"My Party don't realise NPCs can lie"

[@elaexplorer]

Well, obviously, Red Herring was named that to trick them into thinking he was a red herring, so that's clearly not a red herring.

[@BlankKnightt]

...Correct, he's a trout...

[@frostbite0707]

He owns a bass pro shop. His real name is Blue but after his brother red died, he changed his name and took over his brother's shop as well. He now has a franchise of bass pro shops.

[@faefolkarts]

that just sounds like that one scene in the Series of Unfortunate Events books

[@QuadraticPerplexity]

💡NPC name: "Hareng Rouge"

[@rebornwoshua78]

they asked red herring if he was a red herring and he said no

[@Konpekikaminari]

Jimmy Stabbington _not_ being a hypothetical sent me

[@DaTimmeh]

Knowing it was coming and being entirely unprepared for it are not mutually exclusive, ive found.

[@filipwolffs]

I imagine the DM was trying to figure out just how unsubtle they have to be before the party catches on.

[@grmpf]

And then there's the extra layer of the redditor obviously lying about this as well.

[@chosenuwu]

fckin hilarious lolol

[@dootdoot3065]

​@@grmpf Honestly I'd give the guy a pass even if he's lying. This post gave me a good laugh.

[@Fantasmaa9]

Either a party thinks a.) No NPCs can lie or b.) Every NPC is lying at all times.

[@Amayawolf_01]

Mine is relatively balanced I think. For the most part we tend to trust NPCs, but there are times where someone is a little suspicious and we try to insight check them. ...Too bad our non-combat rolls are usually pretty low, so while we as players think something is up, our characters totally believe that the suspicious NPC isn't about to lead us into a trap

[@Fantasmaa9]

@@Amayawolf_01 Me and the bois are always like "mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm can I insight-" (I think it's because we don't trust people irl LMAO)

[@DaTimmeh]

​@@Fantasmaa9I think thats also great for story telling. Funny moments like not trusting a clearly friendly old farmer cuz of a low roll.

[@Amy_the_Lizard]

​@@Amayawolf_01 Huh. Mine so far have done terrible on combat rolls, but great on role-play rolls (which is how the Ranger with a Charisma of 9 managed to recruit 6 NPCs to the party that were all higher level than the party themselves.) The exception was when I had them do an Arcana check to see if they knew what Mindflayers were (except the Ranger, who grew up in the Underdark and has Aberrations as a Favored Enemy, so I ruled she already knew,) and they all failed spectacularly, and everyone except somehow the Barbarian when they did Medicine checks on the Monk when he came back injured after escaping from a bunch of bandits (that all looked like generic Isekai protagonists because I thought it'd be funny...)

[@Fantasmaa9]

@@DaTimmeh We had (one) well that had a corpse in it in CoS and now we think EVERY well in ANY campaign is suspicious and evil lol

[@genericuser984]

every good DnD party leaves their braincells at the door along with their shoes

[@MemoristCed]

Or you have that one player who's like, "Nah, this is too obvious; the solution is clearly something else." They're the one who gathered up everyone else's discarded brain cells and has temporarily contracted some form of paranoid schizophrenia as a result of bashing all those random cells together like a toddler with a pair of cymbals. No matter how straightforward you make the whole thing, they will ALWAYS suspect the alleged victim of the crime, the helpful NPC you created as a stopgap to move the plot along, or cobble together some grand conspiracy theory involving feeding the life energy of a famous and popular hero to an evil god to bring about the chronopocalypse. ...I swear that there is no reason WHATSOEVER I'm being so specific about those errors in judgment and do not know ANYONE who has done that in my RP experience. Especially not me. I would never, and it is absolutely not connected with why I am a Forever DM.

[@Astro-the-gamer]

Oh that’s oddly specific but you said it wasn’t real so idk@@MemoristCed

[@MxFlyingPhoenix]

Duh Yeah

[@Madditude]

We play in public, thus with shoes on, so where'd my braincells go?

[@joshuagross3151]

You can't expect me to believe they even got the door open.

[@Alkavi_Ch]

I'd give Jimmies Stabin' Cabin a 5/5, but I was stabbed and killed during my stay. 4/5, Only recommend for enthusiasts

[@blookyboy]

I'm giving it 2 stars. nice place, lots of blood decor, but when I asked them when the stabbing is happening, they kicked me out. maybe it was the 17 stab wounds I already had everywhere, but i think they were just being rude.

[@BirdieSketches]

@@blookyboy Well, it is discourteous to go to Jimmies Stabin' Cabin with stabs from rival stabbing franchises. It's like walking into a McDonald's with food from Burger King. But as for the cabin itself, I'd give it a 5/5! They were very enthusiastic and made sure to sterilize the knife before hand.

[@LadyVineXIII]

So you wanted to be stabbed and not killed. Fair enough.

[@DrawciaGleam02]

Are we sure the party are the only stupid people in this campaign???

[@ColonelSandersLite]

2 out of 5. Took the wife to Jimmie's stabin' cabin for our anniversary. She survived. Now I'm out what I paid the life insurance company *and* had to pay the local cleric for healing.

[@SuperZez]

"Help, I'm being stabbed!" ...Well clearly they decided _he_ was lying...

[@matthewmac5787]

Ah but he only said he is being stabbed! He never mentions *who* is stabbing him, so clearly someone is responsible for stabbing this poor man but whom? *(STAB!)*

[@thebiolibrary5572]

Naw, two separate truths. Somebody was stabbing them, but it wasn't Stabbin' Jimmy, probably somebody else hiding in the cabin and attacking while Jimmy doesn't see.

[@badroad1000]

@@thebiolibrary5572 This is how the Invisible Stabber got added to the Monster Manual.

[@kokutoryuu8312]

Must have been a misunderstanding.

[@AdriansArt]

Jimmy was pulling the knife out or trying to stop the bleeding, yes.

[@Mark73]

There was a story (I think it was on Crispy's Tavern) about a party looking for a group of bandits. They find said bandits but don't realize that the people that they've found are the bandits. They question the bandits and when the DM (and therefore the bandits) realizes that they are buying the bandits' story, the bandits say "yeah, we know where the bandits are" and lead them into a cave and tell them that the bandits are across a rope bridge. The party starts to cross it, and the bandits cut the bridge. When the DM points out that the people they met were the bandits, the party gets pissed and accuse the DM of making that up on the spot because the bandits didn't immediately attack them, not understanding that they're a heavily armed and armored adventuring party and the bandits actually have a sense of self preservation.

[@lizardguyNA]

Years of video games have told us collectively that bandits will absolutely attack anyone no matter how much Dragonbone armor they're in or what the name of that glowing blade they're carrying is. So I can understand the reaction to an actually smart Bandit group.

[@oinkytheink1228]

@@lizardguyNAwell some bandits can have brain cells if they have survived all this time

[@shieldgenerator7]

how to survive an encounter with an adventuring party: dont like prey

[@oinkytheink1228]

@@shieldgenerator7 or trust random people encamped in the middle of no where or ambush spots

[@cara-seyun]

“Why they no act like Skyrim npcs!”

