Roll for intrigue: 1d10 Ways the Quest Giver is Lying
By
Robin B. Devlin
“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
Oscar Wilde
The fire crackles and spits in the grate. A magician makes dragons dance in the flames for a group of wide-eyed children. Soft, melodic music spills from the lute of a tiefling, her pale pink skin the colour of a coy blush as she vocalises, not quite singing yet. The ale is flowing, and the air smells of roast chicken and herbs.
You crowd around your customary table in the corner of the snug bar. In front of you sits a small man, not much taller than a halfling, but without the easy charisma or jovial nature. He sweats as he tells you his tale. You have heard a story like it a dozen times before: there is a missing heirloom, some monster in the ruins a couple of days’ ride out of town, and a reward payable in gold.
But what if he is lying?
Maybe not because he is the villain. Not as such. He could be ashamed. Maybe he is acting under duress or being threatened. Maybe he only knows half the truth. Or maybe, in the finest tradition of goblin lawyers and Jedi everywhere, he is telling the truth from a certain point of view.
The Useful Lie vs The Cheap Lie
Before we start handing out fake beards and moustaches to every quest giver in the campaign, we need to make a very important distinction between a useful lie and a cheap one.
A cheap lie makes your players feel tricked and cheated.
A useful lie makes them say, “That rat-fucker. Right, now what?”
It’s a subtle switch, but that difference matters a lot.
It’s all about agency. If the quest giver lies in a way that removes that vital element, invalidates the players’ choices, or turns the whole adventure into a smug little “gotcha,” then you haven’t created intrigue. You have kicked the legs out from under your gaming table and demanded that everyone appreciate your carpentry skills.
Here’s the difference in practice.
Let’s say a mad old priest dispatches the party to retrieve a holy relic from a ruined temple. A perfectly respectable quest. Only, at the end, the players discover that the relic is actually a key, the final component in a demon-summoning ritual.
If there was no way for the players to know this, no clues, no suspicious details, no chance to question the story, then the reveal can feel cheap. The players did the adventure, followed the fairly obvious path available, and got spanked by the plot for not reading the GM’s devious, devious mind.
That isn’t a twist. It’s a trap.
A useful lie is built differently, from the ground up. It leaves fingerprints and clues. It creates questions and doubt. Most importantly, it gives players room to notice that something is off.
Perhaps the wily priest never uses the name of the god he supposedly serves. Perhaps the “holy relic” is wrapped in chains rather than swathed in silk. Perhaps the villagers make warding signs when the abandoned temple is mentioned. And when the party returns victorious with the relic, after having seen and possibly ignored several other clues, the priest is terrified, not triumphant.
Now the lie is not just a nasty surprise. It is an intrinsic part of the game.
The players now have the opportunity to investigate further or confront Priest-face McDemon-fucker. They could bargain, refuse, double-cross, expose, or, if they are truly chaos goblins, make the macabre decision to carry on regardless. The lie doesn’t slam the adventure shut. It opens it up.
The real value of a dishonest quest giver is not simply to fool the players. It is to complicate the situation.
A cheap lie blows a raspberry and says, “Ha! Idiot! You were wrong!”
A useful lie lays a hand on your shoulder and says, “You missed something. What are you going to do about it?”
10 Ways the Quest Giver is Lying
Now we have nailed down the difference between a useful lie and a cheap one, here are ten ways that your next quest giver could be lying, misleading, fibbing, misremembering, panicking or generally making your party’s life even more complicated than advertised.
1. They Are Lying About Ownership
An absolute classic.
The mission brief is that the item was stolen from them. Maybe it was, but it never belonged to them in the first place. The quest giver wants the party to go and steal it properly this time.
Perhaps the story is that the old silver idol in question is an ancient family heirloom, when it is really temple property. Or maybe they insist that the grimoire was stolen from their master, when in reality it was locked away for very good reasons. Maybe the “sword of their ancestors” belongs to a knight who is currently buried under a whole stratum of legal paperwork, family curses, and honourable fury.
This works because retrieving valuable stolen goods is literally page one of the adventurer’s playbook. It sounds quick, clean, easy, and heroic. It sounds like the kind of job where they can kick down a door, beat up some mobs, and swagger away with pockets full of loot, moral certainty, travel receipts, and…
…then the real owner turns up.
You should always leave clues, like breadcrumbs. The artefact might bear a different family’s crest. The “brigands” guarding it might not act like thieves. These so-called bandits might have extensive records, official seals, and a priest angrily asking why the party is desecrating a consecrated vault.
Ideally, the real owner should not appear out of thin air after the job is done. Their claim should have fingerprints on the adventure from the start.
The lie here should turn a simple fetch quest into a thorny question of law, history, and ownership, and whether “we were hired to do it” is really the moral defence that adventurers often think it is.
