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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 9617268" data-attributes="member: 6785785">NPCs don't make decisions. We only pretend they do. GMs make decisions. GMs decide if the NPC has the knowledge needed. And why. And who's available to be hired. And how devoted that person is to the cause. And nearly every other factor at play.GMs know all about the characters' abilities and whereabouts and so on. And GMs may have some agenda in play... principles that guide their thinking. Make the game fun! Provide a challenge!5E D&D in an attempt to appeal to as many players as possible, didn't commit to a set of principles to guide a DM. I don't know if 5.5E has done any more in that regard. Other than the very broad goals of fun or challenge and the like. Those offer very little to shed light on a DM's reasoning.It's not bold of me to assume that the DM knows what the players are capable of. That a given DM may not know every little thing doesn't change the fact that it's all information they likely know and which is readily available to them. Sure, they may miss a consumable magic item here and there, or even something more significant, but I don't think that changes the fact that the DM has a strong sense of what the party is capable of.Well, the conversation has been about the process, not the outcome. Welcome to the discussion!We're talking about clear and observable procedures versus fuzzy and imperceptible ones.Why not just share it when it's relevant? Why wait weeks or months down the road and then explain it?Also, if you can't remember the party's capabilities from week to week, I have little faith in you being able to recall the decision making process behind a random encounter months later.Sure, but I had more to say than what you quoted.Alarm may or may not work, and the reasons for that may be entirely hidden from the players. This is because the process potentially involves so much input from the DM.The characters aren't doing anything. The players are.Game mechanics allow players to make informed decisions. They are not the only way to do so, but the benefits of the Aetherial Premonition are more clear than those of Alarm, due to how they interact with the game mechanics.No, not really. I'm trying to ease the burden on the GM from having to make a million invisible decisions for every little thing that's going to happen in play because it's not a realistic or feasible expectation. Plenty of GMs make poor calls without any ill intent... it happens to me, I'm sure it happens to everyone involved in this discussion.No it doesn't. Are you going to say that Apocalypse World is more prone to railroading than a D&D game set in the Forgotten Realms?Heavy lore play can be as railroady as anything. Probably more so... there's more that's unknown to the players that will be used to shape what they can or cannot do.It's more about the process of play than it is the level of myth the game uses.</blockquote>

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