I watched an interesting video that discussed limiting the power of or getting rid of Insight checks completely, and I took some interest in it, as Insight falls more in roleplay than most other checks. Any recommendations on how I should move forward with this?
Insight is an information check informed by your intuition. It might reflect an effort to read body language, understand someone’s feelings or 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.
I think it's necessary to the game and would think twicw before getting rid of it as it's not as much tied to roleplaying as say Charisma (Persuasion or Intimidation) check can be.
One of the advantages to checks like Insight, Persuasion, Deception, and Intimidation is that they help people play a social role they're not personally good at. Even if you're not great at coming up with lies on the spot, as a Rogue with Expertise in Deception you can still say "I try to convince the guard we were just innocent bystanders" and have +6 or more to your roll to indicate that your character was rather more eloquent in their words. Insight can also be helpful as it reduces the need for the DM to actively insert social cues if they want there to be hints that there's something going unsaid or a character is lying.
I wouldn't suggest either limiting or getting rid of insight checks. Insight represents the ability of the CHARACTER to judge the "value" of information obtained from an NPC. It has nothing to do with roleplaying. I can roleplay whether I believe an NPC or not all I want but it doesn't change whether the information that NPC is providing is something that the NPC believes to be true/correct.
Without insight how do you decide to let the player know whether the character thinks they can trust the NPC? If you are concerned about the player knowing the die roll then use a passive insight check vs a deception check by the NPC (assuming the NPC has anything to hide).
All of the social skills - persuasion/deception/intimidation/insight/etc - determine how good the character is at performing certain actions. Role playing only goes so far. Players may not be as hyper intelligent as a 20 INT wizard, they may not be as silver tongued and convincing as a 20 cha warlock (or rogue/bard with expertise in persuasion), the skills provide a way to resolve in game situations - role playing can set the tone, offer a baseline, but ultimately, success or failure at any task is a combination of the player's actions in role playing character and the characters statistics.
As a player, I might come up with lots of persuasive arguments for my 8 charisma cleric to use - but, if anything, that would be the player not really role playing the character well. Or perhaps the persuasive arguments are presented in such a confrontational way that they don't work. This is why a roll using the character modifiers is required because the player's strengths may be quite different from the character's.
I assume the video you're referencing explained why and how you'd want to do this, but since we haven't seen it, we're all a little lost here.
I could see removing Insight, sure. There's no reason you couldn't just set a flat DC for a Deception check (perhaps based on how tall the tale is?) instead of basing it on the competence of the listener. I mean, there is one reason -- you'd be removing the option for a PC to be particularly good or particularly bad at reading people -- but maybe that's not relevant to your table or something.
I would really appreciate a rule that explicitly has room for the eternal refrain, "My character isn't technically lying!" Maybe this is that. If you're simply omitting info or dancing around the truth it's DC 12, if it's a lie with a kernel of truth then DC 15, if it's a total fabrication DC 18. Just as a quick sketch of the idea.
I watched an interesting video that discussed limiting the power of or getting rid of Insight checks completely, and I took some interest in it, as Insight falls more in roleplay than most other checks. Any recommendations on how I should move forward with this?
Orange Juice!
Insight is an information check informed by your intuition. It might reflect an effort to read body language, understand someone’s feelings or 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.
I think it's necessary to the game and would think twicw before getting rid of it as it's not as much tied to roleplaying as say Charisma (Persuasion or Intimidation) check can be.
One of the advantages to checks like Insight, Persuasion, Deception, and Intimidation is that they help people play a social role they're not personally good at. Even if you're not great at coming up with lies on the spot, as a Rogue with Expertise in Deception you can still say "I try to convince the guard we were just innocent bystanders" and have +6 or more to your roll to indicate that your character was rather more eloquent in their words. Insight can also be helpful as it reduces the need for the DM to actively insert social cues if they want there to be hints that there's something going unsaid or a character is lying.
I wouldn't suggest either limiting or getting rid of insight checks. Insight represents the ability of the CHARACTER to judge the "value" of information obtained from an NPC. It has nothing to do with roleplaying. I can roleplay whether I believe an NPC or not all I want but it doesn't change whether the information that NPC is providing is something that the NPC believes to be true/correct.
Without insight how do you decide to let the player know whether the character thinks they can trust the NPC? If you are concerned about the player knowing the die roll then use a passive insight check vs a deception check by the NPC (assuming the NPC has anything to hide).
All of the social skills - persuasion/deception/intimidation/insight/etc - determine how good the character is at performing certain actions. Role playing only goes so far. Players may not be as hyper intelligent as a 20 INT wizard, they may not be as silver tongued and convincing as a 20 cha warlock (or rogue/bard with expertise in persuasion), the skills provide a way to resolve in game situations - role playing can set the tone, offer a baseline, but ultimately, success or failure at any task is a combination of the player's actions in role playing character and the characters statistics.
As a player, I might come up with lots of persuasive arguments for my 8 charisma cleric to use - but, if anything, that would be the player not really role playing the character well. Or perhaps the persuasive arguments are presented in such a confrontational way that they don't work. This is why a roll using the character modifiers is required because the player's strengths may be quite different from the character's.
I assume the video you're referencing explained why and how you'd want to do this, but since we haven't seen it, we're all a little lost here.
I could see removing Insight, sure. There's no reason you couldn't just set a flat DC for a Deception check (perhaps based on how tall the tale is?) instead of basing it on the competence of the listener. I mean, there is one reason -- you'd be removing the option for a PC to be particularly good or particularly bad at reading people -- but maybe that's not relevant to your table or something.
I would really appreciate a rule that explicitly has room for the eternal refrain, "My character isn't technically lying!" Maybe this is that. If you're simply omitting info or dancing around the truth it's DC 12, if it's a lie with a kernel of truth then DC 15, if it's a total fabrication DC 18. Just as a quick sketch of the idea.
Also, this belongs in the homebrew subforum.