Starfinder When players ask "leading questions" rather than just saying what they want to do.

[Willie the Duck]

Yeah. In some cases I think it's because the player has had bad experiences with GMs in the past. I hate it when players try to lead me down a direction instead of just telling me what they want their character to accomplish. The absolute worst is when the PCs are interviewing people as part of an investigation, stuff like asking if they've seen Vinnie, what happened last night, etc., etc., where the PC speaks in such a circuitous manner that even I, the DM, am not sure what they're trying to communicate.

The most baffling that comes to mind is when I was running a 3rd edition game of Ravenloft in a mountainous area.

Player: What kind of trees are around?
Me: Uh, pine trees.
Player: <mutters under his breath> There'd be hardwood trees too.
Me: What the %#%# does it matter? If you want an oak tree or a birch or something just #%#%# tell me.

This is definitely my issue too. Sometimes I don't have a pixel-level idea of what the environment is like. The two cliffs are 'over a person's reasonable running longjump'-distance apart, not a set number of meters apart. It is cold out, not exactly two degrees below freezing. Asking me specific just makes me make something up on the fly. It's one of my beefs with games with tables upon tables of modifiers to rolls -- usually right up until we break out those tables, half those parameters were undecided, so their inclusion didn't make the number you needed to roll any more 'true.'

In my experience, the player is trying to outmaneuver an adversarial GM.

Whether that GM is actually present varies from table to table.

I tend to agree, but sometimes someone is just operating on a different framework. Completely unrelated to gaming, I've had a myriad of conversations with my wife where one of us finally has to stop the conversation and state something akin to, "you are burying the lead here, what happened(/what are you asking), and to what is it pertinent?"

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I tend to agree, but sometimes someone is just operating on a different framework. Completely unrelated to gaming, I've had a myriad of conversations with my wife where one of us finally has to stop the conversation and state something akin to, "you are burying the lead here, what happened(/what are you asking), and to what is it pertinent?"

I definitely think this behaviour is not specific to roleplaying games and players. You can have it elsewhere in your private and professional life as well.
A typical thing I am familiar with is a user/customer describing some feature or option which ultimately really is just something that makes a workaround around a flaw easier or otherwise a complicated way to do something easier, rather than describing what the thing is she really wants and could possibly be implemented in a far more straightforward manner.

 

[Campbell]

I mean this is prototypical skilled play. In order to assess how you want to interact with your environment you seek out knowledge of that environment. It's how a lot of were taught to play the game.

 

[payn]

I mean this is prototypical skilled play. In order to assess how you want to interact with your environment you seek out knowledge of that environment. It's how a lot of were taught to play the game.

True, but I think there is a certain apprehension that giving too much away to the GM could ruin your plan or have it backfire on you. Perhaps a byproduct of gotcha style GMing from skill play.

 

[MaskedGuy]

To be fair, it could also be playing counting how many units of movements they need to spend to walk in the ceiling

 

[Campbell]

True, but I think there is a certain apprehension that giving too much away to the GM could ruin your plan or have it backfire on you. Perhaps a byproduct of gotcha style GMing from skill play.

I think there is also often just as much apprehension that the GM could just hand you an unearned win. At least that's something I tend to be concerned about sometimes. Asking questions can sometimes be a good way to encourage GMs to engage referee mode. I know I often appreciate clarifying questions when I GM for exactly that reason.

 

[Blue]

The characters live in the world. As DM, I'm supposed to be the players window into that. If the characters can observe something that I haven't described (limited throughput - my words are less than living there), then by all means ask me for more details.

If you're asking the details are pertinent and I don't mind answering. Though the more you target the question, the better I can answer specifics you have. If you want to know how finely someone is dressed, and also the nationality of the clothing, mention those things so I don't waste time talking about how fashionable the clothing is. On the other hand players can have open ended questions looking for something - if you ask about the clothing and I mention that it doesn't seem appropriate for the weather, that may not be a specific you thoguht to ask, but is one the characters could notice and you can now follow up on if you wish.

 

[Fauchard1520]

I mean this is prototypical skilled play. In order to assess how you want to interact with your environment you seek out knowledge of that environment. It's how a lot of were taught to play the game.

Huh. Funky that we've got "skilled play" on the one hand and "this is a problem with new players" elsewhere in the thread. I wonder if it's a generational thing?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Huh. Funky that we've got "skilled play" on the one hand and "this is a problem with new players" elsewhere in the thread. I wonder if it's a generational thing?

Context is everything; it can be one in one situation and the other in a different one.

 

[GrahamWills]

Huh. Funky that we've got "skilled play" on the one hand and "this is a problem with new players" elsewhere in the thread. I wonder if it's a generational thing?

I think it's more a play style sort of thing. I saw the same thing in a thread on "underappreciated GM skills". Some GMs/players are very simulational in approach, and they hate any attempt to define parts of the world based on the characters in that world. So for them, they want to explain the world without reference to the characters. By saying "can I climb the wall?" it biases the GM into defining the world based on the desire of the character to take that action. Instead they ask a character-neutral question about measurements.

I find that style of play a bit tedious and often adversarial, so I prefer the character-focused creation style. I accept that it means I will often define the world in a way that favors the characters, but that's OK by me.