[@Valdrius]

To be fair, if you're the well known owner of the obviously advertised shiv shack, why would you need be doing secret stabbing elsewhere and hiding it?

[@ZacSpeaksGiant]

The perfect crime

[@Youaveragecountryhumansfan]

Good point

[@gimok2k5]

Because he's using the GOOD knives for the secret stabbing, where as the other one is just business where people pay to get a cheap butterknife into their back. Like accupuncture, except it cures you of the ailment "being alive".

[@saparapatepete]

maybe he was being sarcastic XD

[@jfacum24]

imo, If you go to a place called "The stabbin cabin", that clearly advertises you WILL get stabbed and you GET STABBED, you have NO RIGHT to complain.

[@mathismohr1356]

We play Call of Cthulhu.. and I managed to have the NPC with a small tentacle growing out of his face convince the party that he has not seen anything unusual around.

[@sacrificiallamb4568]

Where's the tentacle?

[@thisisausername9356]

I mean to be fair I know very little about Call of Cthulhu but aren't hallucinations a thing? They might have just guessed they were going insane

[@tiggyvolts9076]

Sounds like a trustworthy fellow

[@mathismohr1356]

@@tiggyvolts9076 He was. The entire cult trusted him to keep his mouth shut.

[@X-SPONGED]

You rolled a deception check on your DnD party

[@Slimey_alien89]

This is the definition of the “that sign won’t stop me because I can’t read” meme

[@will6671]

I've met players, not my ussuals tho, who would say this even if the "sign" was a cannibal totem made from human remains

[@msf2399]

Listen. LISTEN. At least you didn’t say, “I’m running a mystery/investigation campaign,” tell them to show up prepared to investigate a mystery, present the mystery to them, have everyone seem really excited about the mystery, and have half your party get really annoyed after talking to 3 different NPCs and finding out none of them had the full answer to what was going on. MY FRIENDS, IF *THEY* KNEW WHAT WAS CAUSING THIS PROBLEM, *THEY* WOULD’VE FIXED IT ALREADY!

[@eugenielegrand8590]

My party is currently playing an investigation/mystery campaign. we are all playing low INT characters who just sort of stumble into things. We are having a lot of fun, but I am feeling a bit bad for our GM.

[@darkdruidsvale]

@@eugenielegrand8590 out of curiosity is this a "scooby doo" type of campaign?

[@eugenielegrand8590]

@@darkdruidsvale no. It wasn't supposed to be. But I asked my GM and she says it might fit.

[@melissabennett6571]

I had a party member leave in a rage during a mystery campaign. He had built a good character with high charisma so thought the NPCs would immediately solve the mystery for him upon him asking real nice. Imagine that working in a regular campaign. Level one adventurer goes up the to main boss and goes “excuse me sir but I need to kill you” and the big bad goes “wow. What high charisma. Well I’m convinced.” And explodes on the spot.

[@rmartinson19]

Reminds me of a party from a campaign a friend of mine ran. They were all playing "good" characters, but lacked all sense of proportion in how they responded to minor inconveniences. During their first big questline, they flat out murdered a crotchety old farmer because he was rude and unhelpful, then they murdered his sons for trying to save their father, then murdered the village militia when they came to fight the strangers killing and looting at the edge of their village. The party continued on their merry way, murdering, robbing and looting people for the pettiest of reasons everywhere they went. Eventually, they made it to a large city, where the local Adventurers Guild was packed full of adventurers there to hear about a massive bounty on a gang of vicious outlaws terrorizing the countryside. They joined up and took the quest to hunt down these vile miscreants, only to realize after the third leg of the investigation quest that the outlaws they were hunting were themselves. Somehow, the players were baffled and angry at this development, insisting that they were "the good guys". It wasn't until my friend gave them a detailed (and surprisingly long) list of all the horrendous crimes they'd committed and all the inane and ridiculously small reasons they'd committed them for that it dawned on them. At that point, he had them all switch their alignments to Chaotic or Neutral Evil, and they continued the campaigns as the villains of their region. Ironically, they had way more fun being intentionally villainous than they did when they still thought they were somehow good.

[@niyebe6406]

Always nice when a party can sit down and realize they're the bad guys and then actually work with the DM to pivot to a villain campaign.

[@brentchance1589]

"Are we the baddies???" DM: YES!!!

[@johnyshadow]

@@brentchance1589 Beat me to the quote. xD But seriously, great that it worked out both for the party and the DM.

[@thereseemstobeenanerror1219]

This is actually fascinating. How is it possible for people to be so blind about their villainous behavior?

[@SproingBoing]

​​@@thereseemstobeenanerror1219 My running theory is that in most games, typically RPGs, you *_are_* the good guy no matter what. Kinda like how LoZ's Link is the designated hero but he does some questionable stuff that would be a crime in any other setting, like breaking clay pots for pocket change or harassing the local chickens Edit: To clarify, it probably started off with them being set up as the good guys but they might not have grasped that their actions would have consequences down the line

[@CamBosma]

My players dont realize that npcs can tell what they THINK is the truth but can be wrong.

[@voland6846]

I sometimes explicitly remind my players with something along the lines "this is a priest of the local psychopomp deity telling you how she _thinks_ our shared fictional universe functions, *not* your DM telling you how that universe _actually_ functions", to combat this exact tendency.

[@alexisharrington7621]

Oh my gosh this. Introduced an NPC who had run into the missing mentor of our sorcerer and had mistaken said mentor for a prostitute that the NPC’s son had hired for his birthday. The sorcerer’s PC got so confused and mad that he stopped the game and demanded to know why I changed his backstory and I had to stare at him and say: “[NPC] doesn’t know who your mentor is. He just saw a woman leaving his son’s room after his birthday party and assumed who she was. Can we continue?” They really do leave brains at the door

[@BionicKing]

My play group does the opposite. They fully question everything an NPC says and how much information they have. But if the *players* notice a coincidence, it's now a solid and well-established fact that those two events are connected. Even if the NPCs seem to believe they aren't related, the players will go, "Silly NPC for not making the obvious connection."

[@calebowens693]

I have this amusement with NPC's who are really bad at their jobs. Bank security guards, mortuary assistants, grocery store self-stockers, or basically any line of work I have a few NPCs who know what they're doing... but a large number where the players wonder how the NPC wasn't fired a long time ago. Basically, because of this, my parties know that a fair portion of those they talk to will likely be sort of dumb.

[@DavidBarkland]

In my current campaign, my party has a very funny take on this - one player who plays as a synthetic (this being a sci-fi campaign) refuses to believe that NPCs would just be wrong on something that can be easily googled and thus they must be lying, one believes NPCs are always dumb but usually honest, and the third plays a character who literally has the descriptor "paranoid" and thinks _everyone_ is out to get them regardless XD

[@BenKimComics]

Our party: Bleeding villager in the burning town: "Help! I'm bleeding and our town is being burned." My party members: "I would like an insight check."

