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Last session players got a quest to rescue an NPC from a mental hospital. In order to avoid killing anyone, they decided the rescue would be a solo mission for a PC who can turn into a demon, thinking that no one would be able to recognize him while he is in demon form.

I’m prepared for the next session, but I have a little issue: the demon form has a limited ability to read thoughts. It’s limited so it’s used mostly to detect if someone is near, but the question is: if there is someone with a mental illness that make him hear hallucinated voices, should the demon be able to hear the voices that the patient is hallucinating?

KRyan
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srebrny
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    What game are you playing? – KRyan Oct 19 '17 at 14:28
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    @nitsua60 Though, it occurs to me that it may not matter: not many games are likely to define a hard-and-fast rule for something like this, and a real-world-based answer (using neuroscience as evidence) might be more appropriate anyway. – KRyan Oct 19 '17 at 14:34
  • I guess my thinking is that even among the relatively small collection of RPGs I'm familiar with the answer to "how do I handle this thing that isn't codified in the rules" varies enough that answers valid in one would range from perfectly good to ludicrous to downright-harmful-to-this-game's-practices in another... I might be wrong though? I wouldn't re-close if people opened it in this state. – nitsua60 Oct 19 '17 at 14:37
  • @KRyan It’s hard to tell, players are way more experienced than me and they came up with little experiment: I make my world, story and rules and we see how it goes. My world is something like middle ages with a bit of magic. – srebrny Oct 19 '17 at 14:41
  • @srebrny I meant, what rule system are you using? The question might be very different if playing under World of Darkness rules than it would be if played under Dungeons & Dragons rules (maybe), and may be different again if playing under no explicit rules (freeform). We need to know which one applies here. – KRyan Oct 19 '17 at 14:44
  • What is the name of the game, and what edition of that game (if there is more than one?) We can hopefully re-open this question for answers once you provide that detail. – KorvinStarmast Oct 19 '17 at 14:51
  • @KRyan It's D&D with minor changes, magic is much weaker, so there is no wizards, but there are warriors that can use magic – srebrny Oct 19 '17 at 14:51
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    Which edition of D&D? – KorvinStarmast Oct 19 '17 at 14:51
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    And in what universe is "there are no wizards" a minor change to D&D? – mattdm Oct 19 '17 at 14:57
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    @mattdm again, system matters. "No wizards" could be considered a minor change to 5e, where you have plenty of other casting classes. In 0e, on the other hand, you've significantly changed the game (I'd argue). – nitsua60 Oct 19 '17 at 15:42
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    Reading this I'm inclined to think this is a matter of opinion, and for srebrny's table to discuss between themselves rather than something we can actually answer. It's a homebrew branch of D&D, with an unspecified or homebrew ability to read thoughts, interacting with a (homebrew or entirely narrative) hallucination. That's several steps away from us being able to provide an objective answer. At best, if this is revised to reference existing mechanics we could say how those would work if they weren't then modified by the homebrew so as to undercut the answer's relevance. – doppelgreener Oct 19 '17 at 21:00

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