I dunno if this is worth describing. But I'm running a play by post and were at this point where the character could either sneak around, trying to pick up some lost medical supplies, go back with what he's found, or press on the attack on some automaton drones who may have the larger stash (or further drones after them may and it may involve getting through a few).

The thing was, I simply verbally/textually described the option. What I had had in mind was that if he's gunna do it, roll! But duh, did I describe the instructions?

So he posts back basically saying his character would fight through them, as his choice. And now...it's just so limp for me to say 'Hey, roll this dice, then do this'. That's not him doing something (or him playing out his character at that very moment), like him being assertive - it's just me telling him some bookwork to do.

I don't want to see talk, I wanna see talk AND walk. I want to see him commit to mechanics, if he's going to. Because me asking for rolls isn't him commiting to anything, except 'going along with whatever popped into the GM's pretty little head', which isn't exactly gripping gameplay. But I instructed him too late. Which is atleast interesting from a design POV, as it's just so limp to me. Unless the talk actually funnels back into the ruleset were both using, it's just alot of talk and no walk. Or walk, but me telling him what to walk on - which again, isn't him commiting to something tangible and that is actually real (the dice rolls are real, of course, as is the procedure).

It's from a mistake of course, but it's interesting to contrast the difference.

I'm pretty certain, having described it now, for the next wave of automatons he'll be in the right position to assertively act himself, at a mechanics level, rather than talk and then I interpret and make him do some dice rituals that come to mind that he had no idea of. So it should smooth out now. Mostly just describing the contrast.

Just to be clear:  you said something like "You could do A, or B, or C -- what are you going to do?" to him?

And he said "I'm going to do A."?

I described a set of fiction based A, B and C options.

I didn't describe a set of rule based A, B and C to match (Well, in terms of simply retreating I did, as it's simply hitting the retreat button. But in terms of attacking I didn't)