[@oinkytheink1228]

Insight into the raiders obviously

[@Cheerybelle]

**rolls** "18." "You notice that the villager is actually unharmed and has a shortblade of the finest steel poorly concealed behind their back as well as leather armor beneath their clothes. Taking another look, their face looks familiar..." "My gods, this is renowned bandit Ima Stabyu in disguise!" "Roll initiative!"

[@oinkytheink1228]

@@Cheerybelle history check: 14 you remember Ima Stabu was a known con artist who would ask adventurers for coin faking a injury until he found his father called Mr. Stab, the leader of a group bandits in a bandit camp near a border. He was dying from his wounds from raiding an armed caravan and elected Ima Stabu for the leader due to his speciality in disguise and conning.

[@ReddwarfIV]

Why is he bleeding when the danger is fire?

[@clutterbot7279]

@@ReddwarfIVinjury from collapsing burning buildings? Or raiders that use both weapons and set fires, any number of possible issues really…

[@StarboyXL9]

The only crime committed here is on the DM's account. If your players are this gullible you are legally required to take hilarious advantage of them and post more stories of their shenanigans for the Internet's entertainment. It's the Law.

[@acer8123]

You had me in the first half, but I completely agree with this solution

[@gogetablue942]

But the DM said the party didn't see this smh

[@koykun3979]

a friend who is DMing asked me to play the role of the BBEG using a character sheet. I created a Warlock 3/Sorcerer 2, opting for Pact of the Chain and Voice of the Chain Master. Currently, my familiar is accompanying the party, and they believe I am roleplaying as a benevolent celestial guiding them towards greatness, convinced it is their destiny because I said so I participate in their sessions as the raven, giving my opinion and suggesting a course of action. I also have my personal session with the DM to decide what the villain is doing. long story short: the party is pretty much fucked

[@Be_kind_and_use_your_brain_uwu]

​@koykun3979 this sounds really interesting honestly 😀

[@Aetius_of_Astora]

@koykun3979 Ah another instance of people ignoring the advice of "Don’t automatically assume the mysterious voice trying to guide you is god"

[@ethanfrantz4312]

Jimmys stabbin cabin sounds like a funny idea lol “Jimmys stabbin cabin was not a hypothetical” *w h a t*

[@Violence-JoséRicardo]

HOW GULLIBLE ARE THEY

[@WeirdWimp]

@@Violence-JoséRicardoNOT GULLIBLE JUST PLAIN UNAWARE

[@soup8315]

If your dm puts in a character named red herring, they are not trying to use reverse psychology to get you off their trail. They are trying to make a point.

[@PikachuLittle]

That’s exactly what a DM using reverse psychology would say!

[@soup8315]

@@PikachuLittle clearly, sir, you have several points in insight, (which you use at all times[even when the answer is completely obvious {and which you are completely hopeless without}]) impressive.

[@mawillix2018]

@soup8315 My eyes immediately looked for the cleave cost.

[@marcar9marcar972]

@@soup8315I mean as a DM, Red Herring is a good name for murderer, espin the Victorian era

[@slvaltva1392]

You can teach your players npc lie just alright, a few betrayals here and there. But then you'll have to face them not trusting any random npc that you sent them for exposition, questioning every word they heard and discussing it for half an hour

[@frantisekvrana3902]

The simplest way would be to have two NPCs accuse each other of a murder. Neither of them did it. It was someone the two don't even know (but the victim did), they just have a feud and would like to get rid of each other.

[@Keira_Blackstone]

I played a LARP event once where one of the story runners pretended to be playing a new PC on an event someone else was running, but he was actually an npc assassin there to kill the person they were hired to protect. seems like a brilliant plot point for a tabletop group, but the effect on the game was disastrous and eventually led to the death of the entire years-long campaign, since from that point forward nobody would tell any new pc what we our mission was or give them any party treasure or resources, and would often confiscate their weapons at critical moments. a certain level of metagamed trust has to exist for roleplaying games to function, and DMs abuse that at their own peril.

[@Tjalve70]

@@Keira_Blackstone I read about an 1st ed D&D campaign, where the players felt that their characters had become so powerful that the DM had no chance to kill them. And they openly bragged about this. So the DM got another one of his friends to create a PC in that campaign. Low level half-orc assassin. The new PC was being ridiculed, and basically used as a henchman and mule. And then the night came, and he was tasked to be watch, while the other characters were sleeping. I don't know 1st ed rules about assassins. But apparently the victims get a saving throw vs Death or something. Which they all failed. That new player only did play that one session.

[@SageofStars]

Because they thought you were referencing A Pup Named Scooby Doo, that's how why they followed Red Herring, because he MIGHT have done it this time.

[@maxjpz]

Ok Fred.

[@0BucketMask0]

Well, that's a deep cut from my childhood

[@anthonyzeedyk406]

IIRC, Red Herring was the villain exactly one time.

[@SageofStars]

@@anthonyzeedyk406 Indeed, and it was during an episode where Fred agreed NOT to accuse him...to be fair, it wasn't a crime exactly, given he'd swiped his...older female relative, I can't remember which,'s bike so he could spruce it up as a surprise for her.

[@anthonyzeedyk406]

@@SageofStars so not even a villain, just the culprit.

[@ninjia7347]

"Hey, a plane is writing gullible in the sky, in the 1500s".

[@SuperZez]

Skywrite probably!

[@Lunaxire]

Fun fact (yes, I actually am serious): The ancient Egyptians had a fully functional model plane! They made a model, and despite looking like it could never fly, they threw it, and it did! However, they had to debate what it was for a long time because the original had lost its rutter, which they figured out later. LOL It looks like a wide mouth fish!

[@bevsesilmwars3980]

​​@@Lunaxire Ugh, why did you have to bring that up/sarcastic (I get this is just continuing the joke btw) But I can see some conspiracy theorists picking that up and tieing it in with the whole aliens build the pyramids and the inka(i think? Might be the maya) had planes, because birdstatues/serious But luckily conspiracy theorists only write in letters and books, as everything on the internet is true/joke Also all Greek statues were shining white marmor even before the rise of the roman empire and Sam and Dean Winchester are real people (I just realized most people probably don't know this, but most Ancient Greek statues were bronze, the marmor ones are roman copies, and also most things, including temples, were in fact colourfully painted)

[@crypticmedicine]

​@@bevsesilmwars3980 I feel the sudden urge to chime in that some of the most frustrating misconceptions that are still pervasive in the social sciences are based on centuries-old political theories (Hobbes and Rousseau come to mind...) and cultural myths (the Fall/Triumph of Man, modern "primatives") preserved via the legacy of colonialism and then repackaged into the utilitarian framework of 19th century science as it shifted from a philosophical mode into a technological one. This is fairly well known, but no one wants to talk about it. A lot of those problems literally helped cause the "Ancient Aliens" phenomenon (anthropological observations in the 60s contradicted the initially established narrative of human history, and a few con artists said "must be aliens!" and made a lot of money), so it's embarrassing to admit. And yet, to correct the record is sometimes presented as playing right into the conspiracy theorists' hands -- which is itself part of larger psychological myths about human decision making, which feeds into a sense of "protect them from themselves" and "don't question the discipline or it won't work anymore" paternalism which, you guessed it, lead to more conspiracies about what "they" might be hiding (which is less "aliens!" and more conflicts of interest interspersed with massive egos). Scientists and academics are just as political as everyone else, and we need to start accepting that some laypeople _will_ question our motives, and we are not _above_ that criticism...OK, getting off the soap box 😂

[@JBirdBobbyJ]

Bro you had me at "plane". I'm looking up immediately even if we're in the void of space.