2. They Are Lying About the Monster
The quest giver tells the heroes that there is a creature in the dark woods, a monster in the dank caves, something eldritch in the old ruins, or some nameless abomination in an abandoned temple.
And there is something out there. That much is true.
But “monster” is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
The creature could be a noble person under a vile curse, a guardian spirit, a misunderstood beast, an intelligent, feeling being defending its home, or maybe the last thing keeping something much, much worse sealed away. It could be that the villagers call the creature a monster just because it is scary. Perhaps the quest giver is calling it a monster because it makes killing it easier. Or maybe it used to be a monster, in the true sense of the word, but the situation has changed, and nobody bothered to update the quest giver.
Keep this in your pack if you want to make a straightforward combat job more nuanced and complicated.
The heroes arrive, ready to hunt the “wolf-beast” that has been dragging away livestock, only to find that it attacks only animals branded with the symbol of an old bloodline. Maybe the “hag” in the marsh is the only person who can keep the drowned demigod asleep. Or the “demon” in the cellar is a tiefling child with uncontrolled magic, chained up there by adults who are petrified and out of better ideas.
It’s important here not to punish the party for believing the quest giver. You should always give them a chance to learn more before the swords are drawn. Weird tracks. The creature acting more defensive than offensive. A victim who survived. Old offerings left near the creature’s lair. Maybe the monster is able to bark out a word of warning rather than simply roaring.
A monster who isn’t monstrous isn’t there to make your players feel stupid for attacking. It is there to make them stop, question, and ask if violence is still the answer.
3. They Are Lying by Omission
The quest giver is telling the truth, just not all of it.
They say the ruin is abandoned, but leave out that it is abandoned because everyone who sleeps there dreams of drowning and wakes with river mud in their lungs. They say the noble’s son has been kidnapped, but leave out that the son arranged the kidnapping himself. They say the mine has gone quiet, but not that the miners broke into something ancient under the mountain and decided the healthiest thing would be to fall to their knees and worship it. After all, nothing says “spirituality” like a screaming hole into the void that erupts with eerie green lightning.
Real people lie by omission all the time. We tell the bit of the truth that makes us look sympathetic, competent, or innocent, and quietly bury the rest under the floorboards.
This works best when the missing detail changes the context rather than the whole adventure.
The job is still on the table, but now the players understand why the reward is so substantial, why nobody else took it, and why the quest giver was sweating through their good shirt.
A good omission should build to a moment where the players ask, “Why the bloody hell didn’t he tell us that?”
Not:
“Well, there was literally no way for us to know that, so thanks for wasting our evening, Steve.”
4. They Are Lying Because They Are Afraid
What if the quest giver isn’t lying for villainous reasons, but because they are terrified?
Someone may have threatened them, their family, their whole village, or their immortal soul, which is, to be totally frank, not outside the realm of possibility. It isn’t malicious. It is survival wearing a big coat, a fedora, and trying very hard not to make eye contact.
Perhaps the “bandits” the innkeeper sends the players after are actually overzealous tax collectors in the employ of a vicious lord, saying that if he cannot pay, they will take his daughter. It could be that the mayor insists there is nothing in the old well because he knows there is, and because it listens through the water. Maybe you want to channel your inner Dan Brown and have the painting the players have been hired to retrieve contain hidden evidence of treason, while the noble who hires them cannot admit it because walls have ears… and long, slim blades.
A fearful lie is brilliant table fuel because it gives your players a nice dose of cognitive dissonance: they will feel angry and sympathetic at the same time.
They have been misled, sure. But perhaps the quest giver had no good options. That is a much more interesting and nuanced confrontation than, “I lied because I’m a bad guy and good is dumb.”
It becomes a test of character when the players need to decide what kind of heroes they are after the truth comes out. Do they punish the liar? Protect them? Demand the truth? March directly to the root of the problem and start rearranging the local government with a warhammer?
5. They Are Lying Because They Are Ashamed
Shame is one of the most human reasons to lie. That makes it very powerful in a fantasy setting replete with haughty elves, cunning goblins, ancient dragons, and heavily armed metaphors for emotional issues.
The missing person is not their child. The stolen object is not some heirloom. The so-called “bandits” are not strangers. The chapel was not desecrated by outsiders. The truth would expose something cruel, humiliating, tragic, or dangerous.
Perhaps the quest giver’s son joined the cult of their own free will. The family heirloom could have been pawned years ago to pay Grandpa’s gambling debt. The ghost who haunts the manor is not some ancient wraith, but a servant murdered by the manor’s wayward young lord, now buried beneath the rose garden. Maybe the “kidnapped bride” fled the altar because she knew the marriage would be rotten from the start.
