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[Orange Wizard]

So I just ate a raw potato, which I've wanted to do for a while. It tasted as one would expect.

You realize thats kinda poisonous for humans....

Well. Shit. At least it was washed, and only a small chunk of one.

They're not especially poisonous. IIRC the toxin is needed in doses much larger than you'd get from even several potatoes.

[Parsely]

So I just ate a raw potato, which I've wanted to do for a while. It tasted as one would expect.

You realize thats kinda poisonous for humans....

Only if it's green. And it's just a bit toxic. You'll be sick but you probably won't die or anything.

[Tellemurius]

For the tuber it concentrates near the skin on the green parts, peel that off and you should be fine (actually deep green just toss it out or cook it high). Just for whatever god don't eat anything else on the potato plant.

Its a nasty toxin, messes with your nervous system and can shut down your digestive system.

[Bauglir]

So apparently a joke I told at work the other day was directly ripped from Dragonball Z Abridged, and I had no idea. Heck of a coincidence, but still, I had no choice but to bring up the opposite of Christopher Walken when a coworker called something "a cruel joke".

[Flying Dice]

For the tuber it concentrates near the skin on the green parts, peel that off and you should be fine (actually deep green just toss it out or cook it high). Just for whatever god don't eat anything else on the potato plant.

Its a nasty toxin, messes with your nervous system and can shut down your digestive system.

Yep. It's in the nightshade family, IIRC.

[kaenneth]

Yeah, Potato, Tomato, Pepper and Eggplant, all nightshade plants.

I have a particular reaction to them, severe arthritis trigger.

[NAV]

Scuba yesterday, scuba tomorrow, scuba the day after that.
I'm gonna grow gills and fins if this keeps up.

[Alev]

Scuba yesterday, scuba tomorrow, scuba the day after that.
I'm gonna grow gills and fins if this keeps up.

Actually, that's the purpose of scuba gear. You don't need gills or fins. Just sayin'.

[Bauglir]

I think I learned something pretty interesting about GMing today. It's not something I'd thought about much before, but if you're trying to set up a situation in which drama potentially arises from a poor choice on a character's part, you have to be very careful about how you're doing it. You can't make the choice for them, because taking away autonomy like that is a shitty way of railroading. You can't really spring the consequences on them if they make a choice that seemed entirely reasonable, because then you wind up punishing them for caring enough to think things through. And you often can't rely on them to knowingly make a bad choice, because players generally have pretty strong incentives to make good decisions, and a level of detachment from the immediate circumstances that helps them think things through that the character might not. "Good roleplaying" can help here, but I don't like the idea of "knowingly sabotage your character's dreams" being a prerequisite for being called a good roleplayer.

So, you pretty much have to tempt them. The players, as much as the character. Which means you need to come up with something they want, but don't necessarily need. Something I hadn't really articulated, but it's good to know. Thank you, quest thread, for finally managing to get the /tg/ hivemind to really fuck up after over 200 threads, thereby sparking this realization.

[MaximumZero]

Oh, yes. Think of it like this: your players are actors in a play, but you're the director. The trick is to make them think that they're in charge of the story, even though they only have so many choices to make.

[Bauglir]

Aye, but to be fair there does still need to be a choice. An irresistible temptation is no temptation at all.

EDIT: The trick is just that I've realized I need to approach the choice from more than a "Wouldn't it be cool if..." perspective, and figure out what incentives will actually get players to be willing to consider doing Wrong things with characters they're hopefully already invested in.

[MaximumZero]

If you make it too obvious, though, the players suspect stuff. So, give them temptations that aren't quite what they seem. In my last gaming session, there was a giant skeleton with a giant golden throne in a ruins. After the players finally defeated the skeleton, they started to loot the room. Eventually, they decided to get pack animals to haul off the throne. Too bad it was actually a sleeping metal golem that was blocking entry into the real treasury. :3

[Furtuka]

what quest was it?

[Kadzar]

I probably make things easier for DMs, then, since I will happily make decisions that I know are bad for me. The thing I tend to worry about the most is not pissing off the other players too badly.

[Bauglir]

If my current avatar doesn't give it away, it's Magical Girl Noir Quest, which is the guilty pleasure I mentioned a day or two ago. I finally caught up with it today.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It wasn't until Yuma did the mind-invasion thing in the Walpurgisnacht flashback that I actually felt like a bad decision the players made had meaningful consequences, but that's more because it's actually really hard to get non-trolls to make a bad decision in the first place than that the decisions are meaningless, one or two asspulls notwithstanding. In this case, the temptation was for additional background information about a bunch of characters people already cared about.