Quote Originally Posted by Keltest View Post
Well for one, it is the DM's job to keep track of all the information as the worldbuilder. But more directly, if the players don't remember something... then they don't remember it. They definitionally can't tell you what they don't know because they don't know it!
Ding! We have a winner. People cant tell you what they don't know. And in this case the players are literally telling you "this problem seems unsolvable" when the characters already know the answer, but the GM - who knows they know - won't tell them what it is, even though the GM is the eyes and ears of the characters?

Players are sorting through likely several relevant looking details - (examples only) the werewolfs prisoner name is Howlfang, he fears fire, the attack is at Muir Woods, the attack is on Tuesday, the attack involves blood magic, the werewolves target is children, the purpose of the attack is to kidnap rather than kill, the werewolves have moved here recently from Canada, their leader has one eye and tells no-one about his past, and the werewolves live in a cave in Fang Forest.

What tells me as a player that "Muir Woods" is the more relevant keyword compared to the other dozen details?

I've run lengthy, complex Call of Cthulhu campaigns. Players are largely attentive and interested the whole time. They take notes (ending the campaign with 50+ pages of them!). They keep a clue book with handouts in it. They strategize. I'd consider them highly intelligent. But they -still- make mistakes, like the above "kill the duke instead of the baron" example, or mixing details of an event in Cairo with one in London to draw an invalid conclusion. And it's a 10 second problem to solve when I-as-GM-with-better-information say "Do you mean the Duke? You have no reason to kill the Baron" or "actually, your characters discovered the London cultists didn't seem to care about star movements".