The adventure potential in these lies makes them incredibly useful.
The danger is real, but the quest has been sanitised and scrubbed clean for public consumption. It is now the version of the quest that can be talked about in taverns and temples. Unfortunately, heroes have a habit of kicking down the door and shaking the truth loose.
What we are aiming for here is less a simple “aha!” moment and more about adding moral complexity and creating opportunities for good role-playing.
Your players might find that the ashamed quest giver is still worth helping. Or they could decide to swap sides, concluding that the original quest giver is worse than whatever “evil” they were dispatched to vanquish. Whatever happens, it will be more interesting than dealing with a static monster and a hit point total.
6. They Are Lying Because They Are Wrong
Now we move to the post-graduate level of mistruth. Especially good because it isn’t technically a lie at all.
The quest giver wholeheartedly believes what they are saying. Sincerely and earnestly, maybe even paying in advance, which is usually the closest thing a random NPC can do to garner trust.
The issue here is that they are wrong, dead wrong.
Their information could be outdated, biased, misunderstood, come from an unreliable source, or simply be a politically convenient ‘fact’. Maybe it is based on one witness who was worse for drink and did see something in the fog, but ale, imagination and panic filled in the details.
Farmer Joe says goblins stole his sheep after seeing small humanoid shapes in the dark and hearing laughter. It’s not goblins, though; local children have been stealing livestock to feed something that they found wounded in the woods. A village elder declares that a tower must be cursed because no one who enters comes back out. In reality, it is a portal to somewhere else, where those who have gone through it are trapped. A merchant swears that Orcs attacked him on the road, because that’s what everyone expects, but the arrows fired at the caravan were military issue, and the horses were not stolen; they were eaten.
This kind of falsehood is excellent; it reminds players that your world doesn’t come with perfect labels.
NPCs are people too; they can be mistaken, witnesses can panic. People view events through the lens of prejudice and fear. People can believe convenient nonsense not because they are human (or elven, etc)
If you want to go down this road, you need to make it fair. Give the players contradictory evidence. Things like tracks that do not match the established story. Wounds that do not match the weapons described, locals giving conflicting accounts and monster attack sites with little or no blood. Maybe a ‘cult symbol’ that in actuality is just the architect’s signature.
If your quest giver is just dead wrong, it will ignite your players’ inner Columbo. It makes them feel clever for discovering the truth, not tricked for being given incomplete information.
7. They Are Lying for Political Reasons
When is a quest not a quest?
When it’s a move.
A noble could want to embarrass a political rival. A guild may want leverage over a delicate situation. Perhaps a “good” temple needs a dark deed done but also needs plausible deniability. Or a spymaster might simply need some useful idiots, no offence players, to solve a problem without leaving their own fingerprints all over it.
The town council’s “threat” that needs removing could be a labour organiser, rebel cleric, inconvenient witness, or illegitimate heir with a better claim than they would like to admit.
To the quest giver, the players aren’t heroes.
They are a blunt instrument with nice cloaks.
Urban campaigns, intrigue games, noble courts, and merchant republics are particularly good for political lies. Anywhere people say things like “for the good of the realm” or, in a smaller rural setting, “the greater good,” while standing suspiciously close to the poison bottle.
The mission brief might be simple:
- Get this title deed.
- Escort this ne’er-do-well prisoner.
- Clean and sweep the safehouse.
- Discredit a cult.
- Subdue a dangerous agitator.
But the real purpose lies beneath.
The document proves corruption. The prisoner is a political hostage. The safehouse is full of dissidents, not criminals. The cult is actually a perfectly valid rival faith. The agitator is right.
The important thing is the biggest foe any hero has ever faced: the consequences of their own actions.
If the party completes the job without asking questions, then the political landscape should change. Someone gains power. Someone else loses protection. A faction will remember who helped them. Another will remember who stormed in like they owned the place.
This is a really easy way to add depth and make the campaign feel much bigger. Your players will realise that they are not just solving problems. They are being used by people, like pawns on a chessboard, and the people moving the pieces know exactly where to stand when the blood starts splashing.
8. They Are Lying Because of a Curse or Altered Memory
Time for the spooky and the uncanny.
The quest giver simply can’t tell the truth. Or, more precisely, they cannot remember the truth. Their mind has literally rewritten itself whenever they get too close to what really happened.
Perfect for horror mysteries, fae bullshit, eldritch nonsense, and spooky old wells that need to be filled with concrete, rock salt, and a number of strongly worded hymns.
A charm spell could have done a number on their memories, or a curse could prevent them from speaking the real villain’s true name. They could sincerely think their daughter vanished last night, but every villager remembers the funeral five years ago. The mayor could deny that there is a chapel in the woods while nervously polishing a silver medallion bearing its name in Low Elven.
