D&D 5E What DM flaw has caused you to actually leave a game?

[Manbearcat]

Running with @Manbearcat's example, here's a possibility adapted shamelessly from the Dungeon World druid (but also informed by how Burning Wheel handles failed Faith and Spirit Binding checks):

When you call upon the support of your patron in desperate or dangerous circumstances, roll 2d6+ CHA bonus:

* On 10+, choose two:

• Your supplication is granted.

• You patron demands no payment from you.

• Your patron takes nothing in payment from your friends and allies.​

* On 7+, choose one of the above.

* On 6-, your patron is fed up with the supplications of mortals, and inflicts some disaster upon you and/or your friends and allies. The GM will tell you what bad thing happens.​

If you were adapting it to 5e, the numbers would have to change: it's hard to maintain the exact DW probability spread, but my tentative suggestion would be d20 + CHA bonus, with full success on 16+, partial success on 8 to 15, and faiure on a natural 1 and on any modified result below 8.

That's pretty much where I was going with my follow-up post if we felt like we addressed all the issues!

Above you have:

1) Player choice in the possible manifestation of their character's patron's power.

One might say "but the dangerous and/or desperate rider puts the deployment under the GM's purview." To that, one simply points to fact that GMs are meant to constantly fill the PC's lives with adventure, think dangerously, and the snowballing nature of the resolution mechanics means that each situation is going to be fraught with danger (and often desperation)!

2) A propensity for aid, but a propensity for demanding something in return (under GM purview following the agenda/principles/rules).

3) The potential for the patron to become offended and the fallout to be severe, but interesting (GM purview following the agenda/principles/rules).

Player has specified authority over their thematic portfolio.

Thematic focus amps up when things go badly.

The (transparent) rules have their say.

The GM has constrained, guided authority (which mitigates cognitive workload).

That all seems like a win to me?

 

[Guest 6801328]

Ok, caught up. Yeesh, lots of posts.

Let's take a fairly clear example - an Oath of Devotion Paladin. Now, what is the actual effect of the player Backgrounding his oath? The player has now clearly told the DM that he does not want his Oath to be a focus of play. But, what does that mean?

Well, IMO, that means that the DM would not bring in elements into play which test that Paladin's Oath. So, no "orc babies", no "your church is actually run by cultists", that sort of thing. The campaign progresses pretty much exactly like it normally would, just that this one specific element - i.e. the Paladin's Oath - is not the focus. So, the paladin gets to be the shining hero, which is likely the concept for an Oath Paladin, and on we go.

What's the problem here?

Or, let's roll back to a Warlock. The Warlock player places his Patron in the Background. So, what changes at the table? Again, the DM is instructed to leave that bit out of the game. So, the Patron might ask for minor stuff that can be handled in the background (someone earlier mentioned passing messages for Correlon (I know, cleric, not warlock but the principle is the same), and you might even have some contact between the Patron and the warlock, but, again, this will never be the focus of play. So, essentially, that "NPC" (I'm not really sure if patrons count as NPC's or not) fades into the background and play continues.

Again, what is the problem here?

The player has clearly, in no uncertain terms, told you his or her preferences. They couldn't be more clear. Wouldn't it be an incredibly dick move to ignore that? Regardless of whether or not this featured in a game, a player that comes to me and says, "I have NO interest in X, I do not want to do X, it is not fun." isn't doing anything wrong. I'd LOVE it if players would be that forthcoming. Hell, usually getting any sort of feedback from players is like pulling teeth.

Honestly, I'm really struggling to see how this isn't just a DM ego thing. I know that's not nice to say, but, I can't see any other interpretation. You have the entire game world to play with. The player has told you that they do not like X and have no interest in X. How arrogant do you have to be to ignore that and go ahead and do X in spite of the player?

As I read your examples, I kind of went back and forth in my head on this one. I both agree there shouldn't be any problem with the player requests, and yet it bugs me. It feels...powergamey. "I really like the powers of Devotion Paladin, but I don't want to roleplay it."

On the other hand....ok, fine. Why force people to roleplay who don't want to?

The only bit I really disagree with is "DM ego thing." I don't think (then again, maybe I wouldn't know) that it's my ego as a DM that would make me want to do the exact opposite of what the player requests. Even if I was a player at the table I would kinda want the DM to do so, although I'll admit it isn't a terribly generous thought. It's more like Shadenfreude than ego. Or, it's like the feeling you get when you're in a slow traffic and somebody is changing lanes aggressively: you kind of want them to get pulled over as punishment for their selfishness.

In fact, now that I've written that, that's exactly it. Your hypothetical devotion paladin, like the aggressive lane changer, is breaking the social contract...the part of the contract that says "don't do anything that doesn't scale to everybody doing it". If EVERYBODY just threw away the inconvenient bits of their character it's no longer a roleplaying game it's a tactical miniatures game.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Oh, and as for using the Dungeon World (Apocalypse World) mechanic to resolve those situations, I personally love it. And I love Dungeon World.

