[Shadowjack]

I wasn't contesting your stance, merely presenting mine

[Aryeonos]

Seriously, as a GM you know the future consequences of their actions before they even perform them, and their character might actually reason through with what they're about to do. Taking away in character knowledge and letting a player do something you know will damn him for ever, but you know his character would know not to do is the most royally stupid thing you could do as a GM. Players can get themselves in royally deep in plenty of ways even if you play the part of their in character knowledge and common sense, which is part of your job as a GM.

[GiraffeShaman]

I'm curious about what specific situations have come up where these warnings are needed in order to avoid player death, because frankly this kind of thing has rarely come up in my games. I do recall issuing such a warning, but it was a player new to our SR group. The deadliest blunders with our group have been mostly about common sense, not world knowledge, and sometimes I was part of them as a player.

I think a big part of it is a style choice and your contract with your players, which will vary by group. I've always preferred not to have the warnings, as a player or a GM, since I feel it interferes with immersion, in a similar manner to not having a no player kill rule. My players are aware of this.

I can understand having such a rule if your players are busy people who don't have the time to read the books, but in our group the players are fairly knowledgable about the world and the books are available to everyone.

Common sense is just one of those things I feel needs to be provided by the player (Putting aside the quality), even though perhaps at times it means unwise people will roleplay a character that should be more saavy inappropriately. It's a bit like social encounters. Technically, a GM should always have social encounters go better for those with higher charisma and the appropriate skills. The reality is that many GMs also base it partly on how the player roleplays the character and dialogue choices. The player's dramatic abilities has an effect on the outcome, just as sometimes a player's common sense, or lack thereof, sometimes has an effect on an adventure or battle outcome.

[Aryeonos]

The common sense thing is alerting your players about things their characters would know, and for someone like me who makes their own setting cities, it's particularly important to make your players aware of the general state and atmosphere of the city. Little flags like "I'm about to walk out the door with my loaded shotgun under my arm, suddenly as my hand is on the knob it doesn't feel like such a good idea. I walk passed a couple security points every day on my way to where I'm going and I feel that they might take this the wrong way."

I usually sit down with my players and just spend a few hours discussing the setting and state of affairs they're about to jump into, how prevalent security is, what is common what isn't before we start to avoid instances like that but some things will slip the players mind.

Trying to fast talk your way out of police questioning when you just blew out a door with small arms fire, and then your buddy just cloaked in broad daylight with an assault rifle, I will not help you there.

[Mantis]

Another thing that happens is tunnel vision combined with stupid. I had an encounter once where the PCs had to board a ship and take it over at sea. They scouted a bit and were told the ship regularly went through pirate waters so was armed. Their plan was to take a boat out to meet it and then swim over with scuba gear and climb aboard. They didn't factor in how they were going to climb aboard (ship, not boat so no lunging out of the water.)
They get to the thing after setting out in the morning. High noon. I repeat the time of day. They swim to the ship. I mention time of day again. They realize they have no way to climb on the ship and so get the mage to levitate them. Once more time of day is mentioned. They continue up onto the ship under levitate and into the the barrels of the deck guns. Three characters down and a fourth dead. They did eventually take the ship but at one hell of a cost.
Stupid and tunnel vision. Apparently the fact it was high noon and anyone could see them never crossed their minds. Despite numerous warnings.

[Ernie55]

Game's I've played in operate like Mantis has just described, giving enough information (in that case repeatedly) to allow the players to make informed decisions and then giving them freewill to use that information.

Good example of my stupidity, trying to do a business deal in the NAN, I'm playing the team's face. The GM had gone through a big bit about where we were, the high level of security, we were very definitely on this guys patch and when things didn't go exactly as I wanted I still threatened to have the guy assassinated. Now the guy took it as a bad joke (he wasn't a massively violent NPC), laughed me out, I gained a boat load of notoriety, lost the faith of the rest of the team, and had the game not broken up much longer after that I'm sure he'd have been a low level enemy.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

In my never-humble opinion, Guns' stance is coddling after playing, oh, three or five sessions of any role-playing game - across all gaming systems.  If by that point they don't get it, the players to which you have to frequently ask "Are you sure?" should have stated to them, "In-character actions result in in-character consequences.  Doing things in the game that in real life would get you shot up or at least shot at will get you shot up (or at least shot at) in the game world.  If you tell me you're going to pull your concealed hold-out pistol on the mob boss in his own house with six of his mooks there in order to threaten him, I will no longer ask you, 'are you sure?' because you're being a dumb-ass son of a bitch who thinks that it's just a character and you're just here to have fun; you may be here to have fun, but all the rest of us are here to have fun as well, and doing something totally off-the-wall and an eleven on the one-to-ten stupid scale while we're trying to have something within shouting distance of realism will get you killed.