[@violetcwest]

I have the opposite problem when it comes to npc’s and being honest, I could have an npc be the most honest person in the entire campaign and my fiancé will just “nope, they’re lying!” I’ve had to pause everything before and point blank tell him, “not everyone is a liar, you can trust this person. Please trust this person before I have to derail everything to get you out of the clear and obvious trap the BBEG is trying to walk you right into, and this guy is the only one who can hand hold you out of it.” He walked into the trap. I spent four irl days (aka multiple sessions several hours long, four days worth of time) trying to help the party break him out. Because they were not prepared for the prison break and the singular person who would be the most helpful was the one they were breaking out. He has since sworn he won’t do that again. I now have to give heads up “this person is guaranteed being honest,” or “this person is guaranteed trustworthy.” I don’t want to do that again.

[@goncalocarneiro3043]

You need to give all good NPCs a yellow duct tape bandana or something videogame style so the players know you're supposed to interact with them.

[@KyrieFortune]

My three party companions decided to spend TWO HOURS interrogating a halfling family even after me, a Paladin, got a very good roll and understood they were nice people who got in the wrong place at the wrong time. The DM understandably interrupted that campaign, I was the only player who wasn't playing horribly.

[@wlfecipse5751]

✨️ *t r u s t* *I s s u e s* ✨️

[@gratuitouslurking8610]

They say insight shoudln't replace spells like Deduce Motive but goddamn some people need that neon sign level of attention.

[@jacktaylor6253]

And this is what insight checks are for 😂

[@lazy2335]

Damn. I got the complete opposite situation. My players are so paranoid they no longer believe npcs tell the truth. I once had a blacksmith tell my players the price of a sword. My players proceed to roll intimadation and ask "is it really" They roll low, since it was the barb who rolled rather then the bard. even with the intimidation prof they were 1 off the dc. The black smith responds calmly by saying. "Who knows" feeling insulted by the accusation and failed intimation. The whole party is not very happy to say the least. Still not sure if dnd can be won, but sure felt victorious at the mess I created

[@PikachuLittle]

I want to say that is the barbarian’s attempt at haggling, but it’s funnier to assume that the barbarian doesn’t understand how capitalism works

[@jackalenterprisesofohio]

If that happens again, you need to have the blacksmith/shop owner/whoever bring out a full blown "powerpoint" presentation of the cost margins and overhead of that one specifc item.

[@blookyboy]

I'm just shocked that they would advertise a place to die so broadly. i mean, the town guards could see it at any moment and shut it down, so the tenacity to advertise it like that is almost admirable.

[@LegorocketsAnimation]

The guards likely just think it is acupuncture or some other _completely safe and absolutely, certainly not evil_ business.

[@Slimey_alien89]

Remember osha wasn’t made in dnd so a place that stabs you is completely ethical

[@intelligencecube6752]

@@Slimey_alien89 OSHA doesn’t decide what is ethical 😂

[@Slimey_alien89]

@@intelligencecube6752 ok it’s not ethical but it’s “legal”

[@derekeastman7771]

@@Slimey_alien89Nah, you aren’t getting away with a place of business that just stabs people because “OSHA didn’t say it was illegal”. I don’t care what year it is, somebody will do something about it.

[@LinTekKim]

I jumped into a group mid session as a guest character. The very fact that i insinuated that a npc might lie to the group to get what they want made them all uncomfortable, they were like level 5 and several months into the game. Blew my mind at how naive they were.

[@jabujabu63jordan62]

The whole party took the flaw 'gullible'

[@hiccupwarrior89]

wrong ttrpg I think

[@Tjalve70]

I think they specialized in it.

[@jabujabu63jordan62]

Sometimes a themed party can work but this one sounds like they were recreating the Stooges

[@gruntmasterbroadcast]

My Dm had a villain use a spell called Red Herring... It turned our Druid who had turned into a bear into a fish... When suddenly the full Moon beamed in and our druid then turned into his Were form which was a Deer and he then went on to impale the big bad.... He had to go to therapy for the degree of druid transformations he went through on this encounter alone...

[@TyphinHoofbun]

I feel like if you're a Druid, especially a were-deer, chances are transformations are probably already "Your Thing". (And probably also the player's "Thing" too.) Dunno if therapy is really what they are looking for after that. ^_~

[@michaelmann7816]

​@@TyphinHoofbun Then again, that many transformations without returning to human (or whatever the character was) form might well leave them with a severe identity crisis... (which could end badly when one component is a _fish_...)

[@oinkytheink1228]

@@michaelmann7816the Druid is never gonna trust their lungs ever again

[@ctb3335]

@@TyphinHoofbun You *do* realise transformation stuff doesn't have to be lewd, right? If people only ever engaged with it as a concept because it's "Their Thing" I highly doubt it'd be a mechanic in a mainstream ttrpg.

[@TyphinHoofbun]

@@ctb3335 You *do* realize people can make jokes, right? Like, non-horny bards exist, but it's funnier to talk about bards being horny and seducing dragons and other monsters? ^.~ Anyway, yeah, non-lewd TF exists. I've been a fan since I was a little kid, and I've been writing books the last two years. I mostly post on FurAffinity because that's where I am, and I post on Royal Road but the lack of engagement there is disappointing (since the site seems mostly geared to LitRPG, bleh). I have three series going: "Princess Tells Her Story" about someone from Earth ending up on Terra and getting turned into a pet dragon who teams up with a guy learning magic, "Exodimensional Hoofbun Flopsy" about a horse/rabbit hybrid from Terra who's now the local cryptid/superhero of a small Colorado town, and "Modern Major Yinglet" about someone in modern Earth who gets turned into a yinglet (from the webcomic "Out of Placers", also highly recommended for good TF). I hit the half a million words mark a few months ago, but health issues have prevented me from writing the last couple months.

[@theretrodragonyope]

The fact it was based off an actual campaign has me flabbergasted. The OP should have an NPC tell a story that sounds like a lie and overblown, but actually be completely true and then nonchalantly drop that, 'NPCs can lie.'

[@jackalenterprisesofohio]

Like _"I SAW A GROUP OF MERMAIDS STEAL 32 BARRELS OF SEA WATER, AND THEY KILLED THE GUARDS TOO!!"_ The reason its suspicious is the fact that mermaids live in the sea which is mostly sea water, so why would mermaids, f they do exist, steal 32 barrels of it. And of course though if they chose to ingonor this quest it will come up later near the boss battle making it like 200% harder somehow.

