How do people deal with scenarios that have a mystery element to them, and you want to keep some information from being discovered by the players too early in the encounter to get a decent dramatic effect?

This issue came up while I was running Debts to Pay and the PCs investigated the facility. As they were speaking to the NPC who later turns out to be the main antagonist, one player asked to use Discipline in order to determine "if the NPC is lying". They knew something strange was going on, and had received conflicting information from different NPCs, but didn't know which to trust - or if the NPCs themselves were mistaken or being manipulated.

This creates one problem, that when I tell the player that this roll is a purple and two reds they will immediately realise that this NPC is far more important than they appear, and then if they succeed I don't want to tell them "You realise that this character is lying about someone else having committed the murders!"

In my own case, the players didn't take much notice of the difficulty of the roll, but they did manage to succeed. I fudged it a little, and simply said that the NPC didn't seem especially pleased to see the PCs. This seemed to work well, as they decided to distrust another NPC, assuming he was being manipulated by forces unseen, and the responses I got from the players when they finally discovered the truth and how it all fitted with the evidence they had come across were very satisfying. But I'd like to know how do other GMs deal with this sort of situation, where you don't want the random guess of a player to stumble across the plot prematurely? I suppose part of being a good GM is being able to adapt to the players doing this, and throwing out the second half of the module, but that doesn't seem very satisfying.

A legitimate mystery is difficult - if not outright impossible - to maintain in a game system that doesn't use investigation mechanics, like Gumshoe or Call of Cthulhu 's Basic Role Playing system.

The trick is this: if you don't want players to stumble over the big mysterious reveal in your plot, don't give the PCs access to an NPC or clue that could spoil it with a roll of the dice. Yes, that removes the option of the big "Ha-ha! I was the traitor all along, fools!" surprise but that surprise is also a gaming cliche. Especially if you've played Shadowrun or a dozen other noir-styled RPGs.

Something else you could have considered was giving all of the NPCs a comparable Deception die pool. That way the antagonist wouldn't have a big arrow over his head by being the only NPC with high difficulty to overcome. An opposed check would have worked well too.

If my players spoil a mystery plot, then they spoil a mystery plot. I'm not going to cheat them in order to cover myself. If it causes half of a scenario to get tossed, then that's what happens. However, I never throw anything away and I've adapted lost encounters for future adventures.

The main danger with mysteries and lying NPCs is you run the danger of blocking or bottlenecking the entire adventure. This is worth a read:

http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule

I've dispensed with hiding clues or NPC behaviour. With clues, the PCs can certainly find information sooner by making good rolls or acting in smart ways, but if they look like they aren't getting it I'll simply deliver the information in a way that looks as if they discovered it on their own. For NPCs, I try to be clear when they are honest and when they are holding something back.

What this changes is that the purpose of the rolling is not necessarily to gather all the essential clues or determine a binary lying/not-lying result. Instead it's to gather more detailed information with Advantages/Triumphs which make the upcoming challenges easier or make the rewards greater; or to get false information or generate other impacts with Threat/Despair that make the upcoming challenges more difficult or the rewards more lean. And of course the players then get to inject their own clues or rewards which can take the adventure in completely different directions, without making the GM have to reinvent the entire scenario.

I ran into that problem myself. My players immediately triggered that they were dealing with a major NPC when I gave them the opposition dice pool. In their case, they were trying to squeeze information out of a Black Sun Vigo who was in hiding. They only knew his cover, and when they faced 4 reds and a purple they knew they were way outclassed. I wasn't sure how else to run it.

Looking back, I can see 2 alternatives.

1. Give a lesser opposition dice pool, but only give out false info on 1 success. Then give the full story if they get X successes and/or Y advantages/triumphs.

or

2. Roll opposition dice pool in secret, then give the net roll to the players.

I lean toward #1, so the players still get their dice pool, and feel good with the roll. For instance in my case, the opposition pool would normally be 4R1P. I would give them a roll of 1R1P. On 1 to 3 successes they get the cover story. On 4 successes they get the real story. With (3-successes) advantages or a triumph, they can tell that they are not getting the whole story on 1-3 successes.

