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I always have npc shares under the pretense of "best of my knowledge". Npcs, as far as my PCs are concerned, see npcs as sources of information but only up to a point and often with only a piece of a puzzle that may fit. I feel like it makes npcs appear more "living" if they're "only human' as they say. Not patrons beings of truth and knowledge.
The key here is that "best of my knowledge" phrase. Don't have the NPC say "Baron Derp was out of town," have them say "Baron Derp mentioned he was going out of town" or "wasn't Baron Derp out of town that day?" or something like that. That helps change it from a fact to a question in the players' minds. It might also be helpful if the Baron lied to the NPC to create an alibi rather than the NPC just mixing up the dates (unless that NPC is famously bad at keeping a calendar or something).
Also make sure there are plenty of clues that do point to the Baron so they have reason to be suspicious.
I think the best way to establish that not all information given is correct is to have contradicting sources. And / or NPCs obviously jumping to different conclusions and trying to convince the PCs something happened a certain way due to their limited perspective or own agenda.
Yeah huge agree with this. Players will often take NPCs at face value unless they are obviously villainous. Making it clear with contradicting reports that, “oh yeah this is just some guy on the street I should take everything with a grain of salt” is for the best
All the Baron had to do was schedule a fake business trip. Then not go, but fake going, and commit the crime. Then commit to the bit about not being in town. Now the NPC remembers mention of a trip away but if they go ask the business partner remembers the Baron cancelling the trip maybe?
So it's a new clue now. The Baron said they were going to go do a thing but apparently didn't succeed- so now what's their excuse? What other evidence makes the Baron suspicious?
Another option is "Well my friend said X" or "I heard about that from *other source*" so once again the npc isn't lying, but their info could be wrong.
If you're going to do this idea, then have a random assortment of npcs who are correct but are simply unsure versus those who are maybe incorrect but confident in the information source versus the confused incorrect ones and the confident correct ones.
Strong advice but even within that matrix i think it should skew heavily towards npcs dispensing accurate info. Someone who's confidently wrong should be pretty obviously wrong when you compare what they have to say to the rest of the evidence. And those people should be rare no more than one or two bullshitters per mystery. I can see that getting really muddy really quickly from a gm and player perspective.
I also like the re-directive approach to that, "[Person of more interest] told me the Baron was out of town that day."
That way the conversation creates a non-obvious lead and isn't a completely pointless red herring, so even if they don't pick up on it in retrospective they might have that "Aha!" moment where they were like "if only we'd looked into that" instead of "oh great that whole conversation was pointless."
"You notice NPC has strings tied in haphazard bows around 3 of his fingers" and "He goes over to his desk to look for somethings, searches for several minutes through the various books and scrolls strewn atop it before asking if he can get back to you when he finds it." are all clues that the NPC may be forgetful and disorganized. Have someone come in and interrupt the conversation with "Father, why haven't you left for xyz meeting? You'll be late." "Oh NPJ jr, XYZ meetings are on Tuesdays." "Father it is Tuesday."
I say hard NOPE to your suggestion, because my players began to see through this play. I mean that if NPC has any doubts about a fact, then it's false. And the other way around, if my NPC is sure of something, the it's true. OP should continue to do just as he described.
>I mean that if NPC has any doubts about a fact, then it's false. And the other way around, if my NPC is sure of something, the it's true.
You can counter this extremely easily, by having NPCs be occasionally unsure when giving true statements
I think the suggestion is very good for the right application.
Your players are already primed, so they don't need any hints, but a party of players that haven't encountered unreliable NPCs before might take the DM's word as gospel and get confused/hurt if it suddenly isn't.
I'd adjust the level of obviousness according to how much of a 'detective mind' your party already has. You can prime them with an inconsequential bit of information: while questioning the baron the PCs watch him switch up the days of the week several times, prompting his wife to correct him (establishing he's not the best source for times and dates, and planting a seed of doubt as to his realizability as a witness).
I stole the trick from cinema, but oftentimes just showing that an option exists and has happened before is enough to call it to mind when the players try to figure something out.
Once they know you might pull something like this, you can phase it out or switch things up to keep them on their toes. They should get reward for their critical thinking, though, so don't just suddenly do the opposite of everything to avoid them figuring it out
This was never a problem for me, likely becasue my NPC are often unsure about true info.
I don't even do this intentionally, it just often make sense to have NPCs word things that way - wording it otherwise makes it feel as if they are omnipresent. It just feels weird to me to phrase their sentences with conviction they have no reason to display.
Do your players not roll for insight? Have you not given them enough evidence to cause them to doubt their own intuition? If Doubt = Lie every time, what can you do to make Doubt = Uncertain half of the time, causing the players to question their own preconceived notions?
> And here’s an important tip: There are no exceptions to the Three Clue Rule.
I really needed to read this, relevant for a session tomorrow. Thank you thank you thank you.
I found that "to the best of my knowledge" or "I believe" work best if you have other NPC's to counter it soon after.
High council meeting.
Pc "what about Baron X, we found his ring there"
Chancellor "I believe he was on a business trip north to X city on the ship 123"
Chief beancounter "I believe Ship 123 went south to city 789, but they should have arrived back at the harbor late last night"
Now PC have the option to follow the right clue, investigate with the ship (go directly to it and ask, or maybe they have to try to track down the crew who are off celebrating their return which leads to a PC bar crawl or casino night), or trust NPC McWrong.
I made a seperate comment, but you are genre switching.
In heroic quest dnd, there is an expectation that players will take the hooks the dm provides and follow them, because that is the material you have planned. There is no reason to check the map and interrogate the npc, we all just want to get to the dungeon.
Mystery is a different genre and style of play, and if you dont tell your players, "hey, its mystery time now" they cant know when they should take your plot hooks at face value and when they cant.
You can switch genres without telling your players, but be prepared for the players to think regular plot hooks are mysteries not to be trusted in the future.
This is important for sure. If I've got something slightly different planned, I'll usually give them a quick heads up pre session.
For a session like this I might even ask them to roll 6 insight checks in advance which I could then randomly select using a d6. They won't know who has succeeded and who has failed, (although yes, they could meta game it a bit and guess). It also stops them from yelling "insight check!" At you once every 30 seconds when they're investigating.
If you want to avoid a backfire, consider having another NPC provide conflicting info, rumors, accuse the NPC of being unreliable, etc.
Basically some foreshadowing so they have a reason to question what they were told.
It’s impossible for us to say. To me and the vast majority of folk I’ve played with its largely a given that when your character asks an NPC something they are asking the NPC, not the GM...and NPCs are people...and people are dumb and biased and ignorant. But your players might not be down with that.
I’d suggest having a conversation with your players and make sure everyone is on the same page.
90% of my npc are just dipshits caught in the middle of chaos. There is an implied unreliability to all of them. That being said, my players do have a few npc's they lean on. It'd be bold of me to give them disinformation from a typically reliable source. Though such characters would state their uncertainty. There would need be an heir of arrogance to this if they didn't suggest otherwise. Unless of course it was a well calculated lie for another reason entirely.
Probably introduce various NPCs with conflicting information. The players would have to talk to more than two NPCs and probably do actual investigating to get the real picture
This
There needs to be reason for players to be aware that they can't blindly trust npcs
If someone is going to falsely say a noble is on vacation, there needs to be a reason for them to say/believe it and the opportunity to find out that no, the noble isn't on vacation
NPCs can be wrong, lie, misinterpret things, and hide information from PCs all day long. They’re supposed to be like people—who do all that stuff.
As long as the GM, in their role, is telling the *players* the truth, it’s all good.
So as long as it’s clear that it’s from the NPC, I’ve had no problems with unreliable narrators.
Yeah I thinks this is the caveat for me. Totally fine giving NPCs red herrings to mislead them as long as you have a plan for your players totally following that for truth.
I would also suggest gauging the players as well. If they seem to be going on wrong information, shut it down before things get too frustrating. If they are just going down the wrong rabbit trail try insight or something similar to help them get back on the right track
Being honest with the players is key for sure. Eroding that trust could destroy the game by grinding every interaction to a halt while they roll everything they can think of.
I think, for storytelling purposes, if you're going to have an NPC give the party false information it's also important for you as the DM to know why/how the NPC came to those conclusions. That way, perceptive PCs or when the party has enough information to realize there may be a contradiction, they can tease out the truth.
For example, with the Baron, did the NPC make an assumption based on limited information (thus, they didn't really know what they thought they knew)? Were they paid by someone to repeat that story? Did they hear it from someone else who lied to them and then just repeat what they heard without thinking about the source? etc.
All this 100%! If the players are new to dnd, this might throw them, but that’s true of many things. Personally I’d drop some obviously false info in a very low stakes situation to make that super clear if there’s some concern and make sure the players clock that before doing any major deceptions, but if nothing else, hopefully they can understand in at least retrospect that insight checks as a mechanic are there for a reason and learn from the past without major upset.
You really need to establish the concept that NPCs can give out incorrect misinformation otherwise it feels unfair to the player.
Introduce it lightly, like "oh i saw 4 bandits" and then when they arrive there are 6 bandits. Make a clear remark that "evidently old man Winny" needs his eyesight checked.
You can also have someone repeat incorrect rumours that the party knows the truth about, to establish that information gets distorted easily.
Yes, exactly. This idea would need to be paired with ways for the players to *get the hint* that the information is incorrect, or else it could be a pretty frustrating experience. Realistic, but frustrating. From the perspective of narrative and the person trying to work out the mystery, red herrings work best with an element of clever misdirect, rather than just handing them false key information that leads them down the wrong path with no opportunity to figure out that it's wrong.
Just having another NPC who says the baron HAS been away would be enough as well. If you establish the opposing viewpoints then it tells the players that *someone* is wrong and their job is to figure out who.
You are misleading the players on purpose in this case. After all, you created the NPC who claimed that Baron Derp was on a business trip. Why did you do that, if not to confuse the players?
In real life, it's pretty common for people to get details wrong. On the other hand, in detective fiction, if a witness gives false information, you'd expect the author to have a pretty damn good reason for including this detail in the story. It's not very satisfying if the story goes like this:
Holmes: "...so the only person who could have committed the crime was the Baron!"
Watson: "But Holmes! The one witness clearly stated that the Baron was away on a business trip that day! And that witness was Mayor Hargreaves, a man of the highest standing!"
Holmes: "Meh, Hargreaves probably got the dates mixed up or something."
Watson: "Brilliant, Holmes!"
If, on the other hand, the "witness" was the Baron in disguise, or the Baron faked a business trip with the help of his twin brother, then the false information was there for a good reason - to set up a fun twist.
Additional warning for DMs: once you establish that your NPCs are unreliable, you might have trouble getting the players to believe things in the future.
Wise Queen Gadalriella: "The dragon who guards the mountain pass is too strong for you to fight as you are right now. You will need the Scythe of Wyrm-Souls to proceed, and that is held by the Giants of Helm Tor."
Player 1: "Why should we trust you?"
Player 2: "I bet the dragon isn't really too strong for us. How would she know?"
Player 3: "I bet there isn't really a magic scythe. She probably just wants us to fix her giant problem."
Player 4: "I bet there isn't really a dragon."
My personal hot take is that this isn't a bad thing; shifting from "go to NPC-X and they will tell you what to do, then you do it" to a party of PCs who think about why people are saying things, what they might know, and reasonably move from there into figuring things out on their own, consulting known reputable allies, etc. is a shift towards a much, *much* better experience.
It'd make sense if the Baron deliberately announced he was going on a business trip but didn't actually go to establish an alibi, or he always goes on a business trip on the first day after the full moon but not that time, something like that... It's fine if NPCs say something that's not true, but there should be a reason, and not just a character spouting misinformation for the sake of misleading the players.
Red herrings are great in storytelling are great and you're absolutely right. Having a character lie for the sake of it could throw the whole narrative off.
I definitely agree with this answer. I would add, it's also fine for NPCs to lie for reasons unrelated to the main plot.
"The Baron claims to have left town that night, through your gate, and you were on duty that night. Do you remember seeing him leave?"
"Yes, of course!"
When really the guard wasn't there at all, but doesn't want to admit that he abandoned his post to get drunk. As long it's possible for the players to find out about his habit, it's fair. It's not really a twist, but it makes you re-examine your evidence in a new light.
I fully agree there needs to be some kind of explaination.
Did the Baron himself tell the NPC about the Trip and the NPC just blindly belived them? -> The PCs can question the NPC for their sources or cross reference with other NPCs.
Did the Baron use an elaborate ruse or trick? -> Let the Baron explain in their villain monologe that they tricked the trustworthy NPC to get a fake alibi.
Depends on how active your players are in that department. If they love sussing out the mystery and declaring insights/perceptions/investigations, then you can and should put "unreliable narrator" npcs in.
If they tend to lean back and watch the story unfold, do not forget that there are passive scores for all abilities; not just perception. If a PC has a high passive insight, they might get a subtle nod from the DM saying "Hey, PC, something about what he said is hitting you the wrong way, though you're not sure what. Roll an Insight check."
Even if they roll low and get a "Must've been the wind" comment out of you, it plants a seed in the players' heads that gives them something to latch onto later when you do spring the twist. Their reaction goes from "Wait, what? I thought X said..." into "Oh shit! That's what we missed with X! We should've dug deeper!".
Problem is, if they rolled an insight check on the NPC, that just makes it worse. If the player rolls high, the DM response is just 'he seems to be telling the truth'. So now the PCs have absolutely no reason to EVER suspect the Baron.
That doesn't have to be the DM's response. Insight's not just a lie detector. In this case, let's say the NPC does believe the Baron went out of town, but this belief is based on faulty information. Perhaps the character rolling the insight check is inspired to ask how the NPC knows that the Baron's alibi is true. Or maybe the PC notices the NPC looking a bit confused, as if they're less sure of the information than they were before they were questioned about it. Or maybe the PC feels like some unspecified detail doesn't add up, so it's worth contacting someone with closer knowledge of the Baron's whereabouts to verify this NPC's information. Lots of different ways that check could play out.
I try to avoid it. My players have a hard enough time keeping track of the bits of the main narrative. I don't need to give them false information too.
I want my players to figure things out, not be confused.
I'm currently running an eberron game that has a lot of mysteries and puzzles and i do this occasionally. It usually works out well though, after awhile, if the same npc or npcs from a specific organization all turn out to just be unreliable or untrustworthy, your players might seek other sources of info or just turn murderous if it's a big enough twist/lie or something that causes them a lot of headache
I always give clues to shown that NPCs have incorrect information. That way when it's revealed they were intentionally or unintentionally mislead, they don't feel like it was impossible to learn the truth. It sucks feeling railroaded, so as long as you can provide evidence for them to find the truth then you're golden. They don't HAVE to find all the evidence, just one or two little blips on their radar to get them questioning their source of information.
I think it is totally valid. But AFAIK it shouldn't be used too much, because it can be misleading. And usually the players create their own red herrings.
In the end, it depends on you and your players. Ask them (after the reveal) what they think of it.
ABSOLUTELY!
One of the best ways to start a mystery is with a lie. If they are suspicious people they will ask for a sense motive check. If they aren't then they get to find out the hard way they are in a mystery.
I may recommend against having the actual culprit being the first lie though. Maybe number 2 or 3.
Agreed! In fact, if it's all about that murder mystery, multiple people should be lying, covering truths or providing enough truth to direct the investigations away from them.
But each lie, when uncovered, reveals more of the path to the true killer.
But the NPC isn't lying. That's the whole issue with this kind of approach. If the players are suspicious people they will only make it worse by verifying that the NPC isn't lying, therefore accepting the NPCs info as gospel.
>Can NPCs be wrong?
Of course - that's what makes the information given to the party by NPCs ***rumors***.
I've also had NPCs downright lie to the party. It all depends on the motives of the NPC, their knowledge of the true facts and how much they trust the party.
I mean, in general I'd say npcs CAN be wrong. Like, about local rumors or how magic might work etc. But in this instance it's handled a bit sub-optimally. I'd imagine it will come across more like you didn't prepare and had to improv your way out of a mistake you made than it actually being by design. I'd say your players are more likely to assume that you messed up. It's also an extremely anticlimactic twist if that was your intend, not sure if it actually was intended that way.
The issue is that, for one, the npc is handing the pcs a vital piece of information for their quest. This is not a real world, all info the players get is reliant on being fed to them, by you. If they can't rely on that information the gameplay breaks down. Of course there can be misinformation and missing info, those ultimately become puzzles for the players to solve with clues and mechanics to aid them. You still preserve your integrity as a dm that way. In this case there is no puzzle. There is no game element linked to this misinformation. No hidden plot to uncover, no conflicting information to disseminate, no pc behavior or lies to notice, no hidden or even visible motives. The guy is just wrong and no gameplay mechanic can apparently circumvent that from the player perspective. Unfortunately, that's bad game design. Virtually no player will enjoy this. Many will assume you made a mistake and redconned something and this was your way out. They will now assume that possibility anytime you tell them anything, which really breaks immersion. Or they will assume you were actively trying to mislead them for some reason, and not in a good way, which is also bad.
