Story vs RPG Part 9: Lies - Our characters darkest secrets

Story vs RPG Series

Story: Elements

Story vs RPG Part 2: Main Characters - Protagonist, Antagonist, PC, NPC

Story vs RPG Part 3: Character Information

Story v RPG Part 4: Potential Pitfalls of using a RPG session for a Story.

Story v RPG Part 5: Personality Types

Story v RPG Part 6: Alignment, Morality, and Ethics

Story vs RPG Part 7: Character Needs
Story vs RPG Part 8: Character emotions
Story vs RPG Part 9: Lies - Our characters darkest secrets
Story vs RPG Part 10: Setting - cultures
Story vs RPG Part 11: Pair Dynamics
Story and Game Structure: Storylines
Story vs RPG Part 12: Larger groups - conformity & deviance

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Lies are good for stories. They are great for gaming. Almost everyone lies. Except that person who thinks they don't lie. And guess what? They just lied.

We even lie to ourselves.

From several sources I compiled this list of 50 Commonly Believed Lies and made sure each one was told from the first person. This is so that when using them with characters, the sentences can be used to help instill that perspective of the lie.

Before the list what is a lie? How does it differ from a secret? What is a person's darkest Secret? And what are defense mechanism?


Lie - intentionally false statement or action.

untruth, falsehood, deception, falsification, deceit, fabrication, perjury, dishonesty, misrepresentation, fib, telling a story

Secret - something not revealed, shown, known, or seen by others.

private, confidential, undisclosed, unknown, hush-hush, under wraps

Darkest Secret - the secret a person would never want anyone to know about or it would change others perception of that person. The worst action, they think others would abhor, that they have ever done to someone or something.

Defense Mechanism - unconscious coping technique used to deal with anxiety arising from threats and unacceptable behavior.

50 Commonly Believed Lies

1. Denying something to oneself - I'm refusing to accept the truth, reality, or a fact. I'm acting as if that event, thought, or feeling didn't exist - and am not admitting a painful feeling.
2. Redirecting urge - I'm shifting my aggressive urge to something more acceptable
3. Intellectualizing unemotionally - I'm thinking about the situation in unemotional terms by removing my emotion from the idea.
4. Pretending to be something else - I'm temporarily pretending to be a different a person with something majorly important to avoid stressful situations. At the same time I've lost track of time and my real self.
5. Excusing an action or feeling - I'm rationalizing that no wrong was done or my controversial feelings are justified using seemingly logical and rational explanations, but false or faulty reasoning.
6. Reversing instinct feeling to opposite behavior - I'm changing bad or uncomfortable instinct feelings into the opposite and behaving in the opposite of my instinctual nature, because the truth causes anxiety.
7. Regressing to childlike or teenage behavior - I'm reverting to my childlike or teenage-like reaction instead of handling things as an adult.
8. Repressing instinct - I'm denying my pleasurable instinctual desire because satisfying it may unintentionally cause stress, suffering, or pain. I'm pushing the desire into my unconscious. I feel an emotion, but I don't know why.
9. Undoing a wrong - I'm trying to act to reverse my damaging behavior in order to help symbolically erase my past guilt or unacceptable behavior. I'm confessing and trying to restore my past mistakes.
10. Acting out - I'm performing an extreme behavior to express my unexplainable thoughts or emotions.
11. Separate hats - I'm compartmentalizing my values, ethics, personality, emotions,  and behavior for different roles or aspects of life. I'm something different when at different places.
12. Dumping unconscious desires onto someone else - I'm blaming someone else for something that I actually feel myself.
13. Looking down upon someone - I'm looking at someone who is worse of than myself, separating from them, and then feeling good because I'm not in that situation. 'Just be glad your not like ... .'
14. Taking it out on someone else - I'm shifting impulse to a less threatening target, avoiding the threat or fear directly.
15. Fantasizing - I'm drifting into a fantasy to deal with inner and outer conflict.
16. Romanticizing, glamorizing, idealizing - I'm making something better or appealing than it really is.
17. Internalizing - I'm identifying, mimicking, and copying someone so much that it's becoming part of me.
18. Begrudgingly helping - I'm procrastinating, stubbornly, forgetting, inefficiently, or failing to help due to indirect aggression towards those asking for help.
19. Living through someone else - I'm fulfilling unfulfilled desires through someone else.
20. Wishful thinking - I'm making a decision based on something pleasing to imagine and not facts, evidence, and reality.
21. Delusional - I'm believing in a strong conviction despite strong evidence against such belief. The strong conviction can be based on illusion, fabricated, misinterpreted, false or incomplete information, or perception.
22. All or nothing thinking - Everything to me is black and white, all good or all bad. I'm a hero or a failure.
23. Overgeneralization - Something negative that happened to me is just part of an unending series of continuous misfortunes.
24. Negative thinking - I dwell on negatives, ignore the positives.
25. Minimize positives - I belittle positive events and characteristics as if they didn't exist.
26. Jump to conclusions - I transfer my thoughts into 'mind reading' and predict what will happen before it happens.
27. Magnify and minimize - I make things bigger than they are. I shrink important things into small feats and matters.
28. Emotional reasoning - I feel like _A__ so I must be __A__.
29. Moral attacking - I say, "You" + 'should', 'must', and/or 'ought'.
30. Labeling off of a negative - 'I'm a ___,' based on one shortcoming.
31. Taking things personal or the blame - I'm taking something I shouldn't take personal or take the blame for it. It's something I wasn't responsible for doing - but I'm taking it myself.
32. Perfectionist - I should never fail, lose, or make an error, otherwise I am no good. I must always be in control, confident, and happy.
33. Impossible situation - The challenges can never be overcome. I can never be happy.
34. Inferiority - I am useless, worthless, not good enough, and have no value.
35. Need approval - I am worthless unless someone else approves of me.
36. Relationship addict - Without someone else's love, I am nothing.
37. No appreciation - For all of my sacrifices and hard work, I never get the praise, respect, and or reward that I deserve.
38. Mind reading - I know how others intentions and thoughts. They do not need to tell me.
39. Must change others - The reason I am not happy is because another person hasn't changed yet.
40. Always right - I'm right and your always wrong.
41. People pleaser - I must please other and put my life on hold.
42. Self-conscious - I must impress others with my ability(ies) or be ignored.
43. Afraid of rejection - If I am rejected at this task or position, then I am rejected in life.
44. Stereotyping - I think all people of that type think and act the same way.
45. Fearing failure - I have a fear of failing. If I can't achieve something properly, then I am a failure.
46. Fearing conflict - I have a fear of getting into conflict with others. I don't want to object to or argue with anyone else.
47. Fear of bad emotions - I should never get angry, envy someone else, feel hate, get depressed, loose control, hold a grudge, be afraid, or be vulnerable.
48. Avoiding what you want - I shouldn't be selfish and try getting what I really want in life. Others are more important than me.
49. Revenge - If someone hurts me or does me wrong, I will get even with them at all costs.
50. Unfair comparison - Everyone else is getting what they want in life except me.