In D&D and other TTRPG systems, we often run into the issue of weather something being said is believable or not. Sometimes we resolve this with a Charisma (or similar) check, where success means you know if it's the truth or not. Sometimes these checks are one sided, sometimes opposed. These things work great in a pinch, but sometimes we want more granularity or structure. That's what this post is about.By these rules, the listener will think the speaker is telling the truth, telling a lie, or unsure. The "unsure" result is really what makes this system shine. Getting "this is true" or "this is false" removes a lot of fun grayzones. Adding "unsure" creates more interesting roleplaying situations where the conversation needs to continue creatively in order to justify another check. In situations where someone may not have a lot of time to discern truth or not - like a guard at a gate who has a long line of people to question and can't be bothered to run an exhaustive interview with each and everyone - this system can create some great tension instead of pure success.This also works great to create more interesting relationships with reoccurring NPCs. Can you really trust the guy offering the job when you over the course of a conversation you get 3 reads: 1 truth, 1 lie, and 1 unsure?When to use these rulesWhen a statement is made that a listener might find hard to believe, and the consequences of believing it or not might be interesting to story.How to use these rulesBoth sides roll a check and you pick the table appropriate to the situation to cross reference the results.The tables go from best result to worst result for the person doing the talking, and worst result to best result for the person doing the listening. Simply slide down the table until you find the talker's roll, then slide to the second column and keep going down until you find the listener's result. Then the third column gives you the outcome.The percentages listed in these rules assume both characters have a 50/50 chance to pass or fail their rolls, with a 5% chance for critical success or critical failure.CS = Critical SuccessCF = Critical FailIf the system you're using only does comparison and doesn't have an outright fail option, you might have to do some improvising.5e Example: Instead of rolling against someone's passive, both sides make checks - persuasion / deception vs insight. Rolling less than 10 would be the equivalent of a failure entry on these tables.The problem with these rulesThere are too many outcomes to be quickly memorized, and looking up a table is mildly time intensive. They need to be stored somewhere easy to lookup.The percentage totals at the bottom don't always add up to 100% because there's some rounding. If you do the math yourself, you'll see it's all square.The Rules
This is the most important / most commonly used one, but it is really important to consider this in conjunction with the table where you are telling the truth and they are suspicious.When you lie to someone, you might be trying to convince them of something specific, or just to obfuscate the truth. This table is the most imporExample 1: If you're trying to convince a servant that you're at this estate to do repairs on the roof when you're really here to rob the place, you need them to believe that is true. They won't let you in if they're not sure about the truth of your statement. In this situation, you're looking for that 30% chance of them reading truth.Example 2: If you're trying to convince a town guard that you're entering the city to meet a friend, when you're really here to kill someone, you just need them to not think you're lying. If they think you're lying, they're going to pull you aside and do some more serious questioning. This is where the other table comes in. More on that later.And this tracks - lying to someone who thinks you might be is actually quite hard.
One of the facets I like to underscore is that lying to someone's face isn't easy. Even if the person you're lying to isn't outright suspicious of you, a lie can be detected. A DM might apply modifiers based on the sellability of the lie, but if both characters have 10 charisma, a lie told to an unsuspecting person is most likely going to be believed.
Let's look at the two examples from the first table again.Example 1: The servant granting access to the estate on the grounds you're a roofer. If you're lying, they're 30% likely to believe you. If you're telling the truth, they're 50% likely to believe you. Being suspicious by its very nature means you're looking for reasons not to trust someone. In either situation, the suspicious servant is going to need a few checks.Example 2: The guard granting access to the city on grounds you're here to meet someone. If you're telling the truth, they're probably going to get Truth or Unsure as a result. They're also busy talking to everyone entering the city, so they don't have time to make 10 checks for each person. They're looking for the lie result, and as long as they don't get it, they'll move you along.If you're suspicious of what someone is telling you, you're most likely not going to to get the result of "lie" with a single check. You're going to need to talk to them for a while and get multiple checks. If they're telling the truth, you're really unlikely to get the "lie" result at all. So if you get 3 checks and they come back unsure, truth, unsure, you can be reasonably sure they're not lying.On the other hand, if you get unsure, lie, truth, you can be reasonably sure they're lying to you, even though you got one of each result.What you really need is a long interrogation where you can get 10 checks. It doesn't matter how many results come back as truth or unsure, it matters how many come back as lies. Still, the dice are fickle, and even with 10 checks its possible to come away from such an interrogation with some doubt as to what's happening.Remember, these results are based on 2 characters with 10 charisma. The person with the better charisma / deception / insight will get a pretty solid boost to their desired outcome.