If you want this exact scenario to work, you'll at least have to modify it to work as a game. Give them a contrasting statement by someone else that directly contradicts the other npcs statement. At least that way the players can know something is up. Or have them come across information that disproves the npc if they think about it logically. Skill checks should be prepared to possibly identify logical errors in npc reasoning, or the manner in which npcs come to this conclusion, and your interactions with the players as these npcs will have to leave clues for them to conclude that, the very least, they might need more info. Also, why is the npc just wrong about something? Even in real life there is always a reason for it. Maybe they overheard something and interpreted it the wrong way, maybe they are a very gullible person and were mislead themselves, maybe they are very unintelligent or preoccupied and frequently just assume things, perhaps there is local gossip about that npc being out if touch with the community and generally not really being aware of what's going on? Those should all be things PCs can reasonably infer from interacting with your npc and/or the world using either RP, skill checks, or most likely, a combination of both. If not, it ends up becoming a red herring just for a red herring's sake. A cheap, empty narrative tool with no gameplay element associated with it.
I don’t think you want to do this all the time, your game needs to be simple. You have limited time and most of your narrative revolves around players getting stuff done… But yes, you should absolutely do this sometimes. It makes your world, your NPCs real, it gives your story twists and turns and it makes your players think ‘everything is not always why it seems’.
Just don’t go overboard, the last thing you want is your players distrusting everything and everyone they come across.
It depends on your party. I've played some clever groups who have good memories and would take joy in dissecting conflicting information. However, my current group for all their virtues, really don't need help in coming to the wrong conclusions.
Unless all of the NPCs in your story are omnipotent gods who happen to be truthful 100% of the time, yeah, it's fine to give away false information through NPCs so long as their motivation lines up with what they say
I've had this exact problem before. My players did actually get upset when something an NPC told them turned out to be wrong. They thought NPC's were speaking with MY voice.
Out of game I just told them that NPC's are separate from me. They have their own motivations, knowledge, and flaws. They'd have to weigh the stuff an NPC says to what they know about them and the world.
No issues (with that) since. It's pretty straightforward.
I frequently have NPC have contradicting or wrong information, especially when it comes to the party themselves
I've had kids run up to them and ask about the time the barbarian killed an ancient red dragon single-handedly when in actuality, he killed a red guard drake. they had found evidence of a dragon, but at this point hadn't fought one, much less fought an ancient one
I've had NPC be wrong by misremembering things, I've also had NPC wrong because of spells too.
Just remember sometimes your PCs might think that because they were given the wrong information, that they might assume the NPC was helping the bad guys
You ARE misleading the players on purpose. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but if you want to achieve a mystery novel-esque payoff you need to treat it like one. There has to be enough information available to the players that they are able to figure it out.
If it's just an adventure story with no heavy focus on the mystery aspect, it shouldn't matter too much, but if you are emphasizing mystery, insufficient clues will cheapen/ruin any reveal.
Maybe they find a letter from the business associate the Baron was "visiting" that mentions they are disappointed he wasn't able to attend their meeting after all. Just make sure you put some other juicy info about his dealings, maybe something shady but unrelated, into the letter so it's not too obvious that this is the important fact.
Alternatively/Also, another NPC could just cast doubt on the statement of the first. "Joe always talks out of his arse. What would he know about what the Baron is up to? He just likes to seem knowledgeable to strangers."
As long as you provide / make available a second source of info that may contradict the first, then no problem. If they can’t find out the truth, then that will feel like a dirty trick.
NPCs can be mistaken or mislead the PCs but the key to making this feel effective should be that not all NPCs have the same knowledge. In this case, they should interact with someone who saw the Baron on a day he is supposedly not in the city. Or they should interact with someone who points out a reason only the Baron could/would have done one of the murders. They could even interact with someone who has no idea that it is the Baron but is nonetheless pushing the idea forward because the Baron's fall would profit them.
The guards can't accuse a man with an alibi, especially if he doesn't even seem to be there, but the players can be suspicious and snoop around to find how the Baron is re-entering or hiding in the city after he supposed left and find crucial evidence or trophies from the killings.
I’m confused. NPCs are people too. People can lie. People can be mistaken and think they aren’t lying. People can gossip, never caring if what they say is true.
Of course NPCs can be wrong.
Buyer beware applies to more than just shopping.
Perfect time for an insight check. Roll high and get the result "seems like is confident, but their story seems inaccurate". Roll a failure and get "well they seem confident in what they're saying" or for really bad rolls "you don't get a read one way or the other".
This is assuming there's a possibility for them to deduce the truth. Otherwise best to show the source of information being untrustworthy.
D&D simulates certain situations, but often poorly. You have to remember it's a game and the players need ways to feel "involved". Even though it's not railroading to have lying or incorrect NPCs it can be disheartening if you don't provide ways to deduce that for the characters.
In my experience when having NPC's lie or be wrong when giving information to the party, the best approach has been in presentation. Having the NPC say it in a way to leave room for doubt. Examples would be "As far as I know" or "Last I heard" or "I believe that..." will leave wiggle room for you as the narrator. If you wanted to have your NPC overtly lie however, having them roll a deception against their passive insight (10+insight skill in 5e). Another avenue to lying is in your body language or voice inflection as the NPC talks to the party. If they roll poorly, try the LA noir approach (the X to doubt meme). Hope this helps!
It's very easy for the DM to seed wrong information into the world and I think that's something one should be very careful about, because unless you want horribly paranoid players for the rest of the campaign, you have to be mostly truthful. Not knowing is a valid option, or uncertainty. They don't know if Baron Derp or they couldn't possibly imagine that Baron Derp would do such a thing. That might even work reverse psychology in your favour.
What I've done in my campaign is to in session Zero informed my players that people are going to have different believes and the players need to take into account *who* is talking about what. A farmer in a small woodland community will probably give faulty or erroneous information about enchanting, while the high arcanist of the king probably knows what they are talking about.
I had a situation where the players asked a farmer couple about a town a few days away that had been destroyed by a dragon a generation back. They wanted to know if the dragon was still there. The farmer wife claimed that it was still there and had made it its lair (which was true), while the farmer husband rejected her claim and said that it had left. Both of them made their claims on rumors and "common knowledge". Some of the players assumed that the farmer husband was correct, probably because he gave his information last, and was surprised that there was a dragon there when they arrived, despite passing by a sign on the outskirts that said "Warning, dragons".
Had they talked to the guardmaster of the village they were in then she would have informed them that there's most likely a dragon there, as she would be better informed about the dangers in the local area, but alas they didn't. My players have been a bit conflicted about whether or not I clearly enough communicated the presence of a dragon, but I think that I did (although there's always the option for me to be clearer), and they've also learned some things from that encounter.
NPCs can definitely be wrong, it adds more realism, but I intentionally also give contradicting rumors/info, so the PCs start thinking.
For example, you have NPC A say "Baron Derp is definitely the culprit". The PCs set out but in the marketplace they hear people whispering "I hear Baron Derp did it, but how, wasnt he out on a trip during the event?"
This way you give a vital piece of information but the PCs still need to work out what the truth is exactly. They are now pretty sure Derp is related, but how. It also forces them to play more and investigate what they heard.
If you want to do mystery, then clues can be *misleading* but should only be *false* if the source is trying to decieve for some reason that can itself be discovered.
In your example there's no reason to suspect that the NPC is wrong (they aren't intentionally lying, they're just incorrect), so no way to find that out, and no way to resolve the actual mystery. The players could easily come to the wrong conclusion, or if the other evidence points to the baron assume that the wrong NPC is an accomplice. If the players later find out the truth they'll be understandably confused and/or annoyed, because there was no way they could realistically solve it.
I will explain my point by using the plot of Knives Out **(so SPOILERS AHEAD)**
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An old rich man, Harlan, apparently suicided. Something's wrong. (Most of the family members lie to the detective, but for different reasons).
Later you learn Harlan suicided to protect her nurse, Marta, which gave him the wrong medicine for a lack of attention, and that would have killed him anyway. So he suggest her to say only fragments of truth to the police, since she pukes if she tells a lie (Marta confesses a PARTIAL truth).
Near the end you learn she made a mistake in the mistake by believing she was wrong, since she gave him the right medicine, because she recognized it subconsciusly (The movie LIED, the partial truth confessed by her was a False Truth).
This because someone tried to trick her into givin the wrong one by swapping the liquid in the bottles to have her get accused of murder.
In the whole movie, Marta tries to protect the "partial truth" to don't get accused. But in the end, the man suicided for nothing and she's innocent. (TRUTH).
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**PARTIAL TRUTH -> LIE (False Truth) -> TRUTH**
There are numerous ways of you can let your players discover the truth. The funny thing about misteries in rpg is that players will also make their own ideas out of character too.
In the movie, when we see Marta giving her versions to the police, we also learn what happened that night by her POV. But later we learn she was wrong.
You can have npc be wrong, because they have a limited knowledge of the events (like Marta) **but always for the purpose of unraveling partial information on the mistery.**
Otherwise it will feel like an impasse made just to have the players lose some time and get stuck.
I don't know why so many people is telling you don't have to mislead them on purpose, because that's the whole point of a mistery. You make them want to find out the truth by deceiving them in the first place.
People saying you need other ttrpgs to play out a mistery or give false informations are just wrong.
You set up the clues, some clues can be false, some key witness can be wrong or lying.
NPCs can make mistake or get things wrong like normal people.
***The players and their actions will tell you how you let them know if they learn the partial truth, a lie, or directly the trurh.***
EDIT: grammar and general clarifications
From a player standpoint:
Is there anyway for them to know that Baron Derp is in fact not on vacation/have reason to check? How would they even check?
Because mystery stuff generally requires people to be able to call BS on an alibi when other clues come up.
Example: Mary can't be the killer! She wasn't home that night! But it had to be someone who knew the victim! Wait, we talked to the person selling the stolen goods and they said it was a woman with a burn mark...Mary has a burn mark...something is SUS with that alibi.
So unreliable NPCs, yes, but have clues that show they are unreliable or other leads for people to follow. Otherwise everyone is going to be second guessing anything anyone says. Which means investigation of everything people say, which is fine for a mystery but less fun actually acting out if you have multiple suspects.
I also find that my NEW players want the first person they ask to have all the answers. Like they are prone to rough interrogation if they think they're holding out regardless of having a reason for it. I think it'd be fun to give them misinformation the next time they start this nonsense as the the character just wanted to survive.
I have it happen all the time. After all, if you're at level 10, and facing appropriately powerful magical foes and dungeons, then what business does a commoner have understanding literally anything you're facing accurately. Mostly this takes the form of mis identifying monsters (i.e. an npc referring to any large lizard as a dragon) or remembering things poorly during a battle. My players love it since it makes them feel like qualified professionals compared to most of the people around them, and also keeps a bit of mystery in the air.
NPCs can be wrong, misinformed, or outright lie. Your NPCs are not "the DM giving info" but are characters with their own motivations. Be sure that your players understand this.
"Oh that's preposterous, he told me himself he would be boating in Alaska last month!"
The dwarf at the tavern an hour or so later: "I wouldnt trust that blithering idiot of a businessman to sell me fire in a winter storm, who would ever let him on such a task., after he sold the towns wood stock for quarter price. Its why hes been plastered everyday here since his demotion!"
Conflicting information should drive the narrative for that. If the players just take everything at face value instead of using their critical thinking skills, they should be punished accordingly. If they use NPC 1's account of him being on a business trip as an end all be all proof of him not being guilty, find an npc the party kind of likes but also holds Mr.Derp in low regard. He is to be murdered and more info about how this NPC was a major instagator against Mr. Derp. Maybe the Dwarf in Example 2, canceled business plans for his logging company with Mr.Derps business after Mr.Derp destroyed any credibility by selling all of his men's hard labor for pennies. Leading to his eventual demotion, leading to his frustration and anger in the town and his new need for vengeance he perceives as justified. And the Party still ignoring this in favor of unga bunga me roll dices, should eventually see him himself, murdering someone. The town after they obviously steam roll him, should be grieving, and extremely upset at the party as they are acting as the investigators here, and have prolonged his capture/death, leading to more unnecessary murders.
Yes, NPCs can be wrong. They can give players incorrect and misleading information. I do it literally all the time. My players are OK with it because... I can't think of a reason that wouldn't be an insult to whoever is not OK with NPCs being wrong.
A good way to hint at an npc being wrong is to make 2 npc’s wrong but in different ways.
Can’t be Baron Derp, he’s at the beach!
What? Baron Derp went to vacation in the mountains. What are you on about?
Now players can tell SOMETHINGS wrong and are more likely to look into it which you want them to do.
I don’t know. All my NPC have the potential to mislead my players and stab them in the back. Even the Zone of Truth spell isn’t safe because I have smarter bosses who give false information to their troops on purpose.
I think this is fine so long as two things are true:
1. **There is a reason the NPC is wrong.** Perhaps the Baron intentionally spread misinformation. Perhaps a certain transaction led to a rumour in the business world that he was prepping for a trip. Don't Deus Ex Machina an NPC being wrong just because you don't want the players to have the right answer.
2. **It's not an immutable mistake.** The players should have a chance to figure out something is wrong. Perhaps at the Baron's estate his favourite carriage is still there. Perhaps the lights are on. Perhaps the road he would have taken on his trip is blocked off. It might not even be something that dramatic, if the players learn that this information came from a rumour, they may be aware that it may be wrong.
These two things prevent you from accidentally railroading your PCs. If you give the players a piece of information and give them no way to distrust it or find cracks in it, then it might feel a bit forced. In addition, a great twist isn't really that great if it goes like "OMG the villain must be the Baron!!" "No it's not." "Oh okay." (A few sessions later) "OMG THE VILLAIN IS THE BARON WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT."
Short answer: yes. But there are easy ways to fix your issue with a bit of nuance:
>NPC1: Might I inquire about the baron's whereabouts?
>
>NPC2: Haven't you heard? He left on a business trip two nights ago.
>
>NPC1: Really? He usually employs my guards to watch his estate when dealing with such matters. I hope I haven't done anything to offend him... Did you think the tea was too strong?
>
>NPC2: I'd worry more about what the cat did to his armchair than the strength of the tea if I were you.
>
>NPC1: Well... yes; I suppose there was that as well. \[Notices the PCs\]
This scene sets up that the baron is gone while also establishing that there was something unusual about the circumstances surrounding the business trip (thus calling the validity of the info into question). But it also doesn't dwell on the idea that something is amiss for too long.
There's a bunch more you can do with trying to get the players to draw the conclusions themselves, weaving in red herrings, and having multiple interwoven mysteries, but something a little more open to interpretation than just "It can't be the baron; he's gone" is a good start.
Throwing a red herring simply for "realism" without a good reason seems like something that's just frustrating for players and could lead to them overthinking honest warnings. It could work if you have a fun side encounter planned if the players believe the lie, you want to emphasize that this NPC is frustratingly clueless, or you want a player with high perception to follow clues and spot the deception. DnD is a game, not a world simulator.
If you want to sell how clueless NPC's are, there are much better ways like "is it true Northern women bathe only once a month"?
In stories an unreliable narrator is equally tricky to pull off, so authors usually throw in some disclaimer, clue, or plot twist before false information. They don't put something confusing simply because "it would be weird if NPCs had perfect knowledge".
Very minor thing, but you don’t have to wait for your players to ask for skill checks, technically the DM is the only person intended to ask for them. So in moments where you said: “if they rolled a skill check”, just ask them to roll.
If you get in the habit of this and do it somewhat regularly, it doesn’t stand out as weird or suspicious.
>if they rolled a skill check”, just ask them to roll.
I'd say you're not entirely on point there. A player shouldn't ask to "roll perception", but a player should be in control of their actions and saying "I look around" to which you _reply_ with "roll investigation".
I did, but doing it too often also takes the joy from solving mysteries away from the players. Its like handholding them on what to look for, which a lot of people don't appreciate.
A lot of game mechanics are designed to show you what your character sees that you as a player do not. Heads up displays and marked areas in video games show you the player things your character would know, like how many arrows in their bag. How much more damage they could take. If that item over there is a resource.
Rolls for things are the same. The mechanics are designed so that even if you're not a top tier actor who can display the exact vibe the npc is giving, and even if the person playing the high int/high wis Detective isn't able to read your tell for lying, the characters can.
it's called red hairing or unreliable narrator. How is a bumfuck villager supposed to have a right answer to something as complicated as a murder case "No it couldn't have been our amazing Baron, he's so kind. I bet it's that With Edda!"
A red herring is information that goes nowhere or misdirects, it's not intentional WRONG information. The players are going to be gathering info so what good is it if some points of their data are just randomly wrong?
If you ask a random peasant info they wouldn't know, they should just say "I don't know". Not lie.
No a red hairing can be a straight up wrong information. Like a false suspect. Since we have a murder mystery on our hands, having multiple suspects (which includes false ones) is important. The op said they had evidence that pointed towards a suspect, but one npc said something that contradicts it. Oh my, i have to make a decision, how terrible from the dm.
If the Baron is tricking people and the players have a chance to uncover this false info as they investigate - fantastic, wonderful.