Just now, Edgookin said:

I ran into that problem myself. My players immediately triggered that they were dealing with a major NPC when I gave them the opposition dice pool. In their case, they were trying to squeeze information out of a Black Sun Vigo who was in hiding. They only knew his cover, and when they faced 4 reds and a purple they knew they were way outclassed. I wasn't sure how else to run it.

I see this concern come up frequently, but I'm not sure why it matters so much. I get a reaction too from my players when I pile in the dice, but if they've committed to a course of action they still have to roll. The act of taking the risk means the PCs know something about what they're up against, and just MHO but this is something that I embrace as a GM. It's a clue and a tool like any other.

8 minutes ago, Edgookin said:

On 1 to 3 successes they get the cover story. On 4 successes they get the real story. With (3-successes) advantages or a triumph, they can tell that they are not getting the whole story on 1-3 successes.

If you follow the published modules, the number of successes doesn't really translate to more information. That's what advantages and triumphs are for. I find it a very useful model to follow.

The main thing to do is tell your players, "If an NPC is trying to deceive you, they'll roll a Deception check against your Discipline. I will make the roll myself, and inform you the results through gameplay."

Whether you choose to have a GM screen or to just roll behind a hastily upended book is up to you. Of course, rolling like this will let your players know you're up to something...unless you're in the habit of making random secret rolls for no other purpose than to throw them off from metagaming. You can also use an app or the free roller at http://game2.ca/eote/ to make silent rolls on your phone or a laptop. This keeps situations along the lines of "Hold up! I just failed a Perception check!" from happening. And it does happen to even the very best of players.

Of course, as noted by other people you shouldn't bottleneck the adventure behind a single check, so make sure to give other clues that the players can stumble upon over the course of the adventure. The main point I diverge on the whole "three clue rule" bit is that I think every GM should allow for and have a plan where the players manage to miss ALL the clues, making the final leg of the adventure much harder to deal with because they had no idea what was going on until the very last minute.

2 minutes ago, Benjan Meruna said:

The main thing to do is tell your players, "If an NPC is trying to deceive you, they'll roll a Deception check against your Discipline. I will make the roll myself, and inform you the results through gameplay."

Whether you choose to have a GM screen or to just roll behind a hastily upended book is up to you.

I never do this. I've yet to hide a roll from my players for anything in this game. It was a hard habit to break coming from a long history of friends with a play style that assumed an adversarial relationship between GM and players. It's been liberating to dispense with all that.

The GM is not an adversary, I can absolutely agree. The adversaries that the GM is rolling for, however, are. Plus, my players hate OOC spoilers anyways.

Not sure if this has been mentioned but just because they know the NPC is lying or acting suspicious if they succeed the check, that does not automatically mean that they know what exactly they are lying about. This can lead to further questioning on the PC's part if they want to know exactly what is going on & I'd begin giving them boost dice for looking out for specific tics & tells that the NPC gives off when lying.

In all fairness this is the rim. People don't live long lives by being honest; hence even people who aren't "necessarily against" the PC's don't have a obligation to be telling the truth. Maybe there's some fact about the job that doesn't appeal to them or it might not really be their job; hey are just the go betweener that sets up the deals. Or maybe he's geninue but failure to succeed means that they can't be certain whether he's lying or being truthful. Roll the check but don't inform them of which attribute the NPC is using; besides, a lot of people lie for good reasons and in some cases, being a liar opens up new avinunes for investigation, rather then making a closed case. Often players need to actually have physical evidence, rectrieve a micguffin or use his connections for something; a true traitorous NPC often needs to have qualities or a lure that makes their immediate detainment detrimental to the PC's efforts.

As with perception checks I will expect only one player to make a roll on a given NPC, but allow for exceptions to that rule if the other players are being vital to the investigation. Otherwise theres no NPC that can reliably beat 5/6 perception checks in the same way a stealthy person are unlikely to get past a team of 6 NPC's without a seriously jacked stealth score.

