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

[Oofta]

But you and the DM have an agreement beforehand that you will both abide by that. I have been in games where it's openly agreed that players may challenge the DM. That can be fun—usually with an additional agreement that folks will resolve disputes quickly—and it can be agonizing—when that agreement is implicit or absent.

I'm assuming the default. As the intro to the DMG says "The D&D rules help you and the other players have a good time, but the rules aren’t in charge. You’re the DM, and you are in charge of the game. "

Now, there have been many times when I've discussed rulings with players (I typically try to do it outside of game time) but the buck has to stop somewhere. If you have a session 0 and you decide to deviate that's great! I'm sure a more shared narrative approach works for a lot of people. I don't do it for my games of the reasons I listed before - most important is that I run long term campaigns in a persistent world that has spanned multiple campaigns so it all has to fit my head-cannon of how the world works. When it comes to rules implementation, the DM making the call just helps keep the game moving.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'm assuming the default. As the intro to the DMG says "The D&D rules help you and the other players have a good time, but the rules aren’t in charge. You’re the DM, and you are in charge of the game. "

This is why no one reads the DMG. So much terrible advice.

 

[Oofta]

Typically, I will growl and bare my teeth.

He's not. He's describing how spells and their associated mechanics limit GM authority and grant players limited narrative control. A Persuasion check can only exist if the GM allows it--and he sets the conditions for that along with the DC. In contrast, the charm spell (and other spells) are under player control. The wizard presses the spellcasting button and the NPC rolls a saving throw. On a failed saving throw--the DC of which is set by the rules rather than GM fiat--the NPC is subject to the effects of the spell. In the case of charm, the character is buddies with the spellcaster, for a time.

The inverse of this is also true, by the way. The charm spell in the hands of an enemy spellcaster grants a mechanic by which the GM can assert authority over a player character's agency without violating the unspoken rule that he cannot do so.

I was just pointing out that charm person is not particularly powerful, it is not complete mind control. If I'm in a game and suddenly I decide that the Mr McBadGuy is really a friendly acquaintance, I have to decide what I will say or do for my friendly acquaintance. Same as when the roles are reversed.

 

[niklinna]

Except that just rolling completely skips over the roleplaying. A lengthy description of you poking at prodding at places and things in a space is roleplaying...you're inhabiting your character and through that character interacting with the fictional world. Roleplaying. "I search the room. I got a 27." Not roleplaying.

There's a difference between taking an action and roleplaying. "I search the room" is declaring an action, not roleplaying.

"I seach the top-left drawer of the writing desk." — declaring an action
"I poke and prod in the bottom-left drawer of the desk." — declaring an action
"I look in the top-right drawer." — declaring an action
"I look in the bottom-right drawer." — declaring an action
"I toss books off the shelves." — declaring an action
"I look between pages 127 and 128 of Agawyn's Lost History of the Titans" — declaring an action

But together, as a lengthy description of poking and prodding at places in a space, they are roleplaying, and "I search the room" is not? Each of those could have an associated die roll (hey, that slip of paper could fall from between pages 127 and 128 without you noticing).

Level of detail.

 

[Oofta]

Yeah no.

The DM volunteers for the job and they don't have the 'right' to domineer others just because they chose 'the rest of the world' as their character in the game.

I DM more than I do anything else and I would never demand my 'right' to push people around because I don't have that right. No one has that right.

Who's "domineering"? The players decide what the PC attempts to do (which may or may not succeed), what they think, what they say. About the only control I have over the authority of the PC is that I explain that I don't want evil PCs and that evil PCs will become NPCs. I don't tell the players their PCs can't start murdering innocents for giggles, just what the consequences will be.

In the same way I do my best to run the game as close to the rules as I can and have NPCs respond appropriately. How do we go from "the player is only in control of their PC" to "pushing people around"?

 

[Ovinomancer]

The spell itself says

What are the parameters of being "friendly," or an "acquaintance"? Dm decides. They have to make a judgement call. I think a good dm would want to have things work in the players interests as much as possible, but also must be true to their world and understanding of those words. Would you tell a "friendly acquaintance" whether you had a secret plan to kill the king?

The charmed condition, meanwhile, states that


That's a lot more specific, especially the first bullet point, probably because it is to do with combat.

Overall, I'd say the charm person spell operates similarly to an opportunity attack. If you see that enemy is moving out of your threatened reach, you can make an opportunity attack, and the gm cannot just decide that you are not attempting an attack. Both the opportunity attack and charm person have a likelihood of success (vs AC and WIS, respectively) that probably should be pre-determined even if it strictly speaking doesn't need to be. If either the opportunity attack or the charm person are successful, the dm must abide by the results--damage, in the first case, or the charmed condition, in the second. As you write:

Yes, that is what the spell and conditions say. And, when I cast Charm Person, the GM is required to narrate that these things happen. They are not requirement to narrate anything with regards to an action declaration to befriend an NPC.

