DM describes a scene, players say what they want to do and how they want to do it, and DM determines success or failure or if a roll is needed because something interesting can happen because of the roll. As much as I reiterate this flow, I still get experienced players who throw down some dice without being asked and announce "Survival 24 for doing blah blah" or whatever. Did I miss something between AD&D (which I played as a kid) and 5E (my return to D&D two years ago) that made this alright?
The Run a Game Blog has a nice piece on this:
www.runagame.net/2017/10/players-self-assigning-rolls.html
I guess I'm looking for ways that other DMs deal with situations where players roll the dice for skills without being asked to do so. What say you?
So this is specifically in response to "Did I miss something between AD&D and 5e?" Although his blog post hits on a few reasons why, mostly it's why not to do it. I don't agree with all of his assessment, and I'll address that subject separately.
What changed? Player enablement.
In AD&D, the players were expected to have control of their PC, and that was it. The rules, including combat, were in the domain of the DM. The 2e AD&D PHB contained more of the rules, but I think the real shift started with TSR realized that there are more players than DM's and that if they produced books for players, they'd sell more copies. During the 2e years, especially the earlier releases, the books all had very prominent disclaimers that adoption of any of these rules were up to the DM. You can buy the book, but you can't use it unless your DM says it's OK.
Of course, over time that really doesn't go over well, and hinders sales of books to players. Why buy it if you can't use it.
The second part of it, in my opinion, is really the increase in rules in general. From 2e to 4e, the rules grew exponentially, to the point where the DM really couldn't easily know everything. A player would know more about what the rules said regarding their character and the choices they made, and this became even more evident with the internet and the build guides, and books about D&D Mastery, which focused on making "the right" choices with regards to the rules. That is, the focus is on the rules.
In addition, I think that it's a question of how people approach and learn games. In AD&D days, you tended to learn how to play the game by finding (or being invited) to play by folks that already knew how to play, that learned from somebody else. That is, your introduction was usually as a player, and you knew little to nothing about the rules. This is the approach I still use. We bring in somebody new, have them roll some stats (in order) and walk them through how to make a character (actually, we make 3 at a time). The process is as close to AD&D as it could be, and is very quick. Then the only rule they need to know is tell me what you want to do, and we'll tell you how to do it. As we work through the process, they learn where and why we put all those numbers and notes on their character sheet, and they learn to play the game.
But players nowadays come from all different backgrounds. Video games, other complex games like the more challenging board games, or MtG, etc. So they have whatever expectations they have. Then they are pointed to the free basic rules, or given a PHB and they build their character. Often on their own time. Or a group decides they want to play, and just pick up the books (or use the basic rules), and go from there.
Furthermore, instead of coming into an established campaign, where the DM has already established their setting, races, classes, variant rules, and which rules to use or not, it's often a group of new players that are learning together, so they make those decisions together (assuming they make decisions to do anything beyond what's published. There's also a lot of guidance and online discussion about "player agency" and "don't say no" and "DM fiat" and other things that often make an authoritarian-style DM unacceptable and equate authoritarian with adversarial.
I think all of these combine to produce that scenario. It makes sense, right? To play a game you read the rules, they tell you how to play the game, and then you follow the rules. This style of play was very evident in later 3/5e and 4e because the rules (especially around combat) virtually required a lot of mechanical rules to play, and the better everybody understands the rules, the faster things go. Your turn is much more defined, and you had x number of steps (movement, action, free action, etc.), and you want to maximize each of your turns.
So the focus is often on the rules, and the "master of the rules" became spread out among everybody. While the DMG has a chapter called "Master of Rules" and there are still disclaimers that indicate the DM makes certain decisions, or asks you to make an ability check, etc. there are a lot of players that learned to play from earlier editions. Combine that with another piece of the puzzle - the Adventure Path. With the current rules (which makes perfect sense for a mass published game), you can get the basic rules/basic set, or PHB and MM, and an AP, and the DM isn't really responsible for making any significant decisions. They don't have to create any setting information, the options in play are what's published, and the DM is closer to being a referee than the creator of the setting and campaign. This is great for the game, since it makes it much easier to be a DM for that style of game.
I think 5e is pushing back a bit on that play style, or at least making it a more viable option, but the publications still point to a relatively narrow style of play. Again, I'm not surprised that a certain playstyle is implied, it's the right approach to sell more product. And it's definitely not wrong to play any of these styles. But I do think that the combination of these elements have increased this approach to play considerably.
My response to how to deal with it will be separate, and quite different from the Run a Game blog.