In my campaign I try to roll the difficulty of most opposed deception checks behind my GM screen so the players don't see. Whenever they want to roll to see of someone is lying I roll difficulty behind the screen even if the character is being completely truthful. This has worked pretty well so far. When they have become suspicious of an NPC and tried to use the dice to determine if he is lying they only get to see their own results and can only use that as a measure.

I had a player roll 4 successes and a ton of advantage on his check. He was totally certain the NPC couldn't be lying... little did she know he was talking to a yet to be revealed villain who rolled insanely well. His confidence in his read on the guy made the final moment of betrayal so much more sweet

I have toyed with the idea of rolling all the dice for deception checks like this privately, including the PC's pool, but I feel like that would be clunky and a lot of work.

I don't know. I think the open secret is that by hiding certain rolls the GM really uses the screen as an option to fudge the results to steer the outcome. In which case: why roll? Just pick a result and be done.

19 hours ago, Benjan Meruna said:

Plus, my players hate OOC spoilers anyways.

I'm not sure how it's an OOC spoiler. If they come up against a lock they have to pick, do you hide the negative dice for that too? It wouldn't make sense for someone to start picking before they know what they're up against. Similarly, social skills should be able to gauge the opposition...you should at least be able to tell fairly quickly whether you're up against a pro poker player or someone who wears their emotions on their sleeve.

21 hours ago, whafrog said:

but if they look like they aren't getting it I'll simply deliver the information in a way that looks as if they discovered it on their own.

Oooooh, please elaborate. What techniques could a GM use to perform this maneuver and not caught?

McHyde, I usually do exactly that on checks the player initiate themselves if I think there's reason for them not to know the full result right away. If it's an NPC doing a surreptitious check, that's usually when I roll "behind the screen."

42 minutes ago, whafrog said:

I don't know. I think the open secret is that by hiding certain rolls the GM really uses the screen as an option to fudge the results to steer the outcome. In which case: why roll? Just pick a result and be done

I..don't? I'm sorry if the temptation to fudge rolls is too great for you, but it's not really a problem I've had in the past. The purpose of rolling behind the screen is so that the players don't know things their characters wouldn't know.

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'm not sure how it's an OOC spoiler. If they come up against a lock they have to pick, do you hide the negative dice for that too? It wouldn't make sense for someone to start picking before they know what they're up against. Similarly, social skills should be able to gauge the opposition...you should at least be able to tell fairly quickly whether you're up against a pro poker player or someone who wears their emotions on their sleeve.

For picking a lock, probably not. It's reasonable to be able to tell the general difficulty of a lock, so if they stumble across a super-secret weapon facility by accident and try to open the door, I have no problem with them seeing the four red dice that come out and the character going "What IS this place?!" It's not an OOC spoiler because the character discovered in the game the difficulty of the lock.

People, however, are not locks. If a player is trying to deceive the Big Bad who they think is just another Joe Blow, I'm not going to let them see those red die. Part of this is because social checks are a lot more ephemeral and nebulous, and part of that is because there might be consequences that need to be hidden from the player.

Example: Player is pretending to be an Imperial Customs Officer. The target is a supposed civilian that might have information on a notorious bounty hunter the players are trying to evade. Unbeknownst to the player but knownst to us, said civilian is actually the Bounty Hunter in a disguise of his own. First check is a secret check to see if the PC sees through the disguise, they fail. Player goes and rolls Deception, the NPC rolls Discipline. The player gets a decently modest roll, but the NPC blows it out of the park AND gets a triumph to boot. So, not only does the Bounty Hunter see through the PC's disguise, he correctly guesses that the fake Customs Officer must be one of the people he's looking for. Feeling that two can play at this game, he makes his own deception check and succeeds. He tells the player that the bounty hunter is actually in another system right now. Breathing a sigh of relief, the player goes back to the hideout to tell the others. The bounty hunter then makes a Stealth check to follow the player unseen, opposed by perception. The player finally gets a lucky break and spots the supposed civilian tailing him through the crowded market. I smell a chase scene....