[@tiggyvolts9076]

@@jackalenterprisesofohio Seawater from the equivalent of the bermuda triangle would have a lot of dissolved methane in it, maybe that could be valuable? Or maybe the seawater contains traces of a pathogen to be used in an attack? Or the barrels were simply 'labelled' as seawater and it was actually freshwater which would probably act as a pesticide for certain sea creatures? Or maybe the barrels were valuable and the sea water just got poured out. Valuable enough to kill guards for

[@jackalenterprisesofohio]

@@tiggyvolts9076 actually it was quite simpler Since it was sea water, the mermaids viewed it as theft. I mean if you saw a bunch of barrels full of dirt and it came from your land, wouldn't you view it as theft?

[@tiggyvolts9076]

@@jackalenterprisesofohio Ah and they were taking back what was theirs, got it

[@ryangriffin1998]

Jimmy's Stabbin' Cabin has a weekly promotion, every Saturday is Stabberday, where you get two for the price of one on a shiv to the kidneys

[@NoBloons]

This is like an episode in a comedy adventure anime.

[@kenshidinyas]

"Now see here, just because my client was found near the scene of the crime covered in blood, is no reason to assume he had anything to do with the horrific deaths of that family who were immolated in that house fire. The DNA results were inconclusive and as such I will not stand by and watch you tarnish the good name of Murder McBabykiller."

[@GestaIter]

Well more than just babies died in that fire, that doesn’t fit the memo of McBabyKiller, so it clearly isn’t him.

[@kenshidinyas]

@@GestaIter Exactly.

[@jackalenterprisesofohio]

I think it might be Fyre A. Rsonalot

[@kenshidinyas]

@@jackalenterprisesofohio That seems possible. Mr McBabykiller's cousin, Arson McFlamethrower was three towns over on personal business.

[@fandomotaku9921]

Exactly. And do NOT bring his name into this, he did not choose it. His parents, Jailbird McBabykiller and Skiv Liesalot did.

[@DeathSugar]

Reminded me of story about "not stabbing past five". The newbie party. It's startting to get darker and party seeking for the night shelter when they encounter The Orc. Party, anxious, thinking what should they do - they are tired, but - oh well - preparing for an attack. Initative goes to first player, who drawn his sword. When he hear. "Ain't fighing past five" "Huh? What?" "Ain't fighing past five. Like the all the working living being I fight only from 10 am up to 5 pm. Why ain't ya'll stay at my place for tonight, and we'll figure out the rest tomorrow morning" "Oh... Okay" Party goes to orc's shack, they feast and go to sleep. Morning. Sun is shining, birds are chirping, party is rotting... life is good for The Orc, who slit the throats of party members while they were all asleep.

[@salepien]

And he didn’t even lie. As killing people in their sleep can’t really be defined as fighting.

[@not_umbre]

​@@salepienthat would mean the party was still asleep past 10am

[@memesnahgee5259]

Tbh sounds like they were thinking it was a funny bit to throw into a combat And then they were all dead

[@DeathSugar]

@@memesnahgee5259 it was some kind "don't trust orcs no matter what" rule or something like that

[@slavishentity6705]

Sounds like the players were confused by the change in tone, when something that goofy happens you might expect the rest of the encounter to be wholesome or humorous

[@JumbleOfPeople]

A few years ago, I taught a friend of mine that NPCs can lie, and he learned it directly. Shadowrun game, the current session is basically Die Hard. Group finds a clue on a not-very-bright bad guy that talks about bombs. Later, they meet the charismatic leader of the bad guys. PCs (sensibly) ask the dude about the note. NPC leader brushes it off with a line about how his henchman loves Cherry Bomb candies. PCs buy it, hook line and sinker. Later, bombs explode. My friend turns to me and, with the most bewildered / betrayed expression, exclaims "NPCs can lie!?" It's been years, and I still laugh about it.

[@Tjalve70]

If that had been me, "NPC's can lie?" would immediately have become a meme, especially when playing with that person.

[@JumbleOfPeople]

@@Tjalve70 I haven't played with him in a while (nothing bad, I still hang out, just don't play). I spoke to him last week though, and he 100% remembers. If I ever play with him again, I will definitely have an NPC give him the most bald-faced lie, just for fun.

[@sarah12232]

@@JumbleOfPeople is't it bold-faced? what's a bald face lol, clean shave?

[@JumbleOfPeople]

@@sarah12232 Weird, I answered this earlier, but my answer seems to have disappeared. Oh well. So, I looked up the question, because I remembered it as 'bald faced'. It turns out both are correct, with bald faced appearing in the early 1900's, and bold faced appearing in the 1990's or so. And I know you meant it as a joke, but yes, a bald faced lie is supposed to be a lie that's in plain sight, because it doesn,t have a beard to hide it. (Source : Google search "Is is bold faced lie or bald faced lie", led to a small article on the subject)

[@TheZotmeister]

@@sarah12232 They're both correct! Two different expressions, really: "bold-faced" means impudent, "bald-faced" (or "barefaced") means unconcealed. The first says something about the liar, namely that they're being a self-important jerk; the second says something about the lie itself, namely that it's very obvious that it's a lie. Let's be honest, though - a lot of people just use the two interchangeably. But technically, they mean different things! Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

[@JamesHock]

I love how you can feel the DM slowly making things more and more obvious but the players just refuse to understand

[@adamxei9073]

I have seen that level taken to the toxic side of things where the player went ballistic on the DM for having bandits hide the fact they were going to kill them. Dungeons and dragons isn’t Skyrim!There’s a reason why everyone in critical role and dimension 20 slam down insight checks constantly!

[@Keira_Blackstone]

I don't think I made it past episode 40 in campaign 1 of critical role, and yet despite them being comically mistrusting most of the time, they wound up thoroughly screwed over by trusting the wrong person twice in those episodes- once because they trusted a mindflayer, and once because they trusted someone they essentially knew was charmed by the vampire they were hunting.

[@SidneyPatrickson]

DM maxed out charisma and deception and is wondering why they all trust everything he says.

[@SamuelGeist]

I love playing an NPC who is blatantly lying to the party, who KNOW they're being lied to, but there's nothing they can do about it. What are you going to do? Assault or murder some random stranger in front of witnesses for the "crime" of lying? It's hilarious watching them grind their teeth in frustration! To be fair, I'm always open to creative ways to get their own back. But sometimes there really is nothing to do but bear it with ill grace and move on.

[@jackalenterprisesofohio]

The true fun is making "obviously fake stories" the true ones and the more realistic ones not true. For example say Farmer Joey JoeyJoeJoe asks the party to stop this giant dragon from stealing his prize turnip (he grows one every yert for the town fair) but everybody in the village says he is a little crazg and obviously Joan Pickens (a rival farmer) is the one stealing his prize turnip, and even if the party shows up to the fair (before starting the obvervation of the theft(s) Joan Pickens shows up with a practically identical prize winning turnip, BUT the moment the party decides to stake out the turnip theft(s) a ginormously huge dragon swoops down and steals Farmer Joey JoeyJoeJoe's prize turnip into his paw? Hand? Claw? and so when they finally realize its not Joan Pickens, even though he himself said he steals it every year, the party realises Joey JoeyJoeJoe was not lying. (Of course the real reason the dragon steals his prize turnip is because she/he [which ever is funnier] wants to marry Joey JoeyJoeJoe) and of course this part depends on how the party reacts, but it should go like this (hopefully) Asymptotic (the dragon) marrys JoeyJoeJoe and every now and then they just pop up randomly at location doing totally legit helpful things that sound like complete lies, but every single time it turns out they have perfectly good lawful-good intentions. This would also be pretty funny if the party is like one of this _"But we are the good guys"_ even though they arn't but that they haven't realized it yet.

