I came up with this term to explain something in another thread, but I thought it deserved some discussion on its own.

(Link is here, if you're curious about the context. Post #8)

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/127397-the-google-effect/

The Golden Rule most of us have been taught growing up is that you should:

"do unto others as you would have done unto you".

And it's reverse, the Silver Rule:

"do not do unto others as you would not have done unto you".

From reading the forums and from my own personal experience (both as a player and as a GM), the collective, twisted creativity of the players can often far outstrip that of the lone GM, who has far more characters, items, and locations to keep track of than all of the players combined.

This is, of course, all part of the fun, but it can become difficult to challenge a particularly creative party, especially when their unexpected decisions have taken them beyond what you have planned for.

When that happens, first of all, be honest. Tell them you didn't expect whatever shenanigans they just pulled, (which is the highest praise to most players) and ask to take a 15-minute break.

Do some damage control on your precious plot while they're restocking pop and snacks, and maybe come up with something a little twisted of your own (you aren't called the Game Master for nothing, after all) to get them reacting, rather than acting out their own convoluted schemes (which, of course, are becoming even wilder by the second. GMs aren't the only ones who plot during snack breaks).

So this leads me to my Corollary to the Golden Rule:

"anything you can do unto others, they can also do unto you".

Somebody in-game probably noticed whatever crazy stunt they just pulled off. And that same somebody probably isn't too pleased about whatever just went down, either. But the important thing is that they now know it's possible, so not only will they prepare against it in the future, they may even attempt it themselves (or, more likely; send some mooks to try it first). This is all over the movies.

Red and Gold Squadron dive into the Death Star's trench to avoid defensive fire and target the station's weak points? Vader leads Black Squadron in after them. And two movies later, the Death Star II has whole squadrons of TIEs ready to dogfight inside the superstructure, because they know the Alliance might just try that stunt again!

General Veers takes down Echo Base's shield generator to allow landings and a bombardment of Hoth? Look at what the Rebel Commandos target on Endor! But again, the Empire's ready for it (or at least, they think they are).

Having the NPCs react to the PCs' actions, especially going so far as to adopt their own tactics, will get everyone more involved in the game. The NPCs will come across as real characters, even if they're still just nameless Minions, because they'll be acting like how the PCs might in their shoes. You'll be able to get more creative with your challenges, since you have "thinking" NPCs, and that will in turn inspire your players to come up with even better ideas to overcome those. As long as you're careful not to turn it into an explicit contest, where you're playing against the other players and trying to "beat" them outright, you should be all right.

Discuss.

Yeah I've been running games with the theory of "yeah sure you can do that...but expect the npcs to think of that same thing from time to time" for many years now.

Like, I'm obviously fine if someone pulls something ridiculous once as something cool that happens as part of the story. If they start to abuse it, my standard response is to talk to them. If they're insistent, I remind them that the enemies follow the same rules.

One of my players recently thought it would be possible for a whole party to use both their maneuvers assisting a target PC on a combat check. After a session trying it out, I said that no, you can't grant +20 blues to someone's autofire combat check. He argued with me a bit on that point until I said that the 10 non-grouped B-1 battle droid minions and the nemesis commanding them totally agreed with him.

I similarly have applied this to many different game systems. My invocation of this rule generally is relation to various systems' called shot rules. It's like "Well yes, it's totally fine that you build a character that specializes in lopping off people's limbs. Just don't be surprised if you run into someone someday who agrees that it's an excellent idea."

And again, I'm completely fine with people doing cool stuff in the moment. I ran with the +20 blue assist stacking for a session because they thought of it, it worked in the rules as we were running it, and it fit the sort of mass battle theme of the situation they were in. I just said don't expect it to work that way all the time for every combat unless you want them to follow suit.