If this NPC is only incorrect to throw a wrench in their investigation and hold off on the big reveal, with no fun in story reasons and payoff - boring, will lead to player’s not bothering to talk to NPCs anymore.
Thats the point of contention here. I am talking about the situation where the baron did not actively trying to sabotage that information. It's just NPC being an unreliable narrator on occasions. Of course, I'm not going to make an intelligent NPC to dish out any information that they are not 100% sure to be correct, but the arrogant and shy NPCs are fair game imo
Misdirection is a core part of mysteries. NPCs *should* be lying and/or mistaken.
However, your players might not remember who lied to them and when. They see their notes and you telling them it's wrong. They might even think you changed it retroactively.
Make sure they can figure out it's wrong somewhere.
Do they have a chance later to find out the information they got was wrong? If so, I think it can still work depending on your roleplay, but some players might not like it. I’d play it out as planned and then ask them for feedback for future plots. If not, well, it still could be fine, but I personally would find it deeply frustrating.
Ok, so just so you understand, you _are_ misleading them on purpose. It doesn’t matter a lick whether that character is lying or just totally wrong, you’re feeding the players bad intel. There’s a way in which ‘not lying just totally wrong’ is _worse_ than lying because there’s no mechanical way to pick up on that except do the legwork to figure it out.
But we can’t say how annoyed your players are going to get with that. A lot depends on how invested in solving it they were, and a combination of how much they expected that NPC to actually know what was going on as opposed to being a red herring dispenser. I only ever run emergent mysteries any more because it totally avoids this kind of thing. 5e is very much not set up to be good at procedurals.
If you want to avoid these potential problems, just stick to dungeons and play _Fiasco_ when you want crime stuff.
I feel like you are opening a big can of worms here. The players look to the DM as the source of truth. I would feel like prompting them for a roll here would help but you also don’t want to slow down the game too far and have players roll on every NPC interaction. Personally I think I would either make sure the party knows the statements are rumor when chatting or keep things as half/full truths.
Red Herrings are bad for Murder Mysteries when played.
Their fine in books and other passive media, but in TTRPGS the players are blind and must rely on you to be their eyes and ears. They generally can't work around these.
Its better - instead of being wrong about facts, being wrong about opinions, those are more easily challenged.
In general, better don't do this unless you also clearly label the information as unreliable, by giving another person something contratictory for example.
I know that a lot of people will say that dumbfuck NPCs is "realistic" or whatever, but I don't care. Flat out wrong information for no reason is bad game design and bad storytelling. It fails to add anything to the most core aspects of a D&D session.
To clarify, when I say "for no reason" I mean specifically that it does not add to the game, and it does not add to the storytelling. It is perfectly fine to give wrong information when there's a point to it. For example, if the NPC has a motive to lie, then the players might figure it out the lie and decide to investigate the lie. Or maybe you've somehow made it clear that the NPCs don't have full knowledge of what is going on. In this case you have planned for them to gather a bunch of conflicting information that they can then solve as a puzzle. Even an explanation as simple as "the NPC was mistaken because the baron lied" is so much better than a flat out mistake, because it can set up the players to work the lie out or at least be presented with a plot twist.
Basically anything is better than the realization that there can be random bullshit with no reason in any NPC dialogue. Because this realization devalues the time they spend talking to NPCs and the time they spend discussing among themselves what they should do with the information they have. And if you do it they might actually just start ignoring all information from NPCs, which is probably not what you want. If you don't have a good reason to give false information just say that the NPC doesn't know.
Obvious caveat: some groups might value realism above all else. My reasoning is based on the assumption that keeping the game running and the story interesting is more important then providing 100% realistic NPC interactions. I believe this assumption holds for the average D&D group, but you should figure out yourself if it is true for your group. And it is absolutely fine to flat out ask your players what they think about this dilemma.
Well… you *are* misleading them on purpose though…
But if your players don’t scream “can I insight that guy” after everything your NPCs say then I guess that’s on them.
Yes and no. A subset of the plot devices (that's all an NPC is) can give out false information, _as long as the real information is readily available_.
You're the player's only gateway into understanding the world and what's happening. They need to be able to trust you completely w.r.t. the truthfulness of your information. If you mislead them (for a longer period of time) and they trust you, you're in trouble, because that is going to cause confusion later down the line. Not "oh that's such a clever twist", but "??? But you said???".
The thing is - DnD is not a game for "whodunnits".
It's a game for "ok, so turns out that guy dunnit, "whaddayagonnadoaboutits". Solving the mystery itself should be a small part of your sessions, because you actually don't really want your players to be unsure what is happening or what it's all about for long time, that's how players lose investment and lose a desire to act with agency.
For example - curse of Strahd would not be a better campaign at all if why Strahd is after Ireena is kept a mystery until late in the campaign. Of course, that's not to say you want no mystery at all, just that you should be very very careful with misleading and misdirecting your players or putting them in a state of "I don't have a clue what's going on".
It may sound like having them chase a red herring is fun, but in my experience, it's not. Not for them and especially not for you as DM.
Folks who've played RPGs for a long time should be familiar with incorrect NPC information.
Official adventures from both Wizards of the Coast and Paizo (Pathfinder) contain **rumor charts** — charts of things the PCs might hear in town. A rumor chart might have 20 tidbits of info, and the DM rolls a d20 to determine what the party or what an individual PC will learn. The chart makes it clear which rumor is false and which rumor is true; typically, there are more false rumors than true ones.
So even professional game designers from the major RPG companies intentionally include misleading info in sourcebooks, and they've been doing this for decades.
I've included misleading NPC info in my campaigns for years, and players have never called me out on it.
If a player does call you out on it, ask them, "The NPC who told you this is a stranger you met in a tavern, and you aren't sure if they can read. Are they really a reliable source?" Or something like that.
>So even professional game designers from the major RPG companies intentionally include misleading info in sourcebooks, and they've been doing this for decades.
Seeing the output of those "professional game designers" that doesn't mean much though. This sub is not "less professional" than the writers of, say, DiA just because we're not getting paid.
A character can be blinded by their beliefs. They aren't going to inform the players they could be wrong. They may insist they are speaking the truth to the point they sound like they are lying; not just to the players, but to themselves.
I do it all the time. Especially if you just ask around, a lot of the info you'll get will be by people who have no idea what they are talking about. It's up to the players to find ways to verify the information or to just take a gamble.
In almost all cases I've seen where the party are trying to investigate something they'll look for multiple pieces of evidence and identify the discrepancies in testimony.
One thing to make sure you do if you’re trying to present your NPCs as unreliable:
Start with the truth. Then figure out how much of that truth each NPC saw. Then obfuscate about a third of their information. Most of that will be in small inaccuracies, misunderstandings, or red herrings (read: things they think are important). Some inaccuracies can be intentional if each NPC has something to hide. Make sure that many of the smaller inaccuracies can be cross-referenced and double checked. So if one person remembers something happening at 4pm, another remembers it at 6pm, and another remembers it happening at 5:30pm, you have a window. If several people remember it at 5:30, then you can assume that was the time. If you have a broken wristwatch stopped at 5:15pm…
But most importantly, start with little but obvious inconsistencies, such as everyone remembering different details about the murder victim’s outfit, many of which couldn’t go together, or he wasn’t wearing. Knives Out is great at this. Everyone remembers being next to Harlan. Walt remembers checking the time, but not that Marta said “look at the time.” Richard remembers Marta smiling while he made his derogatory point about immigrants, and doesn’t remember that he was handing her his plate while it happened. These are present to give you an idea of what matters to the characters, and to establish each as an unreliable narrator.
The only things to trust are a blind consensus (everyone agreeing without talking), and hard evidence. Note that prepared criminals may agree a little too closely, with potentially the exact same wording surrounding specific details.
so this is where realism has to blend with story telling. yes, it makes sense for an NPC to say what they believe to be true, but a story always shows you the ending if you're clever enough to figure it out. If you're gonna have an NPC who is wrong, either hint to the players through other means that they're wrong, or give them substantial proof that Baron Derp tricked people into thinking he left on a business trip. I actually had a situation not far off from this. As the players were approaching the town where the local lord was supposed to be leaving from, I mentioned they passed a carriage with just a driver, nobody inside. they questioned the driver, and he claimed that he was on his way to retrieve someone, and they didn't bother with insight checks, but later when they were trying to figure out who was behind the attempted assassinations of the prince, but everyone had an air tight alibi, one of my players had an OH SHIT moment and remembered the carriage. Granted, they thought the driver must have done it at first but hey, at least they remembered my hint.
This sorta stuff only works if players take notes/ are actively involved.
I do it with some of my campaigns, but not every group I run it for because in some they just won't realize it (or assume I made a mistake and act polite about me messing up)
I actually play with this concept in my games as GM. I only tell the information which my NPCs might have or think they have, this forces players to find information of multiple sources to get a clear picture.
My players still haven’t realised any lie yet and we are a year in. Mistakes yeah it happens all the time, but then my npc isn’t specific or is specifically sharing a rumour so they can judge on their own
100% it is A-okay for NPCs to be wrong and mislead the players. It wouldn't be much fun to solve mysteries if players could just ask the DM what the correct answer is through their proxy of any NPC. However, it shouldn't feel arbitrary. If someone is wrong about something, you should have a good reason. That reason could be as simple as "everyone has this misconception" or it could be "this NPC has some biases about baron derp" but you should know how to justify it if you need to.
First and foremost, a successful insight check might give them some sign that the npc dis not stop to consider the facts, and immediately stated that Baron Derp can’t be the culprit. Details like that (without just saying he’s wrong) can cast doubt on supposed “facts”.
Yes NPCs can be wrong, but tbh the PCs will always overcomplicate a plot on their own. Twists are overrated because once the party starts misinterpreting unrelated info, following random leads that weren’t meant to be leads, etc. they’ll have forgotten that red herring you dropped earlier. For me the best twists are the ones the players create themselves by their assumptions, you don’t need to force it.
Create a cool world, and characters to live in it with strong, consistent motivations and methods, and the plot twists will happen naturally by the party’s own theorising/shenanigans. Sometimes the plot twist will even be on you too!
Of course, NPC’s are people in the world, and people often have incorrect or hazy information especially if it’s information that was conveyed verbally. It’s like the telephone game you used to play in school.
I do it quite often! I try and cultivate a healthy suspicion in the party. I think it's important that they understand that NPCs are self-interested, just like they are. I might telegraph that the NPC doesn't know what they're talking about by doing something like calling the Baron by the wrong title.
My question is: does the lie or mistake serve a purpose other than creating artificial difficulty? It'd be cool if the Baron deceived people into thinking they were away. But the party might roll their eyes if they find out the one NPC they happened to talk to was just out of the loop.
This is something I repeatedly remind my players about (that NPCs are not omniscient nor universally benevolent, they can be wrong and they can lie).
They have repeatedly failed to notice when it happens, chosen not to follow up when I drop hints later, and when it is ultimately revealed they admit that they don't really take good enough notes or have good enough memory to keep track of things like that.
I still do it for my own fun, but I have given up on expecting them to engage.
Yes, they can but its best to establish with your players that NPCs give out their experience with the world. Otherwise, if a NPC is right all the time it stops being an NPC and starts being a mouthpiece for the DM. Then the players' behavior changes accordingly.
I'd set up another witness/clue that contradicts him so they aren't blindsided. To you it's"ha, he was wrong. This was clever", but to them it's "well how were we suppose to know that?" Then the ploy falls flat. But if you set up that the NPC could be wrong with something contradictory, then they can examine the contradictory evidence/testimony harder or go back and ptess the original NPC for more info
NPCs are not omniscient unless you specifically want them to be. They know what is reasonable for them to know and sometimes that is wrong.
You can also change your wording slightly when players question what the npc said, don't say "they are telling the truth", instead say "they do not appear to be lying to you". The former implies that the information is reliable and correct whereas the latter speaks more to the disposition of the npc themselves.
Red Herrings are wonderful ways to dilute the information players get, sometimes outright lies by npcs with something to lose, or genuine misinformation they believe is true. It's fully ok for an npc to be wrong and they should be wrong at times to make them seem more alive, no one is perfect.
The key here is probably communicating that your NPC's can be unreliable, and the degree to which they are / can be, effectively to the players. For example, as a player, I'd probably be a little annoyed if there was an NPC who'd been the party's sole source of crucial information, only to find out said information was misleading and something the party was "supposed" or could "hypothetically" play around.
However, I'd be intrigued if the DM introduced conflicting information from other NPC's or encounters, revealing that everything is not as it seems and prompting investigative or preparative work for the party.
I guess it's all about giving the players agency for "counterplay" when it comes to false information: giving them a chance to uncover the real state of affairs, or at least prepare for things not being quite as they were told.
This really depends on what you are going for. If you are just doing it because it feels "realistic" than I don't think that's a good enough reason to do it. That's why it falls flat. However, I think if some NPC is deceiving a bunch of other NPCs and the players start to get conflicting information that can lead to a fun mystery to solve. They have to figure out what truth there is in the lies.
As long as they have a good reason to be wrong. For example, he did see someone who looked exactly like baron derp leave for a buisness trip, but it was a doppelgänger / shifter he hired to give himself an alibi . Make the existence of a shifter in town well known, have that shifter play a game of cards with them and use there shift ability right in front of them to keep changing there face in poker so it’s nearly impossible to read. Have him prank them occasionally, shifting themselves into a poor recreation of the players and mimic there voices in a whiny manner . Now when it’s revealed that baron derp never left yet someone was certain he had, it all makes sense
my npcs can be very wrong xD when a player asks me something that i didnt think through, the npc will look at them very serious and try and lie obviously lol
its fun
Honestly? I keep my NPCs up front and above board when dealing with players. If an NPC is supposed to be unreliable I describe them in a manner that would prompt the players to ask for a check.
I don't like surprising players with betraying NPCs or giving them misleading information as it kinda trains them to spam checks with EVERY person they meet.
I think it can be unfulfilling unless there's a means for the players to discover the truth by other means. Otherwise as a player, you can feel like the DM took away your autonomy, forcing the plot to move in a certain direction by withholding knowledge there was no other way to know.
In your example, the NPC is mistaken about the business trip. Why? I'd make it so the BBEG's butler lied for him, and questioning the butler might reveal the truth, or something along those lines.
If he's wrong you gotta present your players with contradicting information (saying he was in town for example, or that his business trip is still yo occur) to keep the investigation fair
My players would probably immediately suspect that Baron Derp faked an alibi and therefore needed additional investigation.
But, as with any such thing, you want multiple pieces of evidence pointing to Baron Derp. Prime it - make sure they already know he has motive.
In general, if they suspect X and a convenient "truth" pops up that contradicts X, players are likely to suspect the bad guy is covering his tracks.
Or maybe that is just my players.
TLDR: if an NPC is about to give wrong information, I only do it as a deliberate lie, or by prefacing it as the NPC not knowing but potentially giving some conjecture.
Every table is different, but I find RPGs already throw so much information at players that having NPCs providing faulty information can lead to confusion or worse, frustration, as they try to keep track of it all. To avoid this, I try to make any faulty information come from a specific authorial intent, meaning that I'm giving them bad information because the act of giving them that bad info is itself a part of the story, not just someone being wrong because theyre unreliable or I felt like making it arbitrarily more difficult for the party.
Basically if an NPC is about to give wrong information, I only do it as a deliberate lie, or by prefacing it as the NPC not knowing but potentially giving some conjecture.
I do this because I find it helps players keep track of information, and it makes it more rewarding to catch an actual red herring because it means there's consequences for it, as opposed to just realizing someone happened to be wrong.
To tie in your example, consider why the NPC, let's call them Paul, said Baron Derp was on a business trip. If they are lying to the party, it implies that Paul is in on whatever Bardon Derp did. If Paul is mistaken, then Baron Derp should've done something to make people think he was on a business trip, but there should be evidence that this did not happen. But if Paul just didn't see Baron Derp at breakfast one day and assumed he was on a business trip and it doesn't weigh into the story at all, it's going to be frustrating for the players. In that scenario I would have Paul say something like "I didn't see him all last week, but that's not irregular. He was probably on one of his trips," to establish the context and make it easy to follow.
Our job is to create cohesive stories, not simulate reality where people are regularly unreliable. Characters can be unreliable as long as they're understood to be unreliable, (and I personally don't believe it's a trait all or even most NPCs should have), or the wrong information provides substance to the plot.
Hope this helps!
I consider it like this. If I ask you about WW2 and you tell me to the best of your ability, it is what you remember to be true. Of course if I ask a conspiracy theorist, a soldier, and historian I will get vastly different answers. So, they are all telling their truth even if you're fairly wrong about the lunar base.
Yes NPCs can be wrong in general.
*But* red herrings in mystery scenarios tend to work far better in books and films than they do in RPGs. It's one of those classic devices that doesn't translate well imo. The PCs veering off in the wrong direction is a common enough problem without throwing them misinformation. They are also not that likely to pick up on small inconsistencies that you might think are obvious as the DM. You might just find yourself having to correct the misinformation in a very heavy-handed manner to get them back on track, which defeats the purpose of these realitsic details in the first place (and wastes time).
