D&D 5E Respect Mah Authoritah: Thoughts on DM and Player Authority in 5e

[Swarmkeeper]

What positive result do you hope will come from such a statement?

Someone laughing? Despite the lack of emoji/disclaimer, I can't imagine @Aldarc was being serious with their statement. Especially given the footnote you clipped out of your reply.

Or maybe am I misreading some subtle parody here on the thread topic?

 

[Helldritch]

You were just lucky then, because I had plenty of players with those tendencies in both 1E and 2E (and before I realized that just because we both like the same game doesn't mean we should play in the same group).

Strange, before 3.xed, the famous "toxic players" were usually a response to an adversarial DM... these adversarial DMs became rarer and rarer with each passing editions as adversarial DMing leads to playerless DM quite fast. Just like being a a "toxic player" leads to a groupless player. Darwinism at its best.

 

[el-remmen]

I have not had plenty, but I have had a couple. I also encountered more than a few online.

Well, "plenty" is a purposefully capacious word. One such player could be "plenty."

But yeah, more than a handful - mostly in my teen years but a few in my college years as well.

 

[Oofta]

Ah, OK, then I don't understand how you came to conclusions about bad GMs "while I was the full-time GM for my group". How did you come to conclusions about other bad DMs (I suppose it's about others, not about you) while being a DM yourself ?



Yes, you did, because I said "to give full reins to the players in terms of actions and description", for once, and second, nowhere in the rules of the game does it say that the players have full rein about anything, including actions. If they ask to do something that is physically impossible in the game world (for example fitting through a hole that is too small for them), they have zero authority if the DM tells them "your character cannot do that".

At our tables, in general, the players and the DM are sufficiently in line so that there is no disagreement about what a character can do, but in case of discrepancy, it's solved through simple clarification as well as mutual respect and trust, that's all. There is no need to assert any authority, the players know that the DM is in charge of the world anyway, but that if he decides that something in the world is a certain way (the hole is too small), then it's certainly for the best in terms of story, and no one argues.

There are definitely times with my current group that one of my players will try to do the impossible on a pretty regular basis. When that happens I just say "no you can't do X". A lot of the time I follow up with "What are you trying to accomplish" and/or "Here's an alternative". I try to encourage creative thinking and there's a lot of wiggle room, but the box created by the rules of the game (and real world physics if there's no game rule that overrides it) are there for a reason. Do something not explicitly called out in the rules? Sure! Let's figure out what we can do. Run so fast that you create a sandstorm tornado around the bad guy because you're a monk* and you're in the desert? Not going to happen.

*an actual real example from long ago.

 

[Lanefan]

A well-written post, except it runs aground right here:

I think all of these approaches are generally fine, so long as everybody at the table agrees on them.

Thing is, given that D&D by its nature requires a DM in order to be playable, if the DM doesn't agree to the approach sought by the players then there's no game.

Unless your take is that a DM should, at the players' request, be expected to run a game/system/approach she doesn't want to. Sorry, that's not going to fly.

 

[Helldritch]

There are definitely times with my current group that one of my players will try to do the impossible on a pretty regular basis. When that happens I just say "no you can't do X". A lot of the time I follow up with "What are you trying to accomplish" and/or "Here's an alternative". I try to encourage creative thinking and there's a lot of wiggle room, but the box created by the rules of the game (and real world physics if there's no game rule that overrides it) are there for a reason. Do something not explicitly called out in the rules? Sure! Let's figure out what we can do. Run so fast that you create a sandstorm tornado around the bad guy because you're a monk* and you're in the desert? Not going to happen.

*an actual real example from long ago.

Strange, I would allow the player to try. That players roll an actual natural 20? I would say, you run, run and run, a small tornadoes is about to form, but you reach the end of your allotted move and the tornadoe falls back to ground after it reach a full inch in height. Not bad, maybe with a haste spell you could have achieve two inches...

I never say no, no matter how ridiculous the attempt is. I once had a barbarian that wanted to jump over a chasm 100 feet wide... I said it would be almost impossible but he insisted. I let him try and guess what? He rolled a f***ing 20. But he fell down the chasm anyways. The player was from another table and he wanted to try mine.

I said, maybe with a jump spell you could have done it. But not by yourself. You knew the rules as much as I. This is on you. He accepted the result but he said that those things were common at his other group. That player is still playing with me 20 years later. But whenever he has a silly idea, which can be often, I just say like your jumping barbarian?

 

[Lanefan]

How would a search a room AND roleplay, for the sake of argument?

One way would be to engage in an in-character discussion with another PC (or an NPC) while searching, said discussion revolving around what we're finding or not finding, where to look next, and so forth.

Another way, if searching alone, might be to describe how you're searching (carefully, destructively, meticulously, cursory, etc.) as well as where; as the "how" piece relates to your character's personality.

 

[Umbran]

Someone laughing?

Not that you're Aldarc, but... then, for those whom it didn't come across as fundamentally good-hearted ?

Despite the lack of emoji/disclaimer, I can't imagine @Aldarc was being serious with their statement.

Define "serious"? Do so in the context of a society where, "Relax, it was only a joke," is a common dismissive defense of insulting statements?

It is possible to mock while loving - like Galaxy Quest. But if you fail to make clear that you love, the thing tends to go badly.

Or maybe am I misreading some subtle parody here on the thread topic?

I don't think there's subtle parody. It read rather more like sarcasm, which can be a problem, but rather than assume, I figured I'd just ask.

 

[Lanefan]

While shocking, there is a reason behind this that you ignored; the amount of players in the hobby far outnumber the number of DMs. If you've met more bad players than bad DMs, to me, that almost definitely came from that fact. There are simply a greater number of players than DMs, so there being more bad players than bad DMs is likely because of that. I personally believe that a player and a DM have roughly the same natural inclination towards crappy behavior at the table, so if there were more players than DMs, you'd naturally see more bad players than bad DMs. However, bad DMs can often cause more harm than a bad player can, simply because DMs have more control over you and your characters than a fellow player does.

I've met people who are horrible as players but good as DMs, and people who are good as players but horrible as DMs.

What works on one side of the screen can fail utterly on the other, either direction.

 

[Malmuria]

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