In one of my old groups, I'd usually verify the player and I understood each other , and they understood the likely consequences. Like, "You can shoot her, but remember this is her club, with her friends , and she's a vampire so she probably won't die. But if you want to roll, it's at -4 from her Celerity you've seen her use." One player was always like "you never let me do anything!" I was like you _can_ do it, but I don't want you to be surprised and mad if there are consequences. Another player, by contrast, would listen to me clarify what was likely to happen, and be like "cool bro let's do it.". We still talk about the time his character jumped out a 20 story window to save his friend's girlfriend. Great player. Took a lot of damage, as warned, but lived.

This is why I’ve never played. I know I’d just be irritating testing the waters seeing what I could get away with

DM warnings, for me, are always a sign that I'm about to do something I haven't thought through enough, or that I've thought through TOO MUCH TO STOP NOW That is to say, an essential part of the experience

A similar thing happened which led a player to tell me after the - heated - session was over: "I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at your character." Our group split after that.

This is more annoying not because of the nonsense but because it has a huge chance of ruining a lot of prep from the dm

I like rp games like everyone is Jon because the games are so disposable and the point kinda is to just get fucky with it. No prep, no commitment, all improv

This is my kinda thing _but_, can I be _John_?

I realized after a moment that they simply meant "everyone in the castle attacks you", but my first thought was of the castle itself rising up as a mecha like Alexander from FF9. ...could you have a castle mimic?

A powerful summoner should have no issue binding enough mimics to make up for each brick, stone and interior detail of a castle, only needing to conjure some slimes for mortar and elementals for lightning, heat, AC (air and ice for summer, air and fire for winter) plus enough water elementals to have running plumbing. Just a matter of time and focus Just a bit heavy on the initiative tracking, but the castle would probably not need any extra guards

'Are you sure your character would do that? They know it's basically suicide.'

I would go with Permanency and Enlarge or Giantism spells. Just need a single absolutely enormous mimic.

"These enemies attack and initiate as a group, taking a 5% penalty to calculated damage to account for missed hits in the group"