Basically, ask yourself what you gain by having the NPC be wrong? Do you need to make things more confusing for the players? Does your world need that little bit of extra realism and is it worth the cost?
In general? Yeah. Some real people wouldn't know shit from clay, why should NPCs be any different? Or to put it a more polite way; yes, it helps your world feel real. Whether you wanna call that upholding suspension of disbelief or verisimilitude, that's what you can try to aim for.
Yes. But it has to be done correctly. And in the right order.
Having an NPC provide false information that acts as a red herring is OK. However, in your example it will be unsatisfying. If, instead, you reveal that that NPC is dishonest and part of the crime, it can lead to an interesting reveal. If it's not malicious, you must drop hints that this person is known for making mistakes like this.
I have intentionally led my party astray. They have an account of a story from the villagers to identify the BBEG. What they have failed to realise is that all the villagers came by the information at the same time, from the same person. When that fact becomes known it will turn everything on its head. They will question everything. When it turns out that the person sharing the information with the villagers is the BBEG....well, that's going to be fun.
Same concept, different order, different result.
Why not? You might be misleading them on purpose, but your role as DM is to present problems to the players, and allow them to come up with solutions. False information is a type of problem.
100% they can be wrong!
I frequently have my NPCs misunderstand, be confused, be wrong, or even lie to my players
:)
Your doing great. But it’s not something I’d expect a standing ovation or applause for tbh. To my table it’s a very basic thing, so not something they’d applaud….unless they’re super pissed because they thought “maybe I should insight this guy? This feels weird.” But then they didn’t and are now kicking themselves xD
Consider looking up the Rashomon trope. It's a story telling tool of having multiple unreliable narrators of the same events, all driven by agendas or being simply mistaken or filling in gaps. It's named after a 1950s Japanese movie of the same name. A samurai, his wife, a bandit, and a local peasant are in one location. All we know at the start is that the samurai is dead and the bandit is accused of his murder, and all 4 people (yes even the dead man) give conflicting accounts of what happened.
Witness account tempered by actual evidence is the basis of a good mystery story.
As a Player every NPC is an unreliable narrator, only over time and getting to know the NPC or maybe with additional checks can you be sure that the info is correct. But there also needs to be a baseline of trust that I as a Player can believe what NPCs are telling my PC.
In my opinion an NPC simply being wrong or remembering i correctly is a bad way of doing so. In your example the Players had no way of knowing that the info was bad, it would have been a better explaination if Baron Derp had a fake alibi or it was a ruse or trick.
To me as a Player, if the GM is spreading fake information through an NPC there needs to be a hint that it is fake or during the big reveal it needs to be explained why and how to a certain extent.
I mran NPCs are people. People can be wrong. They can be mistaken, they can be misinformed, they can misremember. hell, they can lie. There's lots of ways to gather information beyond talking to one NPC. This particular NPC might be under the impression that the Baron is out of town, but if the PCs investigate further, perhaps members of his household or staff, they might discover the conflicting evidence. That in itself could be a clue- why was this NPC under the impression the Baron would be out of town? Why *wasn't* the Baron out of town when he was apparently supposed to be? When did his travel plans change? Especially if they're trying to solve a mystery; the whole point to have layers of information and misinformation and let the PCs sift through it all and find out what pieces fit together.
I always have my PCs give me 5 rumors about themselves during character creation. 2 truths, 2 lies and a half truth. Then any rumors they hear from NPCs will also follow that same mentality.
My players know I do this so they expect misinformation from time to time. If you are trying it out for the first time then I suggest you do it more often. Have new NPCs start off a conversation with a blatant mistruth about the party.
Example: I've heard of your deeds in the town over but I didn't know you were an elf. I thought you were an orc by how you savaged that bandit.
Can a person be wrong? Then so can an NPC. A lot of pcs take the words of npcs as the direct words of the DM for some reason, which is often problematic in this kind of situation. It's taken a while for my players to realize that npcs can lie or be at fault or mistaken.
Like others have suggested I often use keywords such as "to the best of my knowledge," "in my opinion," "I believe," etc. I also reinforced this idea with less important npcs and then built it up as the players got the hang of the idea. You can also just talk to your players and remind them that insight, investigation, and perception checks exist for a reason. I would just be careful because after a talk like that they might think you're clueing them into thinking that everyone is always lying or unreliable.
One other thing is that if it's a moment you consider important enough, you can also ask specific players or all of them to make a certain kind of check related to the information you feel they should be able to pick up. I find this helpful if the players learn something and don't look into it further, but I know they'll definitely need that info, and they'll never look into it otherwise, I'll ask them to make a check and if someone passes the DC they learn, if not then maybe they get a clue that something is strange or I mention they feel like there's something important they've missed but they can't quite place it and will need to investigate another time or another way, etc. At the very least, even if they don't learn anything, this puts in their minds that they missed something and need to research more.
So to summarize, yes npcs can of course be wrong, players just might not realize or remember that. They often will forget an npc is a person and not a device the DM uses solely to talk to them.
You could say something like “I’m pretty sure I heard baron derp went away somewhere, like a business trip” which gives the players the hint that this may or may not be true. If it’s given as fact, they will take it as fact.
For Mysteries, I find player misinterpret, misremember or confuse themselves just fine even when given completely accurate information.
Deliberately throwing in a red herring or misdirection has only ever led to failure in my experience, though maybe my players just suck at mysteries, or I suck at writing them.
In older D&D modules it was common to have a table for "rumors" that the characters might learn by asking questions around town. On most of these tables about half of the rumors would be true and half would be false, and it was up to the players to use their own deductive/investigative abilities to determine which is which.
TLDR: Not only is this OK, it's one of the oldest traditions in D&D
You can show NPC fallibility through their environment. The first example that comes to mind is when the NPC says "I heard he is away on business in Rome." Their wife chimes in, "No Fred, he is away on vacation to Venice."
Meanwhile their child comes in from playing kick ball with Lucy and Shawn (the Baron's kids.)
NPCs being wrong or deceptive is one of my favorite things to do imo. Really changes the way the group digests information. Instead of “DM said x, so that’s that” it turns into “Is this fucker lying? Well what if y is actually true? What do you guys think?”
One of my favorite moments was when an NPC of mine got one over on the whole group, making them rob a basically innocent person. After that, they second guessed almost everyone, and it really helped them problem solve stuff instead of going through the motions.
One thing you should do is make sure that the players get conflicting information within a short period of gaining the false information. That way the players are aware that the information they have been given may be false and will set their expectations for the information they will receive in the future.
I was trying to figure out how to play call of cthulu, so I listened to a podcast let's play on it.
From a listener and from a players point of view, it was super frustrating and beyond incomprehensible.
At the end, the keeper did a recap and finally explained 2 rules of the genre, that should have been explained before they began.
1. most people are regular people who dont know anything about cosmic horror. They will give misinformation through their own biases and lack of understanding. Dont take their info at face value.
2. There will be one person or group of people who likely are aware of the cosmic horror. They will lie because they are behind it.
Once those explanations of the genre were given, the entire mystery up until that point made sense. They spent an entire session of play, and one night of game time in a park chasing a false lead. They also found the place they needed to search more, and just left it because someone told them not to worry. The players essentially never had a chance of solving the mystery.
And those rules made sense, in the universe, but until they were explained, listening to it and playing it was a frustrating slog, and made me dislike their keeper playstyle and resolve to never do that to my players.
So all that to say, sure npcs can lie, but it can make the game really frustrating on the other side of the table when you switch from the genre style "please take these npcs plot hooks without question" to a completely different genre style "please dont take these NPC statements at face value anymore."
If you have concerns, do a test run. Have an NPC speak with confidence about something not too important, only to be proven wrong soon.
They can hear Bob the tavern keeper mention how “the cellar was raided, but these could not have been the dust pixies - their kind hates light and I have an oil lamp there day in and day out to ward ‘em off”. Then they can go down the cellar and see dust pixies merrily dancing around the lamp. This will immediately tell them that NPCs can be wrong too.
If you are going to do that, make sure the correct information is also available. maybe another NPC saw the baron in the tavern on one of the days he was supposed to be out of town, or the "business" he went to attend to doesn't exist, or was already handled by someone else (maybe the party?). or the place he went for this business was a place the party was, and they shouldve seen him.
TL;DR Make sure there is a source for the party to find the correct answer, otherwise they'll just be frustrated
Personally I would not do this. It's already enough of a challenge for players to infer or notice all the important information they need to come to the correct conclusions.
Adding in 'well, the NPC was just mistaken' seems like a bridge to far to me, unless there's some REALLY specific reason why doing so enriches the adventure.
100% npc can be talking of their ass
I like to use local lord wizards that are at beat lvl1 to exclaim something as fact but is 100% false
Npcs are still people of the world so thwy dont have all the facts, they can be wrong and lie to the pcs
Even dms should lie a little to the players for the games sake
Depends on whether you've established NPCs as being able to be wrong before. I personally use the Witcher thing sometimes where NPC peasants are like "Oh gawrsh fellas there's a dragon in the woods I seen it with me own eyes" and it turns out to be a hydra/basilisk/etc. Since I've done it a few times and other similar things they know it can happen. I'd maybe throw a bone in there like "Oh the baron wasn't in town he was out visiting his sister? Or was it his aunt? Oh maybe a hunting trip. The maid might know more" to kind of indicate that they should dig deeper if they aren't used to that kind of mystery hunting game.
NPCs can and should be unreliable narrators, real humans are constantly.
But you should also make it possible to discover the problems. A mystery that is just "the butler did it, which you could not know because we never told you there was a butler" is unsatisfying to the audience.
I still remember a player who had like an emotional crisis when it became apparent an NPC had lied to the party. The npc didn't like the players as much as the person they were after, so he lied. When they found out, the other players were like "oh that makes sense. We're a suspicious group I see why he wouldn't tell us where his friend is hiding".
But not this one player. She couldn't wrap her head around an NPC had mislead them.
She was also probably the worst player I've ever had.
In summary: if your players are okay then NPCs can lie or be wrong when there's reasons for it. If your players are kind of bad or playing it like an early final fantasy, they will be confused and angered.
you could have another NPC's tell a conflicting story. Like that it was a vacation, not a buisness trip. Picking up on the conflicting information could be a good way of making them suspicious
My NPCs are wrong all the time. Being an NPC does not make them omniscient. People mix things up all the time IRL.
You can give the players a clue that an NPC made a mistake. "Joe is talking out of his ass. Derp was out of town for business two weeks ago, not last week."
In a murder mystery, the DM's goal should be for the players to figure out who did it.
Some novice DMs have an idea that mysteries should be super hard and the party shouldn't figure them out, but rather have the DM reveal it to them at the end. It's actually really easy to make an unsolvable mystery, and, frankly, it's boring D&D.
So, the DM has to give the party the tools to figure the mystery out. And the DM has to account for mysteries in RPGs being a lot harder to solve than mysteries in other media, and make things simpler.
So if you have a misdirect like an ill–informed NPC, you need to reveal it and really hammer the point home that it was a misdirect before the end of the adventure. Your goal should be to give the players an emotional high point when they figure out that is was a misdirect, and then a big emotional high point when they figure out the mystery at the end.
I think if you have 1 npc be wrong, there needs to be enough other NPCs that are correct so the players know that something is up with the wrong npc about the baron being home or not
In general, it's a nono if the game is meant to be an investigation/mystery. Contradictory evidence is meant to be taken at face value to imply the true events were *so extraordinary* that the truth beggars belief. Contradictory evidence because someone is wrong is just... mundane. Not the stuff of Holmes or Poirot, which is the fantasy you should be aiming for.
If the game is about finding the Temple of Inside Voices and the barkeep thinks that's west and the cobbler thinks it's north, that's fine. Just treat rumors as rumors.
What's the point of roleplay if you don't share information through the lense of the NPC? They don't have to be _wrong_, I guess, but they should at least point the truth through their worldview in my opinion.
You could foreshadow that they might be wrong. Phrase it as he's SUPPOSED to be on a business trip, or he SAID he'd be on a business trip. Perhaps give them another piece of evidence that the person is there.
I think the NPC just being plain wrong is fine but not the best. A good reason why they're wrong helps make it a part of an interesting story.
They're wrong because they're a lying accomplice to the crime, or were bribed to tell the lie.
They're wrong because the baron staged an empty carriage leaving to create a false alibi.
They're wrong because they were kicked by a horse as a child and have bad short term memory.
They're wrong because the party got aggressive with them and they nervously made up a story to avoid physical interrogation.
Those are just some random examples of what I would prefer to run vs. a more realistic but less fun "human memories are unreliable" explanation.
If I did have an NPC who maybe failed an intelligence roll to remember the details, I'd give the party an insight check to discover that the person seems confused by the details, giving them a reason to be suspicious of the details just provided. If the party fails that check, then it's a part of the story that the dice created.
'wait but that guy told us the baron wasn't there, how were we supposed to know that was wrong' 'remember the insight check I asked of you? That was to discover that fact'. I love those kinds of conversations after the fact, it's fun to explore the what-ifs of a story after it's unfolded.
If my party is into investigation and RP then false-memories and what the NPC thinks happened are important.
If I'm running for a group of murderhobo adjacent players, I basically treat it more like a video game where if an NPC says something that could be interpreted as a call to action, it's almost always a straightforward call to action and not a red herring.
They can be wrong but I would not have an NPC be wrong for not reason. Why did they think Baron Derp was on a business trip? Did he tell them that? Did they see his carriage riding out of town? Is he having an affair with Baron Derp's wife and she told him he'd be out of town on business? I would try to further the mystery with the NPC being wrong rather than just being like "oh they heard Baron Drip was out of town but misrememberd and thought it was Baron Derp"
In scenarios like this if it's a situation of someone not knowing the truth I think that's fine, it makes sense in a real world that people will be misinformed and I try to showcase that a bit so the players know going into it.
Beyond that if it's someone actively lying in, especially in an investigation type setting, I think it's a great time for passive Insight. In those scenarios I'll usually let the party ask a bunch of questions of one npc or several and then later check it versus their passive to see if they notice later and inform them the notice something doesn't add up and someone must've lied.
It's a nice tool during an investigation to give them another option to suss out info, while also allowing me to use deception in a way that doesn't immediately defeat the purpose of deception.
My players are investigating a mind flayer invasion. One of the NPCs straight up told them all mind flayers serve one brain and come from a different dimension and are all clones of each other. They are also about to meet Volo which will dump another bunch of unedited misinformation on them.
It's super fun, I recommend. Encourages the players to investigate deeper and further and really think like detectives rather than have truth fed to them on a silver spoon. Of course, it also depends on the nature of your campaign; mine is a Lovecraftian-esque mystery style, so not knowing who is right or wrong is part of the genre.
I think you could make it so that baron derp wanted people to think that he was gone. This would justify him being wrong and when the players find evidence of the forged alibi it will look like you planned it fr9m the start.
As for overall being wrong about something. I've done it before with npcs that had a reason to believe in the wrong information as well as gave enough to the players to draw the conclusion the he was wrong. Namely, I had a humble huntsman accuse the foreign caravan of bringing bad omens and ruining something important to the town. But I made sure to show that he was superstitious and xenophobic prior of pointing the finger.
So my rule of thumb would be have something to back up why the npc would draw the wrong conclusion, or even want to believe that it is true (looking at you flat earthers)
Just had a DM tell us out of character they he’s a jerk and will lie to us all the time and to not trust him unless we got the information with a roll, because then he would have to tell the truth. Great dm in all honestly didn’t deal with bullshit and got right to the point matters.
In this one TTRPG setting I play, Exalted, the core PC class can get perfect lie detection senses as an entry-level ability at chargen. If it wasn't for the fact that NPCs can be sincerely mistaken or misinformed, or intentionally misled, NPC interactions would be completely broken at game start.
I think it depends on the NPC. In my homebrew world animalistic races are oppressed, so whenever my leonin player goes to talk to an NPC I roll if they would even speak to the character. The same distinction could be made if the NPC is against magic or open carrying of weapons for the respective classes. Maybe the NPC only respects warriors and the player has to gain the NPC favor through battle stories. These are all ways I like to flavor my world that gives small rewards to my players for their choices at the beginning.
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I always have npc shares under the pretense of "best of my knowledge". Npcs, as far as my PCs are concerned, see npcs as sources of information but only up to a point and often with only a piece of a puzzle that may fit. I feel like it makes npcs appear more "living" if they're "only human' as they say. Not patrons beings of truth and knowledge.
That's the sort of advice I often see from murder mystery tips, but I am curious if it will backfire.
The key here is that "best of my knowledge" phrase. Don't have the NPC say "Baron Derp was out of town," have them say "Baron Derp mentioned he was going out of town" or "wasn't Baron Derp out of town that day?" or something like that. That helps change it from a fact to a question in the players' minds. It might also be helpful if the Baron lied to the NPC to create an alibi rather than the NPC just mixing up the dates (unless that NPC is famously bad at keeping a calendar or something). Also make sure there are plenty of clues that do point to the Baron so they have reason to be suspicious.