I suspect, however, that some of the participants on this forum would take issue with the player getting to choose the effects, though, because that is players determining the fiction beyond the actions of their own character. Some folks here hate that.

 

[pemerton]

As I read your examples, I kind of went back and forth in my head on this one. I both agree there shouldn't be any problem with the player requests, and yet it bugs me. It feels...powergamey. "I really like the powers of Devotion Paladin, but I don't want to roleplay it."

This is the balance option that I canvassed in my reply to [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION].

If EVERYBODY just threw away the inconvenient bits of their character it's no longer a roleplaying game it's a tactical miniatures game.

I don't think so. I GMed a session of Chtulhu Dark a few weeks ago now. The PCs were a longshoreman, a legal secretary and an investigative reporter. Given that that' the totality of your PC stats in Cthulhu Dark, there are no "inconvenient bits" except those that emerge out of the actual play of the game.

But it didn't play as a tactical miniatures game (it's impossible to play Cthulhu Dark as a tactical minitiatures game).

I think my general point is that - at least in my experience - it is quite possible to engage players in the fiction of a RPG without pulling on the "inconvenient bits" of their PC builds.

 

[billd91]

If it's not something of that sort, then all I can think of is balance - somehow the player of a paladin isn't earning the paladin class benefits unless s/he struggles with the oath; likewise for a warlock, or someone who writes LG in the alignment box on his/her sheet.

But that seems quite implausible to me - hence my first guess that it's about setting/genre fidelity, and also my question, not far upthread, about how the game would break or the play experience suffer if the player of the character decided what (if anything) the patron, alignment etc requires of the PC.

I can see the suggestion that there's genre/setting fidelity as a motive - particularly now that D&D is, in essence, its own genre in which the terms "alignment" and "paladin" actually have meaning.

But don't be too quick to dismiss the issue of balance, though that usually manifests in ways even more mechanically oriented than warlock/witch patrons and paladin oaths. So bear with me....

From a GM's perspective: Players are notorious for gaming systems as best they can and getting all the benefits they can without suffering consequences. Thankfully someone mentioned Champions upthread because that game system can provide hours of case studies in players eking out the points for their powers, squeezing them into power frameworks, taking advantage of roundups, and picking up the absolutely least restrictive disadvantages they can in order to pay for their abilities, getting the most benefit for the least number of points and the least amount of actual mechanical disadvantage in play. Code Against Killing, anyone - when you know darn well the campaign is going to be a 4-color/silver age style campaign and killing will be extremely low on everybody's priority? Sign me up!

Of course, this comes up plenty often in other games too like D&D and the careful attention people pay to putting their lowest stats where they will harm them the least. How many threads have we seen where a player who wants to swashbuckle lamented not doing as much damage as the hulking barbarian with a much heavier weapon wielded in two-hands? People want their stylistic choices without paying for the choices they make. But that can mess with game balance. Why be a high-strength fighter now if you can invest in a high Dex and not see your damage significantly reduced because you get to add Dex to damage? The balance point between the stats has been thrown off to something else and Dex has become the king stat - that might be OK in Champions where it costs 3x as much as Strength, but in D&D, they cost the same amount.

But some games are actually more interesting if you do have to make reasonable trade-offs, particularly ones that offer some nod to realism - like the much slower reload time of a crossbow, even if they aren't as good for a PC as a longbow. The issues at stake with paladin oaths and warlock patrons may not be as core as the mechanical balance issues, but it still represents a player trying to benefit from their choices while dodging the cost.

 

[Maxperson]

Ok, caught up. Yeesh, lots of posts.

Let's take a fairly clear example - an Oath of Devotion Paladin. Now, what is the actual effect of the player Backgrounding his oath? The player has now clearly told the DM that he does not want his Oath to be a focus of play. But, what does that mean?

Well, IMO, that means that the DM would not bring in elements into play which test that Paladin's Oath. So, no "orc babies", no "your church is actually run by cultists", that sort of thing. The campaign progresses pretty much exactly like it normally would, just that this one specific element - i.e. the Paladin's Oath - is not the focus. So, the paladin gets to be the shining hero, which is likely the concept for an Oath Paladin, and on we go.

The oath should presumably be the player's focus of play as his paladin has to live by the oath. I don't need to go out of my way to test the oath. Normal game play will naturally supply situations where the PC has to choose whether to uphold the oath or betray it.

Or, let's roll back to a Warlock. The Warlock player places his Patron in the Background. So, what changes at the table? Again, the DM is instructed to leave that bit out of the game. So, the Patron might ask for minor stuff that can be handled in the background (someone earlier mentioned passing messages for Correlon (I know, cleric, not warlock but the principle is the same), and you might even have some contact between the Patron and the warlock, but, again, this will never be the focus of play. So, essentially, that "NPC" (I'm not really sure if patrons count as NPC's or not) fades into the background and play continues.

