I don’t think of that as being unreliable, it’s simply telling the players what their characters perceive. What’s the alternative? They walk into a room and you tell them there’s two doors and a hidden door, but none of you have a passive perception high enough to notice it.
This can get really sticky when you're being unreliable as an NPC. Make sure the players understand the difference between the NPC speaking and the DM granting them information. I have at least one player that will take literally everything I say as the truth and feels like I am intentionally tricking them if an NPC gives them the wrong info.
So now I let everyone know at the start of the campaign and at least once every few sessions that information acquired in-game through an NPC should be taken in context with who that NPC is and what their motivations or limitations might be. As long as that is clear to the players and you guys are on the same page, it should be fine.
There is a difference between being an intentionally unreliable narrator as a DM and going out of your way to "trick" players and simply letting the players have the information that their characters have.
If a player fails a perception check, you aren't obligated to tell them what is there, but explain that because the number is too low, they don't see it. Telling players things they don't know in character leads to metagaming habits that can be hard to break- if you give your players information, they usually expect that it should be available to them in character, but that invalidates the point of having illusions, difficult perception and investigation checks, lying NPCs, etc.- to present obstacles to the players.
To prevent the expectation of perfect honesty, it's important to frame things properly- NPCs explaining from their perspective what they believe to be going on, describing what characters see (again, drawing on their perspective), and making clear that sometimes people intentionally or unintentionally deceive the party. A good way to introduce this concept to a group is to have two conflicting NPCs giving their sides of an argument that are mutually impossible to reconcile (such as blaming the other for some event that happened). This way, you establish to your players that not everything every NPC says is going to be 100% accurate.
Truthfulness and fairness are important. You want your players to feel the world is consistent and generally makes sense. There's no need to make every NPC deceptive or every illusion undetectable or real seeming. On the other hand, though, having every NPC tell only the truth, letting every illusion be transparently false, and expecting everything to be exactly as described is not constructive for narrative storytelling. If your players only want combat, then they might be fine with this, but I think it results in flat, uninteresting storylines. Of course, there should always be tools and tests to see through lies and illusions- conflicting information, ability checks and abilities, etc.
If your players get upset at you, as a DM, for introducing elements of uncertainty, remind them that this is in their toolset as well- have they ever lied to an NPC? Used an illusion? Omitted information in a report to a questgiver? If their characters can (and do) do such things, then of course other people in the world will use similar tricks. If you're using these just to screw the party via narrative BS, it's one thing, but if they serve a purpose (establishing an NPC as untrustworthy, presenting challenges for the party to overcome, providing opportunities for additional investigation/exploration) then these are good things to use as part of your toolbox.
I have at least one player that will take literally everything I say as the truth and feels like I am intentionally tricking them if an NPC gives them the wrong info.
That sounds like a "player not trusting the DM" issue. Something I've noticed a lot lately (and it's probably always been the case, I've just been fortunate to play in groups with plenty of player DMs where this is less of an issue) is players assuming that anything a DM does is adversarial. Certainly, I want to challenge my players to use their abilities and skills and think about things, but 90% of the time your DM isn't trying to kill you or ruin your fun. If I, as a DM, wanted to ruin someone's fun or kill the party, I can do so without any BS or subtlety. Perhaps some more malevolent or controlling DMs are trying to railroad the party out of having fun or murder characters to "win" against the party, but if your characters aren't dying or getting railroaded, trust your DM. It goes better for both sides of the relationship when DMs and players trust each other.
Honestly, I have the opposite problem, OP. I rarely lie to my players, and they constantly doubt my NPCs, lol. Hazards of running an intrigue campaign, I suppose.
While I don't often tell bold-faced lies, I frequently omit details or let them come to faulty conclusions that I do not correct. If they don't ask the right questions (or the right people) and/or roll poorly, they don't get a thorough picture...which often means they chase red herrings. I'm of the opinion that NPCs aren't obligated to lore-dump. In a campaign where information is literally currency in some places, and with experienced players who've been with me for 18 months, I don't feel guilty about this approach.
I also do a lot of reminding when it's something their characters would know/remember/intuit or otherwise have access to. It bugs me on a personal level when things aren't remembered correctly (as I take exceptional notes when I play - yes, I'm one of those) to the point that I have to rein myself in and let my players just be wrong. Because that's how the dice landed and I want to be fair as a game master and a storyteller.
There is only one time I have narrated total lies to a player as the DM rather than as an NPC - and I did it because the character I lied to...
has a long-term madness effect (hallucinations) and doesn't know it yet.
I don't know if I like calling the DM style asked about by the OP unreliable narration. Unreliable narration is more a device for simple consumption of narration, and the interactivity of D&D isn't really reflected in the classic models of unreliable narration, because even when the DM is presenting "untruth" to the players, they should be doing so "truthfully" as in accurately rendering an NPCs prevarications or a PCs false perception.
So I suppose it's entirely possible to run an entire campaign where everything told to them by everyone is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. This means the powerful narrative event like betrayal or even less malicious but more blundering "everything we knew was wrong" scenarios which are often essential to reinvigorate a lot of campaigns (aka "script flipping").
