Players characters evading direct questions

[Kardwill]

To be fair, the characters are kids. The players might be succesfully roleplaying kids. This kind of thinking does seem on point in that regard.

Well, the "then we'll hire people to torch the place and everybody inside, our parents included" plan B does not strike me as "successfully roleplaying kids"


As for the part where players are dodgy and refuse to give informations to NPCs (or, more generally, to take some risks by trusting an NPC or comitting to a dangerous line of action), I think it's a trained response to the unspoken "you're not allowed to be stupid" rule.

Quite often, I hear GMs saying stuff like "I won't kill a PC unless the player does a big mistake" or "Of course, if they do something stupid, they will suffer the consequences". And it's true that playing out the consequences of the player's decision is the base building block of RPGs. But it also means that as players, we learn that "being stupid/unwary/reckless" is something bad that will be "punished" by the GM. So we get wary. We want to play "right", so we overthink, we don't commit to dangerous plans, we distrust every NPC. We play in a cautious, boring way, because we don't want to wreck the game. Even when we get the fancy of trying something risky or outright stupid just because it's fun, we get blocked by the fact that the consequence of our actions may ruin the adventure for the other players.
And the less we know about the possible consequences of our actions, the more we play in a conservative, control-obsessed, cautious way.

I think GMs can encourage players to be more trusting and daring by being upfront with possible consequences ("If you do X, Y will probably happen. You still want to do it?"), and by not treating suboptimal and risky decisions as mistakes or bad play, but as narrative opportunities, so that a player doesn't fear a judgemental slap on the wrist because he had a conversation with the Big Bad. But it may not fit all playstyles and campaign moods.