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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aenghus" data-source="post: 6838970" data-attributes="member: 2656">There is a middle ground here. Letting the occasional clue fall into the players laps isn't a terrible thing, especially when it's one way the referee can signal what s/he feels the PCs/players are doing wrong and how to amend it.In a conventional game the referee is responsible for keeping the game fun for everyone concerned, especially when things are going wrong. It's OK for the PCs to get into trouble due to player choices or lack of information, but sometimes you need to give them a break. NPCs are sometimes stupid, lazy, venal, corruptible, absent, sleeping, fallible, even the intelligent ones. I see a tendency with some referees to assign their NPCs a groupmind where they are unfailingly efficient and lack flaws, but this can make them unbelievable and make the game too tough on players. My players are intelligent but they make plenty of mistakes, and so do the NPCs. For instance a PC making a single noise doesn't guarantee that guards will hear it or if they do that they will investigate it. Maybe the dogs are barking outside, maybe there's a branch tapping at a window, maybe a door or window is rattling in the wind. Its possible for the players/PCs to succeed or at least avoid disaster, but be very clear it's due to dumb luck and random circumstance rather than good planning. "Good planning" is very subjective, this is important to realise. One person's good plan is to another sloppy and full of holes and to another is massively overdetailed. A referee need to give clear feedback to their players as to what they see as "good planning", effective intelligence gathering etc, even if it's not apparent to their PCs. PCs almost always have imperfect information and still have to dare to act, improvising when they find out the flaws in their plan.It's important for the referee to keep the game fun for the players precisely when things are going wrong for the PCs. It the referee feels the players didn't do their homework, there's the temptation to punish them accordingly, but making the game unfun hurts everyone including the referee.</blockquote>

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