D&D General DM Authority

[clearstream]

Not a criticism, but a data point: my experience is that most DMs, myself included, believe that their secrets are more clever than they think.

Often, what is lost: creating a character appropriate to the campaign, or with ties with the land, is more than what is gained.

Players always have involvement in and leverage over the narrative: that is expressly what the rules provide for. I think the question is more one of scale and validation.

Reiterating for emphasis, players have fiat over the narrative no matter what level of authority a DM enjoys; unless that DM decides their actions for them and denies them any appeal to the mechanics their characters possess per RAW. Something so far outside my experience that I don't think as a 'possible world' it tells us anything pragmatically helpful (and my understanding of the thread is that no one is seriously arguing for it.)

So then I think it worth considering what one might gain, and give up. With DM as authority and by following RAW/RAI in a consistent fashion, one gains validation. A feeling of arbitrariness is avoided. Successes are validated because they are achieved within limits. Pleasure may be had in accepting limits and overcoming challenges within them. This has all been commented on by ludologists starting with Bernard Suits and (to a lesser extent) Johan Huizinga. In this case however, one party at the table has much broader fiat: the DM. That one person's power is far less constrained, and they are responsible for deciding and upholding constraints for the rest of the table for that very purpose of giving them something to work within.

When all participants are have the same power, they might have a dynamic game with rich engagement. But it is not true that they have narrative fiat where the other group do not. Both do, it is only a matter of on what terms and at what scale: how they can apply it.

I mention this because I believe it is not a matter of losing anything on either side, it is a matter of sometimes preferring pears, and other times apples. There is nothing lost in not eating a pear when one wants an apple.

 

[clearstream]

And to put my money where my mouth is...I will offer up an example that happened in my own games...

The GM (not me) had a pressure plate trapped hallway. We knew it was pressure plated traps but didn't have a rogue to disarm them. We (I was a Wizard PC) decided to take the fighters shield, cast Levitate on it, and push the shield back and forth riding it down the hallway like an air hockey puck so we didn't trigger the traps. The GM announced "HAHA, you fly down the hallway and set off all the traps because the levitating shield still puts all the weight on the ground.

This set off a very long argument of all the players versus the GM on whether or not a levitating shield would set off traps that were pressure plated.

In an Ultimate GM Arbiter game, we would have had a dead fighter.

In a collaborative game, we would have table voted it that Levitate doesn't create ground pressure and moved on with the adventure.

Both styles are different ways of looking at the situation, but even today when I GM, I still allow player majority to overrule my initial rulings because of this one incident.

I would concur that you end up with a different outcome, and potentially different imaginary world physics, but I do not see how it really makes the game more or less fun that levitation does/does-not set off pressure plates. If it does not, the players have a tool for circumventing a certain group of challenges. If it does, the DM has a tool for offering a certain group of challenges.

One might have something on the line with that one case - particularly if you are the possibly-dead fighter - but it is by no means better for the game. Just so long as the DM is consistent.

I think I would have ruled like this: the wizard, being an expert in their magic, knows before casting that the levitating shield will still set off the traps. The DM's gotcha on that was I think unjustified, but not as a matter of physics. Only as a matter of what a wizard would reasonably know about their spells.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Which way did the shield sled end up getting ruled?

Personally, I wouldn’t have ruled that levitation creates ground pressure in the first place, but in a situation like that where the whole table disagrees with my interpretation of the physics of a spell, I would have a hard time deciding how to rule. On the one hand, I probably have a good reason for the way I interpret it, but in the other hand, if the whole group disagrees with my reasoning on the matter, maybe it isn’t as good a reason as I thought. What I would probably do is try to hear out their arguments for why they think it should work the way they interpret it, and try to accept their explanation as charitably as possible. Only if their reasoning just plain does not make sense to me no matter how I try to think about it would I overrule them.

In this particular case the GM was running a one off adventure, it wasn't a campaign of any length. We told him that if the fighter was dead the party was going to die soon as well, so we would all just bring his body back to town, give him a burial, and that would be the end of the story.

The GM relented and we continued on the adventure.

