Writing

[cmosier]

Even if I'm shot down twenty times for this opinion and it's deemed incorrect, nothing destroys my desire to role-play more than excessive skill rolls in a mundane atmosphere.

Sometimes it could be warranted. The reason for this has a lot to do with the other Topic on this derailed thread. Role Playing your stats. Perhaps I just need to understand what you consider excessive.

[Elusa]

2. When Abby succeeded with Byrun she didn't take it as "I know exactly what's going on." She continued to ask her uncomfortable Abby questions to follow up on her hunch.

Yeah, that's an excellent way to RP it. "Okay, I know something's wrong, now I need to figure out what."

[Lotus]

You can get the feeling from another’s behavior that something is wrong, such as when you’re talking to an impostor. Alternatively, you can get the feeling that someone is trustworthy.

You can tell that someone’s behavior is being influenced by an enchantment effect (by definition, a mind-affecting effect), even if that person isn’t aware of it.

You may use Sense Motive to detect that a hidden message is being transmitted via the Bluff skill.

These are all related to the honesty/dishonesty of the communication.

[Mournas]

Rules for Epic Skill Rolls. Seems Sense Motive isn't all about Detecting Honesty/Dishonesty
Guess that means I will use it as per the definition of Motive.
Sense Motive
The character can discern a target’s alignment and even detect surface thoughts.

Task DC
Discern partial alignment 60
Discern full alignment 80
Detect surface thoughts 100
Discern Partial Alignment
This use of the skill lets a character discern one component of a target’s alignment. When making the check, the character states whether he or she is trying to discern the law-chaos or good-evil component. A character can’t retry the check, and he or she can’t use this to discern more than one component of the alignment (but see below). The target must be visible and within 30 feet of the character.

Discern Full Alignment
This use of the skill lets a character determine both components of a target’s alignment. The character can’t retry the check. The target must be visible and within 30 feet of the character.

Detect Surface Thoughts
This lets a character read the surface thoughts of a single target (as the 3rd-round effect of the detect thoughts spell). There is no saving throw to resist this effect, though the target can use Bluff to disguise his or her surface thoughts (see the Bluff skill description), in which case this becomes an opposed check (any result lower than 100 automatically fails). The target must be visible and within 30 feet of the character.

[Lotus]

Why would one detect alignment? Probably because someone was assuming dishonesty of intent.

Why would one read surface thoughts? Probably because someone was assuming dishonesty of intent.

Just keep settin' 'em up. I'll keep knockin' 'em down.

[Mournas]

Fine you win! Deferring to my other post on this ...

Know what? Screw skills, totally pointless, and this thread ... I'm going to bed. *Rolls 61 on his Diplomacy Roll*

- the going to bed part.

[Laurk]

These are all related to the honesty/dishonesty of the communication.

I don't think that's true. Sometimes its more about what someone "didn't" say. That's not exactly dishonestly or honesty. You could call it evasive I suppose. People say one thing, but may leave something else unsaid which they are saying with their expression, furative glances, or body language. That witheld information is absolutly a valid reason to roll sense motive so long as you do so sparringly and when there is good reason. People emote to differant levels of detail. I cannot personally see their PCs acting in certain ways that I might look for in real life, and thats what the dice are there to represent in this platform.

The other things is, while I personally consider myself insightful, im not as insightful as Abby is. Her skill is higher than mine. So when someone throws out an emote, I may not catch what meaning they were hoping to convey in that emote. So I ask what insight Abby might have gained from it with her 42 roll for example, they can decide how much meaning they'd like to elaborate on. I figure if people didn't want others to be engaged by their emote, they'd not have emoted in the first place. However im always happy to withdrawl my inquiry if someone doesn't want to play that way, or feel ive overused this.

I do always try to use skills, even this one as respectfully as I can and with reserve so that im not reading into everything anyone says. Basically I save it for when "I" have a strong suspicion but lack the visual cues to support my hunch. Thanks for the vote of confidence Byrun and Alice.

As for Arden, I know he was rolling bluff checks just to tell me he was lying. Im more refering to those who might actually "want" to decieve Abby. The way I look at it is this: If "I" am suspicious enough to ask for a bluff check, ill ask you to roll it privatley and tell me what Abby sensed. If not, you succeeded (or else it was so obvious I didn't ask for a bluff). I "hate" getting OOC info that Abby doesn't know... so the moment you roll that bluff check, I've just gotten information I did "not" want. When OOC info isn't present, there simply isn't any reason to roll a public bluff check. Its just asking to be meta-gamed.

[Sypthe]

The other things is, while I personally consider myself insightful, im not as insightful as Abby is. Her skill is higher than mine. So when someone throws out an emote, I may not catch what meaning they were hoping to convey in that emote. So I ask what insight Abby might have gained from it with her 42 roll for example, they can decide how much meaning they'd like to elaborate on.

That's a really good idea. I had never thought of that. Thanks for sharing it!

[Elusa]

That's a really good idea. I had never thought of that. Thanks for sharing it!

When I ran my PnP campaigns, I would always do this for intelligence and wisdom checks. Some of them were not the brightest bulbs in the batch, so I let them roll when a puzzle stumped them. So yeah, rolls have their place in RP, although it's better to try RP first. I always had my playersattempt to solve it themselves before resorting to rolls.

[Sypthe]

When I ran my PnP campaigns, I would always do this for intelligence and wisdom checks. Some of them were not the brightest bulbs in the batch, so I let them roll when a puzzle stumped them. So yeah, rolls have their place in RP, although it's better to try RP first. I always had my playersattempt to solve it themselves before resorting to rolls.

Oh, I do it when I doubt my characters figure something out -- to check if it's not me 'putting intelligence' into them. But when I OOC don't get something, it's really smart to use SM.

[Mournas]

The other things is, while I personally consider myself insightful, im not as insightful as Abby is. Her skill is higher than mine. So when someone throws out an emote, I may not catch what meaning they were hoping to convey in that emote. So I ask what insight Abby might have gained from it with her 42 roll for example, they can decide how much meaning they'd like to elaborate on. I figure if people didn't want others to be engaged by their emote, they'd not have emoted in the first place. However im always happy to withdrawl my inquiry if someone doesn't want to play that way, or feel ive overused this.

This is exactly how I use the skill, especially if someone doesn't emote when they speak and I want to get a feel for their tone. Most people know Andelain has a high SM so I just ask them. Hell I even tell them to roll it for me if they have a D20 available and they would like to have a roll. This way it is all done stealth wise. After all it's called SENSE MOTIVE which means you are good at reading people's non verbal communication (Which if you didn't know, communication is mostly non verbal . . . I mean how the heck do you think you can tell someone is lying through the skill anyways?)

[Shadechild]

I honestly can't think of a single bad RPer on Sundren or anyone that I would not have a good time RPing with. And I think maybe most peeps feel the same? <3 to you all!!

[Fuzziebunny]

Yes, I do enjoy playing with everyone. I am not really sure what you are getting at unless maybe you feel the same way?

[greypawn]

It does not / is not meant to work on other PCs. People roll it. It doesn't matter.

bumping this for Michael