Oddly enough, I’m watching the first season of DS9 (one of my favorite shows) on DVD right now, and Garak is one of my favorite characters. I saw less and less of season 3 onwards, and I know he gets more awesome later on, so I’m looking forward to that in later seasons (don’t spoil it for me!).

Got another DS9 example (swiped the summary text from http://www.memory-alpha.org):

The Boy Who Cried Wolf

Julian Bashir told Elim Garak the fable in 2371. While Bashir believed the moral to be that lying too much will cause people to never believe a person, Garak believed the moral was to not tell the same lie twice. (DS9: “Improbable Cause”)

Bashir: So, of the stories you told me, which ones were true?
Garak: My dear doctor, all of them were true.
Bashir: What about the lies?
Garak: Especially the lies.

1. Give the PCs reason to mistrust the NPC, when the NPC is actually trustworthy.

2. The NPC believes he or she is telling the truth, but misleads the PCs in error.

Lying is a tool that should be used sparingly, not only according to the style of game you’re going for (heroic, paranoid, etc.) but also according to the rules system you’re using.

Almost every game I’ve run is some kind of “people with powers” game, whether that be D&D, Trinity, Exalted, Demon, or Alternity. If NPCs were lying with frequency about big things, the PCs would be likely to verify all the information they started to get, whether it be through supernatural fear, mind-reading, clairvoyance, etc. In other words, a lot of games empower PCs to independently discover the truth regardless of the efforts of any but the most dedicated NPC deceivers.

On a less dramatic level, you can telegraph that your NPCs are fallible by having them lie about petty things– the white lies that make society go around. That won’t have the motivational force mentioned in the post, but it puts players on notice that they are talking to people.

Once the lies begin the surface, I find an interest set of events start to happen. First, the players become paranoid and stop stop trusting any NPCs. Second, they start reading every smile or gesture of the GM into something that usually isn’t there. Third, they start distrusting each other. In general, the game can take on a whole new atmosphere — especially if as GM you continue to complicate the situation. But be warned, the game may take you to a place you never intended as players start taking unexpected actions against NPCs and even other PCs.

We had one campaign in the past that ended up being lies on top of lies. It was crazy, but it was fun. But as GM, every time I showed up for a game, I knew less and less what the PCs were going to do since they had a week to stew over the last group of lies and build all types of unfounded tangents.

So, in general, lie away, but build up to and give it reason. Otherwise, it’ll just come out flat.

I generally prefer something less straight-forward and motivation driven. For instance, my players’ PCs are heading to a small town that straddles a mountain pass that hasn’t been heard from in nearly a decade. Only 35-40 people remain of the 400 or so who once lived there. The owner of the inn / trade hall is using his rooms as cells, holding patrons there until goblins come to collect them for whatever dark rite(s) they need sacrifices or blood for. (This is one of the reasons no one has heard from this town or anywhere beyond it.) The townsfolk don’t know and don’t want to know what the goblins are doing. All they know is that unless they do such things to travelers and passers-through, the goblins come for them instead (as has happened in the past). They aren’t horrible people; the need and desire to survive this wretched situation has put them between a rock and a hard place. (I got the idea from the Conan story, “The Man-Eaters of Zamboula”.) Now the townsfolk are going to sweat bullets because these aren’t tinkerers, pilgrims, refugees or tradespeople… these are armed and armoured adventurers.

This kind of situation makes the NPCs human and not just “EEEEEeeeevil” for evil’s sake. So a lying NPC is fine… so long as there’s a reason for it. Not every NPC has to be fully fleshed out, but there should always be a reason. If they’re just liars without a purpose, the PCs will just kill that person and why not? The players have no vested interest in providing a reason or even caring since the DM has provided no reason for his lying – the NPC is just a cardboard cutout.

I find misinformation works better than lying; by that I mean rumours and speculation spoken as truth. Regardless, DMs definitely need to shake things up and show the players that not everything will go their way, but my players prefer more roleplaying-driven motivators.