Most real life lies are also pretty low stakes. "Oh, I'd love to come to Aunt Mabel's party but I can't." "We should totally do lunch sometime."

"Does this dress make me look fat?" It looks low stake, but it is definitely not. Be careful out there.

No. The burgers and fries make you look fat.

And, like in a police interrogation, anything you state now can and will be used against you later ;)

Which is, of course, totally irrelevant. Nobody cares about detecting those lies. Where's the evidence that big lies are in any way related to little lies?

Everyone tells little lies. But it someone, in a game for example, is so good at lying that you have no idea whether they’re telling the truth, that raises some questions.

How can you trust your judgement on whether they’re truthful about bigger things?

> How can you trust your judgement on whether they’re truthful about bigger things?

You can't. You will believe what you want to believe, and good liars are great at finding out what you want. A well constructed lie rests on verifiable foundations - ie. they also know when not to lie to earn your trust - and comprises of almost exclusively truths. There is no way to defend yourself once you become the target and start listening.

The only winning move is not to play.

Pathological lying is one of the indicators of psychopathy. Not quite the same thing as what you’re talking about but one can’t be too careful about those things.

This article talks about exactly those concerns.

You should try it. I found it very enlightening to find out how utterly incapable I was to get away with a pretend murder in a primitve computer game with random strangers.

(Even if like me you won't end up playing the game I found the experience worth five dollars)