[@Baileyface]

I recall being in a party like this. This exchange repeated often "We know X thing" "Well, we don't really know that" "But X person said it, weren't you listening!!" "You know people can lie, riiiiight?" DM snickering because NPC was absolutely lying and the rest of the party is still arguing with me despite the fact I was right the last dozen or so times this happened and wrong like once I felt like I was going crazy that game, but looking back it was pretty funny

[@faefolkarts]

Meanwhile my group is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS doing insight checks on EVERY SINGLE INDIVIDUAL who may be even SLIGHTLY suspicious...even if they're the goodiest of two shoes and has been helping the party for like 5 sessions

[@DaTimmeh]

Why has ue been helping them for 5 sessions? Sounds extremely suspicious to me, your party is on to something for sure.

[@Zamtrios245]

Even funnier when they fail and you just go "hmm, you know what'd be funny"

[@Keira_Blackstone]

if you've ever watched any really early campaign 1 of critical role, the party literally does this with a halfling paladin they were hired to rescue. it was painful to watch.

[@faefolkarts]

Ah, I never watched Critical Role actually 😅 I got into d&d in 2019 so I was....quite late

[@joshuagrahamcrackers]

I had a group like this once. The pulled a tavern maid aside to grill her about a cult they were looking for in the town. When the tavern owner started giving them dirty looks, they immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was because he was in the cult (rather than, you know, being annoyed they were interfering with his wait staff), had the sorceress lure him to the storage room, and murder him. Then she injured herself and called the guard to claim she killed him in self defense. Then, when it turns out they wanted to put her under guard while her wounds were seen to because they actually want to investigate a killing instead of taking her word for it, the party decides the only logical solution is to burn down the healing house she was at, start a fight with the town guard which resulted in TWO of them INCLUDING the sorceress being downed anyway and a gate guard losing his family jewels to a quick knee strike, and run off into the wilderness. Ironically, they were lucky that they were intended from the beginning to be useful patsies and unwitting pawns of the cult so the two were released from jail shortly (they for some reason assumed their adventuring guild bailed them out), where they rejoined the rest of the group and went on to have many more misadventures. Said misadventures included wandering into the base of one of the main villains by mistake and selling their soul to the other main villain, a devil.

[@cmayotte9431]

Hey, at least your party isn't trying to tame the knives!

[@tiggyvolts9076]

Bro wth, how stupid can you be to think that 'Animate LEAD" can be used on, you know, SILVERWARE? (I will see myself out now)

[@CarBENbased]

This has big "Are you a cop? You have to tell me if you're a cop or it's entrapment." energy. XD

[@velvetbutterfly]

While Jimmy's Stabbin Cabin is a fun place for a novelty, I enjoy the food at Outback Stab House

[@BizarreM]

My party needed three months and me literally telling them after the NPCs death to realise that Lorne Doomp was a wordplay around Lore Dump. This wizard dumped them 1.5 hours of lore across several sessions and they still haven't figured it out.

[@fungalmage3336]

I have frequently had the issue of my party never considering that an NPC is lying to them I have no issue allowing them to get duped by a completely obvious lie, or conversely asking them to make an INT roll to realize an inconsistancy that their character would probably recognize most of the NPCs the party interacts with are either secretly working against them or deliberately hiding criticial information once, the party got betrayed by a doppelganger, and it suddenly clicked (for at least one of them) that they've been taking everything that NPCs say at face value this *whole time* it was magical to watch the moment of realization

[@ghostkitten9264]

"character literally named 'Red Herring'" don't do this. Don't give me A Pup Named Scooby-Doo flashbacks. ...I wonder if that kid became a bully before or after these other four kids on his street started accusing him of every bad thing that happened.

[@sulemanzakriya]

He was a bully before, he was the culprit of the first mystery, hence why Fred always accused him of anything.

[@stephanginther9051]

Red Herring WASN'T the culprit!!?? How!? Lol, one of my favorite twists in all media was in an episode of Monk. Monk and Sharrona are confronting a shady doctor over the death of an Astronaut. The long and the short of it was the astronaut was banned from further missions due to health problems. The shady doctor had him undergoing barely legal experimental procedures that would supposedly fix the problem so he could go back up. They accuse the doctor of killing the astronaut to cover up that his procedure didn't work. The man started laughing. He raised a finger and hands Sharrona (who's a nurse) a folder. She pages through it, its results OF his medical trials that were not only working, they were working *extremely well.* The doctor shakes his head and says, 'As you mentioned, I did some shady things in the past. I had to *beg,* barter and call in every favor anyone owed me and nearly bankrupt myself to get permission for a human trial. It doesn't matter that he was *murdered* it only matters that he died during my trials. No board will read past 'died during trial', I will NEVER get another chance to prove my work. My career is over and that man's death basically ruined my life, so you'd better find out who killed him before I do.' They walk out half the episode gone and back as square one.

[@falkyrie5228]

I had a newby confess a crime to a guard when interrogated and when I asked why he said _"Wait, I can lie in this game?"_ 😂

[@ShadedTurtle]

"I'm don't kill people" -A guy stabbing someone

[@zarahengel9104]

Reminds me of something that happened in a game I am DMing. So party (Bard, Runeknight and Artificer) end up in a pocket dimension that's inhabited. They try to steal someone's robot cat, then tackle the guy and nearly attack him when he invites them in. Get offered some tea etc. and he asks them how they ended up there which they dont know. There's some more conversation and some things come up; his people fled to this place 500 years ago (true), they barely have any straight up contact to the rest of the world (true). But he also tells them that they dont know about the second moon that appeared around the time they fled and that they dont know about the whole continent that is surrounding the island now (that is a lie, they know. But he's trying to mess with them because they are very sus) No one in the party has high passive perception or wisdom. No one did a single investigation, perception or insight check in this whole conversation (over 20 minutes real time) At this point I think they just think that every NPC is an idiot. Yes, but they also believe every single thing this random person says, no matter how insane it sounds.

[@ashohkawa2419]

My party refuses to believe any NPC *isn’t* lying. They could ask a local elderly woman what color the sky is, and roll to detect deception when she answers “blue”. Not a single NPC escapes suspicion. No one is safe, everyone is lying, yes that includes children.

