D&D 5E Character play vs Player play

[pemerton]

Exhibit A - The Paladin. Brought into the game during OD&D, certainly it's old enough to count as part of the early RPG. The paladin, at least by AD&D, had a Paladin's mount mechanic. When I take a paladin character, at 5th level or higher, I can quest for a mount. IOW, I, the player, am telling the DM, "Hey, I'm 5th level now, the rules say you have to make a quest for me to go out and get my mount." I've added elements to the game world that did not exist before. This is largely a player resource, since a character has no idea that he's 5th level does he? There's no conception that my paladin says, "Well, heck, I just killed that orc, so, now I feel ready to get my divinely inspired horse." It's pure meta-level story gaming.

Umm, how is adding a paladin's mount to the game world not authorial control? I will never meet one unless I play a paladin

<snip>

By choosing that quest, I've effectively dictated to the DM that I will go on a quest, which he will make for me, and at the end of that quest, should I prove successful, I get a mount. In what way is that not the player adding content to the game world?

It's a resource of the character as wealth or spells might be for another. The player acts on it through the character not directly on the game world.

The mount is a character resource.

But it is not created by the character (contrast 3E, where the "pokemount" is created by the character). It's existence in the game, and it's availability to the character, is dicated by the player. Hence why Hussar has correctly identified this as an instance of a player in AD&D exercising authorial control over the content of the shared fiction which extends beyond the ingame causal capacities of his/her PC.

Here is the relevant text from Gygax's DMG (p 18):

When the paladin reaches 4th level or higher, he or she will eventually call for a warhorse . . . It wil magically appear, but not in actual physical form. The paladin will magically "see" his or her faithful destrier in whatever locale it is currently in . . . The creature might be wild and necessitate capturing, or it might be guarded by an evil fighter of the same level as the paladin, and the latter will then have to overcome the former in mortal combat . . .​

In otherwords, when the player decides to have his/her PC "call for a warhorse", it becomes true in the fiction that there exists a warhorse waiting for the paladin to come and get it via a quest of "some small difficulty which will take a number of days, possbly 2 or more weeks, and will certainy test the mettle of the paladin" (DMG p 18).

This a player exercising (modest) authorial control over the setting.

The DM might provide the quest, but the DM is not obligated to to drop everything and provide it if the timing is inappropriate.

The quest is at the instigation of the player through the character (the paladin "calls"), as part of roleplaying, like any other undertaking within the setting by the character.

The character doesn't have the power to simply say that boxes or NPCs are located at their convenience but a paladin does have the power to call for a warhorse.

The point is that the GM is obliged, at the behest of the player, to make it true that, in the gameworld, there is a warhorse waiting to be obtained by questing. But the paladin didn't make it true that the warhorse exists: the paladin calling for his/her warhorse doesn't create a warhorse and a 4th level evil fighter to guard it. If there is any causal power at work here, it is the power of the paladin's deity - so, in effect, by calling for his/her warhorse the player of the paladin gets to dictate certain actions of his/her PC's deity.

If a GM says yes to a player's quesion whether the NPC is bearded or their are boxes in the alley, the player has (by declaring a Perception check, if you want to make it mechanically very formal) encouraged the GM to play certain NPCs one way (non-shavers; garbage dumpers) rather than another way.

The stucture is fairly similar, except in the paladin case the GM is obliged to introduce the setting element, whereas in the beard or box case some of us are saying that it can make for better play if the GM says yes to the player.

In Gygaxian D&D, the "GM's purview" is more often than not generated on the fly, relying on random tables. The idea of giving the Players some means to influence those random rolls is afaict not present in AD&D or before, but doesn't feel too far fetched to be excluded from "traditional" RPG.

I agree that the players are not expected to have widespread control over the contents of the setting outside their PCs.

But it's not at all clear that they have none (and I don't think you're disagreeing with that). Who creates the PCs' families? That is left up for grabs. If the player rolls on the Secondary Skills table (DMG p 12), there is nothing that suggests that the player is not free to explain how it is that his/her PC came to possess that ability.

Another example that complements [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s examples around paladins, druids and monks is that of the MU or Illusionist: by choosing to play such a character, the player makes it true in the world that there is a mentor from whom his/her PC learned spells and acquired a spellbook (DMG, p 39):

Inform those players who have opted for the magic-user profession that they have just completed a course of apprenticeship with a master who was of unthinkably high level (at least 6th!). . . . [M]aster (or mistress) was kind enough to prepare a special present for the character before he or she goes out into the world to seek his or her fortune. . . . [namely, the character's first level spell book].

