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It's the only way to be sure
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this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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Your DM casts "Are you sure about that?"
I vaguely remember a perk in some expansion book of some Shadowrun edition that was basically "common sense" and ruleswise it meant that once per game session the GM should ask you "are you sure about that" when you're about to do something stupid. That's it. If you go ahead, you go ahead. If you don't realize that they are triggering the perk, you go ahead. If you never do anything stupid (yeah, right), they will never ask.
I tend to give that to my players "for free", but I still love that it's been encoded as a perk that's worth some points at character generation.
That's also a core rulebook perk for Vampires: the Masquerade
It does make sense. Players aren't their PCs, they don't see the world as their PC does, so things that would be obvious from their PC's perspective aren't necessarily from the player's. That disconnect means there are bound to be times when players do stupid stuff their PC wouldn't actually do, so a nudge from the GM can set them straight
Yes, but there's a fine line to draw here as a GM: as a theoretical extreme, if I intervened every time I thought their PC would "definitely know this" or "would never do this", then I start to play the PC more than they do.
Or put differently: that disconnect between player knowledge/actions and PC knowledge/actions is unavoidable to some degree. How much of it is tolerated/expected pretty much depends on your goals/playstile/desires on the group. Some players really care about "playing the PC right" and others really just see them as a puppet to control (in which case they can't "play them wrong").
Oh absolutely. There's always going to be disconnects between what the player knows/remembers, and what their PC should, but I mean intervening more when a player exceedingly defying their PC's common sense.
Like in this example, both the player and PC know what this scepter does, both are aware they're standing rather near it. As a wizard, the PC is likely more than wise and intelligent enough to come to the conclusion that casting destruction magic here would be bad.
But because the player isn't physically there, and isn't familiar with magic in the way a wizard would be, there is a disconnect in common sense.
Of course it varies by game and GM, but in this scenario I wouldn't believe it a bad thing for the GM to give a little nudge to the player that what they're suggesting to do is life-threateningly stupid, given their PC would've likely done the same if they could hear their player speak.
It also exists in GURPS:
The Wizard says, "Yes, I'm an Evocation Wizard so I use Sculpt Spells to choose all my party members. They automatically make the save and take no damage."