That said, I think it's more common for PCs to exist in worlds where not everyone they come across is going to be a "straight dealer." Sometimes PCs will be conned, suckered, set up, defrauded, slandered, etc. I mean, I suppose a DM could simply tell the players "So, since your characters misplaced their trust in Benedict Arnold, they are venturing now to a rendezvous that is actually an ambush, how do you wish to proceed?" but that takes a lot of the drama out of the game.
Deceptions and illusions are part of the game. The DM's job is to describe to the players the information or impression the characters are receiving from individuals and environments. Sometimes betrayal of trust does come backstabbingly out of nowhere, but more often than not there are "tells" a DM should do their best to float out there. There are the classic "microexpression" type tells a DM could use, but the most common tell to lying is inconsistent or self-contradictory or otherwise "hole ridden" story. If a player (not necessarily the character) picks up on inconsistencies suggesting there's something "off" to the information they're presented by an NPC, I grant the table a chance to review what they think they know and weight it against what's being said (this is something actual investigators do) and then if there's an "aha" facilitate with the table which players would be catching wise to the charade.
Illusion magic, the DM describes what's presented to the PCs. Let's recognize low level illusion magic is easily seen past upon closer inspection (read the spell descriptions carefully, the illusions ones are particularly good at explaining their limits). However, until that opportunity to see past the illusion presents itself, the illusion is described as part of the scene, however incongruous it may seem.
As for "trust no one" Doubting Thomas types. Characters can certainly be played as untrusting, skeptical and suspicious to a fault. If the character is framed that way, let them play on. If it's a player not granting credence to anything presented to the character, again, DM's job allows to facilitate the table in assessing the credibility of a particular piece of information, and probe the meta limits with questions like "What reason does the character have to doubt" the NPC, the map, the ancient text, etc.
Traps, whether "mechanical" or narrative are part of the game. There's nothing wrong with having players be wary of them.
I have at least one player that will take literally everything I say as the truth and feels like I am intentionally tricking them if an NPC gives them the wrong info.
That sounds like a "player not trusting the DM" issue. Something I've noticed a lot lately (and it's probably always been the case, I've just been fortunate to play in groups with plenty of player DMs where this is less of an issue) is players assuming that anything a DM does is adversarial. Certainly, I want to challenge my players to use their abilities and skills and think about things, but 90% of the time your DM isn't trying to kill you or ruin your fun. If I, as a DM, wanted to ruin someone's fun or kill the party, I can do so without any BS or subtlety. Perhaps some more malevolent or controlling DMs are trying to railroad the party out of having fun or murder characters to "win" against the party, but if your characters aren't dying or getting railroaded, trust your DM. It goes better for both sides of the relationship when DMs and players trust each other.
Our trust is fine, we've been gaming together a long time now. The issue is that she's not really into roleplay and just wants to get the facts required to advance the plot. When those facts are buried in nuance or politics, she just sees those as obstructions. She's very metagamey and wants to just cut to the chase and talk directly to the DM about what to do next.
Fortunately she's also mature and reasonable and realizes that there are other people at the table that enjoy teasing out the facts. She just needs a reminder sometimes because her brain works differently.
Player: "What about Professor Nightbloom, was he at the council?"
(Professor Nightbloom was at the council, but in disguise.)
Should the DM say, "No," or, "It doesn't appear so," or, "You didn't see him," or, "You didn't recognize him among those in attendance"?
2. Player rolls an Insight check. Gets a 16. DM rolls a 22 for Deception. Does he say,
"He seems to be telling the truth," or
"Yeah, actually, the king is an evil wizard in disguise. Well, I guess I better stop the session there so I can build out the wizards lair and stat him up."
(The poor king is not an evil wizard in disguise and the PCs are being tricked into regicide.)
For 1, I'd go with "You don't remember him being there." I might make a secret roll first, an intelligence check to see what they remember.
For 2, "He seems to be telling the truth." and as a bonus, if the player had beaten the deception check, I'd say "He seems to be lying." The key is using the same phrasing every time. And I always go with something like "seems to" since it leaves some wiggle room for when what happened is different from what they think happened.
You have to do this as the DM. You narrate what they see. If they fail the roll then describe what they see from the failed roll. Don't be a smurf DM and be the parties friend. We all know DM's are cheering for the party and want them to succeed however if you go out of your way to save the party, you take away the risk of death and game play has no risk and the game sucks.
Within one of my worlds the information available to people (players and NPC's) has been corrupted and manipulated by the bad guy and his cult (which the players have no idea exists at the moment).
So things like history checks, the information I have given the players in handouts, or that I tell them they know as the adventure progresses is inherently all wrong. The players don't know this and we are building to the first big reveal of this.
I am very aware that I am lying to the players about the world they exist in, but my players also know I very much go with, if your character doesn't know it then generally I won't tell the player either. Some of this is going to fundamentally impact the characters in a big way, 2 of the characters families are intrinsically linked into the BBEG without knowing it. The reveal when it comes will be huge, but will also leave a ton of questions the characters will need to go hunt down, or they may decide to stick with the BBEG anyway, I really am currently unsure where this campaign will go once defined.
