-gaming.  The ones that are, I run meta.  The ones that aren't, I run with rolls.

[Mr. Death]

The second option's no fun, but I think it's because it's the wrong way to implement the rolls. The successful investigation roll shouldn't mean "you figure it out" so much as "You get a clue to figuring it out," usually an Aspect of it or something, or a hint if they're stuck. Typically, my players will try to figure it out first, then declare/roll/invoke if they get stuck.

Personally, I'd rather avoid the ensuing question of, "So he was lying the whole time? Why didn't I get to roll for it?" You wouldn't just declare a character gets hit or takes a mental attack without letting them roll against, at least without a compel involved, so I don't think rolls to deceive should be any different.

[Tedronai]

There are plenty of times when this happens in real life and in the books... if someone appears to be unimportant you often don't give them a second thought.  How do you suppose those theifs who bump-and-grab in subways get away with it?  It's not that they're particularly good at bluffing-- it's because they blend into the background because they're entirely forgettable.

One maneuver (just the right moment), one declaration (crowded subway), one assessment (wallet in the back right pocket), a stunt to boost the relevant trapping, and a victim caught unawares (ie. ambush: victim defends from 0)?
Show me the exchange where the defender will succeed on that roll without either stupidly good luck or spending a boatload of fate points.

[Orladdin]

One maneuver (just the right moment), one declaration (crowded subway), one assessment (wallet in the back right pocket), a stunt to boost the relevant trapping, and a victim caught unawares (ie. ambush: victim defends from 0)?
Show me the exchange where the defender will succeed on that roll without either stupidly good luck or spending a boatload of fate points.

That's an awesome breakdown on that scene.  I might actually have to use that some time.   


Sorry for derailing your thread, Mr. Death.   

[Tedronai]

You wouldn't just declare a character gets hit or takes a mental attack without letting them roll against, at least without a compel involved, so I don't think rolls to deceive should be any different.

Moreover, handing the players false information can have a far more long-lasting and significant impact on a campaign even than a Severe Consequence that might result from that hypothetical it-hit-because-I-say-it-did attack.


Even secret rolls rob the characters of their opportunity for success, as a significant part of any character's competency is often represented in their aspects, and the player's ability to spend fate points to boost rolls (and no GM of mine is going to 'inform' me that I just spent a FP to succeed on a roll that I didn't even know I was making, let alone that I cared that much about, and asking would defeat the purpose of the secrecy).

[Mr. Death]

Don't sweat it, Orladdin.

@Tedronai: I would say, at least with my players, they're generally okay with rolling for or against something they might not know the full context of. On occasion I've compelled them along the lines of, "Here's a fate point. One of the NPC's aspects that you don't know yet is about to make your life complicated."