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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psychotic Jim" data-source="post: 5835144" data-attributes="member: 547">I don't think this is a case that can be judged as an example of "right" or "wrong" GMing style. Rather, there seems to be a mismatch between what some of your players expect and what you expect. Rather than worrying about placing blame, it will be all of your responsibility to resolve the conflict. On the one hand, the one or two players are saying they don't have the meaningful information they need to make decisions that work. OTOH, you're stating that this particular player has not been trying hard enough to find those solutions.  So it seems the mismatch on expectations lies in the difficulty of the in-game decision making context.Looking at your anecdote, I can see some causes for disagreements. In the player's defense, a few of the contextual clues seem to be mixed. The father was angry, but why did he let the offender get away in the first place? If he was a local hero, the accusations were full of holes, and he had worked with the other PCs to help the town, why would they be obliged not to help him?  The player could have seen this as a plot by his enemies to take him out without a fair trial- and the sheriff and his men could be in on the take, for example- especially if they were trying to seem friendly.  In a case of immediate arrest for a heinous crime like this- time is of the essence and may not allow for a lot of questions.OTOH, in your defense, demanding that you give away too much is certainly objectionable.  "Hint" is a vague term- it could be an OOC DM warnings like "Are you sure?" or it could mean that he might like more contextual clues.  Speak with your players on what exactly they mean by this; perhaps you all have more in common than you think.Another thing that seems to be going on is that, in your anecdote, you were explicitly on explaining to the players what not to do. The player was told his action would likely fail, and it sounded like you might have spoke for the other players' PCs not being inclined to support him (correct me if I misunderstood you and the players reached this decision themselves).  The player may have gotten defensive at having his idea shot down (rather than seeing your efforts to clarify things)- and then perceived that he "had no other choice".  In this case, he might have thought he was being proactive only to be arbitrarily shot down.  In this case, there might have been a miscommunication of intentions- a perceived context of ideas of what would not work is not always the same as providing them a context of ideas of what could or might work.</blockquote>

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