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Message: <blockquote data-quote="aramis erak" data-source="post: 9617805" data-attributes="member: 6779310">Which is a strongly playstyle dependent claim.I've long been a highly procedural, somewhat literalist¹ GM. In D&D, the encounter checks are once per [10min] turn unless instructed otherwise. This leaves the encounter clock essentially fixed a hh:00, hh:10, hh:20, hh:30, hh:40, and hh:50.  given 8 hours, and that the casting is seldom on those 6 points an hour, a 1/60 chance that 1/48 of checks is ambiguous as to Alarm timing.The methods of evading alarm are pretty straight forward: dimension door (or other form of teleport) being the most obvious to me - which requires a spell caster or one of only a handful of MM foes... Walking through walls also works; great way to give a party a portable hole. Creatures in a D&D context is a not entirely clearly defined bit of jargon that includes everything in the Monster Manual in 5E, and anything created with the monster creation rules, and anything created with the PC rules. So, essentially, "Can it move? Yes, it's a creature; No, it still might be a creature." So, in 5E, it's pretty cut and dried for the literalist proceduralist GM. Bypass the portal.¹: Literalist as in "The rules say what the rules say, no matter the authorial intent."It's germane to almost all understandings of fiat. Fundamentally, all decisions in fiction involve fiat at some point. The question really isn't "is it by fiat?" but "Whose fiat decision was it?" The rules designer? The setting designer? The module author? The GM? Some PC? Your PC?We're basically giving a pass to the decisions external to the group, or which come from prior decisions being carried forward, and that's probably appropriate, but everything in the fiction is, at some level, someone deciding upon their own initiative and authority.</blockquote>

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