Player: "What about Professor Nightbloom, was he at the council?"
(Professor Nightbloom was at the council, but in disguise.)
Should the DM say, "No," or, "It doesn't appear so," or, "You didn't see him," or, "You didn't recognize him among those in attendance"?
Best way would be the latter two second person perspectives. I wouldn't call this "unreliable narration" since it confuses the point and some, perhaps yourself, sort of put a ethical concern on it. It is providing information to a player from the perspective of their character ... which is how the game is played in many if not most cases.
To go further, I feel the real important question to ask in this scenario, a question involving the intersection of DMing and storytelling/narration, is: Did the PC has a chance to recognize Professor NIghtbloom's incognito infilitration?
If Nightbloom through his charade is gaining key information to progress their - I'm presuming villainy but maybe he's the secret hero so maybe patronage - schemes, if the players arent' given opportunities in game to 'suss him out, it's going to be a cheap reveal with the "ah-ha! I was there all along, fools, tracking your every move IN DISGUISE [insert maniacal laugh track]." If your doing disguise level intrigue, the DM should provide some tells that may motivate a party paying attention to be aware that this is the sort of game where disguise intrigue goes afoot. I'm not sure of the context of the meeting but if it's sort of like some sort of Order of the Phoenix conclave of secret do-gooders, assemlbing in secret, to discuss how to combat rising evil in secret, the DM has got to drop a tension boom into the scene. Talk about how everyone is putting themselves at risk by attending this meetings, and the players don't recognize everyone, maybe a trust NPC express some unease about trusting strangers and the like. Lay it on them to a degree that one of the party members if they're paying attention says, "I'll keep an eye on the crowd" to "I'm going to talk to folks I don't recognize." This sort of crowd/meeting surveillance 101 is elementary in both police apparatus as well as underground movements and groups worried about police apparatus or other surveillance. It's asking a lot for your average person with the luxury of time to play TTRPG to be familiar with that level of paranoia, so to sorta flip the topic a bit, at least to examine some of the underlying presumptions, I'd say a _reliable_ DM doesn't so much endeavor to adequately narrate deception, but provides enough atmospheric clues for the party to recognize they are playing in a world where deception and duplicity circulate.
2. Player rolls an Insight check. Gets a 16. DM rolls a 22 for Deception. Does he say,
"He seems to be telling the truth," or
"Yeah, actually, the king is an evil wizard in disguise. Well, I guess I better stop the session there so I can build out the wizards lair and stat him up."
(The poor king is not an evil wizard in disguise and the PCs are being tricked into regicide.)
For an edition that seems to be leaning more heavily into the 'social role play' aspects of the game, 5e certainly does provide a brittle skeleton as to how those social skills are supposed to function, amiright? I can see how "insight" at a lot of tables is used as an effort to non magically cast zone of truth that reveals lie/truth results, but really insight seems in my reading to simply be a broad swath of skills that help the PC determine their subject's motivation in their interaction. So when I provide findings from an Insight check I do the following:
1.) Actual fact checking based on what the character's knowledge and experience. Most "lie detection" in the real world, at least in the legal system and other investigative systems that may or may not be outside the purview of courts, isn't done through some psychical hunch or mechanical litmus test, it's through the exposure of inconsistencies and contradictions in someone's story (there's also the "it makes too much sense" story where lies of ommission can be suspected, but we'll save that for the 102 class). A good insight check allows the DM to point out parts of the conspirators story that don't add up, implant that "hey, wait a sec" moment in the players brain that they can transfer to the character.
2.) Knowing where the NPC is coming from: this is really where "sense motive" is sitting within insight. DM can offer social/economic/political markers to understand the deeper whys as to an NPC's interaction with the PC. An easy one would be a town guard who's "just doing their job" or a a town guard who likes to put the hurt on visitors from the neighboring (the PC's) community. We're talking about getting to the animus behind animosity or benevolence. Dropping "accomplishing a goal by any means necessary" may give the player the right read to recognize they're being pressed into service of this NPC's ideal or scheme. This would also be where the player can get the sense that the NPC may be a "true believer" in their cause or there's another, usually opportunistic agenda.
3.) MIcroexpressions (which is something altogether different from microaggressions discussed in some other threads). These are the "tells" shows like "Lie to Me" are built around. They're taught to IRL investigators as something they may want to look for but a "tell" isn't going to substantiate the detection of a lie, (because there are many that think they're b.s.) but rather prompt the investigator to dig deeper to establish a stronger sense of areas 1 and 2. In other words "you know he's lying because he keeps blinking or pulling on his ear." Isn't what you give the party member. But do describe the tell, maybe perform it (exaggeratedly, the players arent' trained forensic interviewers). Look over your shoulder a lot, or make a face like your biting into rotten meat when the NPC speaks of the King, etc.
So, if posed with an NPC's story of the King being an Evil Wizard, on a failed insight against NPC's deception (I'd actually use DCs predicated on the degree of plausibility to outlandishness of the lie modified by the NPC's Deception skill instead of dueling rolls) I'd just reiterate the story and maybe highlight what ramifications this information would have on the PCs world and then probe the PC for a reaction - this is how cons actually work, the con exploits the insecurities and vulnerabilities of the target to rope them in, so if the con was successful, the PC would be reflecting on the impact this "revelation" is having on them, check out sparknotes for Hamlet or Othello or a heck of a lot of Shakespeare to get the feel for this. A insightful player may "see what you're doing there" in moving the dynamic of the scene into the PC's interior, but this is a role playing prompt.