That was me, and it was in fact a warlock. Someone(see, I can forget names, too. ) mentioned a fey pact warlock with Correlon as the patron. I went with that. What I'm not getting is how the DM can leave the patron out of the game, and yet still use the patron in the game for small things. Those are conflicting situations. Small things also place the focus of play on the pact/patron for a small amount of time, so it conflicts with your desire not to have the patron be the focus of play.

 

[pemerton]

The framing as loyalty or fidelity to a person or a value as a cost is interesting, especially in the context of a FRPG. It's hypermodernist, even more so than REH - Conan often acts out of a sense of honour or justice or interpersonal obligation without that being presented as a cost.

And of course in the other fantasy genre that heavily informs D&D (especially paladins) - Tolkienseque/Arthurian fantasy - loyalty and fidelity are frequently a source of strength rather than a cost.

 

[S'mon]

The issues at stake with paladin oaths and warlock patrons may not be as core as the mechanical balance issues, but it still represents a player trying to benefit from their choices while dodging the cost.

I don't get the impression 5e offers any mechanical benefits in return for roleplay restrictions, so I don't think it's analogous to point buy buy-advantage-for-disadvantage type games.

IME oaths, patrons etc typically don't really come up in play, but I don't see players abusing them either. Player who wants to play a jerkass Paladin plays Oath of Vengeance.

 

[pemerton]

Someone(see, I can forget names, too. ) mentioned a fey pact warlock with Correlon as the patron.

That was me.

What I'm not getting is how the DM can leave the patron out of the game, and yet still use the patron in the game for small things.

I'll let [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] deal with that particular conundrum, although to be honest it doesn't seem that hard to resolve (there's a difference between a bit of background colour and a situation that actually requires the players to make choices as to how their PCs resolve it).

In my case, when a player worships a god or serves a patron I expect that relationship to figure prominently in play. But that doesn't mean that I get to tell the player what the god or patron wants of his/her PC. The GM tells the player what his/her PC is required to do by his/her patron and the patron never comes into play are not the only two possibilities.

 

[Ristamar]

Running with [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s example, here's a possibility adapted shamelessly from the Dungeon World druid (but also informed by how Burning Wheel handles failed Faith and Spirit Binding checks):

When you call upon the support of your patron in desparate or dangerous circumstances, roll 2d6+ CHA bonus:

* On 10+, choose two:

• Your supplication is granted.

• You patron demands no payment from you.

• Your patron takes nothing in payment from your friends and allies.​

* On 7+, choose one of the above.

* On 6-, your patron is fed up with the supplications of mortals, and inflicts some disaster upon you and/or your friends and allies. The GM will tell you what bad thing happens.​

If you were adapting it to 5e, the numbers would have to change: it's hard to maintain the exact DW probability spread, but my tentative suggestion would be d20 + CHA bonus, with full success on 16+, partial success on 8 to 15, and faiure on a natural 1 and on any modified result below 8.

When you say "it's very unlikely", what do you think would make that unlikely thing come to pass?

Going back to the theme of the thread, I would find it fairly unsatisfying to play a cleric or warlock-type character if I knew the GM was deciding secret goals for my patron or god that I didn't know about and didn't have any influence over.

Hard to say without more context. I highly doubt there'd be constant friction, but crucibles of faith and schisms in doctrine go hand in hand with religion. Deities and planar powers are much more interesting when they're a bit inscrutable, but I will readily admit that is my own preference.

Regarding [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s original example, I'd say that's more in line with what D&D defines as a contact rather than a patron. The game already has rules for social interaction and the DMG hints at uses for success at a cost. I don't see a reason to reshape the process and the numbers to get similar results.

The notable difference in his example is the player's ability to quickly and indirectly (re)shape the world baked into actions (or "Moves"). I do think those mechanics are pretty cool, though I don't believe they are (or ever have been) intrinsically part of D&D. 5e has given the slightest nod in that direction with Backgrounds and some minor variant rules buried in the DMG, but the system is largely built around the premise and expectations of the DM adjudicating and narrating the current results of each player's most recent action.

I don't think the heavens will fall when people start incorporating shared world mechanics into D&D which allow players to take control of the narrative and world building process beyond the immediate agency of their characters. Personally, it's not what I want when I sit down for D&D as a DM or as a player. If that's the sort of thing I'm looking for, I'll play Dungeon World or some other game that has an established precedence for strong player narrative featured in the system. D&D may eventually turn in that direction, as well, but historically it has been a game filtered through the purview of the DM (though by no means should this ever excuse abhorrent, needlessly obstructive, or tyrannical behavior). It's less about ego and more about expectations and support in the core mechanics and the prescribed method of resolving actions.

I'm not going to touch on alignment beyond saying the obvious. It's always been a mess and often best when ignored. As long as your group isn't fighting about it, you're probably doing it right.