All illusionist spell books and scrolls are written in a secret tongue which every apprentice learns from his or her mentor.​

As for what is within the GM's purview:

By all means, encourage the players to create characters who will have a reason to interact with the world and NPCs you've designed, because otherwise the DM has zero influence over what they'll do.

This is not what Moldvay says. He says that the GM should create a dungeon which gives the players (via their PCs) a reason to adventure - not that the players should create PCs that fit with the GM's world.

Also, so far from the GM having no infuence, both Moldvay and Gygax state that the GM will tell the players which dungeon they were exploring. That is not "zero influence". That is telling the players where their PCs are going!

Individual tables might of course approach the game differently, but there is a default approach specified in the books. For instance, here is how Gygax outlines the opening of the first session for new players (DMG p 96):

You inform them that there is a rumor in the village that something strange and terrible lurks in the abandoned monastery not far frm the place. . . . o the adventure begins.

You inform them that after about a two mile trek along a seldom-used road they come to the dege of a fen. A narrow causeway leads out to a low mound upon which stand the walls and building of the deserted monastery.​

Now that's not exactly "story now", but it's not simpy the GM describing a world, either. It's the GM framing the PCs into a situation of adventure - an abandoned monastery waiting to be explored.

Moldvay, with his suggestion that the players shoud have "a reason for adventuring", is clearly envisaging that the framing will be at least a little bit more dramatically compelling. In the Puffin book What is Dungeons & Dragons? (1982, and more familiar, I think, to old-time players in the Commonwealth orbit than in the US), the example magic-user PC is described as having the following background: "a sorceress from one of the nomad tribes of the Mesta Desert [who was u]nfairly accused of witchcraft [and so] slipped away to join the College of Magicians under Dokhon. She has a violent aversion to the necromancers of the rival college of Khan and their servants of living stone, the rockmen" (p 7). And the sample dungeon contains rockmen. They are not doing anything very interesting, but they are there. Again, not "story now", but there is a clear idea that the GM, in authoring and presenting the backstory, will have regard to the interests and inclinations of the players.

If the GM is asked if the parents might live in that town, then by all means it is up to the GM to say one way or another, if the character possesses that knowledge. This can be done by randomizing it or based on the above mentioned restrictions, i.e. it can be done by GM fiat if it simply makes sense for the setting (maybe the only place in the setting where they *can* exist), or the GM might respond in the negative because he has already established where the NPC parents are within the setting.

It can also be done by giving the player what s/he wants.

When the Traveller rules (Book 3, p 19) state that "The referee is always free to impose encounters to further the cause of the adventure being played; in many cases, he actually has a responsibility to do so" and also state that "Encounters with non-player characters . . . also serve as a method for players to gain comrades, weapons, vehicles or assistance where necessary," do you think they were ruling out that a referee, in determining what encounters occur, might have regard to the desires of the players?

 

[mouselim]

You can justify it in game any way you like. The player says, "I want my horse quest now" and the DM responds by sending the horse quest in a dream. It's exactly the same as, "I want some boxes in the alleyway" and the DM saying, "You look around and notice some boxes that you missed before". The point of the exercise is that the player is initiating the game world change. [MENTION=10479]Mark CMG[/MENTION] apparently doesn't consider this to be player authorial control since the player can't simply dictate the existence of the boxes or the existence of family members in the town.

But the player absolutely can dictate the existence of the warhorse in the game world AND gets to tell the DM when he wants to go get that warhorse.

Hussar, the players cannot "will" things, and events into existence. The final arbitrator is the DM. The player can ask, "Is there a quest for getting my horse?" or "My character is going to the shrine to pray for the warhorse". In the situation of the boxes, the player will ask "Is there any boxes in the alleyway?"

This is basic 101 in roleplaying - well at least specific to D&D (not to those story-telling genre like Fiasco for example).

The response that the DM may give is "After a night of prayer, your character only felt tired but didn't receive any vision or direction from his deity for the warhorse" and "Yes there are some wooden boxes stacked in the alleyway".

Read the guidelines in D&D roleplaying and in essence, "the players control only their characters and the dungeon masters control the rest of the world".

 

[pemerton]

If you want there to be a ninja stronghold in this mountain range, then you should work with the DM to make sure that it's established before the game starts.