Playing liars well is tough, most of us are comfortable with the concept simply at the short prank level, but regicide level intrigue is some mind messing stuff most folks don't have a lot of real life experience with (knock on wood). It's certainly easier to use Insight checks as a circuit whose results are "Belief" or "Doubt". And some folks who want a simple procedural mystery would prefer that, but I think it's less immersive. In social moments I'll always lean heavily into how a character's mind works, which if you're going for verisimilitude likely works very differently from the mind of the player. So rather than seeing lies and subterfuge as the problems of unreliable narration, I'd argue a strong DM narrative skillset uses these moments as opportunities to either have more revealed about the game world (on successful insight) or delve into areas of the PCs interior as to why they'd go along with a lie or otherwise be dupes.
...Or everything above is utterly irresponsible from a DM ethos standpoint and this post is full of b.s. ;)
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
You have to do this as the DM. You narrate what they see. If they fail the roll then describe what they see from the failed roll. Don't be a smurf DM and be the parties friend. We all know DM's are cheering for the party and want them to succeed however if you go out of your way to save the party, you take away the risk of death and game play has no risk and the game sucks.
What does, "Narrate what they see," mean for an Insight check? Do you describe a bead of sweat forming on the target's temple, heavily implying lying, but not guaranteeing it?
Within one of my worlds the information available to people (players and NPC's) has been corrupted and manipulated by the bad guy and his cult (which the players have no idea exists at the moment).
So things like history checks, the information I have given the players in handouts, or that I tell them they know as the adventure progresses is inherently all wrong. The players don't know this and we are building to the first big reveal of this.
I am very aware that I am lying to the players about the world they exist in, but my players also know I very much go with, if your character doesn't know it then generally I won't tell the player either. Some of this is going to fundamentally impact the characters in a big way, 2 of the characters families are intrinsically linked into the BBEG without knowing it. The reveal when it comes will be huge, but will also leave a ton of questions the characters will need to go hunt down, or they may decide to stick with the BBEG anyway, I really am currently unsure where this campaign will go once defined.
Yeah, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about. How many misdirections and double crosses can you do to maximize the challenge, without making it an incomprehensible mess that players will never figure out, no matter how many clues you give?
This is just a hypothetical situation and didn't happen in my game. But the situation I'm describing would be a player asking the DM to remind them about something that happened in a previous session. I could tell them no and that they should take better notes, but we don't play that hardcore of a game. So usually I give them a chance at a History / Int check. Again, I could make the DC impossibly high, but I do want to give out some information to make sure they understand the basic goal of their quest and the purpose behind it.
I would have had them roll the appropriate roll against Professor Nightbloom defined in Disguise Self / disguise kit in that previous session, and in this scenario, they failed it.
If an NPC fails a deception role, just tell the players they believe he's lying. Now, if they rolled high but not high enough to know and they got it wrong, well those are the breaks, meanwhile if they rolled a 10 but it was enough to tell then tell he's bluffing. Let them figure it out. If they want to run zone of truth they can.
You don't just tell someone they notice the sweat on their brow and assume they'll know what's going on, that's not fair. Tell them what the dice roll told you tell them, are they telling the truth Y/N, and if they flubbed their role then tell them what they beleive.
My players rarely know what the target number is, I also do not run a hard sucess failure DC, I set a target number and then scale from there the level of success or failure. This means that the characters might determine a character might be lying and even with a success sometimes, depending on the circumstance, I might give them a hint of something. Insight for instance is not a way to mind read, telling a player what the character sees, he is shifting nervously, he is sweating and it isn't hot in here etc. It is never Binary in my games, a high role might give a character more information, but rarely will I come outright and say, you know he is lying to you.
I just tell the player, I don't let the dice determine and force someone to remember what has happened 3 sessions ago, as that could in reality be 6 weeks. I also have no issues with players reminding other players round the table. A player is not the character. In the same way characters are full of knowledge that a player is not. For instance the charatcer may well know the details of the political structure of the nation the players are in, I don't believe in giving long handouts of information or detailing everything to the players, partly because I make that kind of stuff up on the fly when it becomes pertinent to the game. So I will just tell a player. Your character would know that John Doe is the King, his chief advisor is Jenny Makebelieve. A history check would then determine if the character knows that Jenny's father once saved John's grandfather's life and that is why her family have such a good position in court. Or it might determine the rumours
If an NPC fails a deception role, just tell the players they believe he's lying. Now, if they rolled high but not high enough to know and they got it wrong, well those are the breaks, meanwhile if they rolled a 10 but it was enough to tell then tell he's bluffing. Let them figure it out. If they want to run zone of truth they can.
You don't just tell someone they notice the sweat on their brow and assume they'll know what's going on, that's not fair. Tell them what the dice roll told you tell them, are they telling the truth Y/N, and if they flubbed their role then tell them what they beleive.
