I have a rule in my NVim init.vim that it gets room for three line number digits. If it goes over, the screen shifts uncomfortably as warning. That works for my current projects.

Ohh I just noticed the community. Yeah I agree, not really dystopian.

OP commented above:

Unprompted, unwanted, in the middle of a very intense game full screen, on a computer used as a game console I had to dig out a mouse to use.