ONCE MORE INTO THE BREACH: Are NPCs an underutilized "overlay" for choice in RPGs?

My previous Into The Breach post here, where I harp on the beauty of objectives: https://icastlight.blogspot.com/2019/04/objectives-for-combat-beyond-kill.html

Here is Chris McDowall on the same game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIknE3GLfbw&feature=youtu.be

In the video, Chris points out the supremacy of choice in Into The Breach. There are multiple, often easy to understand, choices that are provided at all layers of the game starting from the first screen. As you move from mech selection to environment selection, to objective selection, to combat screen, a player is given choice with obvious information or provided additional information just a mouse click away.

Choice is important because it gives players agency. If something goes wrong, they generally will blame themselves not the DM, system, or (lesser still) the die. This is why Call of Cthulhu's "push" mechanic, where you can re-roll a skill check but failure is now even worse consequences, is quite nice. Players get a simple, open, and easy to understand choice: do you want to try again with the stakes for failure raised?

But Chris asks a very important question, what's the best interface to present layers of choice to players in a similar manner to Into The Breach? As he states, if you had three small dungeons: 

• one with a single big monster (20 HD Bronze Golem)
• one with nothing but traps (or spiders that act like traps)
• one full of skeletons (20 1 HD skeletons)

How do you communicate that choice?

This is not trivial given Barrowmaze & Forbidden Caverns of Archia, both are megadungeons with a lot of choices in the form of several mini dungeons, but little of it obvious until PCs undertake the travel to the respective sites and break open the respective entrances, which have differences, but they don't appear to be linked to any definite contents.

So what is the solution to the paucity of information in Barrowmaze & Archia and can act as information overlay a la Breach? I think tavern NPCs.

Roll 1d6 for what an NPC at the tavern knows (& wants):

1 | Dungeon location (can be hired a guide)
2 | Dungeon treasure (will tell the legend for libations)
3 | Dungeon monsters/traps (has related injury)
4 | Location & Treasure (looking for a  cut to give out both; more if expected to provide aid)
5 | Location & Monster (looking to get rid of the monster(s))
6 | Monster & Treasure (haunted by a defeat from the former & still in need of the latter)

While a rumor table could perform the same function, more life is given to the world and the time spent to build the NPC is not for naught. Additionally, it gives NPCs a reason to also go missing, die, or not always be at the PC beck and call because they go off looking for these things themselves.

I think rumor tables are better for seeding knowlege when PCs start a campaign. Give them additional goals to pursue and topics of conversation to bring up to NPCs.

Combining the dungeons above and the NPC knowlege table:

Red: Rolls 1: Knows the location of the dungeon known as "Wood's Hearth"; a dungeon entrance that is perpetually warm year-round (location of Bronze Golem); will lead PCs there for 20 GP.

Fish: Rolls 3: With enough red wine (every glass provide a +1 to a RxN check), will tell the PCs about how their leg was injured in a spiked pit trap; high quality wine will yeild knowlege about how to avoid the entrance trap of the "Red Door in the Hills" (location of the dungeon of traps).

Fetch: Rolls 5: A local thief who is looking for PCs to remove, bless, purify, or remove curse to eliminate the skeletons infesting the "Gray Arch" an old tomb on the outskirts of town off the main road; exact reasons are kept secret, but will pay 10 GP per skull +100 GP if nothing else is touched in the dungeon