Basically the same as telling the truth to someone who is suspicious. We see that we migrate 20 percentage points from Truth to Unsure, but the lie chance stays real low. This shows us that suspicious people are less likely to believe your truth, but not more likely to think you're lying.TakeawaysThis system is pretty fun. It's relatively easy to use as long as you have it on hand, but there is a lot of depth to it if you really want to dig in.If you're telling the truth, you're looking for the result of truth.If you're lying, you're looking for the result of truth or unsure.If you're suspicious of someone, you're looking for the result of lie.If you have a lot of time to interrogate someone, you can eventually get to the bottom of things. But nine times out of ten people aren't in a situation to do a prolonged interrogation. A shop keeper isn't going to spend 15 minutes asking you where you got that nice sword. If they do, and you're an honest person, you're going to feel uncomfortable and take your business elsewhere.Generally speaking, 1 check is the most a normal conversation would have unless the results are interesting. Any more than 3 checks in a conversation would become quite awkward socially and make the speaker feel like they're under interrogation. Four examples in actionExample 1: You are lying to a suspicious person.You show up to an estate with some work clothes, telling the servant at the door you're here to work on the roof. They should have heard if a workman is coming, and they didn't, so they're suspicious of your story. You give your best "here to work on the roof ma'am" and checks are made.You pass, they fail: It seems like the truth. But that's strange, so they ask you who ordered the work. You know the name of the estate owner and give it. We do another check.You fail, they pass: It seems like a lie. The estate owner wouldn't order the work themselves anyway, so what's going on here. They ask about the work being done, and another check comes along.You fail, they fail: The result is unsure. The servant probably doesn't know anything about the roof situation, but they haven't been told to expect anything. But now the conversation is getting sort of long. With a truth, a lie, and an unsure, the servant is in a bit of a bind. If you're supposed to be here, and they turn you back, they'll get in trouble, yet they can't let someone in who might be a danger to the estate. Maybe they need reinforcements, and go to get a higher up.You did your best, but now the bigger guns are coming out that will know the truth already. Time to get out before anyone else sees your face.Example 2: You are lying to someone who unsuspecting.You take some ill-gotten jewelry to a merchant to sell it. They pick it up and ask you where you got it from while appraising it. You say it was your mother's, but you've fallen on hard times and need the cash. There's no reason to suspect you really, but the DM determines this could be a fun moment so they call for checks.You fail, they pass: It seems like a lie. This is a pretty classic line a merchant like this would hear, truthfully and falsely, but they're picking up on the brevity of your description. You didn't have a big sob story, just a quick and well rehearsed line. Then again, do they really care? Maybe they try to underbid you on it since they think you're full of crap, but you push back and say its really worth a lot to you and you won't accept less than some amount. Another set of checks.You pass, they fail: Seems like the truth. You do need the money, and you won't accept less. The jeweler puts the object down, looks you in the eyes, and asks directly (now suspicious), "is this stolen?" Last check.You pass with 28, they pass with 24: Unsure. "No sir" comes your answer. Could be bull, but this is the moment to take your business or not. With a lie, a truth, and an unsure it could really be anything. They've got plausible deniability, so they buy it from you.Clearly the merchant was suspicious, but they bought it from you anyway. Our PCs now know a merchant who is willing to look the other way as long as the story isn't half bad. We've got a proper relationship building here. Neither of you really trust one another, but you could do some mutually beneficial work if you're careful.Example 3: You are telling the truth to a suspicious person.You're just minding your business when a guard runs around a corner and tells you to go up against the wall and spread your limbs. Then they ask you where you're coming from. You reply honestly, "the tavern down the way". We check.You fail, they critically succeed: They read the truth out of you. That's probably enough for them if they're in a big hurry, but if they've got more time they ask a follow up question. "Have you been in the gem district today?" We check.You fail, they succeed: They read truth. Despite your awkwardness in your replies, the guard can see that you're just a nervous citizen who is struggling in this moment. If you were the person they're looking for, they probably wouldn't have gotten 2 truths in a row from you. Time to move on.Despite your failures, the guards believed you. Maybe this builds some goodwill between PCs and town guard NPCs?Example 4: You are telling the truth of an unsuspecting personYour party met a unicorn in the forest. It's a wild story. Nobody ever sees them. Later, you're at the tavern and picking up a conversation with the bartender who you're semi-familiar with. You tell the tale. They've no reason to not believe you, other than that it's a wild story, so the DM calls for a check.You pass, they fail: They read the truth. They can't believe what they're hearing, but your story is good. They want to know more, and ask you to give some more details. When you finally get to the end, where the party departs from the unicorn, the bartender is incredulous. These mad bastards actually met this thing? One more check.You fail, they critically fail: They think you're lying. And they should, nobody meets a unicorn! But now they're not certain of what's going on here. At first it seemed honest, but the story was too good to be true. So they ask you, point blank, "are you shitting me?". They're not suspicious of you, since you're not asking for anything of them, so we keep the same table.You critically fail, they pass: Another lie. You're having a hard time explaining the majesty of the creature, the elegance. You end up relying on poetic descriptions you've heard from others, descriptions the bar tender has heard before. They dismisses you as pulling their leg and move on. If you wanted to push the point, since they obviously think you're lying now, you could say, "but it's true! We did see it!" and get your party to chime in. One last check, but now they're suspicious of your truth.You fail, they fail: Unsure. The whole party is in on now, but still... come on... 1 truth, 1 unsure, 2 lies. You're probably just trying to get some fame, glory, and with it some work. Or many just having a good time trying to pull the bar tender's leg. They send you back to your table with a "ah, you had me going there for a bit". Maybe you'll have better luck with the waitress.If this bartender is someone the PCs talk to a lot, they might have damaged their reputation. It just goes to show you, if something crazy happens to you, it might be best to keep your mouth shut about it.--------------------------That's all for today's post! I hope you find these as fun as I do. I feel really good about these tables and have started to use them in my campaigns with success. I've got them in Scrivener so I can pop them open anytime I'm in game for easy access.Best of luckgl hfNeal / Koibu