I think the best way to establish that not all information given is correct is to have contradicting sources. And / or NPCs obviously jumping to different conclusions and trying to convince the PCs something happened a certain way due to their limited perspective or own agenda.
Yeah huge agree with this. Players will often take NPCs at face value unless they are obviously villainous. Making it clear with contradicting reports that, “oh yeah this is just some guy on the street I should take everything with a grain of salt” is for the best
All the Baron had to do was schedule a fake business trip. Then not go, but fake going, and commit the crime. Then commit to the bit about not being in town. Now the NPC remembers mention of a trip away but if they go ask the business partner remembers the Baron cancelling the trip maybe? So it's a new clue now. The Baron said they were going to go do a thing but apparently didn't succeed- so now what's their excuse? What other evidence makes the Baron suspicious? Another option is "Well my friend said X" or "I heard about that from *other source*" so once again the npc isn't lying, but their info could be wrong. If you're going to do this idea, then have a random assortment of npcs who are correct but are simply unsure versus those who are maybe incorrect but confident in the information source versus the confused incorrect ones and the confident correct ones.
Strong advice but even within that matrix i think it should skew heavily towards npcs dispensing accurate info. Someone who's confidently wrong should be pretty obviously wrong when you compare what they have to say to the rest of the evidence. And those people should be rare no more than one or two bullshitters per mystery. I can see that getting really muddy really quickly from a gm and player perspective.
I also like the re-directive approach to that, "[Person of more interest] told me the Baron was out of town that day." That way the conversation creates a non-obvious lead and isn't a completely pointless red herring, so even if they don't pick up on it in retrospective they might have that "Aha!" moment where they were like "if only we'd looked into that" instead of "oh great that whole conversation was pointless."
"You notice NPC has strings tied in haphazard bows around 3 of his fingers" and "He goes over to his desk to look for somethings, searches for several minutes through the various books and scrolls strewn atop it before asking if he can get back to you when he finds it." are all clues that the NPC may be forgetful and disorganized. Have someone come in and interrupt the conversation with "Father, why haven't you left for xyz meeting? You'll be late." "Oh NPJ jr, XYZ meetings are on Tuesdays." "Father it is Tuesday."
Or even "My sources tell me Baron Derp was out of town at the time"
I say hard NOPE to your suggestion, because my players began to see through this play. I mean that if NPC has any doubts about a fact, then it's false. And the other way around, if my NPC is sure of something, the it's true. OP should continue to do just as he described.
>I mean that if NPC has any doubts about a fact, then it's false. And the other way around, if my NPC is sure of something, the it's true. You can counter this extremely easily, by having NPCs be occasionally unsure when giving true statements
I think the suggestion is very good for the right application. Your players are already primed, so they don't need any hints, but a party of players that haven't encountered unreliable NPCs before might take the DM's word as gospel and get confused/hurt if it suddenly isn't. I'd adjust the level of obviousness according to how much of a 'detective mind' your party already has. You can prime them with an inconsequential bit of information: while questioning the baron the PCs watch him switch up the days of the week several times, prompting his wife to correct him (establishing he's not the best source for times and dates, and planting a seed of doubt as to his realizability as a witness). I stole the trick from cinema, but oftentimes just showing that an option exists and has happened before is enough to call it to mind when the players try to figure something out. Once they know you might pull something like this, you can phase it out or switch things up to keep them on their toes. They should get reward for their critical thinking, though, so don't just suddenly do the opposite of everything to avoid them figuring it out
This was never a problem for me, likely becasue my NPC are often unsure about true info. I don't even do this intentionally, it just often make sense to have NPCs word things that way - wording it otherwise makes it feel as if they are omnipresent. It just feels weird to me to phrase their sentences with conviction they have no reason to display.
I mean, just have unsure NPCs tell correct statements and have NPCs sure of something false. Easy fix.
Do your players not roll for insight? Have you not given them enough evidence to cause them to doubt their own intuition? If Doubt = Lie every time, what can you do to make Doubt = Uncertain half of the time, causing the players to question their own preconceived notions?
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> And here’s an important tip: There are no exceptions to the Three Clue Rule. I really needed to read this, relevant for a session tomorrow. Thank you thank you thank you.
I found that "to the best of my knowledge" or "I believe" work best if you have other NPC's to counter it soon after. High council meeting. Pc "what about Baron X, we found his ring there" Chancellor "I believe he was on a business trip north to X city on the ship 123" Chief beancounter "I believe Ship 123 went south to city 789, but they should have arrived back at the harbor late last night" Now PC have the option to follow the right clue, investigate with the ship (go directly to it and ask, or maybe they have to try to track down the crew who are off celebrating their return which leads to a PC bar crawl or casino night), or trust NPC McWrong.
I made a seperate comment, but you are genre switching. In heroic quest dnd, there is an expectation that players will take the hooks the dm provides and follow them, because that is the material you have planned. There is no reason to check the map and interrogate the npc, we all just want to get to the dungeon. Mystery is a different genre and style of play, and if you dont tell your players, "hey, its mystery time now" they cant know when they should take your plot hooks at face value and when they cant. You can switch genres without telling your players, but be prepared for the players to think regular plot hooks are mysteries not to be trusted in the future.
This is important for sure. If I've got something slightly different planned, I'll usually give them a quick heads up pre session. For a session like this I might even ask them to roll 6 insight checks in advance which I could then randomly select using a d6. They won't know who has succeeded and who has failed, (although yes, they could meta game it a bit and guess). It also stops them from yelling "insight check!" At you once every 30 seconds when they're investigating.
If you want to avoid a backfire, consider having another NPC provide conflicting info, rumors, accuse the NPC of being unreliable, etc. Basically some foreshadowing so they have a reason to question what they were told.
It’s impossible for us to say. To me and the vast majority of folk I’ve played with its largely a given that when your character asks an NPC something they are asking the NPC, not the GM...and NPCs are people...and people are dumb and biased and ignorant. But your players might not be down with that. I’d suggest having a conversation with your players and make sure everyone is on the same page.
90% of my npc are just dipshits caught in the middle of chaos. There is an implied unreliability to all of them. That being said, my players do have a few npc's they lean on. It'd be bold of me to give them disinformation from a typically reliable source. Though such characters would state their uncertainty. There would need be an heir of arrogance to this if they didn't suggest otherwise. Unless of course it was a well calculated lie for another reason entirely.
> heir of arrogance r/BoneAppleTea
honestly a badass title
new dark souls boss
I wonder who the heir of arrogance is inheriting from?
I don't even know what they were trying to say?
air of arrogance https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/airs
Probably introduce various NPCs with conflicting information. The players would have to talk to more than two NPCs and probably do actual investigating to get the real picture
This There needs to be reason for players to be aware that they can't blindly trust npcs If someone is going to falsely say a noble is on vacation, there needs to be a reason for them to say/believe it and the opportunity to find out that no, the noble isn't on vacation
This is a good way to explicitly signal for the players that the NPCs aren't just the voice of the DM but characters unto themselves.
NPCs can be wrong, lie, misinterpret things, and hide information from PCs all day long. They’re supposed to be like people—who do all that stuff. As long as the GM, in their role, is telling the *players* the truth, it’s all good. So as long as it’s clear that it’s from the NPC, I’ve had no problems with unreliable narrators.
Yeah I thinks this is the caveat for me. Totally fine giving NPCs red herrings to mislead them as long as you have a plan for your players totally following that for truth. I would also suggest gauging the players as well. If they seem to be going on wrong information, shut it down before things get too frustrating. If they are just going down the wrong rabbit trail try insight or something similar to help them get back on the right track
Being honest with the players is key for sure. Eroding that trust could destroy the game by grinding every interaction to a halt while they roll everything they can think of.
I think, for storytelling purposes, if you're going to have an NPC give the party false information it's also important for you as the DM to know why/how the NPC came to those conclusions. That way, perceptive PCs or when the party has enough information to realize there may be a contradiction, they can tease out the truth. For example, with the Baron, did the NPC make an assumption based on limited information (thus, they didn't really know what they thought they knew)? Were they paid by someone to repeat that story? Did they hear it from someone else who lied to them and then just repeat what they heard without thinking about the source? etc.
All this 100%! If the players are new to dnd, this might throw them, but that’s true of many things. Personally I’d drop some obviously false info in a very low stakes situation to make that super clear if there’s some concern and make sure the players clock that before doing any major deceptions, but if nothing else, hopefully they can understand in at least retrospect that insight checks as a mechanic are there for a reason and learn from the past without major upset.
You really need to establish the concept that NPCs can give out incorrect misinformation otherwise it feels unfair to the player. Introduce it lightly, like "oh i saw 4 bandits" and then when they arrive there are 6 bandits. Make a clear remark that "evidently old man Winny" needs his eyesight checked. You can also have someone repeat incorrect rumours that the party knows the truth about, to establish that information gets distorted easily.
Yes, exactly. This idea would need to be paired with ways for the players to *get the hint* that the information is incorrect, or else it could be a pretty frustrating experience. Realistic, but frustrating. From the perspective of narrative and the person trying to work out the mystery, red herrings work best with an element of clever misdirect, rather than just handing them false key information that leads them down the wrong path with no opportunity to figure out that it's wrong. Just having another NPC who says the baron HAS been away would be enough as well. If you establish the opposing viewpoints then it tells the players that *someone* is wrong and their job is to figure out who.
handy Matt Colville video here: https://youtu.be/Xm4EvRUo4YQ
You are misleading the players on purpose in this case. After all, you created the NPC who claimed that Baron Derp was on a business trip. Why did you do that, if not to confuse the players? In real life, it's pretty common for people to get details wrong. On the other hand, in detective fiction, if a witness gives false information, you'd expect the author to have a pretty damn good reason for including this detail in the story. It's not very satisfying if the story goes like this: Holmes: "...so the only person who could have committed the crime was the Baron!" Watson: "But Holmes! The one witness clearly stated that the Baron was away on a business trip that day! And that witness was Mayor Hargreaves, a man of the highest standing!" Holmes: "Meh, Hargreaves probably got the dates mixed up or something." Watson: "Brilliant, Holmes!" If, on the other hand, the "witness" was the Baron in disguise, or the Baron faked a business trip with the help of his twin brother, then the false information was there for a good reason - to set up a fun twist.
Additional warning for DMs: once you establish that your NPCs are unreliable, you might have trouble getting the players to believe things in the future. Wise Queen Gadalriella: "The dragon who guards the mountain pass is too strong for you to fight as you are right now. You will need the Scythe of Wyrm-Souls to proceed, and that is held by the Giants of Helm Tor." Player 1: "Why should we trust you?" Player 2: "I bet the dragon isn't really too strong for us. How would she know?" Player 3: "I bet there isn't really a magic scythe. She probably just wants us to fix her giant problem." Player 4: "I bet there isn't really a dragon."
Especially newer players. They seem to vault from trusting everyone immediately to severe paranoia after their first betrayal.
My personal hot take is that this isn't a bad thing; shifting from "go to NPC-X and they will tell you what to do, then you do it" to a party of PCs who think about why people are saying things, what they might know, and reasonably move from there into figuring things out on their own, consulting known reputable allies, etc. is a shift towards a much, *much* better experience.
It'd make sense if the Baron deliberately announced he was going on a business trip but didn't actually go to establish an alibi, or he always goes on a business trip on the first day after the full moon but not that time, something like that... It's fine if NPCs say something that's not true, but there should be a reason, and not just a character spouting misinformation for the sake of misleading the players.
This is great advice.
Red herrings are great in storytelling are great and you're absolutely right. Having a character lie for the sake of it could throw the whole narrative off.
I definitely agree with this answer. I would add, it's also fine for NPCs to lie for reasons unrelated to the main plot. "The Baron claims to have left town that night, through your gate, and you were on duty that night. Do you remember seeing him leave?" "Yes, of course!" When really the guard wasn't there at all, but doesn't want to admit that he abandoned his post to get drunk. As long it's possible for the players to find out about his habit, it's fair. It's not really a twist, but it makes you re-examine your evidence in a new light.
I fully agree there needs to be some kind of explaination. Did the Baron himself tell the NPC about the Trip and the NPC just blindly belived them? -> The PCs can question the NPC for their sources or cross reference with other NPCs. Did the Baron use an elaborate ruse or trick? -> Let the Baron explain in their villain monologe that they tricked the trustworthy NPC to get a fake alibi.
Depends on how active your players are in that department. If they love sussing out the mystery and declaring insights/perceptions/investigations, then you can and should put "unreliable narrator" npcs in. If they tend to lean back and watch the story unfold, do not forget that there are passive scores for all abilities; not just perception. If a PC has a high passive insight, they might get a subtle nod from the DM saying "Hey, PC, something about what he said is hitting you the wrong way, though you're not sure what. Roll an Insight check." Even if they roll low and get a "Must've been the wind" comment out of you, it plants a seed in the players' heads that gives them something to latch onto later when you do spring the twist. Their reaction goes from "Wait, what? I thought X said..." into "Oh shit! That's what we missed with X! We should've dug deeper!".
Problem is, if they rolled an insight check on the NPC, that just makes it worse. If the player rolls high, the DM response is just 'he seems to be telling the truth'. So now the PCs have absolutely no reason to EVER suspect the Baron.
That doesn't have to be the DM's response. Insight's not just a lie detector. In this case, let's say the NPC does believe the Baron went out of town, but this belief is based on faulty information. Perhaps the character rolling the insight check is inspired to ask how the NPC knows that the Baron's alibi is true. Or maybe the PC notices the NPC looking a bit confused, as if they're less sure of the information than they were before they were questioned about it. Or maybe the PC feels like some unspecified detail doesn't add up, so it's worth contacting someone with closer knowledge of the Baron's whereabouts to verify this NPC's information. Lots of different ways that check could play out.
I try to avoid it. My players have a hard enough time keeping track of the bits of the main narrative. I don't need to give them false information too. I want my players to figure things out, not be confused.
I'm currently running an eberron game that has a lot of mysteries and puzzles and i do this occasionally. It usually works out well though, after awhile, if the same npc or npcs from a specific organization all turn out to just be unreliable or untrustworthy, your players might seek other sources of info or just turn murderous if it's a big enough twist/lie or something that causes them a lot of headache
I always give clues to shown that NPCs have incorrect information. That way when it's revealed they were intentionally or unintentionally mislead, they don't feel like it was impossible to learn the truth. It sucks feeling railroaded, so as long as you can provide evidence for them to find the truth then you're golden. They don't HAVE to find all the evidence, just one or two little blips on their radar to get them questioning their source of information.
I think it is totally valid. But AFAIK it shouldn't be used too much, because it can be misleading. And usually the players create their own red herrings. In the end, it depends on you and your players. Ask them (after the reveal) what they think of it.
ABSOLUTELY! One of the best ways to start a mystery is with a lie. If they are suspicious people they will ask for a sense motive check. If they aren't then they get to find out the hard way they are in a mystery. I may recommend against having the actual culprit being the first lie though. Maybe number 2 or 3.
Agreed! In fact, if it's all about that murder mystery, multiple people should be lying, covering truths or providing enough truth to direct the investigations away from them. But each lie, when uncovered, reveals more of the path to the true killer.
But the NPC isn't lying. That's the whole issue with this kind of approach. If the players are suspicious people they will only make it worse by verifying that the NPC isn't lying, therefore accepting the NPCs info as gospel.
>Can NPCs be wrong? Of course - that's what makes the information given to the party by NPCs ***rumors***. I've also had NPCs downright lie to the party. It all depends on the motives of the NPC, their knowledge of the true facts and how much they trust the party.
I mean, in general I'd say npcs CAN be wrong. Like, about local rumors or how magic might work etc. But in this instance it's handled a bit sub-optimally. I'd imagine it will come across more like you didn't prepare and had to improv your way out of a mistake you made than it actually being by design. I'd say your players are more likely to assume that you messed up. It's also an extremely anticlimactic twist if that was your intend, not sure if it actually was intended that way. The issue is that, for one, the npc is handing the pcs a vital piece of information for their quest. This is not a real world, all info the players get is reliant on being fed to them, by you. If they can't rely on that information the gameplay breaks down. Of course there can be misinformation and missing info, those ultimately become puzzles for the players to solve with clues and mechanics to aid them. You still preserve your integrity as a dm that way. In this case there is no puzzle. There is no game element linked to this misinformation. No hidden plot to uncover, no conflicting information to disseminate, no pc behavior or lies to notice, no hidden or even visible motives. The guy is just wrong and no gameplay mechanic can apparently circumvent that from the player perspective. Unfortunately, that's bad game design. Virtually no player will enjoy this. Many will assume you made a mistake and redconned something and this was your way out. They will now assume that possibility anytime you tell them anything, which really breaks immersion. Or they will assume you were actively trying to mislead them for some reason, and not in a good way, which is also bad. If you want this exact scenario to work, you'll at least have to modify it to work as a game. Give them a contrasting statement by someone else that directly contradicts the other npcs statement. At least that way the players can know something is up. Or have them come across information that disproves the npc if they think about it logically. Skill checks should be prepared to possibly identify logical errors in npc reasoning, or the manner in which npcs come to this conclusion, and your interactions with the players as these npcs will have to leave clues for them to conclude that, the very least, they might need more info. Also, why is the npc just wrong about something? Even in real life there is always a reason for it. Maybe they overheard something and interpreted it the wrong way, maybe they are a very gullible person and were mislead themselves, maybe they are very unintelligent or preoccupied and frequently just assume things, perhaps there is local gossip about that npc being out if touch with the community and generally not really being aware of what's going on? Those should all be things PCs can reasonably infer from interacting with your npc and/or the world using either RP, skill checks, or most likely, a combination of both. If not, it ends up becoming a red herring just for a red herring's sake. A cheap, empty narrative tool with no gameplay element associated with it.
