If the DM ever hears these words, he's done something wrong. He's either tried to narrate player action, or he's jumped to a 'bang' based off a wrong assumption, or he's constructed a plot without enough branching points and contingencies, or he's got in his head that his campaign as a novel, or he's approved a character concept that should have been a huge red flag, or he's approved a character concept without really talking it over with the player, or he's got in his head that there is only one true path to fun and all others must be avoided.
Whatever the cause, he's the one being a problem here - not the player. I don't think there is really all that much room for comprimise here. The DM is pretty much 100% at fault in just about 100% of cases. I think I'm in agreement with The Shaman in this if I understand him correctly. I honestly can't think of a situation where a DM hears these words where it isn't incumbant on the DM to apologize. If having to apologize to your players is how you define 'chilling', I guess I'm sort of in agreement with you, because its never fun to learn you've screwed up.
1) Narrating Player Action: You should never tell a player what their character does or how they respond emotionally to something, except in the fringe case of their character being mentally dominated by something (which shouldn't happen very often) as provided by by the rules. You shouldn't do this even as color, nor should you do it as part of a text dump or hook. You shouldn't even do this by expounding on extended action in a scene that occurs as the result of player choice. Every point where there is a player choice between too paths, or where the player can explore and learn new information, you should stop - even where it seems trivial. If the PC's declare there intention to go down a road until they come to a city, you should pause when they get in sight of the city, and pause again when they have the choice to actually go through the gates. This is to give them time to investigate the scene and decide whether they want to continue with thier stated path. It can be awkward to prompt for trivial propositions, but its alot less awkward than getting, "My character would never do that."
2) 'Bang' Based off Wrong Assumption: This is at least for me the most likely place where I'll err. For me, I'm always ready to move a slow scene on to the predicament, the challenge, the real meat and point of the scene. Sometimes I get in the rush and instead of waiting for my players to signal their clear intentions, I make assumptions about their intentions or their current disposition and then I get slapped back (and rightfully sometimes) for creating a scene that didn't actually involve player consent and participation. Sometimes its a player being deliberately ambigious, but even then, its my job to pick up on that and force the player to narrate concrete actions or intentions. Sometimes you just have to say, "Tell me more about...", or "I don't understand your intention...", or "Maybe if you'd show me what you want to do rather than just tell me..." Don't get too anxious for the show to start if the players are showing trepidation and caution.
3) Non-branching plot: This is a 'turn in your DM card' sort of error in my opinion, and its really only excusable in the most novice of GM's. Anyone who has actually referee'd an RPG for any length of time ought to know that the DM can't predict player action, and that the player's will always do things that are unexpected. You should never create a story that absolutely hinges on any one action, and you better be prepared to adapt what you have to what the players actually do.
4) Campaign as a novel: Usually this is a mistake of a slightly more mature and sophisticated DM who has begun to create plots more complex than 'hack and slash'. The DM creates elaborate plot lines and eventually gets invested in the story turning out in a particular way that he finds emotionally satisfying. Suddenly the PC's - while still 'protagonized' in a sense - find that there status as the games protagonists depends on them making the choices the DM has prepared for them to remain relevant to the plot. It becomes critical that they befriend the widowed noble lady, or whatever, and the DM gets upset when they ignore her and his elaborately concieved character drama suddenly grinds to a halt. The basic problem here is that DM is unwilling to share the story. It's a failure to trust the players. If you aren't willing to share the story, you should actually be writing a novel and not a campaign.
5) Approved Anti-Social Character Concept: This is a problem that occurs when your players first start to mature and become sophisticated RPers. The DM starts trusting the players, and is impressed with the depth of the character conception, but fails to realize that the character is one that really works only in a novel. Functional games have character constraints that you don't have in a novel because in a novel the audience is the reader, where as in a game the audience is effectively the character's themselves. The reader doesn't necessarily mind if the characters don't share screen time, or if they have conflicts, or if the plot branches at various points. But all of these things can make the game less fun for the players. It's up to the DM to recognize character concepts that will negatively impact the campaign and discuss ahead of time how the player will handle those challenges. Cowards, zealots, bigots, misanthropes, home bodies, hermits, sociopaths, traitors, and so forth all require very delicate handling by the player and in most cases simply need to be overruled as valid character concepts. If you approved a character concept that will balk at participating with the other PC's, then you have a problem and you are primarily at fault. The only way the player could be at fault here is if player has changed his concept mid-play or proceeded to concieve his character contrary to your mutual agreement prior to the campaign starting. In that case, what you have is an anti-social player, not an anti-social character.
6) Approved Character Without Looking at It: I have no sympathy for that. If you didn't bother to think about what the player was going to play, and ended up with a CE assassin and a LG paladin in the same party, then you get what you deserve. Not every collection of characters is compatible. It doesn't really take alot of experience to realize that.
7) One True Path To Fun: This is the small scale case of creating a novel instead of a campaign. DMs should spend time imagining events in their game, to help ready themselves to play. What they should not do is become emotionally invested in the actual game exactly matching their imaginations. They should be prepared to enjoy the unexpected. They should be willing to enjoy the game that actually happens, not the game that they expected to happen.
