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<blockquote data-quote="Paul Farquhar" data-source="post: 9004794" data-attributes="member: 6906155"><p>This brings us to a side issue: How does the DM run characters who are considerably more intelligent than they are?</p><p></p><p>Well, if you look at literature, with Sherlock Holmes being the prime example, the answer is, you cheat. Holmes has access to the author's meta-knowledge. Doyle then works backwards to explain how Holmes is able to tell a character's entire life history by studying their pocket watch. He doesn't need to do this every time either. Once he has demonstrated Holmes' remarkable powers on a couple of times on trivial examples, the reader is willing to unquestioningly accept the character's meta knowledge. Many other authors, such as Timothy Zahn (Thrawn), use the same trick. But to the Agatha Christie school of detective fiction this is cheating. All the clues have to be present in the text so that the perceptive reader can solve it before the detective. But I suspect Christie was smarter than Doyle.</p><p></p><p>So when it comes to D&D, is it okay for the DM to to this? I will provide the definitive answer: maybe. Another question: is the DM omniscient? If the answer is no, then possibly a villain may have resources and contingences that <strong>not even the DM knows about</strong> until they pull them out to foil the PCs.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Paul Farquhar, post: 9004794, member: 6906155"] This brings us to a side issue: How does the DM run characters who are considerably more intelligent than they are? Well, if you look at literature, with Sherlock Holmes being the prime example, the answer is, you cheat. Holmes has access to the author's meta-knowledge. Doyle then works backwards to explain how Holmes is able to tell a character's entire life history by studying their pocket watch. He doesn't need to do this every time either. Once he has demonstrated Holmes' remarkable powers on a couple of times on trivial examples, the reader is willing to unquestioningly accept the character's meta knowledge. Many other authors, such as Timothy Zahn (Thrawn), use the same trick. But to the Agatha Christie school of detective fiction this is cheating. All the clues have to be present in the text so that the perceptive reader can solve it before the detective. But I suspect Christie was smarter than Doyle. So when it comes to D&D, is it okay for the DM to to this? I will provide the definitive answer: maybe. Another question: is the DM omniscient? If the answer is no, then possibly a villain may have resources and contingences that [B]not even the DM knows about[/B] until they pull them out to foil the PCs. [/QUOTE]
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