Why? How does it improve the play of the game to have nothing new introduced once play begins?

In the last Rolemaster campaign that I GMed, one of the PCs was a fox-spirit. At the time of character creation, we envisaged him as a fox trying to turn itself into a human through following the proper mental and spiritual disciplines (loosely inspired by the film Green Snake). At the start of the campaign, this particular PC began in a monastery, in the company of its abbot. The abbot was the only person, at the start of the campaign, who knew that the PC was really a fox and not a human. From the point of view of the praciticalities of play, this starting situation explained how the PC could be very long-lived and experienced yet have the abilities of only a 1st level PC - with the help of the abbot he had just recovered from an episode of regression into fox form.

Some time after the campaign had started - maybe a year or so in - the player of the fox spirit PC sent me the following via email, as a text written by the above-mentioned abbot:

Hideyo Fox, a study.

Returning to full self awareness as an mature sophont a few scant months ago with only dim memories of his life or even existance before that (but retaining significant language skills, suggesting perhaps a scholar or poet in some previous existance) Hideyo seems to be the spirit of a wild fox reborn in a human (looking) body, allegedly by force of will. This theory under which this soul moved directly from animal state to the sometime thoughtful, sometime savage entity we know now has both strengths and weaknesses, and is probably not all true or all false. In support of this theory his physical aptitudes seem very similat to those one might expect from a creature whose animal spirit still remembers being both a killer and a thief. The skills for flight and hiding, but no distance stamina combined with a keenly developed sense for murder and ambush are very reminiscent of the wild fox. His self confessed cowardice and fondness for stealth are likewise convincing aspects of an animal in human form.

On the other hand there are aspects of his development and behaviour which suggest this cannot be the whole story. As mentioned previously his language skills are well developed, moreso in the spirit tounge as spoken in the courts of the fae princes, but not spoken by ordinary foxes. His rapidly emerging chi powers, while not entirely at ods with the animal side of his nature are surprisingly well developed, and the social/influencing abilities seem to have few parallels in the animal kindom (but would be very usful in the torrid atmosphere of the spirit court). He has a rudimentary grasp of chi based buddhist healing medicince, allegedly gained at a monastry (perhaps where is slight undertanding of his own place in the cosmos was learned?) but once again this implies a significant ammount of time spent in man shape amonst men. Even more intriguing is this individuals essentially undeveloped ability to channel
power from (presumably fox ancestor?) spirits. Is this some inherited trait, that he has been granted by his ancestors by virtue of his unusual heritage, or something learned in a phase of his existance of which he currently has no memory.

Added to this is the evidence of his endeniable (if somewhat unpricipled) social proficiency. Hideyo seems skilled at all forms of discourse and influence, displaying a familiarity with discussion, debate, argument and abuse which would seem entirely unnatual to have sprung forth fully developed from the chi of the spirit of a solitary animal with no
particularly well developed language. Both this aptitude for influencing people and his lack of compuntion in using such methods on innocent novices once again suggest to me that this creature spent some considerable time amongst a sophisticated court.

In conclusion, I belive the spirit known as Hideyo was at some time a functionary in one of the spirit courts (most likely an assasin in the court of the Vulpine Pince). It seems clear that immediately before his current incaration he was living as a wild animal in the woods hereabouts, and slowly recovered his more human memories. Equally clearly sometime before that he was trained as a healer by those of the buddhist persuasion. Whether this was, as he believed, a short number of years previously between his initial birth as a natural fox and his current life is unclear. It is possible he was not born as a natural fox at all, but was raised in the spirit court and banished to live as a beast for some some crime or convenience. It may also be that his recollection is correct, and he did in fact raise himself on the wheel by sheer force on will, and then took a post in some palace or other, only to fall away to animal state again, either as a punisment as speculated above, or simply internally after some great shock or trauma. Nothing can be certain about this except there is more to this one than a simple spirit who honestly learned to be man shaped and lived in a forest and a temple, that just doesn't make any sense. Note also that none of these speculations explain
his minor but unignorable ability to channel.

