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.