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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Al" data-source="post: 283187" data-attributes="member: 2486">Ideally, the DM should ask the players.  Even more ideally, the players should announce their intentions.But the problem comes when the DM assumes something that the PCs do, without asking or being told.  In this situation, the question must be asked: would I expect the characters to do this without the players announcing it?As has been repeatedly cited, most characters do things without the players announcing it.  They stop for lunch on long trips and this is usually unannounced.  They relieve themselves- this is nearly always unannounced.  They also perform many more mechanically important tasks, such as praying for spells or preparing them.  Most players just sit down and tick off spells for that day without announcing it specifically.In this situation, I judge that the DM was correct in his ruling.  I can't be sure, but it seems that the party was just trying to get out of the trap.  If there was no trap and the game has run smoothly, then it would have been very strange for the DM to have challenged the player who did walk up solo in the next encounter.  The logical extreme is the player who announces that he walks up the stairs and then the DM hits him with a trap on the fifth stair- to which he replies that he didn't step on the fifth stair.  For the most part, the DM should determine what is 'normal' behaviour for the party: in this case following the leader, and unless the party announce that they are doing something specifically out of the ordinary, assuming they do what they would normally do is probably a fair call.</blockquote>

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