Every now and then a player character does something extremely risky because "it would be fun." What are some good ways to handle this as a GM, for the different styles of play? I like playing non-epic sandbox stories, which makes matters all the worse.
Just the latest example:
DM: You are walking a wide trade route, paved with large white stones. The surrounding hills are homes to small fortresses protecting the city in the distance: Zvezdovryh. Nearing the end of your tiring journey, you approach the huge gates, when something very much out of the ordinary happens – men on horseback rush out of the gates, cutting down the halberdier city guards. The horsemen keep coming and coming, rushing along the wide road under arbalest fire from the walls.
Players 1 & 2 (well to the side of the road): We stay and watch, ready to draw weapons.
Player 3 (on the road): I sprint towards the hills.
Player 4 (on the road): I move to the side of the road, draw my bow and start shooting at them.
DM (to Player 4): At first no one notices you — but when you kill one of the front men, a detachment of five rushes you. Roll dice.
Needless to say, the newly-created, inexperienced rogue got slaughtered. Worst part is, that was 4 hours of character creation versus 1 minute of game time.
Long after the fact we talked and it turned out that we had different ideas of what was happening, so I had not explained the situation clearly. She had expected that the dust from the horses hooves would conceal her, making the riders blind to anything further that several meters. I, on the other hand, imagine stone road through a grassy field.
How could I have handled this differently at the time?
Best Answer
Player 4 sounds like a pretty novice/young/both player. I'd try one or more of these:
Explaining issue - I'd try to explain the player that there is a difference between kill-everything-that-moves Diablo and your average-rpg-with-some-battles-and-story. It might be that they are not familiar with how to play a table-top RPG, which generally is more about social interaction than mindless bloodshed and endless dice throwing.
Solving it in-game - It is almost always possible to make someone or something not kill your player. In this particular situation, the five people could just incapacitate your player, throw him into jail and forget him. Force him into slavery. You can try to find your way around this stupid action and use it as a plot hook, while making it uncomfortable enough for the player/character that they will know they did something wrong.
Changing your vision - Heck, perhaps the players don't want your fancy RPG-ing stuffeyz things. Maybe they want you to throw them into a randomly generated dungeon with randomly generated encounters from the book? Their expectations might be quite different from yours.
Wait a couple of years - At worst, the player might just not be capable of an organized and sane gameplay due to simple stupidity or immaturity. Maybe they won't learn their lesson even if you bribe them with money to play coherently. You have to declare a line after which you will tell the player "Play like a normal person or leave". There is no point wasting anyone's time with someone who just wants to jackass around.
Warn and talk about it - (added after seeing the clarification in the comment) If usually she's a normal player, then hm... Yea, as others have suggested before, first of all I'd make sure she is really aware of what consequences her actions can have. Asking her if she is Really Absolutely Totally Whoever-forbid Sure at first, and if she insists, you might try going the...
Your character wouldn't do that - I have problems believing a raving lunatic or some war fanatic would do something like this character. If all reason fails, unless characters have some serious problems with themselves they would never do something as stupid.
But all the above advice aside, the best you can do, in my opinion, is to just talk with such players and inquire why they did that. This should give you the necessary insight to resolve the problem.