Players Are Idiots!

Players are idiots!

Not really, though sometimes it seems that way from the GM side of the screen. Players make what appear to be stupid decisions all the time. While they may frequently seem like idiots, this apparent lack of judgment stems from them acting on incomplete information. 

The GM always needs to remember that the players only know what he tells them. He cannot assume the players know anything he hasn’t specifically told them. The GM has to convey all the PCs senses. Everything they see, smell, taste, touch or hear comes through the GM.  The players then have to interpret this information and use it to make all their in game decisions. 

One difficult area for the GM is deciding what information the players should automatically be given about a scene versus what they should have to ask for or search for.  The GM should probably err on the side of giving more information rather than less when this situation occurs.

The GM should never lie to the players, or intentionally omit something the PCs should be told or made aware of. Everything they hear from the GM should be what their characters perceive to be true. Illusions and other in game trickery can cause this line to blur.

The players need to remember to ask the right questions. The GM isn’t supposed to tell them everything up front. He is only supposed to tell them what he believes their characters could gleam from the situation. NPCs don’t tell PCs everything, just because a PC walked into the room. Also the GM sometimes accidentally omits something that should be divulged to the players. The players need to assess the situation and ask questions to fill in the missing bits of information.  Players also need to understand that sometimes NPCs lie, however the GM never should. 

One thing players also need to do is tell each other what the GM told them. That way they can all verify that they heard the same thing and are all making decisions based on the same information.

One example from the current game involves an abandoned village with a castle overlooking it. The only inhabitant of the village is a small fairy who tends to the graveyard. When the PCs met the fairy, I as the GM, should have had the fairy tell them the castle was inhabited by strange birdmen at some point during the exchange. However I may have forgotten to mention it while dealing with lots of other things (kids, other portions of the game…etc), although I think I did mention that something was preventing the fairy from doing what she wanted to do in the village and that is why it stayed in the graveyard.  Had the PCs asked the fairy if the castle was inhabited the situation would have been easily resolved as the fairy would have told them yes and given them clues as to by what. In this situation the players would have asked the question to fill in the information the GM accidentally omitted.

If the GMs tells the players everything they should know and they have asked all the questions they are going to ask yet they still make the stupid choice, I suppose there is nothing more to be done. 

Sometimes they just are idiots.