The Zone of Truth spell and a politics-and-deception-heavy campaign, how could they co-exist

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Some context: I'm a newbie DM running a campaign which is a remix of the Waterdeep: Dragon Heist adventure. It's a campaign full of politics, alliances, betrayals and deception. All the major powers in the city want the treasure and they are conspiring against each other and the party to win in The Big Game. And the party in order to get what they want would have to break the law, which in Waterdeep means a huge chance of finding yourself on a trial… Long story short, this campaign would be possible and exciting ONLY if all these folks would be able to lie to each other…

Here's what happened: one of the party members invested his precious spell learning resource on the Zone of Truth spell and he started to "turn it on" before EVERY social interaction with every significant NPC. During these interactions he would just be asking the NPC to say some things like "I haven't talked to Manshoon earlier this month" or "I'm not involved in any way with the kidnapping of Ranaer Neverember", etc. This obviously makes NPCs not able to lie about these plot-critical events…

Initially, I did so most of the NPCs would tell the party that the using of Zone of Truth is "impolite and inappropriate" for negotiations / business talk. So all of those major NPC refused to talk…

But then I thought: what about a potential trial or criminal investigation? Wouldn't all the trials then look like:

  1. Bob's on the trial, accused of killing Alice.
  2. The trusted 20-lvl judge casts Dispel Magic / Greater Restoration on Bob to ensure there are no Modify Memory shenanigans –> then he casts Zone of Truth –> then everyone in the court room can use Detect Magic to ensure that Bob is indeed affected by the ZoT spell's effect.
  3. Bob then asked "please repeat the exact phrase: I did not kill Alice"
  4. If Bob can't easily say that exact phrase – boom, he's guilty!
  5. PROFIT! Bob is going to jail, no lawyer salaries wasted! "Speedy Waterdeep Justice for You" 😂

So… I ended up nerfing the Zone of Truth spell for this campaign, almost banning it… It worked OK. Our campaign continues and the party is having a great time navigating thought the crazy politics of Waterdeep! But that guy who wanted to go crazy with the Zone of Truth spell left the campaign, so I still regret that decision, like I killed his player agency with that ruling 😥

From your DM-ing experience, what could be some smart ways to deal with the Zone of Truth spell in a campaign intended to have a lot of deception? Just ban this spell at the start? Or is there a better way?

Best Answer

Yes, Zone of Truth and heavy politics can coexist.

Here are some possible avenues to keep political intrigue alive despite the existence of Zone of Truth:

  1. Plausible Deniability. Leaders just have to be somewhat careful with their wording, so they can always say "I told him to 'Take care of the problem.' I never asked him to break the law or hurt anyone!" if they're asked. To use a non-political example: Look into the Wells Fargo cross-selling scandal. Management didn't order anyone to break any laws, but set expectations that were impossible to meet without breaking the law and punished anyone who failed to meet them.

  2. Evasive Answers. Zone of Truth states "Such a creature can be evasive in its answers as long as it remains within the boundaries of the truth." If pressed with follow up questions like "Didn't it cross your mind your orders might be interpreted as a request to kill the target" standard fare evasive answers like "Well I didn't consider every possible interpretation of my orders; I delegate precisely to avoid such work. I had faith that my subordinate would find a solution that wouldn't cause any legal trouble" could be used to deflect ad nauseum.

  3. Characters Immune to Zone of Truth. There are features that defeat Zone of Truth. Off of the top of my head, the 17th Level Mastermind Feature from Xanathar's Guide to Everything prevents you from being magically compelled to tell the truth, and also makes it impossible to tell with magic that you're lying (it appears you're telling the truth instead). Such characters can act with impunity in a Zone of Truth. Even if such characters aren't common, in fact even if only 1 or 2 exist in your setting or its backstory, their existence may dissuade Zone of Truth from being used as the Gold Standard for evidence in trials and encourage more traditional methods. If any heavyweight politicians like, they can make a big stink about a time Zone of Truth failed and effectively lobby for its use to be completely halted in criminal trials "pending further review" which could of course be indefinite. This could happen in the backstory.

  4. Combining "1", "2" and "3". If there's an active character in the city who is immune to Zone of Truth, it would make perfect sense for them to be a leader of a shady organization who could be hired to do the dirty work for various groups. Leaders could say "Find someone who can solve this for us" to an underling, that underling infers they need to get the Mastermind, once the Mastermind is told what problem needs solving, he can solve it any way he likes (including passing the dirty work on to his own underlings) but lie about the methods and the trail you can follow using Zone of Truth stops there.