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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fanaelialae" data-source="post: 8265162" data-attributes="member: 53980">Technically, yes, but I think we have to consider what a useful definition of DM fiat is. We could use it to encompass literally everything the DM does, whether it's to deus ex machina style save the PCs bacon, or adding a 0th level commoner to the world who is the mayor's daughter. However, I would posit that such a definition, while technically true, is not functionally useful. I think a more useful definition (and the way the term is typically used) is to mean when the DM intervenes to steer events in a desired direction.If you create a city where Al Capone is the top criminal element, but there are other criminals lower in the pecking order, including those that aren't associated with Capone, I'd argue it's not an exercise of fiat. It's just the DM creating a city and populating it with NPCs.Fiat would be if the PCs went after the low level drug dealer, and afterwards the DM decides that this drug dealer was Capone's nephew (thereby forcing the players into conflict with Capone). The opposite would also be fiat (originally having the dealer be one of Capone's men, but changing that retroactively because the DM doesn't want that conflict to occur).If the DM creates the NPCs and then allows the PCs to interact with those NPCs as they were designed, it typically won't be fiat in a meaningful sense.</blockquote>