Note that we weren't arguing that we shouldn't get hit by traps at all, we were arguing because not only did we learn of the traps from previous clues so the traps weren't suprises, but we also had no way to disarm them and used a reasonable way to "overcome" them and move on with the adventure.

 

[Lanefan]

Usually, if someone wants to add to my campaign.
1) No advantage to current characters or future characters in the current campaign.
2) Fully Word compatible. And I must have that file (obviously).
3) Must respect the tone of the campaign (easier said than done, believe me).
4) Must not introduce new races/classes/gods unless I already asked for these.

With these limitations, I do not often see players willing to do worldbuilding with me. But I do see some trying their hands at it.

I can get behind 1, 3 and 4 above. Don't care about 2 - even if their idea is just presented in conversation while I take notes it'll do.

But I'd also add a number 5) Must mesh with the history of the campaign without causing too many ripples.

Now if someone's writing up their PC's home village 5) almost certainly isn't going to matter. But if they're introducing a new kingdom or nation (an example put forth upthread) then 5) becomes highly relevant.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I would concur that you end up with a different outcome, and potentially different imaginary world physics, but I do not see how it really makes the game more or less fun that levitation does/does-not set off pressure plates. If it does not, the players have a tool for circumventing a certain group of challenges. If it does, the DM has a tool for offering a certain group of challenges.

One might have something on the line with that one case - particularly if you are the possibly-dead fighter - but it is by no means better for the game. Just so long as the DM is consistent.

I think I would have ruled like this: the wizard, being an expert in their magic, knows before casting that the levitating shield will still set off the traps. The DM's gotcha on that was I think unjustified, but not as a matter of physics. Only as a matter of what a wizard would reasonably know about their spells.

Certainly letting the wizard know something like that ahead of time is good GM form, but at the same time having an adventure with traps in it and knowing the party doesn't have a rogue to disarm them (this was a 2e adventure) means that making rulings against creative solutions is punishing your players for doing what you are asking you to do.

If we took 10 minutes up real time searching around on our character sheets to come up with the levitating shield plan and the GM arbitrarily determined that it would set off the traps anyway ONLY BECAUSE THEY DECIDED AFTER THE FACT TO ADD A LIMITATION TO YOUR POWER then I'm pretty much checked out of the game at that point.

 

[Helldritch]

I can get behind 1, 3 and 4 above. Don't care about 2 - even if their idea is just presented in conversation while I take notes it'll do.

But I'd also add a number 5) Must mesh with the history of the campaign without causing too many ripples.

Now if someone's writing up their PC's home village 5) almost certainly isn't going to matter. But if they're introducing a new kingdom or nation (an example put forth upthread) then 5) becomes highly relevant.

Mmm... 5 isn't bad. It clarifies #3 a bit more.
But #2 is essential. I don't want to type 10 or more pages. Just correcting them will be enough. I have a lot of time constrain. My familly, work, games and especially my wife takes up a lot of time. My wife is afflicted with muscular dystrophia and the disease progressed quite a bit in the last few years. So I am adapting the house to her condition. Thus, I don't have infinite time on my hands...

 

[Lanefan]

I do the co-DM thing with my wife to a degree. We run in the same campaign world but we have different regions. When there's crossover we discuss it, We've even done "switch DMing" now and then if someone wants a break we'll swap DM roles. We've also done "crossover" events where we'll mix and match groups. It's worked well except when she has to spoil some surprise because it's in a shared area so we can discuss it.

I think it works with my wife because she agrees on general tone and feel of the campaign and we know not to step on each other's toes without checking first. That, and she doesn't expect to make DM level decisions when she's a player and vice versa.

The issue I was talking about was a player that they seemed to feel entitled to be a co-DM and shape the way the world worked that exceeded the limitations we had set down at session 0. That they wanted DM level authority while they were a player without ever even discussing it.

Personally, I think I'd have an issue with this were I at that table, in that it's immediately clear not all players are going to be equal.

