3 Ways to Deceive People without Lying13 min read

On the BrotherBored Patreon, fans submit ideas for articles and help me choose which topic I’ll write about next!

The most recent winning topic was:

It’s come to my attention lately that the real masters have an ability to deceive without lying very much. So I’d love to hear more about techniques, ways of phrasing things, etc., that might help accomplish this.

The Patron who submitted this topic remembers that I alluded to this technique in my article Diplomacy Games are Like Onions, Layer 1: Politics, but suspects that this technique could be a topic all on its own. As I wrote in that article:

Even the concept of “lying”—an idea so simple and vivid that small children understand it—fades into hazy darkness as players deploy incomplete information, spin misleading truths, or make statements with deliberate indifference to whether they are true or false.

Your Bored Brother

I agree, this is a great topic. Let’s begin!

1. Equivocate

equivocate [ih-kwiv-uh-keyt]
to use ambiguous or unclear expressions, usually to avoid commitment or in order to mislead; prevaricate or hedge:
When asked directly for his position on disarmament, the candidate only equivocated.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/equivocate

Politicians are often masters of equivocating. If you similarly desire to mislead others without lying, you might want to learn this technique!

• Talk about intentions. Your intentions are not promises, but a many players will react to a plain statement of your intentions as though you made a declaration of fact. If you do not follow through on your intentions, you can come up with an excuse later.
• Make vague promises. For example, offer to “help” someone, but when the time comes just do whatever you wanted to do anyways. Pretty much anything other than attacking a player could be defended as “helping” them. Act annoyed when they criticize the “help” you give them!
• Make worthless promises. Promise to merely consider doing an action in return for something specific. (For emphasis, you might imply that you will “rule out” doing the very same if the other person does not do as you ask.) Regardless of what you ultimately do or how you’re really thinking, it is practically impossible for the other person to know if you were lying.
• Focus on other players. You can assert pretty much any opinion about the quality of someone else’s play, or your ideas about someone else’s intentions, without getting held to account for it. After all, turning out to be wrong doesn’t mean you were lying. And if you turn out to be right, you will seem both honest and wise.
• Don’t state implications. Truthfully state a fact to a player, but let the other player assume the implications. For example, as France you could inform Germany that you are opening with Brest to English Channel…but leave out the fact that England gave you permission to do so! The German player will probably infer that your opening to English Channel is favorable to Germany—but you never said that!^[1]In case this example seems crazy to you, England might agree to this as part of a plan for the England-France alliance to all-out attack Germany early on. I don’t think this is a good deal for England, but I have seen players do this. (In the scheme of things, there are far crazier deals than … Continue reading

2. Employ Others to do Your Dirty Work

You can deceive another player without talking to them. There are five other players in the match; let someone else do the talking!

Let me try an example:

You are Italy, fighting a defensive war against Austria. You determine that Austria has at two ways of attacking you. You further determine that you could counter either of those lines of attack…You just have to guess correctly which attack pattern Austria will chose.

In this situation, you have options for influencing Austria without saying anything at all!

• Find a player who you think will try to help Austria. This player could be Austria’s loyal ally, or some player who would strategically benefit from Austria’s success.
• Casually discuss your intentions with that player. Your excuse for talking to them about your moves needs to be credible. Maybe there are some long-term implications to the outcome of the turn, and this is a plausible reason why you would want that player’s input. You could also feign that you are asking for advice.

• Tell that player the opposite of what you will actually do. If they leak your intentions to Austria, Austria might be duped into choosing the attack pattern that your moves will counter!
• Cover your tracks. Afterwards, inform the intermediary player why you “changed your mind at the last minute.” Anything ranging from “my gut told me I needed to do the opposite” to “someone hinted to me that I needed to do the these other orders” should suffice.

Alternatively, you could find a player who wants you to fight off Austria, and frankly ask this player to help you manipulate Austria so that your defense succeeds!

There are infinite variations on this ploy. I found it difficult to describe this technique abstractly, so I decided to communicate the concept mostly by way of this example.

Like so many brilliant insights, this technique does not naturally occur to most people…and yet seems obvious to them once they hear it.^[2]By the way, this technique is an excellent way to turn a rival’s “soft backstab” into an advantage. Most of the time, “Loose Lips” will get you backstabbed.

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3. Use Influential Truths

There is an overlap between people who like puzzles (such as math puzzles, video game puzzles, crossword puzzles, and so on) and people who like competitive games (many board games and multiplayer video games fit this bill). I myself enjoy both kinds of activities.

I’ve known many gamers who are quick to perceive an analogy between game states and logic puzzles. And I recall my childhood enjoyment of the puzzles section in the newspaper, wherein I would find puzzles created from Chess and Bridge game states! I have even seen puzzles created from Diplomacy game states, held out as a teaching tool or as a fun activity in itself. I love this activity. Pondering a game state as though it is a puzzle is an excellent way to learn.

Have you ever approached another person’s mind as though it is a puzzle?

How to Approach a Mind like a Puzzle

Many of the techniques of puzzle-solving can help you think through how to influence another person. Let’s use a puzzle-solving technique right now!