Honestly, in this case I think you should just tell the player the information and not make them roll for it, unless enough time has passed in-game that the character themselves might have a hard time remembering the information. A character should have access to all information they would reasonably know or remember. A character is not going to forget something that just happened to them--remember, even if six weeks have passed in the real world since that session, it might have only been a day or two for the character themselves.
Now, if it was something that happened a month of in-game time ago and was not the most significant of events, then it could be appropriate to make the player roll history or the like to try and remember. In such a case, I would not have a "fail" option per se--again, it is unlikely the character has forgotten their own experiences. You could have low-rolls give the general outline of what occurred and higher rolls fill in the specific details, with more details the better they roll. Maybe a low roll gives them some misrememberings--they get the wrong name for an NPC ("Bob" might be remembered as "Rob"), or the like--the kind of harmless mistakes people make all the time when trying to remember events that occurred even recently.
As for the thread at large, personally, I always answer with statements like "You do not see any trap" or "You do not think they are lying." I use the same language for when there is no trap as for when there is a trap, but none was detected, that way the party does not get information they are not otherwise privy to. In some groups, where I know they are not going to metagame and are playing mostly for the entertainment value, I might have a bit more fun with it, in a way that otherwise betrays information to the player, but does not to their character.
As with most things in DMing, the key is to play to your particular group and make sure you are doing what works best for their enjoyment.
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How do you guys feel about being an unreliable narrator as the DM? Maybe you describe an illusion as actually being there if they fail their save.
Or more frequently, you lie in character as an NPC.
Is it challenging enough for players to piece together a TTRPG plot without having to distinguish truth from fiction.
I don’t think of that as being unreliable, it’s simply telling the players what their characters perceive. What’s the alternative? They walk into a room and you tell them there’s two doors and a hidden door, but none of you have a passive perception high enough to notice it.
This can get really sticky when you're being unreliable as an NPC. Make sure the players understand the difference between the NPC speaking and the DM granting them information. I have at least one player that will take literally everything I say as the truth and feels like I am intentionally tricking them if an NPC gives them the wrong info.
So now I let everyone know at the start of the campaign and at least once every few sessions that information acquired in-game through an NPC should be taken in context with who that NPC is and what their motivations or limitations might be. As long as that is clear to the players and you guys are on the same page, it should be fine.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
There is a difference between being an intentionally unreliable narrator as a DM and going out of your way to "trick" players and simply letting the players have the information that their characters have.
If a player fails a perception check, you aren't obligated to tell them what is there, but explain that because the number is too low, they don't see it. Telling players things they don't know in character leads to metagaming habits that can be hard to break- if you give your players information, they usually expect that it should be available to them in character, but that invalidates the point of having illusions, difficult perception and investigation checks, lying NPCs, etc.- to present obstacles to the players.
To prevent the expectation of perfect honesty, it's important to frame things properly- NPCs explaining from their perspective what they believe to be going on, describing what characters see (again, drawing on their perspective), and making clear that sometimes people intentionally or unintentionally deceive the party. A good way to introduce this concept to a group is to have two conflicting NPCs giving their sides of an argument that are mutually impossible to reconcile (such as blaming the other for some event that happened). This way, you establish to your players that not everything every NPC says is going to be 100% accurate.
Truthfulness and fairness are important. You want your players to feel the world is consistent and generally makes sense. There's no need to make every NPC deceptive or every illusion undetectable or real seeming. On the other hand, though, having every NPC tell only the truth, letting every illusion be transparently false, and expecting everything to be exactly as described is not constructive for narrative storytelling. If your players only want combat, then they might be fine with this, but I think it results in flat, uninteresting storylines. Of course, there should always be tools and tests to see through lies and illusions- conflicting information, ability checks and abilities, etc.
If your players get upset at you, as a DM, for introducing elements of uncertainty, remind them that this is in their toolset as well- have they ever lied to an NPC? Used an illusion? Omitted information in a report to a questgiver? If their characters can (and do) do such things, then of course other people in the world will use similar tricks. If you're using these just to screw the party via narrative BS, it's one thing, but if they serve a purpose (establishing an NPC as untrustworthy, presenting challenges for the party to overcome, providing opportunities for additional investigation/exploration) then these are good things to use as part of your toolbox.
That sounds like a "player not trusting the DM" issue. Something I've noticed a lot lately (and it's probably always been the case, I've just been fortunate to play in groups with plenty of player DMs where this is less of an issue) is players assuming that anything a DM does is adversarial. Certainly, I want to challenge my players to use their abilities and skills and think about things, but 90% of the time your DM isn't trying to kill you or ruin your fun. If I, as a DM, wanted to ruin someone's fun or kill the party, I can do so without any BS or subtlety. Perhaps some more malevolent or controlling DMs are trying to railroad the party out of having fun or murder characters to "win" against the party, but if your characters aren't dying or getting railroaded, trust your DM. It goes better for both sides of the relationship when DMs and players trust each other.
Honestly, I have the opposite problem, OP. I rarely lie to my players, and they constantly doubt my NPCs, lol. Hazards of running an intrigue campaign, I suppose.