In the above example, rolling everything aboveboard would have immediately not only alerted the player that this wasn't an ordinary civilian, but it would have made it very difficult for his character to act naturally since he has OOC knowledge that he was being deceived.

Thanks for the replies everyone. A lot of interesting views to think about here! The situation in Debts to Pay isn't quite the same as a proper investigation, as there is no danger of the PCs missing clues and not being able to advance. It's just that they may find out something prematurely.

Both myself and my group are relative novices, we've only been playing for about a year and only with EotE. I do generally find social rolls, including deception, rather unintuitive to deal with since both advantages and extra successes can convey additional (true) information, I think?

7 hours ago, McHydesinyourpants said:

I had a player roll 4 successes and a ton of advantage on his check. He was totally certain the NPC couldn't be lying... little did she know he was talking to a yet to be revealed villain who rolled insanely well. His confidence in his read on the guy made the final moment of betrayal so much more sweet

This is interesting - so the PCs do not know if they have succeeded or failed? Doesn't this cause problems when the PCs say "I want to spend all these advantages on... X" and you have to tell them that they actually don't have any, thus revealing at least something about the roll?

4 minutes ago, kaisergav said:

Thanks for the replies everyone. A lot of interesting views to think about here! The situation in Debts to Pay isn't quite the same as a proper investigation, as there is no danger of the PCs missing clues and not being able to advance. It's just that they may find out something prematurely.

Both myself and my group are relative novices, we've only been playing for about a year and only with EotE. I do generally find social rolls, including deception, rather unintuitive to deal with since both advantages and extra successes can convey additional (true) information, I think?

This is interesting - so the PCs do not know if they have succeeded or failed? Doesn't this cause problems when the PCs say "I want to spend all these advantages on... X" and you have to tell them that they actually don't have any, thus revealing at least something about the roll?

I can't speak for him but when I do rolls like that, it's so that the player won't know if there were any despairs generated and to leave the exact strength of the opposing check in doubt. They'll generally know if they succeeded or not and they get told how much uncancelled advantage they have to play with (they obviously know what Triumphs they have).

1 hour ago, themensch said:

Oooooh, please elaborate. What techniques could a GM use to perform this maneuver and not caught?

This thread elaborates:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/198079-rolling-openly/

And also this touches on it:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/188406-running-a-freeform-plot/

2 hours ago, Benjan Meruna said:

Example: Player is pretending to be an Imperial Customs Officer. The target is a supposed civilian that might have information on a notorious bounty hunter the players are trying to evade. Unbeknownst to the player but knownst to us, said civilian is actually the Bounty Hunter in a disguise of his own. First check is a secret check to see if the PC sees through the disguise, they fail. Player goes and rolls Deception, the NPC rolls Discipline. The player gets a decently modest roll, but the NPC blows it out of the park AND gets a triumph to boot. So, not only does the Bounty Hunter see through the PC's disguise, he correctly guesses that the fake Customs Officer must be one of the people he's looking for. Feeling that two can play at this game, he makes his own deception check and succeeds. He tells the player that the bounty hunter is actually in another system right now. Breathing a sigh of relief, the player goes back to the hideout to tell the others. The bounty hunter then makes a Stealth check to follow the player unseen, opposed by perception. The player finally gets a lucky break and spots the supposed civilian tailing him through the crowded market. I smell a chase scene....

In the above example, rolling everything aboveboard would have immediately not only alerted the player that this wasn't an ordinary civilian, but it would have made it very difficult for his character to act naturally since he has OOC knowledge that he was being deceived.

If a civilian has information on a notorious bounty hunter, it's reasonable to assume that the NPC is already shady and is going to have some number of proficiency dice in Deception . I'm not seeing how the PCs having that information is going to spoil the reveal that they're actually talking to the bounty hunter in question.

As an alternative, you can make an opposed roll out in the open without declaring what specific pool you're using. Or you can set the PC's difficulty without announcing what attributes and skills are being used to set that threshold. Perception, Deception, Vigilance, Discipline, and Cool all have a part to play in this situation and any of them could influence the difficulty.

