Insight measures your intuitive grasp of a person’s motives, mood, and potential deception. It reflects your ability to read body language, tone, microexpressions, and subtle emotional cues. This skill is essential in tense negotiations, detecting lies, and judging sincerity. Insight is not magic or mind-reading—it is the natural, learned instinct to recognize patterns in human behavior.
When You Use It:
Insight applies when:
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Evaluating whether someone is lying, withholding information, or masking emotion
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Gauging a person’s true mood or intentions during conversation
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Predicting how someone will react to a statement or action
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Reading the emotional state of a crowd, suspect, or observer
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Catching subtle social cues such as hesitations, glances, or nervous gestures
Mechanical Effects:
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Lie Detection:
When deception is suspected, roll Insight against the target’s Deception in a contested roll. The higher margin of success determines who prevails. -
Intent Reading:
The GM may roll Insight secretly when you size someone up. A success may reveal hidden motives, concealed emotions, or hesitation. -
Social Advantage:
A successful Insight check may grant favorable modifiers to follow-up Persuasion, Intimidation, or Command rolls (GM discretion). -
Hostile Action Anticipation:
With GM permission, Insight may allow a character to react slightly before a non-obvious hostile action, such as catching the shift before a hidden weapon is drawn. The GM may choose to make this role secretly on behalf of the players.
Situational Modifiers:
Apply the Difficulty Ladder based on clarity of cues, emotional complexity, and environmental context:
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+50%: Obvious motives, highly expressive or open target
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+40%: Very emotional subject, clear tells, relaxed setting
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+30%: Minor tension, standard cues, distracted target
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+20%: Light conflict, subtle deception, social awkwardness
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+10%: Vague unease, mixed signals, subtle probing
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0%: Average social interaction, neutral demeanor
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–10%: Skilled liar or ambiguous behavior
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–20%: Strong emotional masking or practiced deceit
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–30%: Unfamiliar culture, layered motivations, complex interaction
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–40%: Target believes their own lie or is actively manipulative
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–50%: Sociopaths, illusions, supernatural masking, or trained spies
Untrained Use:
Anyone may attempt Insight using their full Mind score. However:
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Untrained characters miss subtle or complex cues.
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All untrained Insight attempts suffer a –10% penalty.
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Advanced social situations may be impossible to read without training, at the GM’s discretion.
Narrative Examples:
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A veteran captain watches a prisoner’s face and senses they are about to bolt.
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A merchant’s tone shifts slightly, and a rogue suspects they are hiding something about the deal.
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A priest calming angry villagers reads their faces and adjusts their speech to suit the mood.
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A diplomat catches a fleeting glance exchanged by rivals and realizes a secret agreement exists.
Insight should never be treated as a perfect lie detector or automatic truth-finding tool. A success means the character reads emotions, notices inconsistencies, or senses discomfort—not that they know exactly what the target is hiding. Insight reveals states of mind and social tension, not objective facts. Let players make informed decisions based on what they observe, rather than handing them hard answers. This keeps social encounters nuanced and prevents the skill from short-circuiting narrative intrigue.
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File Created: 05/01/2025 Last Modified: 05/01/2025