Players characters evading direct questions

[KorvinStarmast]

I'm going to try to cover some general stuff, without getting into too many details.

Impressive post. I got a few things out of this. (And yes, Covey is right).

My weekly group has fluctuated between 3 and 6 players + the GM over the years, but it's more usually 4 players + GM, and we rotate GMs and games.

About how it works for us.

I I am trying to help you.

As Gandalf said to Bilbo.

In my experience, generally speaking its either down to knowledge or trust. The PCs don't know the NPC well enough to divulge potentially important information, the PCs don't trust the NPC with said information, the players don't know if the information will be useful, the players don't trust the DM to not shaft them, etc etc.

This basic point has been raised on each page of this thread, but it is nice to see it summarized among the longer posts.

A great example was last Wednesday when five priests walked into the room where we had just fought multiple demons and an archmage. I had control of an NPC from the area who was now allied with us, and I explicitly asked as that NPC "Do I recognize any of these priests?" The DM (my brother) had me roll for that, and the roll wasn't good.
"No, you don't recognize any of them."

We, the party, ended up attacking the priests who were actually there looking to help anyone who might have been hurt in the horrific battle which they had heard but had not seen.

The priests were quite vocal in their "we are not your enemy" protests as the arrows sank into their flesh. The various players eventually backed off and my warlock (and the bard) began healing them. We eventually got them to join our side/ally with us against the Usurper...but we had nearly killed all five of them.

I still think that the DM erred in forcing that roll....but it worked out and made for an interesting session along the lines of the "look at the disaster we almost created" flavor. Sometimes, our errors make for an interesting session. We, as a party, messed up by not making more of an effort to parley before the arrows flew. And the DM let us make that mistake, which IMO is good DMing.

Okay, so let's start with kyoryu's rule. People make reasonable decisions based on their goals and knowledge.

While in most cases that is true, the "Loonie" (From the Real Man, Role Player, Loonie, Munchkin model) will often make different decisions for reasons other than that.

You should ask yourself why they act this way. It's likely something to do with past experiences and learning from them.

Indeed.

The point is to search for intent, with the understanding that table communication is low-bandwidth and lossy compared to what's "actually happening".

IIRC, there is a well worn GM tool that goes along the lines of "tell me your intentions and approach first" ... which works in a lot of different RPG games.
I've found that model very helpful when players are scrambling a bit for telling me what they are doing or attempting.

If what you're doing isn't working, do something different.

I had to change how I packaged some of the in world info for my Salt Marsh players because I was running into engagement issues that resulted in a lot of dropped info and, as you say, High Loss in communication.
The player who helped me got me headed in the right direction by getting me to see how we all had different mental maps of the imaginary world ...