While I don't often tell bold-faced lies, I frequently omit details or let them come to faulty conclusions that I do not correct. If they don't ask the right questions (or the right people) and/or roll poorly, they don't get a thorough picture...which often means they chase red herrings. I'm of the opinion that NPCs aren't obligated to lore-dump. In a campaign where information is literally currency in some places, and with experienced players who've been with me for 18 months, I don't feel guilty about this approach.
I also do a lot of reminding when it's something their characters would know/remember/intuit or otherwise have access to. It bugs me on a personal level when things aren't remembered correctly (as I take exceptional notes when I play - yes, I'm one of those) to the point that I have to rein myself in and let my players just be wrong. Because that's how the dice landed and I want to be fair as a game master and a storyteller.
There is only one time I have narrated total lies to a player as the DM rather than as an NPC - and I did it because the character I lied to...
has a long-term madness effect (hallucinations) and doesn't know it yet.
I don't know if I like calling the DM style asked about by the OP unreliable narration. Unreliable narration is more a device for simple consumption of narration, and the interactivity of D&D isn't really reflected in the classic models of unreliable narration, because even when the DM is presenting "untruth" to the players, they should be doing so "truthfully" as in accurately rendering an NPCs prevarications or a PCs false perception.
So I suppose it's entirely possible to run an entire campaign where everything told to them by everyone is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. This means the powerful narrative event like betrayal or even less malicious but more blundering "everything we knew was wrong" scenarios which are often essential to reinvigorate a lot of campaigns (aka "script flipping").
That said, I think it's more common for PCs to exist in worlds where not everyone they come across is going to be a "straight dealer." Sometimes PCs will be conned, suckered, set up, defrauded, slandered, etc. I mean, I suppose a DM could simply tell the players "So, since your characters misplaced their trust in Benedict Arnold, they are venturing now to a rendezvous that is actually an ambush, how do you wish to proceed?" but that takes a lot of the drama out of the game.
Deceptions and illusions are part of the game. The DM's job is to describe to the players the information or impression the characters are receiving from individuals and environments. Sometimes betrayal of trust does come backstabbingly out of nowhere, but more often than not there are "tells" a DM should do their best to float out there. There are the classic "microexpression" type tells a DM could use, but the most common tell to lying is inconsistent or self-contradictory or otherwise "hole ridden" story. If a player (not necessarily the character) picks up on inconsistencies suggesting there's something "off" to the information they're presented by an NPC, I grant the table a chance to review what they think they know and weight it against what's being said (this is something actual investigators do) and then if there's an "aha" facilitate with the table which players would be catching wise to the charade.
Illusion magic, the DM describes what's presented to the PCs. Let's recognize low level illusion magic is easily seen past upon closer inspection (read the spell descriptions carefully, the illusions ones are particularly good at explaining their limits). However, until that opportunity to see past the illusion presents itself, the illusion is described as part of the scene, however incongruous it may seem.
As for "trust no one" Doubting Thomas types. Characters can certainly be played as untrusting, skeptical and suspicious to a fault. If the character is framed that way, let them play on. If it's a player not granting credence to anything presented to the character, again, DM's job allows to facilitate the table in assessing the credibility of a particular piece of information, and probe the meta limits with questions like "What reason does the character have to doubt" the NPC, the map, the ancient text, etc.
Traps, whether "mechanical" or narrative are part of the game. There's nothing wrong with having players be wary of them.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Our trust is fine, we've been gaming together a long time now. The issue is that she's not really into roleplay and just wants to get the facts required to advance the plot. When those facts are buried in nuance or politics, she just sees those as obstructions. She's very metagamey and wants to just cut to the chase and talk directly to the DM about what to do next.
Fortunately she's also mature and reasonable and realizes that there are other people at the table that enjoy teasing out the facts. She just needs a reminder sometimes because her brain works differently.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I think I need to give some examples.
1.
Player: "What about Professor Nightbloom, was he at the council?"
(Professor Nightbloom was at the council, but in disguise.)
Should the DM say, "No," or, "It doesn't appear so," or, "You didn't see him," or, "You didn't recognize him among those in attendance"?
2. Player rolls an Insight check. Gets a 16. DM rolls a 22 for Deception. Does he say,
"He seems to be telling the truth," or
"Yeah, actually, the king is an evil wizard in disguise. Well, I guess I better stop the session there so I can build out the wizards lair and stat him up."
(The poor king is not an evil wizard in disguise and the PCs are being tricked into regicide.)
For 1, I'd go with "You don't remember him being there." I might make a secret roll first, an intelligence check to see what they remember.
For 2, "He seems to be telling the truth." and as a bonus, if the player had beaten the deception check, I'd say "He seems to be lying." The key is using the same phrasing every time. And I always go with something like "seems to" since it leaves some wiggle room for when what happened is different from what they think happened.
You have to do this as the DM. You narrate what they see. If they fail the roll then describe what they see from the failed roll. Don't be a smurf DM and be the parties friend. We all know DM's are cheering for the party and want them to succeed however if you go out of your way to save the party, you take away the risk of death and game play has no risk and the game sucks.
