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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6207998" data-attributes="member: 6681948">To my mind, the players are well within their rights to be irked that the jeweler makes a midnight run with no apparent reason for doing so.  If he was going to move that kind of wealth, it seems likely he would start packing up earlier, and would hire guards to accompany him, both things the PC’s would be hard pressed to miss while investigating his shop for robbery purposes. If he wasn’t doing all these things, something must have spooked him so he took off at short notice – tracking him should not be all that difficult if he was rushed.  I’m sure we could concoct a scenario where his sudden, unanticipated and untraceable departure is reasonable, but it would be tough to imagine what that might be, so a pretty odd situation.  I note that avoiding suspicion, by the rules, imposes a -20(!) penalty on Gather Information.  The prospect of the jeweler being tipped off seems pretty good, which may explain a midnight run, but not why he is impossible to trace.  His roll may also have been adequate to get some info on protections used by the jeweler, but not everything.  It’s not impossible that no one in the region knows about the magical protections at all, if they were undertaken by a wizard who travelled in specifically for the job.  We’re now getting into setting issues on a macro basis (is the setting one where hiring such a wizard is practical?  Is it common – if so, the PC’s should likely know it is common) and a micro level (is the cost of obtaining such protections justified by the magnitude of the wealth at stake, which crosses to the metagame of whether the reward is appropriate to the risk and the challenge).  Assuming that the PC did attract unwanted attention (pretty reasonable as he cases out the jeweler in a small community, backed up by the -20 penalty for keeping his questions on the down low), and did not detect the suspicions he aroused (I like the Sense Motive check, although the rules don’t call for one), then he has no call for complaint.  Depending on the game style, often such rolls are made secretly so the player would not know with certainty whether he succeeded, or to what extent. Under this model, where does “The demon can use this ability to offer a mortal whatever he or she desires—but unless the <a href="http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Wish" target="_blank">wish</a> is used to create pain and suffering in the world, the glabrezu demands either terrible evil acts or great sacrifice as compensation” fall?  To me, it is a rule, but one which requires GM arbitration, whether to determine whether the PC succeeds, to determine any bonus he gets to succeed, or to set the DC and/or consequences of the check. I think this is very relevant – to the “GM with the jewelry robbery” example, I suggest it was incumbent upon him to make his expectations clear up front, in reviewing the characters (ie if you want heroes and you get criminals, speak up in vetting the characters).  Perhaps it was not obvious at that time, but it was again incumbent on him to address the dichotomy between the game he (thought he) was running and the game the PC’s (appeared to) play.</blockquote>

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