I fear I will be unable to investigate this phenomena further myself, my time grows near. Should Hideyo discover (in your mind) the truth about himself, and should he be (in your mind) a friend of our temple at that time, please show him this treatise, and forgive an old man's vanity in hoping he was at least close to the truth.​

This was inspired by a combination of (i) developments in the PC on the build side, (ii) developments in the campaign and its increasing focus on the politics of the Celestial courts, and (iii) player whim. We decided that the PC was, indeed, a fox spirit who had been cast out of the animal courts for some infraction. This became clear to the other PCs (and the other players) when constables of heaven turned up to try and take the PC prisoner, in order to be punished for violating the terms of his banishment (namely, by transforming himself from animal to human form). This confict with heaven, and also the past relationship with the animal courts, became increasingly significant over the course of the campaign.

The idea that all backstory shoud be authored at the start of the campaign just strike me as silly. It has never been advocated for GMs - who, in the D&D context, are generally told to start with a village and a nearby dungeon (see eg Gygax's DMG p 87). Why should it be any different for players with respect to their PCs?

There are a lot of things in life that just doesn't have an answer or will be too tedious to find an answer or nigh impossible to get one.

Sure. But that is not an argument for having such things in a game. The idea of a mystery or puzzle that can't be solved, and the solution to which will fall out only after the adventure is over, as the tying up of a loose end, strikes me as poor scenario design. I could hardly think of a better way to cultivate frustrated, and hence ultimately passive, players.

 

[pemerton]

Exhibit B - Training. In AD&D, if your character did not behave in a proscribed manner, you were forced to spend more money and time training. There was very little in the way of justification for it - a fighter that runs away has to spend 2-4 times as long training? Why? If you acted against archetype, you were punished. Very much story elements in the game.

Exhibit C - Alignment. In AD&D, if you acted against your stated alignment, you could actually change your alignment and you would lose a level. Very much a punishment for not acting according to archetype. So long as you stayed within your chosen archetype, you would not be punished. Enforced play through punishments in order to create a particular kind of story. Sounds like a story element to me.

It seeemed to me that many of those who criticised the idea of "roles" in 4e D&D were not familiar with Gygax's remarks on p 86 of his DMG:

Experience points are merely an indicator of the character's progression towards greater proficiency in his or her chosen profession. UPWARD PROGRESS IS NEVER AUTOMATIC. . . . The gaining of sufficient experience points is necessary to indicate that the character is eligible to gain a level of experience, but the actua award is a matter for you, the DM, to decide.

Consider the natural functions of each class of character. Consider also the professed alignment of each chracter. Briefly assess the performance of each character after an adventure. Did he or she perform basically in the character of his or her class? Were his or her actions in keeping with his or her professed alignment? . . .

Clerics who refuse to help and heal or do not remain faithful to their deity, fighters who hang back from combat or attempt to steal, or fail to boldly lead, magic-users who seek to engage in melee or ingore magic items they could employ in crucial situations, thieves who boldly engage in frontal attacks or refrain from acquisition of an extra bit of treasure when the opportunity presents itself, "cautious" characters who do not pull their own weight - these are all clear example of a POOR rating.​

The average rating since last level gaind then determined the amount of training time required, in days and weeks, at a cost of 1500 gp per (current) level per week.

However, I'm not sure that these are primarily a story element. I think they're intended primarily as a gamist element, in the sense that if you don't meet the challenges of the game in a way that accords with your chosen class and alignment, then you will be "punished" in the form of having to pay more money for training. Conversely, you can reduce the training costs by not only beating the dungeon, but by doing so in the way prescribed for your class and alignment.

I think this is reinforced by the corresponding remarks in the PHB (pp 18, 106):

Character class refers to the profession of the player character. The approach you wish to take to the game, how you believe you can most successfully meet the challenges which it poses, and which role you desire to play are dicated by character class (or multi-class). Clerics principally function as supportive . . . Fighters generally seek to engage in hand-to-hand combat . . . Magic-users cannot expect to do wel in hand-to-hand combat, but they have a grat number of magic spells of offensive, defensive and informational nature. They use magic almost exclusively to solve problems posed by the game. . . . Thieves use cunning, nimbleness and stealth. . . .

[C]leric's major aims are to use their spell abilities to aid during any given encounter, fighters aim to engage in combat, magic-users aim to cast spels, thieves aim to make gain by stealth, and monks aim to use their unusual talents to come to successful ends. If characters gain treasure by pursuit of their major aims, then they are generally entitled to a full share of earned experience points awarded by the DM.​

I think the idea is that, by choosing a certain role, you are helping to establish your own "success criteria" within the context of the game.