Within one of my worlds the information available to people (players and NPC's) has been corrupted and manipulated by the bad guy and his cult (which the players have no idea exists at the moment).
So things like history checks, the information I have given the players in handouts, or that I tell them they know as the adventure progresses is inherently all wrong. The players don't know this and we are building to the first big reveal of this.
I am very aware that I am lying to the players about the world they exist in, but my players also know I very much go with, if your character doesn't know it then generally I won't tell the player either. Some of this is going to fundamentally impact the characters in a big way, 2 of the characters families are intrinsically linked into the BBEG without knowing it. The reveal when it comes will be huge, but will also leave a ton of questions the characters will need to go hunt down, or they may decide to stick with the BBEG anyway, I really am currently unsure where this campaign will go once defined.
Best way would be the latter two second person perspectives. I wouldn't call this "unreliable narration" since it confuses the point and some, perhaps yourself, sort of put a ethical concern on it. It is providing information to a player from the perspective of their character ... which is how the game is played in many if not most cases.
To go further, I feel the real important question to ask in this scenario, a question involving the intersection of DMing and storytelling/narration, is: Did the PC has a chance to recognize Professor NIghtbloom's incognito infilitration?
If Nightbloom through his charade is gaining key information to progress their - I'm presuming villainy but maybe he's the secret hero so maybe patronage - schemes, if the players arent' given opportunities in game to 'suss him out, it's going to be a cheap reveal with the "ah-ha! I was there all along, fools, tracking your every move IN DISGUISE [insert maniacal laugh track]." If your doing disguise level intrigue, the DM should provide some tells that may motivate a party paying attention to be aware that this is the sort of game where disguise intrigue goes afoot. I'm not sure of the context of the meeting but if it's sort of like some sort of Order of the Phoenix conclave of secret do-gooders, assemlbing in secret, to discuss how to combat rising evil in secret, the DM has got to drop a tension boom into the scene. Talk about how everyone is putting themselves at risk by attending this meetings, and the players don't recognize everyone, maybe a trust NPC express some unease about trusting strangers and the like. Lay it on them to a degree that one of the party members if they're paying attention says, "I'll keep an eye on the crowd" to "I'm going to talk to folks I don't recognize." This sort of crowd/meeting surveillance 101 is elementary in both police apparatus as well as underground movements and groups worried about police apparatus or other surveillance. It's asking a lot for your average person with the luxury of time to play TTRPG to be familiar with that level of paranoia, so to sorta flip the topic a bit, at least to examine some of the underlying presumptions, I'd say a _reliable_ DM doesn't so much endeavor to adequately narrate deception, but provides enough atmospheric clues for the party to recognize they are playing in a world where deception and duplicity circulate.
For an edition that seems to be leaning more heavily into the 'social role play' aspects of the game, 5e certainly does provide a brittle skeleton as to how those social skills are supposed to function, amiright? I can see how "insight" at a lot of tables is used as an effort to non magically cast zone of truth that reveals lie/truth results, but really insight seems in my reading to simply be a broad swath of skills that help the PC determine their subject's motivation in their interaction. So when I provide findings from an Insight check I do the following:
1.) Actual fact checking based on what the character's knowledge and experience. Most "lie detection" in the real world, at least in the legal system and other investigative systems that may or may not be outside the purview of courts, isn't done through some psychical hunch or mechanical litmus test, it's through the exposure of inconsistencies and contradictions in someone's story (there's also the "it makes too much sense" story where lies of ommission can be suspected, but we'll save that for the 102 class). A good insight check allows the DM to point out parts of the conspirators story that don't add up, implant that "hey, wait a sec" moment in the players brain that they can transfer to the character.
2.) Knowing where the NPC is coming from: this is really where "sense motive" is sitting within insight. DM can offer social/economic/political markers to understand the deeper whys as to an NPC's interaction with the PC. An easy one would be a town guard who's "just doing their job" or a a town guard who likes to put the hurt on visitors from the neighboring (the PC's) community. We're talking about getting to the animus behind animosity or benevolence. Dropping "accomplishing a goal by any means necessary" may give the player the right read to recognize they're being pressed into service of this NPC's ideal or scheme. This would also be where the player can get the sense that the NPC may be a "true believer" in their cause or there's another, usually opportunistic agenda.
3.) MIcroexpressions (which is something altogether different from microaggressions discussed in some other threads). These are the "tells" shows like "Lie to Me" are built around. They're taught to IRL investigators as something they may want to look for but a "tell" isn't going to substantiate the detection of a lie, (because there are many that think they're b.s.) but rather prompt the investigator to dig deeper to establish a stronger sense of areas 1 and 2. In other words "you know he's lying because he keeps blinking or pulling on his ear." Isn't what you give the party member. But do describe the tell, maybe perform it (exaggeratedly, the players arent' trained forensic interviewers). Look over your shoulder a lot, or make a face like your biting into rotten meat when the NPC speaks of the King, etc.