"Period.  Full stop."

The most a GM should do at that point, unless the character has actually taken 'common sense' as a Positive Quality, is pause, lift an eyebrow, wait three beats, and then nod and proceed with how everyone else reacts.  And if that means that that player is putting together a new character every other game session because the last session he got himself killed doing something overwhelmingly stupid (on the "I have Kid Stealth cyberlegs - I can jump from the top of a 150-floor building across a 20m gap to catch the helicopter's landing skid easy!!" scale), then by the third or fourth character, perhaps roleplaying just ain't for him.

[Mirikon]

You know, Wyrm and I have been agreeing on a lot of things lately. This is scaring me.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Yes, well, mostly my self-restraint.  There've been at least two posts lately where we would have been on opposite sides. 

[I_V_Saur]

My latest batch have been amazingly intelligent. As both a player and DM, I've been pulling my hair out. It was always "Let's chop up the Dragon!" and "I'mma febreeze a feral bear's ass!". It was silly, stupid, and looking back, utterly hilarious. As a DM, I always tried to let the players worm their way out, and they avoided that, found their own way, and wondered why every NPC was pissed at them killing a few drunken civvies back in the biggest city on the continent.

It all depends on the group. Some players 'get' it, so you give them more immersion, less hints. They go into the frying pan more, and maybe roll up a couple extra sheets, but they realize their mistakes, so they learn.

Some players never learn. You can smack them with the rulebooks all you want, all they'll understand is 'more armour, more damage'. Adjust the game to Pink Mohawk, bring up the insanity level, and let fly some hilarious situations - like SR's 'Best Ork Decker' ran into.

Sometimes players don't die just because they're stupid. In fact, most of my fellow players from DnD didn't die, except the one who was quite genre savvy - he jumped down a boss' throat, uncorking over a dozen flasks of Alchemist's Fire, with a badass battlecry. It worked, but he had to roll up a new guy.

[Mantis]

Yeah that would work so long as everyone wants to do it. The problem comes up when it is just one or two who want pink mohawk and the rest would like to play a little more realistically. The example I gave was a result of a 'pinky' being made team leader and the others just going along with  him because 'he knew the system better' (Three new players and two old timers). That was perhaps, the least stupid thing he ever suggested in that campaign.

[Crunch]

I guess I'd say a couple of things.

1) The three most important things a GM has to do are set clear expectations of how the world will behave, communicate them effectively, and let the players play.

2) Slack for new players is fine, and in fact to be encouraged, but it shouldn't be extended to the point that the players actions don't matter. And as players become more familiar with the system the training wheels should be taken off, but that doesn't take away the GMs responsibility to give the PLAYERS the information they need and that their characters should have access to. If Beau Peep the Samurai has been living on the block and buying Ramen from the noodle cart every day then you shouldn't let Beau Peep's player accidentally get him killed for mortally insulting the street vendor by violating his well taboo against discussing hockey.

3) A good GM should always be aware of who his players are, who they are playing and what they expect. If your players come to you with a gang member who likes knives, a B-list rocker who moonlights as a con man and a burned out mage known with a drinking problem then putting them into a high stakes corporate politics game is probably a mistake. Likewise if the characters are uber professional mercs then putting them in a game centered around saving the local watering hole from EvilCo Real Estate development is probably a mistake.

4) Realism isn't as important as suspension of disbelief. Things don't have to BE real, but they should FEEL real.

5) To me, Pink Mohawk doesn't mean no consequences, or even less realistic consequences. Bubblegum Crisis is way more Pink Mohawk than the A Team, but the consequences in Bubblegum Crisis are probably more realistic.

[Mara]

I will NEVER stop asking players "Are you sure?" or "Did you just say that in-character?" The thing is, I do not just ask that for
bad ideas, or things that they really shouldn't say. I also do it for really good ideas, and and really appropriate things. It keeps
the players guessing about what they are doing and saying, and keeps them thinking.

[All4BigGuns]

I will NEVER stop asking players "Are you sure?" or "Did you just say that in-character?" The thing is, I do not just ask that for
bad ideas, or things that they really shouldn't say. I also do it for really good ideas, and and really appropriate things. It keeps
the players guessing about what they are doing and saying, and keeps them thinking.

This. A whole lot of times this!

[Aryeonos]

yeah, you guys are raising good points, it is up to the GM to communicate the world, so as far as going "Are you sure" which I don't do, it's more of "In this world, there are measures that would easily pick up those actions you have planned" and if by the second time they try the same thing they'll get the consequences of police or whom ever's attention.

The only time you should stop a player is if you know he doesn't fully understand the setting he's in, and if he just wants to be a jackass for jackass sake then he'll throw himself to the dogs. It's just springing things on people like rock of doom status that's a load of drek.