GMforPowergamers
Legend
I'm not entirely sure what you're asking here, but to be clear I'm not referring to the mechanical "action" in the sense of actions, move, or action economy. I'm referring to the fictional action a character undertakes as described by the player. If I have described, for example, some seedy bar where something bad looks like it could happen any moment, a player may respond with "I retreat to the corner of the common room and take stock of the denizens, trying to get a sense of what bad things are happening here." That's an action the DM can adjudicate and what I prefer players have their characters do rather than ask questions of the DM.
Ok let me try another way then.
you say 'describe an action' instead of 'ask the DM a question'
so here is my question, what about things that are not actions...
before the hobgoblin 'dungon' we just did we were in a town where 1 PC was from... he is a dwarf Fighter (eldritch knigh)/Ranger... they caught a thief picking the pocket of our warlock... she was a little kid. one of the players said "Hey, doesn't he know who runs the thieves around here?" so I asked the player "Would you?" he thought for a moment then said "Yea probably" So then then the warlock player asked "hey is the girl just a set of stats or did you make a full character..." may answer way "Just ability scores and HP,"
then I came up with a NPC head of thieves guild and made it up and gave the info to the dwarf player, only then 5-8mins later did we get back in game...
eidt: notice that not one of those questions came with a skill check or an action... to be honest the game world was completely paused during the entire discussion.
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