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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 5806238" data-attributes="member: 177">See my point above about "option paralysis".When faced with several options, and lacking any particular way to discern one as better than another, human beings will often default to making no decision at all.  This isn't about whether they know what happens in fantasy literature and movies, but instead about knowing what is appropriate at a given moment out of a huge number of options.Until the player has mastered the GM's internal rules, he or she cannot reasonably judge the risk or chance of success of an action.  Not knowing how viable other options are, they'll tend to rest on the known option ("I attack").Layer on top of this the fact that player choices are dependent on the information they have, and GMs are often not nearly as complete in giving it as they think they are.  One will generally not think to try to yank the rug out from under a bad guy, if the GM has neglected to mention that there is a rug to yank!  Some games give the player agency to create the rug in the scene, but doing so is a learned behavior, not something everyone will think to do.Old-time gamers may not see much option paralysis in RPG combat - they've played a lot, and have built up an internal model of what works and what doesn't.  It may crop up again, however, if they switch to a game with a completely novel mechanic (say, a guy who's played D&D for decades, taking a turn at playing Nobilis - one player I saw in such a game suffered from just this kind of issue until he got the hang of it).</blockquote>

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