For the sake of the players, I recommend all GMs roll their dice out in the open, even if you have a solid gold reputation for honesty, for the same reason I suggest married people tell their spouses that they love them, even if they're completely loyal. It lets them both know and feel that you're honest.

7 minutes ago, Concise Locket said:

If a civilian has information on a notorious bounty hunter, it's reasonable to assume that the NPC is already shady and is going to have some number of proficiency dice in Deception .

Or it's just a guy who passed through the same port as the Bounty Hunter? Don't see how "has knowledge" automatically translates into "shady," here.

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I'm not seeing how the PCs having that information is going to spoil the reveal that they're actually talking to the bounty hunter in question.

It spoils the reveal that this isn't an ordinary, average citizen, and does so in a meta way that encourages metagaming. That's disastrous in a narrative game, because the whole narrative relies on PCs acting organically based on stimulus within the game world.

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As an alternative, you can make an opposed roll out in the open without declaring what specific pool you're using. Or you can set the PC's difficulty without announcing what attributes and skills are being used to set that threshold. Perception, Deception, Vigilance, Discipline, and Cool all have a part to play in this situation and any of them could influence the difficulty.

That doesn't really accomplish much of anything. The PCs know that something is up, and that this random civilian they decided to pump for information has some high stats SOMEwhere. The entire point of a quiet, behind-the-scenes roll is to not alert the players that anything is out of place until their characters pick up on it.

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For the sake of the players, I recommend all GMs roll their dice out in the open, even if you have a solid gold reputation for honesty, for the same reason I suggest married people tell their spouses that they love them, even if they're completely loyal. It lets them both know and feel that you're honest.

I...honestly think that's a bit of a creepy comparison to make. First of all, saying "I love you" isn't same magic sign that someone isn't cheating, openness and trust is. Second, hiding a Deception check to keep the results secret isn't exactly the same as locking your phone or your bank account, here. The latter is unnecessary, the former is how you preserve dramatic tension and take your players by surprise without cheating.

And in the end, there's so many ways a GM can "cheat" that open dice rolling is the least of anyone's problems. Spawning additional enemies, magical BBEG getaways and reinforcements, reshuffling or breaking equipment to keep the players from getting too many toys...do your players require that you keep records in triplicate for every encounter (planned and unplanned) so that they can make sure you're not cheating? Or do they just accept the fact that at some point they have to actually trust you to run a fair and entertaining game for them?

Because if it's the latter, hidden Deception checks help with that.

I've got more experience as a player than as a GM, but I can say 100% that I prefer games where the GM will hide their rolls/make random 'tension-building' rolls. Especially in more story driven campaigns. I don't think it's "cheating" for the GM to hide, but I don't think the GM "wins" by beating the players either. As far as I'm concerned, the GM "wins" when they manage to create an engaging story. And if the best way to to thats is me seeing that triumph my enemy just rolled, or if that means that the ambush I failed my perception roll on was as much a surprise to ME as my character, I support it wholeheartedly. Also, there's nothing , no ambiance music, no eloquent description, no perfectly laid out map, that can beat the terror of the GM making random roll while you're in a particularly tense moment.

"What was that?"

"Oh... you'll see."

5 hours ago, kaisergav said:

This is interesting - so the PCs do not know if they have succeeded or failed? Doesn't this cause problems when the PCs say "I want to spend all these advantages on... X" and you have to tell them that they actually don't have any, thus revealing at least something about the roll?

I usually spend the party's advantages on their behalf on extra hints and clues same way as I use disadvantage to throw up red herrings. It would be nice to allow players to have fun with their Advantages and spend them on things they come up with, like I would on public rolls, but I find the value of privately rolling to keep secrets from players far more fun, for me as a GM and for my players.

3 hours ago, Concise Locket said:

If a civilian has information on a notorious bounty hunter, it's reasonable to assume that the NPC is already shady and is going to have some number of proficiency dice in Deception . I'm not seeing how the PCs having that information is going to spoil the reveal that they're actually talking to the bounty hunter in question.

