Players characters evading direct questions

[gbaji]

That still doesn't explain why they don't give an answer though. You don't have to understand the significance of a question to answer it.

They did give an answer. They told the Fae about the werewolves in their building. Ok. After re-reading, it was the fomorians in the building, who were attacking the werewolves in the woods (I literlally have no clue about this setting, so whatever), and the are asking the Changlings for help (Are the Fae changelings? Or something else?). Were there werewolves, or representatvies thereof, in this gathering? If not, then why would they think that an attack on someone else would matter? Heck. They may have suspected that if they mentioned that the Fomorians were planning to attack the Werewoves, the folks at the court might have been like "That's great! They'll weaken themselves fighting", or something similar.

The point is that it doesn't matter what I thinik, or what I know about the setting. The point is that the players were the ones playing in your game, and they didn't think that information was significant. How or why doesn't matter. You assumed they would think to provide this information and use it to get help, and they didn't think it was information that would get them help.

You keep asking the quesiton: "Why do players give evasive answers?" I'm reasonably sure your players could post a counter question: "Why do GMs play their NPCs in such an evasive and obtuse way?". At the end of the day, the players intent was to go to the court and get help with the Fomorians. They had a problem. They came up with a solution to that problem. You need to facilitate that process, not hinder it. You lambast your players for not providing the clue "they are planning an attack on the woods", but don't seem to have spent any effort having any NPC actually try to dig this out of them. Instead, you ask one question, they give the same answer, and you have the NPCs say "nope", and we move on.

You have information your players do not. You know the secret code that will get the Fae to help. You know that the info they are providing isn't sufficent, but some other info they have will. You need to guide the players to giving the Fae that info.

If I ask you what you had for dinner last night, you should be able to answer me even if you don't know why I should care. You might have a reason to lie or be evasive or tell me to mind my own business of course, but simply not understanding why I am asking in no way prevents you from answering.

That's not an equivalent question though. Your actual question was much more broad and open ended. It's closer to "Did you have dinner last night?", but if I just say "yes, I did", you shut down the rest of the conversation because you expected me to tell you what I ate, what I had for dessert, the fact that I went to a show afterwards, etc. Most people would expect a back and forth. You ask if I ate. I say yes. You ask me what I had for dinner. Then I tell you. You maybe ask if there was dessert with that. Then I tell you about dessert. You ask if there was anything else going on. I tell you that we went out for a show. You ask what show. I provide you details about the show. And now we've arrived at the information you maybe wanted (that I went to a show, and what it was).

The dialogue is supposed to be a back and forth process, where each side bounces off each other as information is shared. But you seem to be playing your NPCs like they are CRPG objects, standing motionless in a field, waiting for someone to say the right trigger phrase to them, but otherwise doing nothing useful. As a GM, you need to be proactive with this kind of thing. Making the players play 20 questions is not fun for them. When it becomes obvious that they are not providing the "correct information" right off the bat, you need to have your NPCs dig a little.

I am giving Brian exactly what I thought he was asking.

Did he actually ask you to make him roll a die to determine this? Or did he just say he didn't want to RP out the conversation with the statue?

If he had RP'd the conversation, would you have given him the information without requiring a roll? If yes. Then if he says he doesn't want to RP, then just assume his character talks to the statue, and the statue provides the information. Storyboard it out: "Ok Brian. You talk to the statue for a while. It tells you all about what it's like being a stone statue, standing motionless for eternity, but eventually you are able to get it to tell you that there's a trap door and a button hidden on its back that opens it".

Done. Move on.

Saying "I don't want to RP a scene talking to a stone statue" does not mean "I want to roll dice instead". It literally means "I don't want to spend table time, coming up with long tedious dialogue with a freaking rock. Can we just assume I cast the spell and I get the information and we move on?".

You need to know what your player's intentions/desires are out of any given action. Not just the literal words that come out of their mouths. And when in doubt: ASK!

I decided to oblige him and give him what he wanted, letting him resolve the social encounter with a dice roll rather than in character dialogue.

Again. Why? It's a nothing question/answer. Not worth bothering with RP (unless the player really wants to, of course). Just give him the information. He's already having to spend a spell because the rogue failed the search roll, don't punish him further by requiring an additional die roll on top of the spell slot. Just call the spell casting the cost of failing the initial search and move on.

I presume that you have some sort of social dice mechanic in your game of choice, right? Charisma checks? Persuasion, diplomacy, gather information, etc.? Right? There is some mechanical way to convince people to do what you want?

Are you telling me that in your game, language difficulties completely supersede these mechanics?

Huh? It's not about what supersedes anything. It's whether the thing being asked would require a social roll in the first place. I don't require die rolls for normal things people might ask other people, for which there should be no reason not to get an honest answer (actually, I sometimes do, but it's often perfunctory and only done because we play in a skill based game, so I'm giving them a chance to get a skill check). What world do you live in? The one I live in, it takes no special skill check to ask someone for directions and expect to get them in return. Or (to follow someone else's example), ask where the toilet is and get an answer. Or... well... ask just about any normal "do you know where/what <something nearby> is?".

The only considerations here are "can they communicate?" (that's where the language/spell comes in), and "does the other person/statue/whatever know the information?" (and I suppose "Does the other party have a reason to lie or conceal this information?"). If the answer to the first two is "yes", (and the third is "no") then I provide the information to the party. There is zero value to dragging this out, or blocking the party by obscuring it behind a skill roll. Again. If the players want to RP this out, I will do that. But if they don't, I wont make them and I wont punish them for that either.