By taking it in a story direction, I think a table is drifting away from what Gygax had in mind. The next logical step would be to change the XP rules (as 2nd ed AD&D, and then 4e, did!).

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Why? How does it improve the play of the game to have nothing new introduced once play begins?

It's not a matter of improving anything. It's a matter what the game is. D&D is "The DM describes the environment," and, "The players describe their actions".

You can introduce an element of "The players help to describe the environment," but that doesn't fall into the above-described paradigm.

 

[pemerton]

It's not a matter of improving anything. It's a matter what the game is. D&D is "The DM describes the environment," and, "The players describe their actions".

Can you show me a passage from a rulebook that says that a player can't introduce PC backstory part-way through a campaign?

Moldvay Basic says (p B3) that

It is the DM's job to prepare the setting for each adventure before the game begins. . . . The players will create characters by following the instructions given . . . When the DM has prepared a dungeon and the players have created their characters, the game is ready to begin.​

There is no discussion of PC backgrounds, let alone who can author them, let alone when they can be introduced into the game.

Gygax's PHB says (p 7) that

ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is a world. Of course, this world is not complete. It needs organisers and adventurers to order and explore it. It needs you! A fantasy role playing game is an exercise in imagination and personal creativity. The organizer of the campaign, the Dungeon Master, must use the system to devis an indidividual and unique world. Into this world . . . stride fearless adventurers - you and your fellow players. . . .

As a role player, you become Falstaff the fighter. You know how strong, intelligent, wise, healthy, dexterous and, relatively speaking, how commanding a personality you have. Details as to your appearance, your body proportions, and your history can be produced by you or the Dungeon Master. You act out the game as this character, staying without your "god-given abilities", and as moulded by your . . . alignment​

The DMG says (p 7) that "As the creator and ultimate authority in your respective game, this work is written as one Dungeon Master equal to another."

The 2nd ed AD&D PHB says (p 9) that

The player adopts the role of a character and then guides that character through an adventure. The player makes decisions, interacts with other characters and payers, and, essentially, "pretends" to be his character during the course of the game. . . . [W]henever the character is called upon to do something or make a decision, the player pretends that he is in that situation and chooses an appropriate course of action.​

I think the AD&D books make it clear that the GM is the ultimate arbiter of the shared fiction. But they don't say that the players don't contribute to it: the AD&D PHB, for instance, expressly contemplates that a player might author PC history, and doesn't say that this has to happen before the game commences.

Although the 2nd ed PHB has no discussion of PC backstory, it is probably the most explicit of the quoted rulebooks about "inhabiting" the situation as the character. So the GM tells you that you're in an alley. You know that you want to get to the second story window. Inhabiting your character, and exercising imagination and personal creativity, you say "I look around - are there any boxes, lumber of similar sort of stuff that I could use to get up the wall?"

How is the GM to decide the answer to that question? None of the above rulebooks provide an express answer. The closest we get is in Moldvay Basic (p B60), where an example is given of the GM extrapolating from the existence of an underground river in the lower dungeon levels to the possibility that a PC who jumps over the edge of a chasm might survive by landing in a pool of water. But that example combines both backstory generation (is their a pool of water below the chasm?) and action resolution (when I jump do I land in a cushioning pool of water?). It is therefore closer to [MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION]'s example of the door being open or shut when the PC tries to flee the cultists.

Nothing suggests that the GM is not permitted to have regard to the players' desires.

I think you are mistaking your own preferred approach to the game for some dictate of the rulebooks. As I've said, please show me the passages that say that the players, during the course of play, may not have any influence on the shared fiction other than declaring actions that express the ingame causal agency of their PCs.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

The 2nd ed AD&D PHB says (p 9) that

The player adopts the role of a character and then guides that character through an adventure. The player makes decisions, interacts with other characters and players, and, essentially, "pretends" to be his character during the course of the game. . . . [W]henever the character is called upon to do something or make a decision, the player pretends that he is in that situation and chooses an appropriate course of action.​

I started with AD&D 2E, so this is one of the first things I read about the game. It cleanly summarizes just about everything there is to know about the role of the player.

When you're playing a character, and acting in-character as the rules suggest, you abandon the notion of any authorial control. As a character, you can't suggest that there are stackable crates, or that there are helpful ninjas nearby; there either are, or are not, and you deal with it. As the character, you know that this is beyond your control, so as a player you abandon that line of thinking.

