Post date: Jun 21, 2010 1:17:42 AM
While this has not happened recently a conversation with a friend made me think this would be a good post topic.
There are times in a game when a player does something that to your mind as the GM is purely suicidal. Now RPGs are about making choices, which powers to pick, what attack to use, when to heal and when to shoot. But when a players makes a choice that you are certain would kill them outright, it is your job to make sure that is what they really want to do. Because when a player is about to make a very poor choice, this could be because of one of three things.
1) They really did not understand what the situation really was (failure to communicate by the GM).
2) They really do not understand what the results are( failure to understand the rules/lethality of the choice)
3) They think their character cannot be killed because of how they have been handled by GM's, past and present (failure to believe there is any risk in the game).
So my tactic is using a simple phrase three times, "Are you sure you want to do that?"
With the first time I use it, I re-emphasize the situation "Are you sure you want to do that? Let me remind you there are multiple red-laser sight dots all over your armor." should indicate that doing something foolish will result in being shot..a lot.
With the second time I use it, I ask the question of the player, to find out what they think could happen "Because to me that seems pretty risky, why are you so sure you will survive." Perhaps they have something that might help them that you did not know was in their inventory, to which you have to admit it might work, but if not...explain why not.
With the third time I use it, I do not add anything else, this is more like the final warning, and if they do it, then you at least gave them three chances to change their mind.
Now here comes the hard part for the GM, you must carry through with the consequences, otherwise your implied threat and power are completely neutered. Certain gamers that I have met will actually throw a character into lethal situations just to see if the GM is a softy or not. Once identified as a softy they will walk all over the GM, the story and plot, and whatever they feel like just to have fun, at everyone else's expense. So do not hesitate to bring the full situation to bear and kill the fool, but also the dice must be used. You could roll a bunch of critical failures, and at this time fate is kind to the PCs. So when you roll this up, do it in front of everyone so they can see you really did try to bring the full consequence of their actions to the person, and not behind the screen.