As an alternative, you can make an opposed roll out in the open without declaring what specific pool you're using. Or you can set the PC's difficulty without announcing what attributes and skills are being used to set that threshold. Perception, Deception, Vigilance, Discipline, and Cool all have a part to play in this situation and any of them could influence the difficulty.

For the sake of the players, I recommend all GMs roll their dice out in the open, even if you have a solid gold reputation for honesty, for the same reason I suggest married people tell their spouses that they love them, even if they're completely loyal. It lets them both know and feel that you're honest.

Firstly when PCs get to see NPC stats through dice pools, I find that it can lead to a little bit of metagaming. As with kaisergav's initial quandary, what if the undercover bounty hunter, in Benjan's example, had 3 Cunning and 3 Ranks in Deception. If the party see this NPC's dice pool, they will instantly know they are talking to someone important. That could be enough for a decent player to deduce that who they are talking to might be the undercover bounty hunter. When NPCs in my game lie, I don't make the PCs roll. I leave it up to my players to ask if they can make the check, and every time they ask, regardless of whether the NPC is lying or not, I roll dice. If the PCs succeed they get more info, if not they are sent down a different path. I have even had lying NPCs build up trust with this method which has led to some fantastic moments at the table.

Getting PCs to make random rolls will also give info away. Suddenly being presented with an opposed roll where a player needs to roll against three Challenge dice is enough to set off alarm bells regardless of the situation.

I would really have to disagree with you about the rolling in the open philosophy. Players need to trust their GM and if they can't trust them enough roll a dice pool behind a screen then they shouldn't be trusting them to design an encounter that won't get the whole party killed and ruin their.

Private rolling, for me, is a hold over from other fantasy systems I have played (D&D, Pathfinder, S&W etc). Seen as those systems usually rely on binary results, it is a little less complicated when an NPC lies and a PC wants to try to see through those lies. With the FFG dice it requires a bit more prep and usually a lot of improv/thinking on your feet as a GM in order to look after the multi-dimensional results in this system. I have never once even thought about fudging a deception roll as the fun for me is derived from the unpredictable nature of what players will do next. (I will admit, that I have fudged rolls in other situations but usually so a player doesn't die but that is a different discussion altogether )

Rolling dice privately and keeping information private is just part of my own personal GMing/gaming philsophy. I am aware not everyone agrees and that it doesn't work for everyone. I have yet to bottleneck my own stories by sending the PCs after a red herring after they bought into a PCs lie or after they missed a clue. Usually it leads to them getting ambushed or scammed in some way. They realise later where they must have gone wrong and it only adds to the fun and the experience.

I think it is good to discuss and compare different styles of GMing and different views on gaming. It is especially good for new GMs and players to see the different views out there seen as they might find something that might suit them that they didn't think of. I am planning on running Debts to Pay soon enough and I will be using private rolls and red herrings to conceal the droids' motives.

Without reading everyone's responses.....

If the player won't know whether he succeeds or not (or I don't want them to know the target's capabilities perhaps), I roll the bad dice behind a screen and they roll the good dice. I then interpret the roll for them. This way the player doesn't know something the character couldn't and it still gives some clues that the character should have. "I rolled very, very well on my Perception check, so there probably isn't any mines in that field ahead". Or, "I rolled really bad on my Perception check, so I'm not really confident when I'm told I didn't detect any mines".

Maybe I'm a sucker for punishment, but I roll in the open and expect the players to roleplay. If they start to metagame, I give 'em one of these: ಠ_ಠ

edit: that isn't to say I don't hide information from my players. I have most things hidden from them, in fact!

8 hours ago, themensch said:

Maybe I'm a sucker for punishment, but I roll in the open and expect the players to roleplay. If they start to metagame, I give 'em one of these: ಠ_ಠ

For me it's not punishment, I just structure the presentation differently so that open rolling is a non-issue. I enjoy it far more than what I used to do.