Whichever of you or your wife is not the DM is, even if unintentionally, inevitably going to be treated differently as a player than are the other players. Further, due to your/her greater knowledge of and investment in the game world, each of you is also quite likely to play a bit differently than would other non-DM players.

Put another way, when a player is also a co-DM then DM neutrality between players becomes harder to achieve. Harder, but not impossible, provided the issue is kept top-of-mind.

I speak from long and rather annoying experience here, from games I have played in.

 

[Lanefan]

Which way did the shield sled end up getting ruled?

Personally, I wouldn’t have ruled that levitation creates ground pressure in the first place, but in a situation like that where the whole table disagrees with my interpretation of the physics of a spell, I would have a hard time deciding how to rule. On the one hand, I probably have a good reason for the way I interpret it, but in the other hand, if the whole group disagrees with my reasoning on the matter, maybe it isn’t as good a reason as I thought. What I would probably do is try to hear out their arguments for why they think it should work the way they interpret it, and try to accept their explanation as charitably as possible. Only if their reasoning just plain does not make sense to me no matter how I try to think about it would I overrule them.

On this particular example it's pretty easy: the DM flat-out made a bad call. It happens.

When it happens too often, players leave.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I never said it was a really big deal. I never made a mountain out of it. It was but an example of the importance of DM's sometimes retaining soul authorship of their world. This is a discussion about authority after all.

What are you looking for in this discussion?

"The importance of DMs sometimes retaining sole authorship"

The thing is though, you aren't demonstrating that. There was nothing wrong with what your player did, you just don't like it an find it awkward because you have to tell them no. Your players don't like it for reasons that frankly, you aren't expressing well, except that they seem to also be upset someone wrote something into your world.

The player did nothing wrong, and there is, from a practical standpoint, nothing stopping you and your other players from embracing his additions, except for the fact that you don't want to. Sure, you don't want to do it, and it is rooted in some instincts I respect, but there is no importance to deciding one way or the other.

I never said he did something horribly wrong. It was an example of why I prefer to keep soul authority of the campaign. But he should have asked the whole group for permission first. After all, he is not the DM, and my players are not playing in his campaign.

Permission? Why did he need permission to write-up something and present it to you? And frankly, if you had liked his ideas, since you are the "sole author" then you would have implemented them whether the other players liked them or not.

I mean, they guy didn't just sit at the table and star telling you who these NPCs were right? He probably handed you a document of names and background sketches before or after the game? Maybe an e-mail sent to the whole group? This is the type of phrasing that makes it feel like you are upset, that he somehow crossed a line.

And, by horrible, I was worried that he had written characters along the lines of "a secret runaway princess deeply in love with my character." That sort of thing I can see upsetting people. But if they are perfectly fine characters, just not your characters, then what he did doesn't seem that bad.

Ironically, the same group of players quit his campaign a few months ago. Their annoyance with how he pushes his npc's into everything was one of the group's reasons. Granted, there were also bigger issues, but still...

See, this is the sort of detail that clicks things into place. This isn't just a player making NPCs, this is a former DM pushing his NPCs into a new game. A game partially or fully made up of people who quit his last campaign in part because of how he pushed his NPCs, giving a repeated pattern.

Heck, if you'd led with that I wouldn't have even bothered with most of my response, because this isn't a player getting inspired, this is another DM seeming like he is trying to muscle into your turf. Of course this is going to raise hackles, especially with a group of players who quit his game.


Yeah, no, now this all makes a lot more sense. If he wasn't the former DM of the players, or a DM with a pattern of heavily pushing his NPCs, then I'm sure this entire issue would be perceived very differently by your group. You might still be annoyed, but I'm sure the other players reactions are in large part because it feels like him repeating what they left his game to avoid.

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Well sure, but the DM still narrates the resulting outcome, therefore implying some authority over the fiction and the manner in which the rules affect it.

Unless the player is asked to narrate the outcome. Which some DMs do.

Again, I'm not trying to say that one way or the other is preferable for all given tables, but if your argument is that the DM must have authority, and you support that by things that only the DM can do... the fact that none of those things are actually limited to only the DM undermines that point.

