As a GM, how do you deal with your PCs enacting horribly flawed plans...

If it looks like their plan is due to the players not understanding something I said poorly, I tend to step in. It wouldn't be right if MY poor word choice killed them.

Now if they just forget clear instructions and warnings...

let them fail, it's there fault.
otherwise it depends on the type of flaws they have.

What if YOU fucked up on a detail they misinterpreted?

>muh railroad!
Is there a bigger sign of an inept cuck than complaining about "railroading" where it doesn't exist?
If the plan is a shitty fucking plan, and you as DM know this because you're the fucking DM, there's literally nothing wrong with using an NPC to point out the flaws. A little bitch like you would probably cry if the DM didn't and your retard plan ended in TPK

I basically just use some variation on "are you sure you want to do that?" or "keep in mind that this thing exists."

I generally only do this if I think their character might have second thoughts, or if the character might know something that the player isn't aware of.

>As a wizard, you know that this spell creates a large amount of heat and flames. Are you sure you want to cast it on the guy who is holding the Holy Macguffin Scroll?

sometimes I make comments about how their character that has knowledge of the world they live in would not do something really illogical

other times I ask them to roll an int test

>party gets briefed by questgiver
>"ok where do we go now?"
>"damn, I have no idea"
>"ok we start going in a random direction"
>intelligence test, one of them passes
>"you remember that ONE MINUTE ago the guy told you to go to location X"

>Rolling for each person coming out.
You shouldn't. Those people are not hunting for cunts hiding on the fire escape. You would just take 10 + modifiers of NPCs and make the the DC check.

Fucking cunt rolling 20d20s.

>I didn't want the rogue to pick the lock.
>Put one hit killer NPCs in the game.
>A 25 is "difficult".
Just make the lock pic check 30. After the first attempt tell the player that his character understands he wount be able to pick such a lock and that there must be another way.

I clearly suggest them that they're idea might not be very good, how directly I do that depending on how retarded the plan is, how bad its consequences might be and whether the players fully realise its problems and if they still want to go on with it, well, all right, but there will be appropriate consequences.

I honestly prefer to let them know that their idea is retarded and why it might not work beforehand than later have to deal with "REEEEE, why didn't our stupid idea work, shit GM!" arguments

>Now, if you were also making recommendations, then you'd be getting into the railroad business.
I wouldn't say so. Isn't it in the same vein of the party gathering clues for their plan? it doesn't necessarily need to be the obvious "Do this because this is how you succeed" and more like "wouldn't it be better to use the [Plot device] to achieve your goals?"

My approach is to let them do what they like and not try to dissuade them or suggest a different plan, but to just let myself appear skeptical so that the tone of my voice relays to them the fact that there is virtually no chance of success.

I have learned that at least for my group, they don't really seem to care if an idea is good or not, and they don't really seem to mind if they fail, but what they do hate is when they get really excited and convinced something is going to work, and then it fails utterly and instantly because it is the most retarded and irrational fucking idea ever. Which they do a lot. So as long as I make it clear I am not expecting it to work, they tend not to get that invested in expecting it to, and so they aren't that upset when it fails.

It's just one of those things when you GM, an ongoing tension. Players basically are always of the opinion that it would be cool if they could just point their finger at a mountain and say "bang" and have the whole mountain explode. GMs have to constantly tell them, "No, you can't just do that". It's a back and forth, essentially, between what is and what is not reasonable, basically the same as negotiating with a six year old. You get used to it and get better at it over time.

>t. Blatantly doesn't actually DM.

>they're not stupid players, they just have a habit of devising schemes that are way too complicated or reliant on assumptions to ever work.

...

>Father had then gone on to demolish almost every part of the play, while Draco listened with his eyes growing wider and wider. And Father had finished by saying that plays like this were always unrealistic, because if the playwright had known what someone actually as smart as Light would actually do, the playwright would have tried to take over the world himself instead of just writing plays about it.

>That was when Father had told Draco about the Rule of Three, which was that any plot which required more than three different things to happen would never work in real life.

>Father had further explained that since only a fool would attempt a plot that was as complicated as possible, the real limit was two.

I think he quite literally means a set of sentient railroad ties or an engine.
We the Island of Sodor now boys.

>Do you just let them flounder and hope that teaches them a lesson?
Yes. The flaw will bite them in the ass if they don't roll well enough, or don't improvise well enough to get past it.

For example, the PCs once decided to sneak through an airship by disguising themselves as workmen, while holding a sign.
The dice decided they wanted it to succeed, because I rolled below 5 for every single Sense Motive check they had to face.