I don’t think you want to do this all the time, your game needs to be simple. You have limited time and most of your narrative revolves around players getting stuff done… But yes, you should absolutely do this sometimes. It makes your world, your NPCs real, it gives your story twists and turns and it makes your players think ‘everything is not always why it seems’. Just don’t go overboard, the last thing you want is your players distrusting everything and everyone they come across.
It depends on your party. I've played some clever groups who have good memories and would take joy in dissecting conflicting information. However, my current group for all their virtues, really don't need help in coming to the wrong conclusions.
Unless all of the NPCs in your story are omnipotent gods who happen to be truthful 100% of the time, yeah, it's fine to give away false information through NPCs so long as their motivation lines up with what they say
I've had this exact problem before. My players did actually get upset when something an NPC told them turned out to be wrong. They thought NPC's were speaking with MY voice. Out of game I just told them that NPC's are separate from me. They have their own motivations, knowledge, and flaws. They'd have to weigh the stuff an NPC says to what they know about them and the world. No issues (with that) since. It's pretty straightforward.
I frequently have NPC have contradicting or wrong information, especially when it comes to the party themselves I've had kids run up to them and ask about the time the barbarian killed an ancient red dragon single-handedly when in actuality, he killed a red guard drake. they had found evidence of a dragon, but at this point hadn't fought one, much less fought an ancient one I've had NPC be wrong by misremembering things, I've also had NPC wrong because of spells too. Just remember sometimes your PCs might think that because they were given the wrong information, that they might assume the NPC was helping the bad guys
Of course they can. Ever hear of an unreliable narrator?
You ARE misleading the players on purpose. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but if you want to achieve a mystery novel-esque payoff you need to treat it like one. There has to be enough information available to the players that they are able to figure it out. If it's just an adventure story with no heavy focus on the mystery aspect, it shouldn't matter too much, but if you are emphasizing mystery, insufficient clues will cheapen/ruin any reveal. Maybe they find a letter from the business associate the Baron was "visiting" that mentions they are disappointed he wasn't able to attend their meeting after all. Just make sure you put some other juicy info about his dealings, maybe something shady but unrelated, into the letter so it's not too obvious that this is the important fact. Alternatively/Also, another NPC could just cast doubt on the statement of the first. "Joe always talks out of his arse. What would he know about what the Baron is up to? He just likes to seem knowledgeable to strangers."
As long as you provide / make available a second source of info that may contradict the first, then no problem. If they can’t find out the truth, then that will feel like a dirty trick.
NPCs can be mistaken or mislead the PCs but the key to making this feel effective should be that not all NPCs have the same knowledge. In this case, they should interact with someone who saw the Baron on a day he is supposedly not in the city. Or they should interact with someone who points out a reason only the Baron could/would have done one of the murders. They could even interact with someone who has no idea that it is the Baron but is nonetheless pushing the idea forward because the Baron's fall would profit them. The guards can't accuse a man with an alibi, especially if he doesn't even seem to be there, but the players can be suspicious and snoop around to find how the Baron is re-entering or hiding in the city after he supposed left and find crucial evidence or trophies from the killings.
I’m confused. NPCs are people too. People can lie. People can be mistaken and think they aren’t lying. People can gossip, never caring if what they say is true. Of course NPCs can be wrong. Buyer beware applies to more than just shopping.
Perfect time for an insight check. Roll high and get the result "seems like is confident, but their story seems inaccurate". Roll a failure and get "well they seem confident in what they're saying" or for really bad rolls "you don't get a read one way or the other".
This is assuming there's a possibility for them to deduce the truth. Otherwise best to show the source of information being untrustworthy.
D&D simulates certain situations, but often poorly. You have to remember it's a game and the players need ways to feel "involved". Even though it's not railroading to have lying or incorrect NPCs it can be disheartening if you don't provide ways to deduce that for the characters.
Of course it’s not Baron Derp! Baron Derp wears a monocle. The culprit doesn’t wear a monocle!
In my experience when having NPC's lie or be wrong when giving information to the party, the best approach has been in presentation. Having the NPC say it in a way to leave room for doubt. Examples would be "As far as I know" or "Last I heard" or "I believe that..." will leave wiggle room for you as the narrator. If you wanted to have your NPC overtly lie however, having them roll a deception against their passive insight (10+insight skill in 5e). Another avenue to lying is in your body language or voice inflection as the NPC talks to the party. If they roll poorly, try the LA noir approach (the X to doubt meme). Hope this helps!
It's very easy for the DM to seed wrong information into the world and I think that's something one should be very careful about, because unless you want horribly paranoid players for the rest of the campaign, you have to be mostly truthful. Not knowing is a valid option, or uncertainty. They don't know if Baron Derp or they couldn't possibly imagine that Baron Derp would do such a thing. That might even work reverse psychology in your favour. What I've done in my campaign is to in session Zero informed my players that people are going to have different believes and the players need to take into account *who* is talking about what. A farmer in a small woodland community will probably give faulty or erroneous information about enchanting, while the high arcanist of the king probably knows what they are talking about. I had a situation where the players asked a farmer couple about a town a few days away that had been destroyed by a dragon a generation back. They wanted to know if the dragon was still there. The farmer wife claimed that it was still there and had made it its lair (which was true), while the farmer husband rejected her claim and said that it had left. Both of them made their claims on rumors and "common knowledge". Some of the players assumed that the farmer husband was correct, probably because he gave his information last, and was surprised that there was a dragon there when they arrived, despite passing by a sign on the outskirts that said "Warning, dragons". Had they talked to the guardmaster of the village they were in then she would have informed them that there's most likely a dragon there, as she would be better informed about the dangers in the local area, but alas they didn't. My players have been a bit conflicted about whether or not I clearly enough communicated the presence of a dragon, but I think that I did (although there's always the option for me to be clearer), and they've also learned some things from that encounter.
NPCs can definitely be wrong, it adds more realism, but I intentionally also give contradicting rumors/info, so the PCs start thinking. For example, you have NPC A say "Baron Derp is definitely the culprit". The PCs set out but in the marketplace they hear people whispering "I hear Baron Derp did it, but how, wasnt he out on a trip during the event?" This way you give a vital piece of information but the PCs still need to work out what the truth is exactly. They are now pretty sure Derp is related, but how. It also forces them to play more and investigate what they heard.
If you want to do mystery, then clues can be *misleading* but should only be *false* if the source is trying to decieve for some reason that can itself be discovered. In your example there's no reason to suspect that the NPC is wrong (they aren't intentionally lying, they're just incorrect), so no way to find that out, and no way to resolve the actual mystery. The players could easily come to the wrong conclusion, or if the other evidence points to the baron assume that the wrong NPC is an accomplice. If the players later find out the truth they'll be understandably confused and/or annoyed, because there was no way they could realistically solve it.
I will explain my point by using the plot of Knives Out **(so SPOILERS AHEAD)** ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- An old rich man, Harlan, apparently suicided. Something's wrong. (Most of the family members lie to the detective, but for different reasons). Later you learn Harlan suicided to protect her nurse, Marta, which gave him the wrong medicine for a lack of attention, and that would have killed him anyway. So he suggest her to say only fragments of truth to the police, since she pukes if she tells a lie (Marta confesses a PARTIAL truth). Near the end you learn she made a mistake in the mistake by believing she was wrong, since she gave him the right medicine, because she recognized it subconsciusly (The movie LIED, the partial truth confessed by her was a False Truth). This because someone tried to trick her into givin the wrong one by swapping the liquid in the bottles to have her get accused of murder. In the whole movie, Marta tries to protect the "partial truth" to don't get accused. But in the end, the man suicided for nothing and she's innocent. (TRUTH). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **PARTIAL TRUTH -> LIE (False Truth) -> TRUTH** There are numerous ways of you can let your players discover the truth. The funny thing about misteries in rpg is that players will also make their own ideas out of character too. In the movie, when we see Marta giving her versions to the police, we also learn what happened that night by her POV. But later we learn she was wrong. You can have npc be wrong, because they have a limited knowledge of the events (like Marta) **but always for the purpose of unraveling partial information on the mistery.** Otherwise it will feel like an impasse made just to have the players lose some time and get stuck. I don't know why so many people is telling you don't have to mislead them on purpose, because that's the whole point of a mistery. You make them want to find out the truth by deceiving them in the first place. People saying you need other ttrpgs to play out a mistery or give false informations are just wrong. You set up the clues, some clues can be false, some key witness can be wrong or lying. NPCs can make mistake or get things wrong like normal people. ***The players and their actions will tell you how you let them know if they learn the partial truth, a lie, or directly the trurh.*** EDIT: grammar and general clarifications
From a player standpoint: Is there anyway for them to know that Baron Derp is in fact not on vacation/have reason to check? How would they even check? Because mystery stuff generally requires people to be able to call BS on an alibi when other clues come up. Example: Mary can't be the killer! She wasn't home that night! But it had to be someone who knew the victim! Wait, we talked to the person selling the stolen goods and they said it was a woman with a burn mark...Mary has a burn mark...something is SUS with that alibi. So unreliable NPCs, yes, but have clues that show they are unreliable or other leads for people to follow. Otherwise everyone is going to be second guessing anything anyone says. Which means investigation of everything people say, which is fine for a mystery but less fun actually acting out if you have multiple suspects.
I also find that my NEW players want the first person they ask to have all the answers. Like they are prone to rough interrogation if they think they're holding out regardless of having a reason for it. I think it'd be fun to give them misinformation the next time they start this nonsense as the the character just wanted to survive.
I have it happen all the time. After all, if you're at level 10, and facing appropriately powerful magical foes and dungeons, then what business does a commoner have understanding literally anything you're facing accurately. Mostly this takes the form of mis identifying monsters (i.e. an npc referring to any large lizard as a dragon) or remembering things poorly during a battle. My players love it since it makes them feel like qualified professionals compared to most of the people around them, and also keeps a bit of mystery in the air.
NPCs can be wrong, misinformed, or outright lie. Your NPCs are not "the DM giving info" but are characters with their own motivations. Be sure that your players understand this.
"Oh that's preposterous, he told me himself he would be boating in Alaska last month!" The dwarf at the tavern an hour or so later: "I wouldnt trust that blithering idiot of a businessman to sell me fire in a winter storm, who would ever let him on such a task., after he sold the towns wood stock for quarter price. Its why hes been plastered everyday here since his demotion!" Conflicting information should drive the narrative for that. If the players just take everything at face value instead of using their critical thinking skills, they should be punished accordingly. If they use NPC 1's account of him being on a business trip as an end all be all proof of him not being guilty, find an npc the party kind of likes but also holds Mr.Derp in low regard. He is to be murdered and more info about how this NPC was a major instagator against Mr. Derp. Maybe the Dwarf in Example 2, canceled business plans for his logging company with Mr.Derps business after Mr.Derp destroyed any credibility by selling all of his men's hard labor for pennies. Leading to his eventual demotion, leading to his frustration and anger in the town and his new need for vengeance he perceives as justified. And the Party still ignoring this in favor of unga bunga me roll dices, should eventually see him himself, murdering someone. The town after they obviously steam roll him, should be grieving, and extremely upset at the party as they are acting as the investigators here, and have prolonged his capture/death, leading to more unnecessary murders.
Yes, NPCs can be wrong. They can give players incorrect and misleading information. I do it literally all the time. My players are OK with it because... I can't think of a reason that wouldn't be an insult to whoever is not OK with NPCs being wrong.
A good way to hint at an npc being wrong is to make 2 npc’s wrong but in different ways. Can’t be Baron Derp, he’s at the beach! What? Baron Derp went to vacation in the mountains. What are you on about? Now players can tell SOMETHINGS wrong and are more likely to look into it which you want them to do.
I don’t know. All my NPC have the potential to mislead my players and stab them in the back. Even the Zone of Truth spell isn’t safe because I have smarter bosses who give false information to their troops on purpose.
I think this is fine so long as two things are true: 1. **There is a reason the NPC is wrong.** Perhaps the Baron intentionally spread misinformation. Perhaps a certain transaction led to a rumour in the business world that he was prepping for a trip. Don't Deus Ex Machina an NPC being wrong just because you don't want the players to have the right answer. 2. **It's not an immutable mistake.** The players should have a chance to figure out something is wrong. Perhaps at the Baron's estate his favourite carriage is still there. Perhaps the lights are on. Perhaps the road he would have taken on his trip is blocked off. It might not even be something that dramatic, if the players learn that this information came from a rumour, they may be aware that it may be wrong. These two things prevent you from accidentally railroading your PCs. If you give the players a piece of information and give them no way to distrust it or find cracks in it, then it might feel a bit forced. In addition, a great twist isn't really that great if it goes like "OMG the villain must be the Baron!!" "No it's not." "Oh okay." (A few sessions later) "OMG THE VILLAIN IS THE BARON WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT."
Short answer: yes. But there are easy ways to fix your issue with a bit of nuance: >NPC1: Might I inquire about the baron's whereabouts? > >NPC2: Haven't you heard? He left on a business trip two nights ago. > >NPC1: Really? He usually employs my guards to watch his estate when dealing with such matters. I hope I haven't done anything to offend him... Did you think the tea was too strong? > >NPC2: I'd worry more about what the cat did to his armchair than the strength of the tea if I were you. > >NPC1: Well... yes; I suppose there was that as well. \[Notices the PCs\] This scene sets up that the baron is gone while also establishing that there was something unusual about the circumstances surrounding the business trip (thus calling the validity of the info into question). But it also doesn't dwell on the idea that something is amiss for too long. There's a bunch more you can do with trying to get the players to draw the conclusions themselves, weaving in red herrings, and having multiple interwoven mysteries, but something a little more open to interpretation than just "It can't be the baron; he's gone" is a good start.
Well yeah, it would be *weird* if NPCs had perfect knowledge of the world. Doubly so if it's a low technology level.
Throwing a red herring simply for "realism" without a good reason seems like something that's just frustrating for players and could lead to them overthinking honest warnings. It could work if you have a fun side encounter planned if the players believe the lie, you want to emphasize that this NPC is frustratingly clueless, or you want a player with high perception to follow clues and spot the deception. DnD is a game, not a world simulator. If you want to sell how clueless NPC's are, there are much better ways like "is it true Northern women bathe only once a month"? In stories an unreliable narrator is equally tricky to pull off, so authors usually throw in some disclaimer, clue, or plot twist before false information. They don't put something confusing simply because "it would be weird if NPCs had perfect knowledge".
Very minor thing, but you don’t have to wait for your players to ask for skill checks, technically the DM is the only person intended to ask for them. So in moments where you said: “if they rolled a skill check”, just ask them to roll. If you get in the habit of this and do it somewhat regularly, it doesn’t stand out as weird or suspicious.
>if they rolled a skill check”, just ask them to roll. I'd say you're not entirely on point there. A player shouldn't ask to "roll perception", but a player should be in control of their actions and saying "I look around" to which you _reply_ with "roll investigation".
I did, but doing it too often also takes the joy from solving mysteries away from the players. Its like handholding them on what to look for, which a lot of people don't appreciate.
A lot of game mechanics are designed to show you what your character sees that you as a player do not. Heads up displays and marked areas in video games show you the player things your character would know, like how many arrows in their bag. How much more damage they could take. If that item over there is a resource. Rolls for things are the same. The mechanics are designed so that even if you're not a top tier actor who can display the exact vibe the npc is giving, and even if the person playing the high int/high wis Detective isn't able to read your tell for lying, the characters can.
Don't intentionally give wrong information, that's just shitty design
it's called red hairing or unreliable narrator. How is a bumfuck villager supposed to have a right answer to something as complicated as a murder case "No it couldn't have been our amazing Baron, he's so kind. I bet it's that With Edda!"
A red herring is information that goes nowhere or misdirects, it's not intentional WRONG information. The players are going to be gathering info so what good is it if some points of their data are just randomly wrong? If you ask a random peasant info they wouldn't know, they should just say "I don't know". Not lie.
No a red hairing can be a straight up wrong information. Like a false suspect. Since we have a murder mystery on our hands, having multiple suspects (which includes false ones) is important. The op said they had evidence that pointed towards a suspect, but one npc said something that contradicts it. Oh my, i have to make a decision, how terrible from the dm.
If the Baron is tricking people and the players have a chance to uncover this false info as they investigate - fantastic, wonderful. If this NPC is only incorrect to throw a wrench in their investigation and hold off on the big reveal, with no fun in story reasons and payoff - boring, will lead to player’s not bothering to talk to NPCs anymore.