The players can make rulings, if the group agrees.
The players can narrate the outcome of their actions, if the group agrees.

So neither of those things prove that a DM is necessary, only that some people prefer to have them.

This is in no way a productive example. How does this relate to the underlying discussion of authority aside from the DM abusing his to be sort of a naughty word? I agree completely with the consensus and implied use of the circumstance, but it's only tangentially related to the in-game role of a DM as referee of the rules.

Whether this demonstrates an underlying social issue is something I'm less well equipped to speak on. Hell, I'm not well equipped to speak on much of anything.

And yet the Toxic players are integrally tied to the in-game role of the DM, and completely productive examples?

This is why we keep saying that focusing only on bad-faith player arguments, a thing people keep doing over and over, and that you defended doing, are not helpful rebuttals to our position.

Because as soon as we bring up bad-faith DMs, it is irrelevant, inappropriate, and not productive.

When discussing two sides, if you are allowed to paint one in as negative a light as you wish, but the the other can never be painted in a negative light, the argument is skewed.

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Dear @Chaosmancer
I'll give you that THE post you quoted was not in @Oofta's favor. That much is true.

"Not in his favor" is a funny way of saying that he accused me of lying about what he said, and he literally said what I claimed, in the post I was quoting, and the material I was talking about in that post he called a lie was about that post I was quoting.

I mean. I'm trying real hard to be reasonable here, but this is fairly black and white. I did not go and grab an unrelated post to defend myself from the accusations of me lying, I grabbed the post originaiting the quote he called a lie, and showed step by step that he said exactly what I claimed he said.

But a thread is more than a post. It is a series of posts within the same thread. Do not take threads one by one and try to remember what the poster said in earlier posts and to what post he is currently answering. On that particular post you were right, but @Oofta and a lot of others are considering the whole thread. Not one line in particular, not one post in particular but the whole thread. IF you take into account what he had been saying all along from post one, @Oofta was right. If you just take a few lines which make out the post you quoted out of the hundreds already written, you were right. It is all a matter of perspective. I would take not one post, but the thread in its entirety. And yes, over long thread, it is easy to loose tracks.

So, when he accused me of lying about what he said, he didn't want me to focus on the part I was quoting, you know, the thing where I was being accused of lying, but he wanted me to take into account every single thing he has said over the entire 50 pages.

Why? Because he contradicted himself and his other posts show that what I quoted wasn't true?

Well, that'd be great for me, wouldn't it?



There is no perspective here. There is no debate. Oofta said I lied, and that he never said what I was talking about.

I quoted him, word for word, highlighting it. He said those things. That means I didn't lie, because I was responding to those things.


You know what the funniest part is? I'm sure people noticed that I've been responding to Oofta separate from everyone else, not in these big multi-quotes? You wanna know why? Because in the last thread, he complained it was hard to find my responses when his were part of everyone else's. So I changed my posting style, specifically to accommodate him. And now I'm being called a liar, because he didn't want to confront my arguments.

 

[Oofta]

Personally, I think I'd have an issue with this were I at that table, in that it's immediately clear not all players are going to be equal.

Whichever of you or your wife is not the DM is, even if unintentionally, inevitably going to be treated differently as a player than are the other players. Further, due to your/her greater knowledge of and investment in the game world, each of you is also quite likely to play a bit differently than would other non-DM players.

Put another way, when a player is also a co-DM then DM neutrality between players becomes harder to achieve. Harder, but not impossible, provided the issue is kept top-of-mind.

I speak from long and rather annoying experience here, from games I have played in.

Well, there's always going to be a suspicion of bias because we're married. All I can do is my best to ensure that I treat her as an equal with all other players. I don't think that matters if we both DM or not. Also, we have completely separate regions, separate campaigns. We keep them roughly in sync time wise in the rare case someone wants to cross over from one campaign to the other.

So not sure what to say. Every once in a while we stomp on the edges of the other's territories or we plan something that will have a wider impact. That's the only time we ever discuss campaign related details other than what every other PC knows. I guess our players trust us (the fact that my monsters don't take it easy on my wife's PC probably helps) so it's never been an issue.