1. Work Backwards from the Solution

To simplify the exercise, let’s assume you have already decided your goal. The question remaining is “how can I influence this other person to behave consistently with my goal?”

Consider different specific actions the other person might take that are consistent with your goal. For example, let’s say you are Austria and you want to conquer Rumania from Russia. Considering the board logically, you determine that so long as Russia does not support-hold Rumania—if Russia does any other moves whatsoever—your planned attack on Rumania will succeed.

Next, ask yourself “what are some possible beliefs that, if Russia held those beliefs, would cause Russia to not support-hold Rumania?” This question challenges your mastery of the game itself, your understanding of the other person, and—perhaps most of all—your ingenuity. If you took a moment to brainstorm, you might come up with a dozen or more beliefs that, if Russia held them, would cause Russia to not support-hold Rumania.

All of those are potential paths to the solution of your puzzle.

So now you have some ideas of what beliefs that, if the other person held any of those beliefs, would cause them to act as you desire. But can you think of ways to cause that person to hold one of those beliefs?

2. Resist the Temptation to Lie

Some players make it this far in the analysis….and then start brewing up lies. I could speculate on why they turn to lying so quickly—and I will! Some people are attracted to Diplomacy because they heard it is a game about lying, and so they go out of their way to lie (despite the potential in-game consequences of unnecessary lying). Other players are lazy or time-pressed, and thinking up lies is fast and easy.

At this point in the puzzle, if you are open to outright lying, you may find a solution quickly. Because you have not limited your solutions to only truthful statements, there is a huge range of things you might say that could cause the other person to believe what you want them to believe. The simplicity and ease of lying makes the technique so attractive.^[3]If you have experience with toddlers, then you might relate to me on this point: I think new Diplomacy players try out lying the way toddlers do.

However, if you are reading this article, you probably have some experience with lying and appreciate that, in the long run, lying is a costly technique—not just in Diplomacy, but in any situation! Lying may get you an advantage, you may even deem lying necessary…but please appreciate what lying will cost you.

When playing Diplomacy, I think of lies as precious trump cards—a limited, valuable resource—to be played judiciously.

3. Keep Working Backwards

So you’ve ruled out uttering falsehoods. Now we get to the challenging part of the puzzle: what are some truthful things you could say that would cause the other person to believe what you want them to believe?

To do this well, you must step outside a self-centered way of thinking and instead try to understand the other person’s point of view. Empathizing with how another person thinks is a challenge for many people even in everyday situations; the feat is especially challenging while playing a game that asks you to think of other people as rivals, enemies, and prey! To learn more about my advice on understanding and communicating with other players, try reading some of my other articles:

To put this technique in the most basic terms: forget how you come to believe things and instead ponder how this other person comes to believe.

There are many ways people come to believe things, and those ways can be quite different from each other. Even for people with similar ways of thinking, there are subtle—often unconscious—differences in how they react to or weigh certain information. In all likelihood, the person you are communicating with arrives at their beliefs by a different way than you do. Try to understand their unique perspective as best you can.

Now that you are thinking from their perspective, what are some things that you (they) might need to hear that would make you (them) believe as desired? (It could help to take a moment and list your ideas out, in writing.)

Are any of these statements true? Or at least, are they not false? (Equivocal statements could work!)

If so, you may have discovered the solution to the puzzle: a statement that (1) is true (2) will create a belief that (3) causes them to act as you desire.

If not, keep trying. Remember: starting from the first criterion (a true statement) will likely exhaust your brain without revealing solutions. Start from the third criterion and work backwards. Working backwards will make it far easer to discover a solution. This is a method that works for many puzzles—not just a psychological puzzle!

Combo Moves

Try combining the three techniques together. They are that much more powerful in combination!

• Equivocation + Use Others: You can hardly be deemed a liar when your vague statements get passed around by others as rumor. But rumors can still work to your favor!
• Influential Truth + Equivocation: Sometimes, it is too hard to think up a clear influential statement that is also true. But you don’t have to immediately resort to lying—equivocating might get the job done!
• Influential Truth + Use Others: If you want to boost your credibility, see if you can bounce your messages through a third party. This can be especially worthwhile if the ultimate recipient of your messaging is mistrustful of your direct messages. (Perhaps you have lied to them before, or they are perceptive of your manipulations.)

Conclusion

Skilled Diplomacy players use every combination of these techniques—including using all three at once, and in combination with additional techniques I have not described in this piece. When executed well, the players so influenced will not feel deceived. The players may not even perceive that they have been manipulated.

If you have never tried these techniques before, you may find it awkward or uncomfortable at first. And your rivals may notice that discomfort (there are a lot of tells, even in anonymous online Diplomacy). If your rivals pick up on your awkwardness, they may perceive that you are trying to manipulate them. If so, the technique may not be so effective, or may even backfire.

If that happens, don’t give up! These techniques do work; you just need to increase your skill at employing them. Keep trying! Over time you will get more effective, even if at first you feel like you might be getting “worse” at the game. As you gain more experience with Diplomacy, the techniques I outlined here will come more naturally to you.

Winning a particular match may be what you want right now, but what you want the most is to become a great player—right?

As a person who endlessly plays games, I urge you to take up my belief that getting better at the game itself is more important than winning any particular match.

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