Curveball
One thing I learned the hard way, as a GM, was that players seldom handle a situation the way you think they will- even with a group you've been gaming with for some time. I'm embarrassed to admit that it took several busted scenarios for this lesson to really sink in. As GM, you may present Grey expecting the players to choose a lighter shade when they may end up choosing a much darker one.
In an incident with potential hostile child soldiers, I was certain that my players would opt to negotiate, even at a material loss, in order to avoid pitched battle. I was wrong. They decided to attack. In fairness, it was a decapitation strike, but given that the adult warlord leading the child army was in a well-guarded fortified cathedral, the odds weren't very good. Sure enough, after a couple of failed stealth rolls, they were found out, and the battle began. At that point, I had a choice as Ref, RETCON the scenario and railroad the party into changing their minds, pull a deus ex machina (Soviet troops arrive! As the enemy of my enemy is my friend, the party and child soldiers must team up to defeat the dreaded Soviets), or end the campaign. I chose to play it out. I thought that after a couple of descriptions of kid combatants getting shot up, that the party would back off and seek another route to conflict resolution, but they pressed the attack. It was a massacre.
So yeah, it's always a good idea to go through all of the potential outcomes of a particular scenario, however unlikely, before presenting it to the players. Focus on what the players can do, not what they will do (because the latter can't be accurately predicted all of the time).
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