[@TheRealKiRBEY]

A npc said "it spells guillible on the ceiling" and the party looked up

[@raphaelregnault6914]

I have exactly the same problem with my players. They refuse to use the Insight skill during any dialogue in order to help them determine if someone lies to them. They have fought and captured a band of bandits who were specifically hired to find them, but killed their leaders. They asked the next in command if he knew who hired them, and the man straight up lied to them about having no clue. They didn't push him. As they are relatively new to some of DnD5 mecanics, I decided to play it as some sort of tutorial and I asked : "Want to try an Insight check ? - Nah, we trust you ! - Alright then !" I mean at some point there's only so much you can do. You have to respect your players' choices, even if it means hiding crucial informations >

[@aperiodique4333]

When the players say "We trust you." to the DM, maybe point out to them that this sentence shows how confused they are. I think I would show a bit of irritation and be tempted to expand on what a performative utterance is. "Of course, you trust me! As you should! If I tell you the NPC says that, then it's true he says that, because my words as the DM makes it true. But it doesn't guarantee the truth of the NPC's words! Check the Insight check rules again. It's for detecting NPC lies, not DM lies."

[@raphaelregnault6914]

@@aperiodique4333 I did, and they didn't care x)

[@TheEquestrianGallade]

“Well, the DM didn’t prompt me to make an Insight check, so it’s literally impossible for this person to be lying!” -Someone, somewhere.

[@russellstyles5381]

There was a kid's cartoon show, one of those "gee this sounds just like Scooby Doo, just different wierd character" mystery shows. One of the characters was named "Red Herring". They blamed him every week, but he was never guilty.

[@Zamtrios245]

Red Herring really must hate how often these people are accusing him of shit. He's not even doing anything suspicious!

[@arifhossain9751]

Except the one time they decided not to blame him, and it WAS him that time.

[@carmacksanderson3937]

A Pup Named Scooby-Doo is the show name apparently

[@nicholasfarrell5981]

Not "like Scooby-Doo", it was A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.

[@ProjecthalfDone]

I had a party and I played a massive plot twist, and one of the more particularly stupid ones responded with “WAIT HE LIED?!?! WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT, IT MESSES WITH THE STORY” and I just stared at her, completely dumbfounded

[@LettuceGayming]

My favorite event that happened with my character was that he almost died of liver failure during the climax. Like down to 5 hp

[@tiggyvolts9076]

Details, now please! Bodily functions are never included in dnd unfortunately

[@LettuceGayming]

@@tiggyvolts9076 character was a chronic alcoholic named floridius. He gained stat buffs while heavily inebriated but had liver HP that drained on every drink and was very difficult to recover. Upon liver HP reaching 0, he started taking 5 damage every roll (rolls were relatively scarce, it wasnt a combat focused campaign) his liver kinda failed at the start of the climax, so hes running from fidel castro while his liver is actively failing (oh yeah, it was a modern campaign set in the mid-70s, where we were the FBI trying to assassinate Fidel Castro, except he had the Necronomicon. He did end up getting killed by the necronomicon because my character had encountered it before and was acting as a puppet for an eldritch god of chaos, who killed fidel as soon as he opened the book) This was a serious campaign in tone

[@tiggyvolts9076]

@@LettuceGayming Damn okay, that sounds like good fun

[@bensonofthunder9229]

They look into Jimmy's eyes. He looks in their's. They trusting his kindness ask. Jimmy do you stab people. Jimmy replies, no. They sigh in relief as he walks up to them knife in hand. He looks into their eyes as he drive the knifes in. They fall as heroes. Stupid, stupid heroes.😂

[@bretsheeley4034]

My wife once ran a dungeon that had a hallway with a sign on a door that read “This is not a secret door”. Turned out the door was fake. It was just a well designed wall. The secret door was five feet down the hall next to it. Unfortunately there was a pit trap in front of it under a rug that said “This is not a pit trap.” The party developed literal trust issues with the dungeon itself after that point, especially when in the middle of another hallway they came across a sign that just read “This is a secret door” without any apparent door nearby.

[@TheMariusDarkwolf]

Someone was a fan of "A Pup named Scooby-Doo" :D

[@elliot20201]

If I was looking for a serial stabber and my DM introduced me to someone named Jack Stabbington with a Stabbin' Cabin gimmick business, I'd think that was wayyyy too on the nose and that he was being framed

[@synisterTRUE]

Amen to that. There's suspicious, then there's way too obvious to be genuine. The Stabbin' Cabin definitely falls into the latter, and I'm one of the more paranoid players saying that. Sure you can do obvious, but you can absolutely go over the top and have it loop back around to becoming not suspicious.

[@Leightr]

The first line of this threw me for a second, even having read the title, as what I heard was "My potty don't realize..."

[@miguelle9724]

Rolling 1 for Perception IRL be like:

[@successmeditations110]

Had an NPC called Plot De Vice. The party stabbed him.

[@Xahnel]

"Hi, I'm Jimmy And this is me cabin If yous is here, Yous is in for a stabbin."

[@LilyRoseGames]

"If any of my party see this, no you didn't" was somehow funnier to me than the rest of this entire post lmao

[@_sadghost]

There are some players that won't ever roll a die without prompting from the DM, which baffles me. YOU, the PLAYER, get to decide when you do something. If you think someone is lying, you tell your DM that you want to do an insight check. The DM will not prompt you to roll an insight check against a lying NPC(at least in my experience), not because they want you to 'lose' or whatever, but because it will never occur to most of them that a player might be waiting to be told what to do. A DM isn't going to spell out every single option available for you, and most people don't want a DM that tells you what to do next every step of the way. The journey to the destination is where the players take control of the story. Every step, forwards or backwards, should be the results of the players' decisions.

[@_sadghost]

Most of what I said has no relevance to the video but I'm leaving the comment anyways. Something more relevant to the video: How this person ended up with an entire party willing to take literally anything an NPC says at face value is a mystery, and it's a tragedy we don't have more stories of the DM abusing it for laughs.

[@JarieSuicune]

Seriously. It's a GAME that I'm running and you lot are the PLAYERS, so play it! Sure, some DM's (and written campaigns) make it more of the equivalent of a visual novel rather than an RPG, which makes it rather hard to really "play" (and can be really annoying when you want to just do something rather than listen to ten minutes of exposition). I believe TTRPGs are supposed to lean more Minecraft (setting with relatively open-choices) and less Clannad (visual novel with heavily-scripted choices). (Not that I'd mind a solid bittersweet D&D story ending... that would be good, but likely hard to pull off.)

[@SylerShurtliff]

OH MY FREAKING GOSH THIS IS SO TRUE I've been DM'ing a while, and NPC encounters have been my favorite. Half the party outright belives them, and the other half thinks that the mayor (in which they where talking to) IS the leader of a group of murderous mercenaries. Sombody help them please.

[@tessabakker662]

"Red Herring" is the "It's never Lupus" of DnD NPCs.

[@hfar_in_the_sky]

"What's your name?" "Stacy...Stacy Fakename." "Pleasure to meet you Stacy Fakename!"

