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

[overgeeked]

It's extremely limited sure. But (as I mentioned earlier) Backgrounds are one example.

Most of them allow the player to exercise authority absent from elsewhere in the system (such as the Noble background requiring the DM to accommodate the player in social situations up to and including audience with a local noble, the Urchin background doubling the speed of PC movement in a city, or the outlander being able to find food period - whether the DM provided for it or not (sure the DM can mess with that by saying no berries etc., but that's a separate issue) all are mechanical representations of player authority.

They're mostly fictional positioning more than mechanics. "You can secure an audience with the local nobility" is functionally different than "you gain advantage on X check". The former is fictional positioning, the latter is mechanical. The noble's feature is fictional positioning. The outlander and urchin are mechanical, "double speed while X" and "auto success on Y, provided Z.

That bolded bits aren't accurate.

"You are welcome in high society, and people assume you have the right to be wherever you are. The common folk make every effort to accommodate you and avoid your displeasure, and other people of high birth treat you as a member of the same social sphere. You can secure an audience with a local noble if you need to."

Assumptions can be proven wrong. Guards won't let people pass. Common folk can also really hate nobles, especially if the local nobles are terrible people, which most are. Seeing someone as an equal doesn't mean much beyond not automatically looking down on you. But that's also, generally, what nobles do. Look down on people. If not for birth, then not keeping up with trends and the latest fashion. And getting an audience doesn't mean it will go well.

Most people skip over the last part of the outlander feature: "provided that the land offers berries, small game, water, and so forth." So outlander or no, you're not finding food and water where there is none to find. If there's any food to find, you find it. The outlander feature doesn't summon food and water from nothing.

There's generally a lot of really terrible assumptions about what the fictional positioning of the background features gets the players. Like if a player of a noble PC assumed that every single commoner in the entire world must treat them with deference simply because of their birth...that player is in for an incredibly nasty surprise. Or the outlander player skipping over that final caveat of the feature...sorry, but no, you don't find food and water where there is none to find.

 

[Mort]

They're mostly fictional positioning more than mechanics. "You can secure an audience with the local nobility" is functionally different than "you gain advantage on X check". The former is fictional positioning, the latter is mechanical. The noble's feature is fictional positioning. The outlander and urchin are mechanical, "double speed while X" and "auto success on Y, provided Z.

That bolded bits aren't accurate.

"You are welcome in high society, and people assume you have the right to be wherever you are. The common folk make every effort to accommodate you and avoid your displeasure, and other people of high birth treat you as a member of the same social sphere. You can secure an audience with a local noble if you need to."

Assumptions can be proven wrong. Guards won't let people pass. Common folk can also really hate nobles, especially if the local nobles are terrible people, which most are. Seeing someone as an equal doesn't mean much beyond not automatically looking down on you. But that's also, generally, what nobles do. Look down on people. If not for birth, then not keeping up with trends and the latest fashion. And getting an audience doesn't mean it will go well.

Most people skip over the last part of the outlander feature: "provided that the land offers berries, small game, water, and so forth." So outlander or no, you're not finding food and water where there is none to find. If there's any food to find, you find it. The outlander feature doesn't summon food and water from nothing.

There's generally a lot of really terrible assumptions about what the fictional positioning of the background features gets the players. Like if a player of a noble PC assumed that every single commoner in the entire world must treat them with deference simply because of their birth...that player is in for an incredibly nasty surprise. Or the outlander player skipping over that final caveat of the feature...sorry, but no, you don't find food and water where there is none to find.

They still provide a mechanism for the player to excersise control over the setting that generally would be in the province of the DM - that's unusual in 5e.

And because it's 5e, the DM can still shut that Control down, but it's a baby step where they're where few before.

 

[overgeeked]

They still provide a mechanism for the player to excersise control over the setting that generally would be in the province of the DM - that's unusual in 5e.

And because it's 5e, the DM can still shut that Control down, but it's a baby step where they're where few before.