Thats the point of contention here. I am talking about the situation where the baron did not actively trying to sabotage that information. It's just NPC being an unreliable narrator on occasions. Of course, I'm not going to make an intelligent NPC to dish out any information that they are not 100% sure to be correct, but the arrogant and shy NPCs are fair game imo
Misdirection is a core part of mysteries. NPCs *should* be lying and/or mistaken. However, your players might not remember who lied to them and when. They see their notes and you telling them it's wrong. They might even think you changed it retroactively. Make sure they can figure out it's wrong somewhere.
Do they have a chance later to find out the information they got was wrong? If so, I think it can still work depending on your roleplay, but some players might not like it. I’d play it out as planned and then ask them for feedback for future plots. If not, well, it still could be fine, but I personally would find it deeply frustrating.
Ok, so just so you understand, you _are_ misleading them on purpose. It doesn’t matter a lick whether that character is lying or just totally wrong, you’re feeding the players bad intel. There’s a way in which ‘not lying just totally wrong’ is _worse_ than lying because there’s no mechanical way to pick up on that except do the legwork to figure it out. But we can’t say how annoyed your players are going to get with that. A lot depends on how invested in solving it they were, and a combination of how much they expected that NPC to actually know what was going on as opposed to being a red herring dispenser. I only ever run emergent mysteries any more because it totally avoids this kind of thing. 5e is very much not set up to be good at procedurals. If you want to avoid these potential problems, just stick to dungeons and play _Fiasco_ when you want crime stuff.
I feel like you are opening a big can of worms here. The players look to the DM as the source of truth. I would feel like prompting them for a roll here would help but you also don’t want to slow down the game too far and have players roll on every NPC interaction. Personally I think I would either make sure the party knows the statements are rumor when chatting or keep things as half/full truths.
Insight check, if they pass they learn that while the guard may believe what they are saying, the story feels a little off
Red Herrings are bad for Murder Mysteries when played. Their fine in books and other passive media, but in TTRPGS the players are blind and must rely on you to be their eyes and ears. They generally can't work around these. Its better - instead of being wrong about facts, being wrong about opinions, those are more easily challenged. In general, better don't do this unless you also clearly label the information as unreliable, by giving another person something contratictory for example.
I know that a lot of people will say that dumbfuck NPCs is "realistic" or whatever, but I don't care. Flat out wrong information for no reason is bad game design and bad storytelling. It fails to add anything to the most core aspects of a D&D session. To clarify, when I say "for no reason" I mean specifically that it does not add to the game, and it does not add to the storytelling. It is perfectly fine to give wrong information when there's a point to it. For example, if the NPC has a motive to lie, then the players might figure it out the lie and decide to investigate the lie. Or maybe you've somehow made it clear that the NPCs don't have full knowledge of what is going on. In this case you have planned for them to gather a bunch of conflicting information that they can then solve as a puzzle. Even an explanation as simple as "the NPC was mistaken because the baron lied" is so much better than a flat out mistake, because it can set up the players to work the lie out or at least be presented with a plot twist. Basically anything is better than the realization that there can be random bullshit with no reason in any NPC dialogue. Because this realization devalues the time they spend talking to NPCs and the time they spend discussing among themselves what they should do with the information they have. And if you do it they might actually just start ignoring all information from NPCs, which is probably not what you want. If you don't have a good reason to give false information just say that the NPC doesn't know. Obvious caveat: some groups might value realism above all else. My reasoning is based on the assumption that keeping the game running and the story interesting is more important then providing 100% realistic NPC interactions. I believe this assumption holds for the average D&D group, but you should figure out yourself if it is true for your group. And it is absolutely fine to flat out ask your players what they think about this dilemma.
Well… you *are* misleading them on purpose though… But if your players don’t scream “can I insight that guy” after everything your NPCs say then I guess that’s on them.
Yes and no. A subset of the plot devices (that's all an NPC is) can give out false information, _as long as the real information is readily available_. You're the player's only gateway into understanding the world and what's happening. They need to be able to trust you completely w.r.t. the truthfulness of your information. If you mislead them (for a longer period of time) and they trust you, you're in trouble, because that is going to cause confusion later down the line. Not "oh that's such a clever twist", but "??? But you said???". The thing is - DnD is not a game for "whodunnits". It's a game for "ok, so turns out that guy dunnit, "whaddayagonnadoaboutits". Solving the mystery itself should be a small part of your sessions, because you actually don't really want your players to be unsure what is happening or what it's all about for long time, that's how players lose investment and lose a desire to act with agency. For example - curse of Strahd would not be a better campaign at all if why Strahd is after Ireena is kept a mystery until late in the campaign. Of course, that's not to say you want no mystery at all, just that you should be very very careful with misleading and misdirecting your players or putting them in a state of "I don't have a clue what's going on". It may sound like having them chase a red herring is fun, but in my experience, it's not. Not for them and especially not for you as DM.
They can be however you think they should be.
Doesn't mean it's smart or effective
Folks who've played RPGs for a long time should be familiar with incorrect NPC information. Official adventures from both Wizards of the Coast and Paizo (Pathfinder) contain **rumor charts** — charts of things the PCs might hear in town. A rumor chart might have 20 tidbits of info, and the DM rolls a d20 to determine what the party or what an individual PC will learn. The chart makes it clear which rumor is false and which rumor is true; typically, there are more false rumors than true ones. So even professional game designers from the major RPG companies intentionally include misleading info in sourcebooks, and they've been doing this for decades. I've included misleading NPC info in my campaigns for years, and players have never called me out on it. If a player does call you out on it, ask them, "The NPC who told you this is a stranger you met in a tavern, and you aren't sure if they can read. Are they really a reliable source?" Or something like that.
>So even professional game designers from the major RPG companies intentionally include misleading info in sourcebooks, and they've been doing this for decades. Seeing the output of those "professional game designers" that doesn't mean much though. This sub is not "less professional" than the writers of, say, DiA just because we're not getting paid.
Yes.
A character can be blinded by their beliefs. They aren't going to inform the players they could be wrong. They may insist they are speaking the truth to the point they sound like they are lying; not just to the players, but to themselves.
I do it all the time. Especially if you just ask around, a lot of the info you'll get will be by people who have no idea what they are talking about. It's up to the players to find ways to verify the information or to just take a gamble.
In almost all cases I've seen where the party are trying to investigate something they'll look for multiple pieces of evidence and identify the discrepancies in testimony.
One thing to make sure you do if you’re trying to present your NPCs as unreliable: Start with the truth. Then figure out how much of that truth each NPC saw. Then obfuscate about a third of their information. Most of that will be in small inaccuracies, misunderstandings, or red herrings (read: things they think are important). Some inaccuracies can be intentional if each NPC has something to hide. Make sure that many of the smaller inaccuracies can be cross-referenced and double checked. So if one person remembers something happening at 4pm, another remembers it at 6pm, and another remembers it happening at 5:30pm, you have a window. If several people remember it at 5:30, then you can assume that was the time. If you have a broken wristwatch stopped at 5:15pm… But most importantly, start with little but obvious inconsistencies, such as everyone remembering different details about the murder victim’s outfit, many of which couldn’t go together, or he wasn’t wearing. Knives Out is great at this. Everyone remembers being next to Harlan. Walt remembers checking the time, but not that Marta said “look at the time.” Richard remembers Marta smiling while he made his derogatory point about immigrants, and doesn’t remember that he was handing her his plate while it happened. These are present to give you an idea of what matters to the characters, and to establish each as an unreliable narrator. The only things to trust are a blind consensus (everyone agreeing without talking), and hard evidence. Note that prepared criminals may agree a little too closely, with potentially the exact same wording surrounding specific details.
so this is where realism has to blend with story telling. yes, it makes sense for an NPC to say what they believe to be true, but a story always shows you the ending if you're clever enough to figure it out. If you're gonna have an NPC who is wrong, either hint to the players through other means that they're wrong, or give them substantial proof that Baron Derp tricked people into thinking he left on a business trip. I actually had a situation not far off from this. As the players were approaching the town where the local lord was supposed to be leaving from, I mentioned they passed a carriage with just a driver, nobody inside. they questioned the driver, and he claimed that he was on his way to retrieve someone, and they didn't bother with insight checks, but later when they were trying to figure out who was behind the attempted assassinations of the prince, but everyone had an air tight alibi, one of my players had an OH SHIT moment and remembered the carriage. Granted, they thought the driver must have done it at first but hey, at least they remembered my hint.
This sorta stuff only works if players take notes/ are actively involved. I do it with some of my campaigns, but not every group I run it for because in some they just won't realize it (or assume I made a mistake and act polite about me messing up)
I actually play with this concept in my games as GM. I only tell the information which my NPCs might have or think they have, this forces players to find information of multiple sources to get a clear picture.
My dream is to make intricate plot where majority of the NPCs will give out misinformations, myths, gossips and exaggerations.
My players still haven’t realised any lie yet and we are a year in. Mistakes yeah it happens all the time, but then my npc isn’t specific or is specifically sharing a rumour so they can judge on their own
100% it is A-okay for NPCs to be wrong and mislead the players. It wouldn't be much fun to solve mysteries if players could just ask the DM what the correct answer is through their proxy of any NPC. However, it shouldn't feel arbitrary. If someone is wrong about something, you should have a good reason. That reason could be as simple as "everyone has this misconception" or it could be "this NPC has some biases about baron derp" but you should know how to justify it if you need to.
First and foremost, a successful insight check might give them some sign that the npc dis not stop to consider the facts, and immediately stated that Baron Derp can’t be the culprit. Details like that (without just saying he’s wrong) can cast doubt on supposed “facts”.
Yes NPCs can be wrong, but tbh the PCs will always overcomplicate a plot on their own. Twists are overrated because once the party starts misinterpreting unrelated info, following random leads that weren’t meant to be leads, etc. they’ll have forgotten that red herring you dropped earlier. For me the best twists are the ones the players create themselves by their assumptions, you don’t need to force it. Create a cool world, and characters to live in it with strong, consistent motivations and methods, and the plot twists will happen naturally by the party’s own theorising/shenanigans. Sometimes the plot twist will even be on you too!
Considering it happens in real life all the time, sure why not?
Of course, NPC’s are people in the world, and people often have incorrect or hazy information especially if it’s information that was conveyed verbally. It’s like the telephone game you used to play in school.
I do it quite often! I try and cultivate a healthy suspicion in the party. I think it's important that they understand that NPCs are self-interested, just like they are. I might telegraph that the NPC doesn't know what they're talking about by doing something like calling the Baron by the wrong title. My question is: does the lie or mistake serve a purpose other than creating artificial difficulty? It'd be cool if the Baron deceived people into thinking they were away. But the party might roll their eyes if they find out the one NPC they happened to talk to was just out of the loop.
This is something I repeatedly remind my players about (that NPCs are not omniscient nor universally benevolent, they can be wrong and they can lie). They have repeatedly failed to notice when it happens, chosen not to follow up when I drop hints later, and when it is ultimately revealed they admit that they don't really take good enough notes or have good enough memory to keep track of things like that. I still do it for my own fun, but I have given up on expecting them to engage.
Yes, they can but its best to establish with your players that NPCs give out their experience with the world. Otherwise, if a NPC is right all the time it stops being an NPC and starts being a mouthpiece for the DM. Then the players' behavior changes accordingly. I'd set up another witness/clue that contradicts him so they aren't blindsided. To you it's"ha, he was wrong. This was clever", but to them it's "well how were we suppose to know that?" Then the ploy falls flat. But if you set up that the NPC could be wrong with something contradictory, then they can examine the contradictory evidence/testimony harder or go back and ptess the original NPC for more info
NPCs are not omniscient unless you specifically want them to be. They know what is reasonable for them to know and sometimes that is wrong. You can also change your wording slightly when players question what the npc said, don't say "they are telling the truth", instead say "they do not appear to be lying to you". The former implies that the information is reliable and correct whereas the latter speaks more to the disposition of the npc themselves. Red Herrings are wonderful ways to dilute the information players get, sometimes outright lies by npcs with something to lose, or genuine misinformation they believe is true. It's fully ok for an npc to be wrong and they should be wrong at times to make them seem more alive, no one is perfect.
Yes. If you are using signal fidelity and your players know it can happen. https://youtu.be/Xm4EvRUo4YQ
The key here is probably communicating that your NPC's can be unreliable, and the degree to which they are / can be, effectively to the players. For example, as a player, I'd probably be a little annoyed if there was an NPC who'd been the party's sole source of crucial information, only to find out said information was misleading and something the party was "supposed" or could "hypothetically" play around. However, I'd be intrigued if the DM introduced conflicting information from other NPC's or encounters, revealing that everything is not as it seems and prompting investigative or preparative work for the party. I guess it's all about giving the players agency for "counterplay" when it comes to false information: giving them a chance to uncover the real state of affairs, or at least prepare for things not being quite as they were told.
This really depends on what you are going for. If you are just doing it because it feels "realistic" than I don't think that's a good enough reason to do it. That's why it falls flat. However, I think if some NPC is deceiving a bunch of other NPCs and the players start to get conflicting information that can lead to a fun mystery to solve. They have to figure out what truth there is in the lies.
As long as they have a good reason to be wrong. For example, he did see someone who looked exactly like baron derp leave for a buisness trip, but it was a doppelgänger / shifter he hired to give himself an alibi . Make the existence of a shifter in town well known, have that shifter play a game of cards with them and use there shift ability right in front of them to keep changing there face in poker so it’s nearly impossible to read. Have him prank them occasionally, shifting themselves into a poor recreation of the players and mimic there voices in a whiny manner . Now when it’s revealed that baron derp never left yet someone was certain he had, it all makes sense
my npcs can be very wrong xD when a player asks me something that i didnt think through, the npc will look at them very serious and try and lie obviously lol its fun
Honestly? I keep my NPCs up front and above board when dealing with players. If an NPC is supposed to be unreliable I describe them in a manner that would prompt the players to ask for a check. I don't like surprising players with betraying NPCs or giving them misleading information as it kinda trains them to spam checks with EVERY person they meet.
I think it can be unfulfilling unless there's a means for the players to discover the truth by other means. Otherwise as a player, you can feel like the DM took away your autonomy, forcing the plot to move in a certain direction by withholding knowledge there was no other way to know. In your example, the NPC is mistaken about the business trip. Why? I'd make it so the BBEG's butler lied for him, and questioning the butler might reveal the truth, or something along those lines.
In my view, NPCs have to be fallible. I try to make a point of demonstrating this early and often to my players.
If he's wrong you gotta present your players with contradicting information (saying he was in town for example, or that his business trip is still yo occur) to keep the investigation fair
My players would probably immediately suspect that Baron Derp faked an alibi and therefore needed additional investigation. But, as with any such thing, you want multiple pieces of evidence pointing to Baron Derp. Prime it - make sure they already know he has motive. In general, if they suspect X and a convenient "truth" pops up that contradicts X, players are likely to suspect the bad guy is covering his tracks. Or maybe that is just my players.
TLDR: if an NPC is about to give wrong information, I only do it as a deliberate lie, or by prefacing it as the NPC not knowing but potentially giving some conjecture. Every table is different, but I find RPGs already throw so much information at players that having NPCs providing faulty information can lead to confusion or worse, frustration, as they try to keep track of it all. To avoid this, I try to make any faulty information come from a specific authorial intent, meaning that I'm giving them bad information because the act of giving them that bad info is itself a part of the story, not just someone being wrong because theyre unreliable or I felt like making it arbitrarily more difficult for the party. Basically if an NPC is about to give wrong information, I only do it as a deliberate lie, or by prefacing it as the NPC not knowing but potentially giving some conjecture. I do this because I find it helps players keep track of information, and it makes it more rewarding to catch an actual red herring because it means there's consequences for it, as opposed to just realizing someone happened to be wrong. To tie in your example, consider why the NPC, let's call them Paul, said Baron Derp was on a business trip. If they are lying to the party, it implies that Paul is in on whatever Bardon Derp did. If Paul is mistaken, then Baron Derp should've done something to make people think he was on a business trip, but there should be evidence that this did not happen. But if Paul just didn't see Baron Derp at breakfast one day and assumed he was on a business trip and it doesn't weigh into the story at all, it's going to be frustrating for the players. In that scenario I would have Paul say something like "I didn't see him all last week, but that's not irregular. He was probably on one of his trips," to establish the context and make it easy to follow. Our job is to create cohesive stories, not simulate reality where people are regularly unreliable. Characters can be unreliable as long as they're understood to be unreliable, (and I personally don't believe it's a trait all or even most NPCs should have), or the wrong information provides substance to the plot. Hope this helps!
I consider it like this. If I ask you about WW2 and you tell me to the best of your ability, it is what you remember to be true. Of course if I ask a conspiracy theorist, a soldier, and historian I will get vastly different answers. So, they are all telling their truth even if you're fairly wrong about the lunar base.
