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<blockquote data-quote="Janx" data-source="post: 5872034" data-attributes="member: 8835"><p>nice enough example. I think the threshold for "just tell them" is for anything that wasn't supposed to be a puzzle or figured out.</p><p></p><p>If you had intended the PCs to readily know where the bad guy was (because it wasn't supposed to be a puzzle encounter or some such, just an interstitial cut scene), and the players are milling about because they didn't notice the signs that said "Bad Guy lives at Grid A302" that you put there because your players hate puzzles and like killing bad guys, then just tell them.</p><p></p><p></p><p>If you had arranged a clue scene, where the players were supposed to figure out the answer to where the bad guy lives, that's the trickier part. At the design stage, the thing to do would have been to detect the possibility of failure to decipher the clue and go to Grid A302, and have some other content ready to show the next crime that happens because you failed to deduce the clue, which might reveal a new more obvious clue.</p><p></p><p>Some DMs want the possibility of failure. With the core point of this thread, that means determining which information is inherently obvious and not meant to be the challenge, and which information was meant to be part of the challenge.</p><p></p><p>One extra concept to consider is from GumShoe which I learned about from a [MENTION=2]Piratecat[/MENTION] thread. In that game, clues are given away for free when you look for them. There's no skill check DC to beat to get the clue. If you say, "I use my computer skills to check out his PC" and there was a clue in there, you get the clue.</p><p></p><p>The point in that game seems to be:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">the challenge is being saavy enough to use your skills to apply them to things to see if a clue was waiting for you</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">to interpret the clue in a way that solves the problem</li> </ul><p></p><p>The game doesn't want you failing because you rolled a 17 when you needed an 18 to get the clue. It wants you to fail because you did not figure out how all the clues pinpoint which suspect was the killer.</p><p></p><p>Thus, it's not a lack of information problem, it's a failure to see the pattern in the information.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Janx, post: 5872034, member: 8835"] nice enough example. I think the threshold for "just tell them" is for anything that wasn't supposed to be a puzzle or figured out. If you had intended the PCs to readily know where the bad guy was (because it wasn't supposed to be a puzzle encounter or some such, just an interstitial cut scene), and the players are milling about because they didn't notice the signs that said "Bad Guy lives at Grid A302" that you put there because your players hate puzzles and like killing bad guys, then just tell them. If you had arranged a clue scene, where the players were supposed to figure out the answer to where the bad guy lives, that's the trickier part. At the design stage, the thing to do would have been to detect the possibility of failure to decipher the clue and go to Grid A302, and have some other content ready to show the next crime that happens because you failed to deduce the clue, which might reveal a new more obvious clue. Some DMs want the possibility of failure. With the core point of this thread, that means determining which information is inherently obvious and not meant to be the challenge, and which information was meant to be part of the challenge. One extra concept to consider is from GumShoe which I learned about from a [MENTION=2]Piratecat[/MENTION] thread. In that game, clues are given away for free when you look for them. There's no skill check DC to beat to get the clue. If you say, "I use my computer skills to check out his PC" and there was a clue in there, you get the clue. The point in that game seems to be: [LIST] [*]the challenge is being saavy enough to use your skills to apply them to things to see if a clue was waiting for you [*]to interpret the clue in a way that solves the problem [/LIST] The game doesn't want you failing because you rolled a 17 when you needed an 18 to get the clue. It wants you to fail because you did not figure out how all the clues pinpoint which suspect was the killer. Thus, it's not a lack of information problem, it's a failure to see the pattern in the information. [/QUOTE]
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