With the quest giver as the victim, this becomes a very different type of lie.
They could contradict themselves and become confused when questioned. They could blurt out the truth in their sleep, write things they do not remember writing, or visibly suffer when they try to speak forbidden information. Generally, it’s a bad sign when the quest giver starts bleeding from the eyes.
This works best when the heroes can find the lie through simple patterns and detective work.
Repeated, verbatim phrases. Missing time. Written records that disagree with memory. Portraits with faces redacted. A diary that changes between entries. An NPC who cannot cross a threshold but insists that it doesn’t matter.
This one is more about being an unreliable source than social manipulation, which makes it great fun for the players.
For the poor sod with a Swiss-cheese memory, not so much.
9. They Are Technically Telling the Truth
There’s “the truth…” and then there’s “THE truth!”
Lionel Hutz would be proud.
This is the worst kind of lie because it is not a straight-out falsehood, but it is also not entirely honest. It is essentially a lie with the serial number polished off and a fresh coat of paint slapped over the suspicious stains.
“I never said the tomb was empty.”
“I said no living creature guards it.”
“I told you the prince needed rescuing. I did not say he wanted rescuing.”
“I promised you would be paid. I never specified by whom, in what currency, or whether that currency was still legal in this kingdom.”
This is weaponised goblin-lawyer nonsense, but it is also more fun than a barrel of kobolds.
This kind of quest is really good to have up your sleeve for devils, fae, ancient dragons, corrupt nobles, extremely charming warlocks, and anyone who says “as agreed” too many times for comfort.
Wording is key here, and it might take a bit of prep time. The quest giver should never lie outright. They should phrase things carefully, avoid direct answers, define terms strangely, and let the players make assumptions, because assumptions are free and usually wrong.
You need to be fair here. That’s the trick. Wording matters, and you should give the players a chance to notice it. Insight checks, legal knowledge, suspicious minds, and good old-fashioned paranoia should be able to pick at the phrasing.
The payoff for the work is amazing. Players will begin interrogating the language. They will become more engaged when they learn that the definition of “safe passage” is a little elastic and does not necessarily guarantee “comfortable,” “unconfronted,” or “with all your blood and gooey bits still inside you.”
You do need to be careful not to overuse this particular trick. If every quest briefing starts to sound like a pact written by a particularly fussy devil, your campaign will collapse into litigation.
10. They Are Lying Because They Are Testing the Party
Lastly, there is the trial.
The quest giver lies because the job isn’t really about the job as such. It’s a test.
An ancient secret order wants to know if the party can be trusted. A god wants to see if they can show mercy as well as ruthless strength. A fae court could simply need entertainment. A dragon might be looking to take the measure of them, or a retired legendary adventurer wants to know whether these upstart young idiots are worth mentoring or should consider a future in arable farming.
On the surface, the quest may appear simple. Retrieve the stolen idol. Deliver the sealed letter. Guard the prisoner. Refuse the bribe. Choose to do the right thing when they think nobody is watching.
The real reward is not the gold.
It could be patronage, knowledge, a blessing, a key, admission to an order, or the double-edged fact that someone dangerous now knows what the party is made of.
Handled poorly, this can feel manipulative. After all, none of us like finding out we are essentially lab rats in a secret wizardly social experiment.
So, don’t make “failure” a dead end. Make sure the test shows something interesting, maybe even something the players do not yet know about their characters.
The party could pass the test of courage but fail the test of mercy. Maybe they reject the patron entirely. Maybe they expose the test and demand better terms. Or maybe they rob the tester, because players are players and hubris is an infinite resource.
A test should not exist to prove whether the party is good enough for your plot.
It should reveal who they are.
Final Thoughts: Leave Fingerprints
A dishonest quest giver isn’t there to make the GM feel clever. If you want to play a game where you win by being clever, try chess.
They are there to make the adventure feel more real, and therefore more interesting.
Like any Game Mastering tool, this can be used well or badly. Used badly, a lie is just a cheap trick, a trapdoor under the players’ feet. Used well, however, that trapdoor deposits them into a larger, messier, more complicated world.
So leave fingerprints. Give your players clues. Let them ask awkward questions. Let them notice the exceptionally well-roleplayed tremor in the quest giver’s voice, the missing name on the contract, and the crest scratched or burnt off the relic.
The moment of the reveal should not be:
“Ha! Fools! You believed me!”
It should be more like:
“There was always more going on here under the surface. Now what are you going to do about it?”
It should be about fun, not fooling your players. More than that, it should be about giving them the chance to be suspicious, clever, angry, merciful, vengeful, curious, or catastrophically overconfident, often all at the same time.
In other words, pretty much what heroes are made for.
