What your character doesn’t know, wont hurt him… as a character, it makes him or her a lot more interesting. We have talked about player secrets and we have talked about meta-gaming before but I think there is something to be said for embracing the ignorance of your character. Also I am stuck at home and bored so its rant time.
We general assume that your character is a reasonably competent adventurer. he might even be aware of tropes enough to view the apparently un-animated, pirate skeletons surrounding a treasure chest with suspension. But sometimes “facts” are presented to him in a misleading way, like a failed spout lore or an outright lie by an NPC or fellow player. The failed lore shouldn’t be questioned. You know for a “fact” that the troll is dead forever and you should collect its valuable corpse. There certainly is no reason to watch it, or check on it, or get rid of it before going to sleep.
The lying NPC is a little tricky. Unless you have some sort of detect falsehood skill it should relay be up to the DM as to weather the NPC is convening, obviously lying or to give you outside reasons to suspect there is a problem. If the good king publicly tells you a story leading to a quest, you should probably just act like you believe it. “The kingdom needs a brave hero to fight through the crypts of DoaGat and recover the crystal chalice from the litch king”.
If the shadowy, crouched over, shifty eyed adviser gives you a secret mission that looks suspicious, you might proceed but keep an eye out for new info. “The king wished me to give you this secret mission. The town of GoodBread is suspected of harboring a cult of witches. Go there and burn it to the ground, kill anyone you find, we can not risk one witness.. er I mean escaped witch.”
of course the king is a dictator and may only want the chalice to launch an undead army at his neighbors. The visor might just be a creepy old dude who is right about the cult, or possibly mislead, or just so worried about it that he is willing to take the most extreme measures to protect the kingdom. These are all interesting discussions that can happen latter throughout the story. Asking “is this true” about every given statement from every NPC is going to get annoying and lead to long hours of non-adventure. Going on and adventurer then getting tricked and finding out you have a new enemy and the stakes are even higher sounds a lot more interesting.
Lying/misleading party members are even better. I do not mean out of character secrets or note passing, I mean when some character pockets an item of loot instead of sharing it, or misleads another character to get them to cooperate on a task they otherwise wouldn’t. “yes mister paladin, I stole to earn my bread as a child, and that is why the guards want me. But I have changed my ways and those prisons are notorious for their brutality. Surly the lord of light would not want you to let them lock me up in such a dark hole.” When another character tries to mislead yours in the fiction, that player is asking you to role play and possibly create an interesting story. You can always learn the truth later, get even, or permanently change the nature of your relation ship. It can even be a great way to change your character. “McLoot tricked me into helping him rob a nobleman’s house, but the deed is done and it secretly excited me!”
Its fine to say, “I don’t think my character would believe this because…” or “your going to have to try harder then that” or “can you show me any proof” or “i will believe you if…”, just not “no”. “no” is boring.