You seem to have turned this into "You must enter into a RP session with the GM *or* make a skill roll". Which, whether intended or not, strongly comes of to the player like the GM "making me jump through hoops".

The spell specifically states that the illusion is free-willed and that the caster cannot control it directly. It states that when the spell is cast, the illusionist decides the general details of its personality and appearance, including its allegiance and motivation.

The word "general" in there is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

Exactly what does general mean? Well, that's up to the GM.

And I disagree 100% This is a free willed creation of the PC (and the presonality is defined by the PC). That means that it should be under the control of the same player who is running that PC. In the exact same way I'd expect a PCs familiar or animal companion to also be controlled by the player. I'm frankly baffled that you would do it the other way around.

You're literally creating more work for yourself and the only possible thing you can accompish with it is to create conflict between you and your players every time you think the creation should do one thing and they think it should do something different. Just... don't do that.

I think modern editions of D&D actually support this style of play. I know in older editions players would try and use air-tight contractual language for spells, particularly Wish and Magic Mouth, but I am pretty sure such things are no longer allowed by either the letter or the spirit of the rules.

You have completely missed the point of my counter point. I don't care about the history of spellcasting and "written contracts" here. I'm talking about the effect of the GM engaging in the kinds of semantic games you are playing. If the only way you would allow Bob's illusion to draw the monsters attacks instead of cower from them, was for Bob to have previously stated exactly what his illusion would do if a monster showed up, then you are requiring Bob to write a contract like description of the spell effects.

Assuming no one actually wants that, the "solution" is to just let the player decide how their illusion behaves. If the GMs ruling is that "anything not excplicitly spelled out will be controlled by me", then the only way the player can ensure that their illusion does what they want is to write a contract. So... Don't do that.

Then you need to be making sure they learn it before they need it, no?

Because playing with the politics of the fae, the balance in the individual between the courts*, loyalty to house, and how contact with the mortal world causes Banality is kinda the point of playing Changeling.

This was why one of my earlier suggestions for handling this (and how I likeliy would have done things) would be to create a "helpful NPC". Someone who is there to bring them to the court, make introductions, provide helpful information, background, suggestions, etc. If the actual situation is "the PCs don't know anything about these people except what they have heard in fairy tales", having some means to provide more information would be helpful. Just throwing them into the environment and asking "what you do you?" is very unhelpful. And said NPC can act as the GMs tool to "give the players hints as to how to handle this otherwise unfamiliar social setting". Also, the GM could literally have a social scene ahead of the court scene where the whole "what are you trying to do, and how are you trying to do it" bit could be played out, and the NPC could straight up tell them "They're not going to help you unless there's a threat to one of their territories. So you should tell them about that information you got from the werewolf you questioned".

Again. Give them the opportunity to come up with this themselves, but if they don't, then just give it to them. Using an NPC like this gives you an "in game" way to do this (if you're adverse to dropping out of character), and can also be used to QnA the PCs (like "Ok, You guys don't want to tell them the info you learned? Why not?"). You can also move the dialogue in that direction by using an NPC the party trusts, whom they might share information with (like say the planned attack) before hand, where they might not volunteer that info to strangers at the court. Basically, you are giving the players a stepping stone to use here, instead of expecting them to immediately leap to the top of a wall.

The best way to know what someone else is thinking is to ask.
"What are you trying to do?" is a GM standard. Often you should be judging a player's intent more than what he states his actions are.

Yup. Ask the players what their intentions are, and how they plan to achieve those goals

As you say: Don't just ask "what do you do/say?". First ask "what are you trying to do?". Then ask "How are you going to try to do that?". Now, you can RP out the encounters, and the players can ask questions, provide answers, etc.

The point is that you can spot flaws in the players plan early in the process by asking these questions. And, assuming those flaws are things their characters might reasonably know are flaws, you can tell them "you are pretty sure this wont work because <game setting reasons>, but trying <alternative> might work" (maybe include an easy lore/knowledge check in there). In this case, if (before playing out the scene) Talakeal had asked his players what they wanted and then asked "how are you going to do this?", he would have realized that they didn't intend to tell the Fae about the planned attack on Muir Woods, and made a decision early on how to handle that. At the very least, he could have asked them why they didn't intend to share that information (and gotten his answer at the beginning instead of after the session). And even if his decision was to not clue them in that the info about the attack might help them get what they want, and he was just going to let them fail, that would have at least saved a boatload of time and frustration.

Honestly? I would have made it like blatantly obvious what the issue was. Probably would have RP'd out a couple of the encounters, and then storyboarded the rest like "Ok. Well, since you have decided not to tell them about the attack on the woods, they are unwilling to provide any assisance with the matter of the Fomorians. Are there any other issues you wish to discuss? If not, then the rest of the evening continues uneventfully, and you return to your homes later that night". And now we get on with the game. Don't drag out social encounters once it's obvious that the PCs are getting nothing out of it. Move the game on.


I guess my broader point is that if you know what the players are doing is dumb, instead of just wondering "why are they doing this dumb thing?" but otherwise just letting them continue doing it, maybe stop the session and ask them? A heck of a lot of at-table problems can be headed off this way. At the very least, you will significantly reduce the number of after-sesison arguments where the players think something should have been one way, and you are saying it is another. You can literally tell them, right then, that your interpretation of things is different than theirs and resolve that before things get to far into the weeds.

There is nothing at all wrong with "breaking character" when running a game, to make sure that the players themsleves are on the same/correct page. In fact, I'd argue you should do this early and often the moment any sort of warning sign comes along.