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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7326307" data-attributes="member: 29398">Balderdash.  They can do all of these things - they just have to realize that the information they're working from was only valid at the time it was obtained and things may well have changed since.Just like the real world, for all that.Here we agree, although issues of verismiwhatever are better solved by richer, deeper, and more detailed worldbuilding rather than less, or none.Canned modules - particularly some of the very early ones - had some rather consistent issues that a DM had to be on her toes to catch and fix.  One was the sort of thing you mention above where monsters a) never move and b) are still assumed to be alive even though the PCs may have already killed them elsewhere (and c: never do anything in reaction to what the PCs have done).  Another was the not-often-correct assumptions that the PCs would a) approach a given room from a particular direction where other options existed, and b) go through the adventure in a particular order.Not at all, mon ami.  Instead, what's required sometimes is more patience on the part of the players - and sometimes the DM - to spend the time to pick the occupants off piecemeal* rather than wade in and take 'em all on at once.* - an example: information gathering and divination have told the PCs there's upwards of 100 Ogres in those caves.  No way in hell the party can take on even 10 or 15 at a time, never mind 100, but they've for some reason committed to doing this and so they find a good vantage point and spend a week watching the entrance.  They see that once or twice a day hunting parties of about 6 well-equipped Ogres come out, usually returning a couple of hours later...and so the PCs start picking off these hunting parties when each gets well clear of the caves, as they (correctly, as it turns out) think dealing with 6 Ogres is within their pay grade.  After the first four or five hunting parties this will start getting tedious for players and DM alike - but from the PCs' perspective it's exactly what they'd most logically do; and this is where the patience comes in.  They can't storm the caves until the number of Ogres inside has been reduced to a way more manageable level, so they act more like a cat in front of a mousehole.And there'd be developments, of course.  The Ogres are going to notice their hunters aren't coming back (and nor is the food they bring in!) and will send out search parties.  If a search party finds the corpses of a hunting group the alert will go up.  And so on...Lanefan</blockquote>

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