There may very well be a case where you're thinking, as the character, that you did grow up in a ninja stronghold that is nearby. When that's honestly the case, then you probably collaborated with the DM on that before the game started, so you can go ahead and recruit them to help you. If it wasn't previously established as a fact, though, then you're probably not honestly in-character thinking that it is true.

 

[Hussar]

The character doesn't have the power to simply say that boxes or NPCs are located at their convenience but a paladin does have the power to call for a warhorse. The former two are examples of authorial control over the setting while the latter is roleplaying.

So, a character with Bond Points, where you get to spend Bond Points (or Action Points, or Fate Points, or Bennies or whatever) to say that the boxes exist in the alley is roleplaying, but, in the absence of explicit mechanics, it's not roleplaying but rather authorial control? Is that where you draw the line?

 

[billd91]

The Streetwise skill is part of the character. But the player can use it to make it true, in the fiction, that the PC has found a helpful contact to provide licences, guns etc.

The relevance of rule zero is that the skill description gives sample DCs: 5+ for licences, 9+ for firearms. A referee who sets a DC of 16+ is not folowing those guidelines, and is de facto blocking the player's action declaration. The Streetwise skill description even has the following text, which I elided upthread: "local subcultures [are] asumed to be the same everywhere in human society". Which strongly implies that the example DCs are expected to be generalised.

Other skill descriptions even refer to world law levels (eg Forgery) but Streetwise does not, implying that even on high law level worlds there is still subcultures in which Streetwise will work. (Something of a Bladerunner feel, which also fits with the skill tables for the "Other" service.)

There is nothing in the rulebook that suggests that the player's ability to use the skill to get these goods/services is somehow "governed by the limits of the setting". The notion of the "GM's prerogative" or "GM's purview" does not appear. Here is the relevant text on the referee's role (Book 1, p 3):

<snip>

Nothing there suggests that the referee has licence to disregard the Streetwise mechanics, and decide that the PC doesn't find anything even when the player makes a successful roll against the DC set by the referee.

Nothing except common sense. Just because a PC manages to roll well on a streetwise check doesn't mean he's going to find a bureaucrat willing to give him license to set up a hamburger stand in the 2000 Worlds. It simply is not going to happen. Frankly, I find that line of argument, that a player should be able to get pretty much anything they want simply by rolling a success with a particular skill, the worst sort of crunch beats fluff (or roll beats role) argument that undermines the best differences between role playing games and board games.

For those of you not Traveller-savvy: The 2000 Worlds is the empire of the K'Kree - a highly militant interstellar culture descended from herd animals. They are militantly vegetarian and very prickly. Anybody with hamburger on their breath (much less trying to set up a hamburger stand on a K'Kree world) is destined to be trampled to death by hysterical K'Kree in short order. Envoys to the K'Kree make sure to maintain a vegetarian diet weeks before entering K'Kree space so there is no chance of a lingering odor derived from eating meat.

 

[Hussar]

Here's a question. How would the DM be the "final" arbiter if the players are not allowed to add anything to the game? If they are not allowed to add anything to the game world, then there would be no need for any final arbitration would there?

Hussar, the players cannot "will" things, and events into existence. The final arbitrator is the DM. The player can ask, "Is there a quest for getting my horse?" or "My character is going to the shrine to pray for the warhorse". In the situation of the boxes, the player will ask "Is there any boxes in the alleyway?"

This is basic 101 in roleplaying - well at least specific to D&D (not to those story-telling genre like Fiasco for example).

The response that the DM may give is "After a night of prayer, your character only felt tired but didn't receive any vision or direction from his deity for the warhorse" and "Yes there are some wooden boxes stacked in the alleyway".

Read the guidelines in D&D roleplaying and in essence, "the players control only their characters and the dungeon masters control the rest of the world".

Umm, no? The DM in the paladin's case is obligated to give the player the quest and the warhorse. There's no indication that there is any chance of failure if the paladin's player initiates the quest. He might fail in the quest itself, sure, no problem. But, there's no indication at all that once the player says, "I want my horse" that the DM has any choice in the matter. He has to drop that horse quest. It might be as simple as the horse just walking up (no challenge at all) or it might be a dungeon crawl (IIRC, there's a very old Dragon module around issue 20 or so that details one of these). But, at no point can the DM refuse.

Which does make it different from the boxes, because the DM could refuse to provide boxes. I think it's the wrong answer, but, it's perfectly valid. But in the paladin's case, you don't get to say no.