The use of the suspicious trait

[Ringan]

What kind of meaning do you assign a success on a suspicious roll?  Does it simply mean that the character is suspicious?  Or does it grant the character actual insight into the reality of a situation/conversation (like the "sense motive" skill from D&D).  To what extent does a suspicious success result in, say, a false positive vs. a true positive?  Thinking about the inverse, can a character with high trusting recognize someone is probably lying, but incline to trust them anyway?

[Voord 99]

I personally try pretty hard to have a fair number of situations in which being Suspicious does not give correct information, and being Trusting is the advantageous thing to do.  At the moment, during the Anarchy, this has slackened off a little, as I want the Anarchy to be a time when “bad” actions are easier and bring short-term rewards, but once Arthur is on the throne, I’m going to be making a conscious point to do this a lot.   

I also don’t tend to use Suspicious as a social insight roll, precisely to avoid it being a good thing.  I prefer Intrigue and Awareness (and I wouldn’t mind if there were a third Insight skill).

The way I look at it is is, RPGs often tend to reward people who are on their guard and suspicious, and cross every i and dot every t to prepare for the inevitable twist in the story, which is very often a heel turn by a friendly NPC, and it can be hard for players to switch off those ingrained reflexes.  It’s important to get players out of that mindset.  They need to go to the castle and sleep in that bed!

Another thing that I do, which is similar, is make PKs roll Honest to be believed when they are telling an unlikely truth, especially if they are trying to persuade someone to do something.

Edited October 26, 2021 by Voord 99

[Ringan]

14 minutes ago, Voord 99 said:

The way I look at it is is, RPGs often tend to reward people who are on their guard and suspicious...It’s important to get players out of that mindset.

Great point, especially in Arthuriana.  There's the prominent example of the knights who swear to immediately do a favor, without even asking what the favor might be.

[Tizun Thane]

I use intrigue in my game like the "sense motive" skill from D&D. Suspicious is just a trait. It's not because you are paranoïd that you are right about it.

16 hours ago, Voord 99 said:

The way I look at it is is, RPGs often tend to reward people who are on their guard and suspicious, and cross every i and dot every t to prepare for the inevitable twist in the story, which is very often a heel turn by a friendly NPC, and it can be hard for players to switch off those ingrained reflexes.  It’s important to get players out of that mindset.  They need to go to the castle and sleep in that bed!

Very good point. I always try to use trustful as an advantage, most of the time, to balance this mentality.

[Darius West]

On 10/27/2021 at 5:39 AM, Ringan said:

What kind of meaning do you assign a success on a suspicious roll?  Does it simply mean that the character is suspicious?  Or does it grant the character actual insight into the reality of a situation/conversation (like the "sense motive" skill from D&D).  To what extent does a suspicious success result in, say, a false positive vs. a true positive?  Thinking about the inverse, can a character with high trusting recognize someone is probably lying, but incline to trust them anyway?

Suspicion is the tendency to believe the worst of other people's motives with or without foundation, especially in Pendragon, where traits are set against each other.  In truth, neither trusting nor suspicious is a virtue.  Both can be misplaced.  Rely on skills such as intrigue and awareness before trusting a trait.

[creativehum]

The real meat of Traits is "After the Trait roll, what does the character do?" 

So accuracy of information is not what a Trusting/Suspicious roll is about. (As @Darius West points out accuracy of information is what Intrigue or Awareness are for.)

If a Test is required for the Trait, what is at stake is how the Player Knight behaves toward his host, a lady, a monk, his lord, what have you. This behavior in turn provokes a direction for the situation at hand, which drives play forward in that direction.