Angry wrote about tips for players and they’re almost all decent. (I recommend that players do look at their character sheet as they make a decision, only to figure out if that’s how their character would behave.)
There’s one I’d like to reinforce though:
Don’t Make Your GM Guess. The more your GM knows about what you’re trying to do and how, the better off you are.
AngryGM
The contrary advice for this is “Trick your DM into letting you do something cool.”
I’ve been at tables – and may have even done this myself, come to think of it – where a player is asking probing questions of the DM, clearly fishing for something. Maybe they’ve got Heat Metal trigger finger and are hoping the DM will say, “yeah, I guess they do have a family medaleon on them, what I strangely specific question!”
This comes from a mindset that the DM is not a player, but are actually an adversary.
In reality though, when the Secret Society of DMs inducts another we all take a sacred vow: remember your players are Heroes and let them do cool shit. “No, that doesn’t work” is not a fun thing for a DM to say. It shuts the scene down, kills the energy. It’s only a reasonable thing to say when you’ve asked for something that doesn’t fit the internal consistency of the world.
DM’s love it just as much as the players when a sneak Heat Metal disables The Big Bad. (We can always make a new Big Bad.)
Instead, Angry’s advice should be followed: let your DM know what you want to do. I don’t know if you know this, but the DM can literally make shit up. “I’d like to do a cool freerunning thing to catch up with the bandit – are there any footholds along the buildings?” “Absolutely there are! Do an Acrobatics check for me and we’ll see how you do!”