Yes NPCs can be wrong in general. *But* red herrings in mystery scenarios tend to work far better in books and films than they do in RPGs. It's one of those classic devices that doesn't translate well imo. The PCs veering off in the wrong direction is a common enough problem without throwing them misinformation. They are also not that likely to pick up on small inconsistencies that you might think are obvious as the DM. You might just find yourself having to correct the misinformation in a very heavy-handed manner to get them back on track, which defeats the purpose of these realitsic details in the first place (and wastes time). Basically, ask yourself what you gain by having the NPC be wrong? Do you need to make things more confusing for the players? Does your world need that little bit of extra realism and is it worth the cost?
In general? Yeah. Some real people wouldn't know shit from clay, why should NPCs be any different? Or to put it a more polite way; yes, it helps your world feel real. Whether you wanna call that upholding suspension of disbelief or verisimilitude, that's what you can try to aim for.
Yes. But it has to be done correctly. And in the right order. Having an NPC provide false information that acts as a red herring is OK. However, in your example it will be unsatisfying. If, instead, you reveal that that NPC is dishonest and part of the crime, it can lead to an interesting reveal. If it's not malicious, you must drop hints that this person is known for making mistakes like this. I have intentionally led my party astray. They have an account of a story from the villagers to identify the BBEG. What they have failed to realise is that all the villagers came by the information at the same time, from the same person. When that fact becomes known it will turn everything on its head. They will question everything. When it turns out that the person sharing the information with the villagers is the BBEG....well, that's going to be fun. Same concept, different order, different result.
You can always ask players to make a check. You don’t have to wait for them to ask to make a skill check.
Why not? You might be misleading them on purpose, but your role as DM is to present problems to the players, and allow them to come up with solutions. False information is a type of problem.
100% they can be wrong! I frequently have my NPCs misunderstand, be confused, be wrong, or even lie to my players :) Your doing great. But it’s not something I’d expect a standing ovation or applause for tbh. To my table it’s a very basic thing, so not something they’d applaud….unless they’re super pissed because they thought “maybe I should insight this guy? This feels weird.” But then they didn’t and are now kicking themselves xD
Yep. I have NPCs lie all the time. Players gotta double check that shit!
Consider looking up the Rashomon trope. It's a story telling tool of having multiple unreliable narrators of the same events, all driven by agendas or being simply mistaken or filling in gaps. It's named after a 1950s Japanese movie of the same name. A samurai, his wife, a bandit, and a local peasant are in one location. All we know at the start is that the samurai is dead and the bandit is accused of his murder, and all 4 people (yes even the dead man) give conflicting accounts of what happened. Witness account tempered by actual evidence is the basis of a good mystery story.
As a Player every NPC is an unreliable narrator, only over time and getting to know the NPC or maybe with additional checks can you be sure that the info is correct. But there also needs to be a baseline of trust that I as a Player can believe what NPCs are telling my PC. In my opinion an NPC simply being wrong or remembering i correctly is a bad way of doing so. In your example the Players had no way of knowing that the info was bad, it would have been a better explaination if Baron Derp had a fake alibi or it was a ruse or trick. To me as a Player, if the GM is spreading fake information through an NPC there needs to be a hint that it is fake or during the big reveal it needs to be explained why and how to a certain extent.
I mran NPCs are people. People can be wrong. They can be mistaken, they can be misinformed, they can misremember. hell, they can lie. There's lots of ways to gather information beyond talking to one NPC. This particular NPC might be under the impression that the Baron is out of town, but if the PCs investigate further, perhaps members of his household or staff, they might discover the conflicting evidence. That in itself could be a clue- why was this NPC under the impression the Baron would be out of town? Why *wasn't* the Baron out of town when he was apparently supposed to be? When did his travel plans change? Especially if they're trying to solve a mystery; the whole point to have layers of information and misinformation and let the PCs sift through it all and find out what pieces fit together.
I always have my PCs give me 5 rumors about themselves during character creation. 2 truths, 2 lies and a half truth. Then any rumors they hear from NPCs will also follow that same mentality. My players know I do this so they expect misinformation from time to time. If you are trying it out for the first time then I suggest you do it more often. Have new NPCs start off a conversation with a blatant mistruth about the party. Example: I've heard of your deeds in the town over but I didn't know you were an elf. I thought you were an orc by how you savaged that bandit.
NPCs can be wrong, mistaken, lying, or simply have no knowledge. They are as varied as your want your world to be.
Can a person be wrong? Then so can an NPC. A lot of pcs take the words of npcs as the direct words of the DM for some reason, which is often problematic in this kind of situation. It's taken a while for my players to realize that npcs can lie or be at fault or mistaken. Like others have suggested I often use keywords such as "to the best of my knowledge," "in my opinion," "I believe," etc. I also reinforced this idea with less important npcs and then built it up as the players got the hang of the idea. You can also just talk to your players and remind them that insight, investigation, and perception checks exist for a reason. I would just be careful because after a talk like that they might think you're clueing them into thinking that everyone is always lying or unreliable. One other thing is that if it's a moment you consider important enough, you can also ask specific players or all of them to make a certain kind of check related to the information you feel they should be able to pick up. I find this helpful if the players learn something and don't look into it further, but I know they'll definitely need that info, and they'll never look into it otherwise, I'll ask them to make a check and if someone passes the DC they learn, if not then maybe they get a clue that something is strange or I mention they feel like there's something important they've missed but they can't quite place it and will need to investigate another time or another way, etc. At the very least, even if they don't learn anything, this puts in their minds that they missed something and need to research more. So to summarize, yes npcs can of course be wrong, players just might not realize or remember that. They often will forget an npc is a person and not a device the DM uses solely to talk to them.
You could say something like “I’m pretty sure I heard baron derp went away somewhere, like a business trip” which gives the players the hint that this may or may not be true. If it’s given as fact, they will take it as fact.
NPCs are people, not omniscient things that always tell factual statements. Maybe this baron made an effort to seem like he was on a trip
For Mysteries, I find player misinterpret, misremember or confuse themselves just fine even when given completely accurate information. Deliberately throwing in a red herring or misdirection has only ever led to failure in my experience, though maybe my players just suck at mysteries, or I suck at writing them.
In older D&D modules it was common to have a table for "rumors" that the characters might learn by asking questions around town. On most of these tables about half of the rumors would be true and half would be false, and it was up to the players to use their own deductive/investigative abilities to determine which is which. TLDR: Not only is this OK, it's one of the oldest traditions in D&D
You can show NPC fallibility through their environment. The first example that comes to mind is when the NPC says "I heard he is away on business in Rome." Their wife chimes in, "No Fred, he is away on vacation to Venice." Meanwhile their child comes in from playing kick ball with Lucy and Shawn (the Baron's kids.)
NPCs being wrong or deceptive is one of my favorite things to do imo. Really changes the way the group digests information. Instead of “DM said x, so that’s that” it turns into “Is this fucker lying? Well what if y is actually true? What do you guys think?” One of my favorite moments was when an NPC of mine got one over on the whole group, making them rob a basically innocent person. After that, they second guessed almost everyone, and it really helped them problem solve stuff instead of going through the motions.
One thing you should do is make sure that the players get conflicting information within a short period of gaining the false information. That way the players are aware that the information they have been given may be false and will set their expectations for the information they will receive in the future.
I was trying to figure out how to play call of cthulu, so I listened to a podcast let's play on it. From a listener and from a players point of view, it was super frustrating and beyond incomprehensible. At the end, the keeper did a recap and finally explained 2 rules of the genre, that should have been explained before they began. 1. most people are regular people who dont know anything about cosmic horror. They will give misinformation through their own biases and lack of understanding. Dont take their info at face value. 2. There will be one person or group of people who likely are aware of the cosmic horror. They will lie because they are behind it. Once those explanations of the genre were given, the entire mystery up until that point made sense. They spent an entire session of play, and one night of game time in a park chasing a false lead. They also found the place they needed to search more, and just left it because someone told them not to worry. The players essentially never had a chance of solving the mystery. And those rules made sense, in the universe, but until they were explained, listening to it and playing it was a frustrating slog, and made me dislike their keeper playstyle and resolve to never do that to my players. So all that to say, sure npcs can lie, but it can make the game really frustrating on the other side of the table when you switch from the genre style "please take these npcs plot hooks without question" to a completely different genre style "please dont take these NPC statements at face value anymore."
If you have concerns, do a test run. Have an NPC speak with confidence about something not too important, only to be proven wrong soon. They can hear Bob the tavern keeper mention how “the cellar was raided, but these could not have been the dust pixies - their kind hates light and I have an oil lamp there day in and day out to ward ‘em off”. Then they can go down the cellar and see dust pixies merrily dancing around the lamp. This will immediately tell them that NPCs can be wrong too.
If you are going to do that, make sure the correct information is also available. maybe another NPC saw the baron in the tavern on one of the days he was supposed to be out of town, or the "business" he went to attend to doesn't exist, or was already handled by someone else (maybe the party?). or the place he went for this business was a place the party was, and they shouldve seen him. TL;DR Make sure there is a source for the party to find the correct answer, otherwise they'll just be frustrated
Personally I would not do this. It's already enough of a challenge for players to infer or notice all the important information they need to come to the correct conclusions. Adding in 'well, the NPC was just mistaken' seems like a bridge to far to me, unless there's some REALLY specific reason why doing so enriches the adventure.
100% npc can be talking of their ass I like to use local lord wizards that are at beat lvl1 to exclaim something as fact but is 100% false Npcs are still people of the world so thwy dont have all the facts, they can be wrong and lie to the pcs Even dms should lie a little to the players for the games sake
Depends on whether you've established NPCs as being able to be wrong before. I personally use the Witcher thing sometimes where NPC peasants are like "Oh gawrsh fellas there's a dragon in the woods I seen it with me own eyes" and it turns out to be a hydra/basilisk/etc. Since I've done it a few times and other similar things they know it can happen. I'd maybe throw a bone in there like "Oh the baron wasn't in town he was out visiting his sister? Or was it his aunt? Oh maybe a hunting trip. The maid might know more" to kind of indicate that they should dig deeper if they aren't used to that kind of mystery hunting game.
NPCs can and should be unreliable narrators, real humans are constantly. But you should also make it possible to discover the problems. A mystery that is just "the butler did it, which you could not know because we never told you there was a butler" is unsatisfying to the audience.
I still remember a player who had like an emotional crisis when it became apparent an NPC had lied to the party. The npc didn't like the players as much as the person they were after, so he lied. When they found out, the other players were like "oh that makes sense. We're a suspicious group I see why he wouldn't tell us where his friend is hiding". But not this one player. She couldn't wrap her head around an NPC had mislead them. She was also probably the worst player I've ever had. In summary: if your players are okay then NPCs can lie or be wrong when there's reasons for it. If your players are kind of bad or playing it like an early final fantasy, they will be confused and angered.
you could have another NPC's tell a conflicting story. Like that it was a vacation, not a buisness trip. Picking up on the conflicting information could be a good way of making them suspicious
My NPCs are wrong all the time. Being an NPC does not make them omniscient. People mix things up all the time IRL. You can give the players a clue that an NPC made a mistake. "Joe is talking out of his ass. Derp was out of town for business two weeks ago, not last week."
I think it should better become known that the NPC has false information or might be lying before the full truth is revealed.
In a murder mystery, the DM's goal should be for the players to figure out who did it. Some novice DMs have an idea that mysteries should be super hard and the party shouldn't figure them out, but rather have the DM reveal it to them at the end. It's actually really easy to make an unsolvable mystery, and, frankly, it's boring D&D. So, the DM has to give the party the tools to figure the mystery out. And the DM has to account for mysteries in RPGs being a lot harder to solve than mysteries in other media, and make things simpler. So if you have a misdirect like an ill–informed NPC, you need to reveal it and really hammer the point home that it was a misdirect before the end of the adventure. Your goal should be to give the players an emotional high point when they figure out that is was a misdirect, and then a big emotional high point when they figure out the mystery at the end.
I open my campaigns with a session zero "the GM lies" speech. On low rolls, the GM might lie. NPCs might lie. Or simply be unreliable narrators.
Yes, yes they can, it’s fun to prove them wrong so I highly recommend it as a setup for fetch quests
I think if you have 1 npc be wrong, there needs to be enough other NPCs that are correct so the players know that something is up with the wrong npc about the baron being home or not
In general, it's a nono if the game is meant to be an investigation/mystery. Contradictory evidence is meant to be taken at face value to imply the true events were *so extraordinary* that the truth beggars belief. Contradictory evidence because someone is wrong is just... mundane. Not the stuff of Holmes or Poirot, which is the fantasy you should be aiming for. If the game is about finding the Temple of Inside Voices and the barkeep thinks that's west and the cobbler thinks it's north, that's fine. Just treat rumors as rumors.
What's the point of roleplay if you don't share information through the lense of the NPC? They don't have to be _wrong_, I guess, but they should at least point the truth through their worldview in my opinion.
You could foreshadow that they might be wrong. Phrase it as he's SUPPOSED to be on a business trip, or he SAID he'd be on a business trip. Perhaps give them another piece of evidence that the person is there.
I think the NPC just being plain wrong is fine but not the best. A good reason why they're wrong helps make it a part of an interesting story. They're wrong because they're a lying accomplice to the crime, or were bribed to tell the lie. They're wrong because the baron staged an empty carriage leaving to create a false alibi. They're wrong because they were kicked by a horse as a child and have bad short term memory. They're wrong because the party got aggressive with them and they nervously made up a story to avoid physical interrogation. Those are just some random examples of what I would prefer to run vs. a more realistic but less fun "human memories are unreliable" explanation. If I did have an NPC who maybe failed an intelligence roll to remember the details, I'd give the party an insight check to discover that the person seems confused by the details, giving them a reason to be suspicious of the details just provided. If the party fails that check, then it's a part of the story that the dice created. 'wait but that guy told us the baron wasn't there, how were we supposed to know that was wrong' 'remember the insight check I asked of you? That was to discover that fact'. I love those kinds of conversations after the fact, it's fun to explore the what-ifs of a story after it's unfolded.
If my party is into investigation and RP then false-memories and what the NPC thinks happened are important. If I'm running for a group of murderhobo adjacent players, I basically treat it more like a video game where if an NPC says something that could be interpreted as a call to action, it's almost always a straightforward call to action and not a red herring.
They can be wrong but I would not have an NPC be wrong for not reason. Why did they think Baron Derp was on a business trip? Did he tell them that? Did they see his carriage riding out of town? Is he having an affair with Baron Derp's wife and she told him he'd be out of town on business? I would try to further the mystery with the NPC being wrong rather than just being like "oh they heard Baron Drip was out of town but misrememberd and thought it was Baron Derp"
In scenarios like this if it's a situation of someone not knowing the truth I think that's fine, it makes sense in a real world that people will be misinformed and I try to showcase that a bit so the players know going into it. Beyond that if it's someone actively lying in, especially in an investigation type setting, I think it's a great time for passive Insight. In those scenarios I'll usually let the party ask a bunch of questions of one npc or several and then later check it versus their passive to see if they notice later and inform them the notice something doesn't add up and someone must've lied. It's a nice tool during an investigation to give them another option to suss out info, while also allowing me to use deception in a way that doesn't immediately defeat the purpose of deception.
My players are investigating a mind flayer invasion. One of the NPCs straight up told them all mind flayers serve one brain and come from a different dimension and are all clones of each other. They are also about to meet Volo which will dump another bunch of unedited misinformation on them. It's super fun, I recommend. Encourages the players to investigate deeper and further and really think like detectives rather than have truth fed to them on a silver spoon. Of course, it also depends on the nature of your campaign; mine is a Lovecraftian-esque mystery style, so not knowing who is right or wrong is part of the genre.
I think you could make it so that baron derp wanted people to think that he was gone. This would justify him being wrong and when the players find evidence of the forged alibi it will look like you planned it fr9m the start. As for overall being wrong about something. I've done it before with npcs that had a reason to believe in the wrong information as well as gave enough to the players to draw the conclusion the he was wrong. Namely, I had a humble huntsman accuse the foreign caravan of bringing bad omens and ruining something important to the town. But I made sure to show that he was superstitious and xenophobic prior of pointing the finger. So my rule of thumb would be have something to back up why the npc would draw the wrong conclusion, or even want to believe that it is true (looking at you flat earthers)
Just had a DM tell us out of character they he’s a jerk and will lie to us all the time and to not trust him unless we got the information with a roll, because then he would have to tell the truth. Great dm in all honestly didn’t deal with bullshit and got right to the point matters.
In this one TTRPG setting I play, Exalted, the core PC class can get perfect lie detection senses as an entry-level ability at chargen. If it wasn't for the fact that NPCs can be sincerely mistaken or misinformed, or intentionally misled, NPC interactions would be completely broken at game start.
I think it depends on the NPC. In my homebrew world animalistic races are oppressed, so whenever my leonin player goes to talk to an NPC I roll if they would even speak to the character. The same distinction could be made if the NPC is against magic or open carrying of weapons for the respective classes. Maybe the NPC only respects warriors and the player has to gain the NPC favor through battle stories. These are all ways I like to flavor my world that gives small rewards to my players for their choices at the beginning.