[DM Issue] - How would you have handled this?

[reveal]

So we're in our weekly session of D20 Modern and I am DM. A character has three enemies around him. On his turn, he readies an action that if "I'm hit by anyone around me" he will attack them first. I put that part in quotes because that is exactly what he said.

Now, the enemies turn comes and they attack. He proceeds to start his readied action to attack them. I tell him he can't because he said that he would attack if they "hit" him not just if they attacked him. He told me I was being too literal and I explained I didn't want to try to interpret what my players wanted because I didn't want to get it wrong and have them be angry with me when they thought they were being screwed over. He disagreed but abided by my ruling and the session went on happily.

My question is, do y'all think I did the right thing? How would you have handled it?

 

[Morpheus]

He said "hit", but probably meant "am attacked by". Good call on your part. I bet he doesn't make the same mistake again.

 

[Visceris]

I agree withthe player that you were a little too literal, but I would probably handled it the same.

 

[Darkness]

edit -
Ah, never mind; got it now. Me no think good at 2 AM.

 

[Tormenet]

You did the right thing. You're not psychic and he will be more precise in the future. Equally, he did the right thing by disagreeing and moving on.

 

[kamosa]

I think if your going to parse the ready action statements so literally, you probably need to clarify what they want when they state their initial actions. A quick "Do you mean get hit or take a swing at you?" would have prevented all the acromony at the table.

 

[reveal]

I think if your going to parse the ready action statements so literally, you probably need to clarify what they want when they state their initial actions. A quick "Do you mean get hit or take a swing at you?" would have prevented all the acromony at the table.

Oh ya. I realized my mistake as well but I was about to let the player know that!

 

[RSKennan]

I probably would have let it slide that time, but asked him to be more specific in the future.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I think he's readied action was too general, and I would have made him clarify what he was wanting to do.

 

[Tokiwong]

No harm no foul, you both got through it, unscathed, sounds like a decent ruling sometimes you have to be literal...