What does honesty demand?

Lately in my campaing, I've had it become the shtick of a certain NPC, that she tells the PC:s the truth (because they have an Angel with high wisdom and a hair trigger on reading a person) but usually not the whole truth (because she considers manipulating the PC:s the easiest way of getting things done, and telling them the whole truth would likely make them sabotage her plans). And as such, frequently when the she is done giving the PC:s an info dump on whatever she ask of them, or her plans or something else like that, the Angel spends his hold to ask whether she's telling the truth. My answer is always the same: "All she has told you is true, so if she is lying, she is lying by omission."

I have begun to wonder, is this telling what honesty demands. Or to be precise, am I using the wording and not telling whether she's lying by omission as a way to obscure her intentions and the developments in the world?

Then again, implying that she may have been lying by omission has made the PC:s really suspicious regarding her (not lessened by asking what she intends to do next giving some pretty incriminating results) and as such, theorizing (usually correctly) what she has omitted.

I have begun to wonder, is this telling what honesty demands. Or to be precise, am I using the wording and not telling whether she's lying by omission as a way to obscure her intentions and the developments in the world?

No. Yes. When I started reading this I was expecting the question to be whether you should outright tell the players at some point that she is obviously omitting things -- which I feel could go either way. But if the Angel is rolling a move and spending hold and you STILL aren't telling them that this NPC is lying... that just seems like a terrible idea. It's not just 'what honesty demands', it's also 'giving the characters the full benefit of their moves' and a few other things besides.

I mean, to flip it around, what is the advantage here, of not just telling the Angel 'she's leaving something out' or 'it's obvious she's not telling you everything she knows' or whatever? Is it somehow making the PCs lives more interesting, them not knowing that something else is up? Is it being a fan of the PCs? Making apocalypse world feel real?

I mean that is literally the move for finding out if somebody is lying... and the person is lying...

Spending hold to find out someone may or may not be omitting things sounds an awful lot like spending hold to find out something you already knew.

Spending hold to find out someone may or may not be omitting things sounds an awful lot like spending hold to find out something you already knew.

Yeah, but sometimes you can't really effectively spend all your read-a-person hold, especially if you hit 10+. I'd say if the player said "I think they're leaving something out as usual, are they telling the truth?" then honesty would demand that you say "yeah but not the whole truth." They suspect, they're spending hold that they earned fairly, you owe them something, and confirmation is cheap. And then there will come that one time when you say "you know what? This one she's telling you everything she knows." Or "today, actually, she's lying through her teeth."

Quote from: noclue on April 15, 2016, 05:21:26 AM

Spending hold to find out someone may or may not be omitting things sounds an awful lot like spending hold to find out something you already knew.

Yeah, but sometimes you can't really effectively spend all your read-a-person hold, especially if you hit 10+. I'd say if the player said "I think they're leaving something out as usual, are they telling the truth?" then honesty would demand that you say "yeah but not the whole truth." They suspect, they're spending hold that they earned fairly, you owe them something, and confirmation is cheap. And then there will come that one time when you say "you know what? This one she's telling you everything she knows." Or "today, actually, she's lying through her teeth."

Yes. That's what I was saying. There's no reason to spend hold to learn that someone could possibly be lying to me. I already know that they could be lying to me or I wouldn't ask the question. I agree honesty demands the MC answer the question.

Notice the wording of the move: You ask the player questions, not the character. The character's own MO does not play into how you handle the response.

So dishonesty by omission still qualifies as dishonesty