[@benjaminacuna8013]

At this point I feel people are just trying to see how easily than can make Zac crack up

[@teruterubozu3947]

I've been coming to this story many times now. I think its my favorite RPG story ever. I cant believe it wasnt a hypothetical LMAO i wanna know more so bad about this party

[@Kalianos88]

Ah I see Jimmie was a resident of Stabbyville.

[@4louisMC]

This is one of the funniest videos I have seen all week (And its Thursday) Thank you for a good laugh! 😂😂😂

[@notaclass-d1822]

It’s either this or “they’re being too nice, I cast detect evil”

[@riddleharriet]

Well i cant deny this is also me. I remember in one game me and my party were hired to go and hunt a dragon that was terrorising a village. We were sent by a villager to the local 'dragon hunter' who would know more. We met said one-armed dragon hunter and asked them about the dragon. They then went on to tell us all about how they had fought the dragon and lost an arm and helpfully gave us the exact directions to the said dragons lair. When a one-armed dragon then showed up in their LAIR where they are considerably stronger none of us could get over the fact that he'd lied to us. How dare he say he'd fought the dragon and that he had no other connection to the dragon. NPCs don't lie right. Barely concentrated on the fight as we were all feeling so betrayed by the lie. Then we realised the villager also lied as we happened to ask one that was a follower of the black dragon. I have never been so scarred 😂😂😂

[@aaronbredon2948]

They would probably even complain if they were sent to get an object literally called a MacGuffin and it either didn’t show up or turned out to be a fake made out of lead (watch The Maltese Falcon to understand). For those who don't know, a MacGuffin is a plot device used to motivate the character but which either never shows up or isn't actually important (other than getting the characters moving in the right direction). The contents of the briefcase in Pulp Fiction are a MacGuffin, as is the Maltese Falcon.

[@DesMuttYS]

Suspecting a character named Red Herring. Coincidence? Or "A Pup Named Scooby-Doo!" reference?

[@JazzJackrabbit]

Some players believe that when NPCs speak, it is the GM speaking to them directly. Not everyone has good theory of mind.

[@BaneSIlvermoon]

This reminds me of a debate I had recently about whether or not the characters in a movie can be wrong about something. There seems to be an oddly common belief that since character dialogue is the creators way of providing background, it is a source of ultimate truth.

[@JarieSuicune]

The Unreliable Narrator would like a word with them.

[@benpepin7872]

Is your party made up of some of the parents from the school I work at? We could have five staff eyewitnesses and video where the kid is screaming their own name and what they're doing wrong, and the parent will turn to the kid, ask them if they did it, and take their no as gospel.

[@jackalenterprisesofohio]

Ask them to explain the video "frame by frame" and descibe what they see "frame by frame"

[@Doom721]

Your inflection is fucking hilarious dude, I love all these stories and subscribed to hear more

[@zeddoverkill]

...Red Herring? Like, the Pup Named Scooby-Doo bully that Fred CONSTANTLY thought was the culprit? xD

[@mithcoriel3656]

Well a red herring is an existing concept after all.

[@qqccrryy]

This was me as a dm... during my political intrigue/mystery game. The hours I spent putting clues in front of their noses.

[@Alicemss]

It is not a hypothetical story?!? I really hope the players have more street smarts irl

[@melofelo4484]

My friends and I have a running gag where if a character isn’t supposed to be important they have a name that is basically a synonym for or play on “no name” or “not important”

[@StranglyDeviousFly]

In my first campaign, i rolled a nat 20 to break-dance on someone while yelling 'im taller than you! Im taller than you!' From then on i got a plus one for anything i tried to breakdance to accomplish. (I was playing as a 6'5 elf and he was a 4'5 humanoid bug)

[@cornbreadcoathanger3544]

I feel this so much 😭 I tried to up the ante by having the tavern goers create rumors and exaggerate the looks of the boss monster, only for them to take it as complete truth and get SO upset when it was revealed to not literally be the size of “multiple football fields” I need a new group 🙄

[@PatrickLongblkwhtrbbt]

To be fair, if i met someone being signposted that hard, id absolutely assume they were a red herring

[@shieldphaser]

I mean if I saw a character named "red herring" I would definitely investigate them because I mean really, someone who's a bit stupid and doesn't want to get investigated would 100% go with that name to try and outfox people.

[@johntheherbalistg8756]

To be fair to Jimmy, if someone comes to a place called "Jimmy's Stabbin' Cabin," they, and their survivors, have no right to complain about being stabbed. It's on the sign.

[@TheGustavoAvila]

Meanwhile my party is absolutely spamming Zone of Truth arround every NPC they meet

[@MaxWelton]

I would’ve named them Scarlet Herring and seen if anyone could figure that out

[@tiggyvolts9076]

Scarlet and Vermillion, twin daughters of the head of the Herring family, Auburn Herring and his wife, Ruby Herring.

[@JarieSuicune]

I would go with Aka Nishin (since I love Japanese stuff)... though none of my players would make the connection or ask the character "you have an interesting name, does it mean anything" so it'd just be another lonely inside-the-DM joke.

[@RogueMandoGaming]

that last little addition made me choke, yep that's a D&D group

[@stolenbythestars]

I'm in a party with 4 other people (not DnD, a different TTRPG) and we have an in character group chat. My favorite part of the in character group chat is that my character obtained a book that had Latin in it so another character wanted to burn it. There was a whole back and forth of my and another persons character trying to figure out what to do with the book because my character was scared the spirit in the book would haunt them if the book was burned. We ended up placing a Bible on it an now said Bible is sitting in a freezer because it started catching on fire after removing it from the book.

[@stolenbythestars]

Update on this, we gave an npc a gun. An npc that's an ally but still an npc. The DM hates the crackhead ideas we have as a party.

[@DruidGoblin]

To be fair, my DM once made a character called Red Rerring and it wasn't a red herring.

[@JBirdBobbyJ]

Following up on Red Herring is a simple battle of wits. Is your drink poisoned? Or is my drink poisoned because you knew I would think of that? Or maybe your drink really is poisoned because you're smart enough to know we would both think of two former conclusions? It's better to just be thorough. Good on them!

[@deaj8450]

I've never played tabletop, but stories like this make me wish I had friends to play with.

[@Tycon]

What song is that flute playing at the start? Sounds super familar.

[@nicestpancake]

I have a player who thinks this as well, but rather insultingly, because he doesn't believe _I_ would lie _to him._

[@anacoanagoldenflower]

Jimmy's Stabbin' Cabin is going in my next campaign where there's shy/nervous players; this is the exact type of ridiculousness to get them loosened up, especially if I make a flyer for the cabin and/or have a picture of whatever Jimmy's Stabbin' Cabin's logo is to show them.

[@jackalenterprisesofohio]

Ok but hear me out Jimmy only does consentual stabbings, (so he bascilly got framed) so its actually his old business partner taking revenge, because everybody believes the bsuiness partner did that whole "change thing" and became good, but in reality he has been secretly mordoring people, while Jimmy has only been doing some _"slight"_ maiming, because "You can't have repeat customers if they're all dead."

[@jacquelineking5783]

This seems like an example of leading a horse to water but not being able to make it drink.