Maybe we're just using "control" differently. To me, control is the ability to actively manipulate and change the world. The DM can declare some NPC a noble or a commoner, the players cannot. The DM can create NPCs and monsters, the players cannot. The DM can declare a certain commoner to not care about the PC's noble status, the player cannot declare that as a commoner that NPC must be deferential. I mean, the player can say the words, but those words have zero effect on the fiction of the game world. Outside of stated actions and spells, the world is out of the players' control. It's entirely under the DM's control. Backgrounds give players input into the world, absolutely. This thing is true...within reason. My character is a noble, therefore. It's only things like spells that break that "within reason" part, and that's at a cost. Like summoning food in exchange for a spell slot. But that's not what outlander does, it doesn't summon food and water ex nihilo regardless of the local conditions, it only skips having to roll, but the DM is still in control of whether it's available or not. The outlander's player cannot declare that the local conditions are satisfactory for the character to find food and water.

 

[niklinna]

Especially given the footnote you clipped out of your reply.

Well, given the statement that Kevin Costner was using anything even resembling an accent in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, I'm not surprised they clipped the footnote!
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[niklinna]

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.

The DM is just as much somebody at the table as the players.

I sure wouldn't want to be either a DM or a player at a table lacking agreement between them.

 

[niklinna]

I need to get a crowdsourced project going post-pandemic where I travel to the home games of all the various disagreeing folks in this (and other) thread(s) and sit in for a session or two - and see how their posted opinions and actual play jibe (or not). It could be a documentary series for when ENWorld moves into the streaming media realm - @Morrus call me when the time comes

I actually made a comment in another thread a bit ago and got invited to sit in on somebody's session as an observer. It was enlightening, especially since they were playing the same game my home group is playing. The differences in style & approach were quite interesting.

 

[el-remmen]

I've been casually looking for a VTT game to join, even on a trial basis, just to see how other people do it (even though I prefer in-person games, ideally).

 

[niklinna]

I've been casually looking for a VTT game to join, even on a trial basis, just to see how other people do it (even though I prefer in-person games, ideally).

How are you looking? I've put posts here and on the A5E discord, don't know where else to look. (Although I did just recall that roll20 has an LFG feature...I wonder if you can specify A5E there?)

 

[Oofta]

They're mostly fictional positioning more than mechanics. "You can secure an audience with the local nobility" is functionally different than "you gain advantage on X check". The former is fictional positioning, the latter is mechanical. The noble's feature is fictional positioning. The outlander and urchin are mechanical, "double speed while X" and "auto success on Y, provided Z.

That bolded bits aren't accurate.

"You are welcome in high society, and people assume you have the right to be wherever you are. The common folk make every effort to accommodate you and avoid your displeasure, and other people of high birth treat you as a member of the same social sphere. You can secure an audience with a local noble if you need to."

Assumptions can be proven wrong. Guards won't let people pass. Common folk can also really hate nobles, especially if the local nobles are terrible people, which most are. Seeing someone as an equal doesn't mean much beyond not automatically looking down on you. But that's also, generally, what nobles do. Look down on people. If not for birth, then not keeping up with trends and the latest fashion. And getting an audience doesn't mean it will go well.

Most people skip over the last part of the outlander feature: "provided that the land offers berries, small game, water, and so forth." So outlander or no, you're not finding food and water where there is none to find. If there's any food to find, you find it. The outlander feature doesn't summon food and water from nothing.

There's generally a lot of really terrible assumptions about what the fictional positioning of the background features gets the players. Like if a player of a noble PC assumed that every single commoner in the entire world must treat them with deference simply because of their birth...that player is in for an incredibly nasty surprise. Or the outlander player skipping over that final caveat of the feature...sorry, but no, you don't find food and water where there is none to find.

I try to take backgrounds into consideration and utilize them, usually for the benefit of the PCs but sometimes not. Even the noble background [edit: in some cases] just means that you're worth capturing for ransom. A background doesn't grant magical abilities.

 

[Oofta]

The DM is just as much somebody at the table as the players.

I sure wouldn't want to be either a DM or a player at a table lacking agreement between them.

You've never had a DM make a ruling you disagree with? Interpret something different than you understand it? Like, ever?