So, if posed with an NPC's story of the King being an Evil Wizard, on a failed insight against NPC's deception (I'd actually use DCs predicated on the degree of plausibility to outlandishness of the lie modified by the NPC's Deception skill instead of dueling rolls) I'd just reiterate the story and maybe highlight what ramifications this information would have on the PCs world and then probe the PC for a reaction - this is how cons actually work, the con exploits the insecurities and vulnerabilities of the target to rope them in, so if the con was successful, the PC would be reflecting on the impact this "revelation" is having on them, check out sparknotes for Hamlet or Othello or a heck of a lot of Shakespeare to get the feel for this. A insightful player may "see what you're doing there" in moving the dynamic of the scene into the PC's interior, but this is a role playing prompt.
Playing liars well is tough, most of us are comfortable with the concept simply at the short prank level, but regicide level intrigue is some mind messing stuff most folks don't have a lot of real life experience with (knock on wood). It's certainly easier to use Insight checks as a circuit whose results are "Belief" or "Doubt". And some folks who want a simple procedural mystery would prefer that, but I think it's less immersive. In social moments I'll always lean heavily into how a character's mind works, which if you're going for verisimilitude likely works very differently from the mind of the player. So rather than seeing lies and subterfuge as the problems of unreliable narration, I'd argue a strong DM narrative skillset uses these moments as opportunities to either have more revealed about the game world (on successful insight) or delve into areas of the PCs interior as to why they'd go along with a lie or otherwise be dupes.
...Or everything above is utterly irresponsible from a DM ethos standpoint and this post is full of b.s. ;)
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
What does, "Narrate what they see," mean for an Insight check? Do you describe a bead of sweat forming on the target's temple, heavily implying lying, but not guaranteeing it?
Yeah, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about. How many misdirections and double crosses can you do to maximize the challenge, without making it an incomprehensible mess that players will never figure out, no matter how many clues you give?
This is just a hypothetical situation and didn't happen in my game. But the situation I'm describing would be a player asking the DM to remind them about something that happened in a previous session. I could tell them no and that they should take better notes, but we don't play that hardcore of a game. So usually I give them a chance at a History / Int check. Again, I could make the DC impossibly high, but I do want to give out some information to make sure they understand the basic goal of their quest and the purpose behind it.
I would have had them roll the appropriate roll against Professor Nightbloom defined in Disguise Self / disguise kit in that previous session, and in this scenario, they failed it.
If an NPC fails a deception role, just tell the players they believe he's lying. Now, if they rolled high but not high enough to know and they got it wrong, well those are the breaks, meanwhile if they rolled a 10 but it was enough to tell then tell he's bluffing. Let them figure it out. If they want to run zone of truth they can.
You don't just tell someone they notice the sweat on their brow and assume they'll know what's going on, that's not fair. Tell them what the dice roll told you tell them, are they telling the truth Y/N, and if they flubbed their role then tell them what they beleive.
My players rarely know what the target number is, I also do not run a hard sucess failure DC, I set a target number and then scale from there the level of success or failure. This means that the characters might determine a character might be lying and even with a success sometimes, depending on the circumstance, I might give them a hint of something. Insight for instance is not a way to mind read, telling a player what the character sees, he is shifting nervously, he is sweating and it isn't hot in here etc. It is never Binary in my games, a high role might give a character more information, but rarely will I come outright and say, you know he is lying to you.
I just tell the player, I don't let the dice determine and force someone to remember what has happened 3 sessions ago, as that could in reality be 6 weeks. I also have no issues with players reminding other players round the table. A player is not the character. In the same way characters are full of knowledge that a player is not. For instance the charatcer may well know the details of the political structure of the nation the players are in, I don't believe in giving long handouts of information or detailing everything to the players, partly because I make that kind of stuff up on the fly when it becomes pertinent to the game. So I will just tell a player. Your character would know that John Doe is the King, his chief advisor is Jenny Makebelieve. A history check would then determine if the character knows that Jenny's father once saved John's grandfather's life and that is why her family have such a good position in court. Or it might determine the rumours
Honestly, in this case I think you should just tell the player the information and not make them roll for it, unless enough time has passed in-game that the character themselves might have a hard time remembering the information. A character should have access to all information they would reasonably know or remember. A character is not going to forget something that just happened to them--remember, even if six weeks have passed in the real world since that session, it might have only been a day or two for the character themselves.
Now, if it was something that happened a month of in-game time ago and was not the most significant of events, then it could be appropriate to make the player roll history or the like to try and remember. In such a case, I would not have a "fail" option per se--again, it is unlikely the character has forgotten their own experiences. You could have low-rolls give the general outline of what occurred and higher rolls fill in the specific details, with more details the better they roll. Maybe a low roll gives them some misrememberings--they get the wrong name for an NPC ("Bob" might be remembered as "Rob"), or the like--the kind of harmless mistakes people make all the time when trying to remember events that occurred even recently.
As for the thread at large, personally, I always answer with statements like "You do not see any trap" or "You do not think they are lying." I use the same language for when there is no trap as for when there is a trap, but none was detected, that way the party does not get information they are not otherwise privy to. In some groups, where I know they are not going to metagame and are playing mostly for the entertainment value, I might have a bit more fun with it, in a way that otherwise betrays information to the player, but does not to their character.
As with most things in DMing, the key is to play to your particular group and make sure you are doing what works best for their enjoyment.