As for friendly, sure, the GM can determine whatever they think this is, just like they can if I have a NPC friend the non-Charm Person way. But, this is entirely after the fact and outside the narrative control of the spell. The spell gives the player the authority to say "that NPC is friendly towards me" and even "that NPC has the Charmed condition with regards to me." There the authority ends. Pointing out that the GM is free to subvert this after the fact 1) doesn't change anything and 2) opens up a whole raft of other issues.

 

[jmartkdr2]

There is no likelihood of success to determine -- if I meet the prerequisites for casting the spell, the spell happens. There's no saving throw for Wall of Stone -- it makes a wall of stone. This happens. Further, the GM can narrate whatever the GM wants, so long as it's a wall of stone appears where I say it does. With regards to authority, that's my authority, not the GM's, even if we pretend the GM has to speak it for it to be so.

This all feels like distinctions without difference, to me. The spellcasting feature is not unique in letting players do things. If I use the Indomitable feature, I get a reroll. I don't ask the dm if he will allow me a reroll. If the enemy moves away, I get an opportunity attack, I don't ask the dm if they're allowing opportunity attacks today. The dm can narrate the attack however they want, but they don't get to decide in the moment which class features work except for spellcasting, which they must always allow. If it's a thing the character can do, the character can do it.

Why is spellcasting different in how much authority a dm has form any other character feature?

And that would be the blatant deployment of Rule 0 Force that I mentioned in my first post. Either spells work, and the player is wielding narrative authority, or the GM is forced to be obvious about GM Force.

(Aside from Blatant Deployments of Force, as you say. As others and I have noted, these are assume to be allowed if exepcted to be used sparingly.)

Well, no, because the player is not guaranteed a roll. I'm a very indulgent GM when it comes to these things -- I generally will call for a roll and abide by it -- but, even with that, there are some things that just succeed or just fail. "You learn the NPC is afraid of spiders." "Cool, I befriend the NPC by casting an illusion of a giant spider and saying 'want to meet my hungry friend?" That just fails, even in my games. But I could do that, terrify the NPC, and then cast Charm Person and, provided a failed save, they're still going to be friendly to me for the duration. And still scared of spiders, so any future asks might get disadvantaged if you keep the illusion around.

The only time a player isn't guaranteed a roll is with ability checks - those are the standout, if anything.

The point is, that Charm Person requires the GM to narrate the the NPC is now friendly. Just trying to make friends doesn't require the GM to do anything at all. Hence the nature of authority.

But if I attack the guard, can the dm decide the guard is unattackable? What if I use a superiority die to feint first? Does the dm decide in the moment that Superiority Dice don't apply? What about Rage? Is the bonus damage form rage simply up to dm fiat?

The difference is that spells require the GM to narrate specific outcomes. Non-spells do not.

Edit to add: I don't really think you're trying to argue that all game rules that say "a character can do this" except spells are only available at dm whim, but dm's cannot disallow spells. But it does read that way.

 

[Mordhau]

I don't understand why there is such continual confusion of the concepts of authority and leadership.

Being a DM is not a position of authority. It's a leadership position. There's different styles of leadership. The DM who declares "this is the town I designed and every builiding is exactly as I say it is" and the DM who says to the players "who do you think the most important people in this town are?" are both in positions of leadership. The'yre just different styles of leadership.

I find all these threads seem to have a central confusion. They confuse different styles of leadership with having or not having authority. It's possible for no particular person in a game to be in a leadership position, but then you pretty much by definition don't have a GM.

 

[Ovinomancer]

There's a difference between taking an action and roleplaying. "I search the room" is declaring an action, not roleplaying.

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

 

[Oofta]

"I seach the top-left drawer of the writing desk." — declaring an action
"I poke and prod in the bottom-left drawer of the desk." — declaring an action
"I look in the top-right drawer." — declaring an action
"I look in the bottom-right drawer." — declaring an action
"I toss books off the shelves." — declaring an action

But together, as a lengthy description of poking and prodding at places in a space, they are roleplaying, and "I search the room" is not? Each of those could have an associated die roll.

Level of detail.

I find detailed explanations of searching rooms mind-numbingly boring and a bit pointless. So what I do is have the PCs describe in broad terms how they're searching. Quickly rifling through things? Taking all the time you need? Trashing the place or trying to leave no trace? Then I explain how long it will take and so on.

If there's something interesting [edit: DC based on how much time they're spending to find that "something interesting"] I'll "zoom in" on the interesting bits and go into detail about how the chest bottom has a hollow sound to it and then we'll take it from there. But ... that's all just personal preference. For the most part I don't want to slow down the narrative of the game for this level of detail. But different strokes for different folks and all.