What bugs me is that when you realize how incredibly reluctant game writers are to have a character just flat out lie to you, you can see this coming really early on the first run. They’ll omit information or sidestep questions, but they won’t just fucking lie when it would make sense for them to do so.
I broke a player’s brain in college playing DND where an NPC just lied to her.
She’d asked where so-and-so was. NPC didn’t like her or her faction, so he just lied and said he’d taken up boxing. This isn’t an especially credible lie because so-and-so was a lightweight nerd. But she says okay and goes tearing up the local boxing clubs, and can’t find the guy.
She’s like “where is he?”
Me: “you don’t see him, and no one’s even heard of him.”
Her: “but the guy said he was here”
Me: “he did”
Her: “so where is he”
Me: “doesn’t look like he’s here”
Her: “but he said he was”
Me: “he did say that”
Her: “so why isn’t he here?”
This went on for a while until one of the other players got impatient and said “the guy who doesn’t like you maybe lied to you! Or was wrong! Can we move on please??”
Can’t you just find out it was a lie by noticing that what they said wasn’t true? Of course it could be that they were wrong but also if it turns out they were the baddie…
They also tend to spell out the way the character deceived you without lying anyway, so just flat out having a character tell you that another character lied wouldn’t be weird.
What bugs me is that when you realize how incredibly reluctant game writers are to have a character just flat out lie to you, you can see this coming really early on the first run. They’ll omit information or sidestep questions, but they won’t just fucking lie when it would make sense for them to do so.
I broke a player’s brain in college playing DND where an NPC just lied to her.
She’d asked where so-and-so was. NPC didn’t like her or her faction, so he just lied and said he’d taken up boxing. This isn’t an especially credible lie because so-and-so was a lightweight nerd. But she says okay and goes tearing up the local boxing clubs, and can’t find the guy.
She’s like “where is he?”
Me: “you don’t see him, and no one’s even heard of him.”
Her: “but the guy said he was here”
Me: “he did”
Her: “so where is he”
Me: “doesn’t look like he’s here”
Her: “but he said he was”
Me: “he did say that”
Her: “so why isn’t he here?”
This went on for a while until one of the other players got impatient and said “the guy who doesn’t like you maybe lied to you! Or was wrong! Can we move on please??”
Because it is hard to convey a lie through story, unless blatantly saying it was a lie afterwards.
Can’t you just find out it was a lie by noticing that what they said wasn’t true? Of course it could be that they were wrong but also if it turns out they were the baddie…
They also tend to spell out the way the character deceived you without lying anyway, so just flat out having a character tell you that another character lied wouldn’t be weird.
“For those who come after”?