WHAT THIS THREAD IS NOT is a specific calling out of people.
WHAT THIS THREAD IS is a thread designed to discuss bad habits of players and GMs, and to constructively discuss great ways to correct/work with said habits to make GMs better GMs, and players better players.
WHAT THIS THREAD IS ALSO NOT is a discussion on isms (sexism, racism, gender pronouns). THIS IS ABOUT PLAYSTYLE/GMSTYLE ISSUES, not about social norms and/or differences involving choice of language or beliefs.
Example, I will start:
As a GM on TT night, I regularly come across players who do what I like to call "leading the GM". This is when a player will state what they think the GM should do with an NPC prior to a roll or use of a power/spell that doesn't exactly work that way, perhaps even to try to justify that a roll doesn't even need to happen. Example:
Cop NPC runs into a room where the vigilante PC is in a shootout with an evil NPC:
"I bet the cop doesn't even know which one of us is the good guy or not."
While there's nothing inherently wrong with chatter, some players have the bad habit of throwing out their perceived direction of a scene, which usually results in them arguing what an NPC would or wouldn't believe, what they should or should not have to roll, or what the difficulty should be.
In the above example, the GM may be planning for the the cop to be LIKE A COP and take the "everyone is getting handcuffed" approach. This would be in contradiction to what the player was trying to lead, which can then run into accusations of railroading, etc.
HOW I ADDRESS THIS: Tell the player that you have in mind the initial response from the officer. Don't tell them what it is. Instead, tell them that if they would like to use a deception/persuasion check, they can explain what they're trying to sell the cop on, and you will set the difficulty based on how radically this would alter the cop's current inclinations.
I've had great results falling back on to dice systems to determine successes rather than discussing NPC rractions as a matter of creative control. Every player has the same capability of putting points into their character sheet.
