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Message: <blockquote data-quote="prabe" data-source="post: 8010444" data-attributes="member: 7016699">Mostly, I know these characters well enough (as the players are playing them, anyway) that they're pretty predictable from my POV. It's not as though I have any real preference what they do or how they do it. If they want to talk their way past some ogres, that's fine; if they want to fight those same ogres, that's fine, too. Note I said "when they have a goal in front of them." If I know what's motivating them in a given situation, their responses are predictable.Being able to predict their behavior is more about knowing what needs prepped. If I have a tribe of orcs raiding a local village, I'll prep the orcs for a number of solutions; given that orcs in my setting are more reasonable than the default, and the characters have knowledge of this, I wouldn't necessarily expect them to just set out to kill the orcs. It has nothing to do with any preference on my end for how they handle those orcs (though joining them in raiding the village would be ... unusual for either of the parties I'm DMing for).It's also not exactly about predicting the approach they'll take to doing whatever they do. If they decide to try to negotiate with the Hypothetical Orcs, I don't know or care to predict how they'll go about doing so; likewise if they decide to fight them. If I put [PROBLEM] between the party and their goal, I know they're going to try to solve it, but the how is a mystery to me (aside from knowing the players and characters pretty well).</blockquote>

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