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Message: <blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 6851678" data-attributes="member: 97077">I'm big on the player stating a goal and approach when describing what he or she wants to do. If it's not clear, I ask rather than assume. (This also goes to the players ponying up their share of the conversation of the game, but that's a separate concern.) If a player said that he or she wants to have the character shoot lasers out of its eyes, then my response is likely, "Okay, how do you do propose to do that exactly?" (I mean, it's D&D, stranger things than laser eyes happen regularly.) But, of course, we're probably talking about a player acting in bad faith here or one that is not familiar with the game so the example is something of a distraction from the point.When it comes to the goal and approach of the player's action declaration, we know the character's goal is to turn the dial to "S." Doing so with his or her hand is the likely approach we can infer, but the prevalence of contact poison being a thing, the DM should probably ask. Some DMs, it seems, would insert some kind of test to see if the character could come up with the right answer in the first place. But what if the player's action declaration was to turn the dial to "T," which is not the correct answer? Would there be a check then? Would it be an automatic success whereas trying to turn it to "S" might be an automatic failure because Int 5? This seems kind of messy to me and why, short of a physical impediment to turning the dial to "S," the character simply succeeds regardless of Intelligence score. Did the character come up with the right answer through deduction and reasoning? Was it a lucky guess? Did the character think the "S" stood for "silver" and expects a payday? Who knows. It's not really anything I feel I need to concern myself with as a DM adjudicating a simple action declaration of turning a dial.A player that is not playing his or her character to established traits, ideals, bonds, or flaws is probably not earning Inspiration. That's the player's choice not to go for that valuable resource in my view. It's not smart play as I see it, but that's not my problem as DM.</blockquote>

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