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

[hawkeyefan]

It's easier to assume that the professional writers meant what they wrote and that it's simply counter to your preferences, hence your objection.

Yes, that's largely my point. I think that they chose the words they did for a reason.

Generally speaking, there’s no question about how the rules work, and so they should work as described.

That phrase doesn’t just grant the GM total authority.

Yes. There are dozens of ways within the rules of the game that permit the DM to do that. How does a fireball interact with a cone of cold? That's up to the DM. How about a counterspell? Pretty clear. How about heavy wind and rain or a control weather spell? Contorl Water? Tsunami? Gust of wind? Up to the DM. How does the fireball interact with the terrain? Up to the DM. The DM is also free to create monsters and NPCs and spells. Those monsters and NPCs and spells are not bound by the same rules as the PCs. So if a DM wants to drop an Avatar/Korra style firebender into the game, that's their prerogative.

Sure, some of these examples are what would then constitute a question. Others I don’t think apply at all, or in the case of something like Counterspell, they work exactly as described. This is my point; absent such potential mitigating factors, the rules work as described.

So yes, if it’s established that there is a question about how a rule works, then the GM decides what happens.

It's worked for decades. I don't see why it would be a sudden problem. Unless it's your preference that things work otherwise. Then it's clearly a clash of preference vs the rules of this particular game.

I’m not challenging how it’s worked for decades. I’m saying that taking the phrase:

"A Dungeon Master adjudicates the game and determines whether to use an official ruling in play. The DM always has the final say on rules questions."

and reading that as “The DM is allowed to do whatever they want” is probably not a good way to approach play. If you happen to play that way and it works for you, that’s awesome, go ahead and have fun. But for anyone new to the hobby, or as a general discussion of how to approach play, I wouldn’t recommend that approach.

 

[Lyxen]

It's typical of virtually every game I've been in since the early 1990's and 2e. If you're going to claim it's atypical, you should be able to prove your claim.

It's extremely easy. Every single published adventure has a plot. If the PCs turn their back on the plot to go overseas and become pirates instead, they are not playing the published adventure at all. However, these adventures are widely popular, and there are many more examples of campaigns being done along these than other campaigns.

Your way to play as a complete sandbox is cool but I completely defy you to prove that it's even mainstream. FWITW, there are quite a few people complaining about the little sandbox section of STK, because they just feel lost not knowing what to do. And I've had at least 5000 people playing in our LARP games where we ask people fi they want a somewhat guided adventure or a complete "sandbox, do what you want", and the ratio of people wanting a complete sandbox is 1 to 20. Now, this might not be totally relevant, but I think you will have trouble proving that people prefer complete sandbox with no plot.

There is no Strawman there bud. In order to be a Strawman, I'd had to have attributed some sort of argument to you, which I didn't. My response was the definition of railroad and a statement that it spoke for itself. You should learn what the various fallacies are if you're going to accuse people of them. It will save you embarrassment like this.

No, please start feeling embarrassed, here is the whole discussion:

• I said: "It's not black and white like this, sorry, never was in a RPG. The DM usually has a plot that has to be roughly followed. After that, there are many levels of sandboxing and/or railroading, but most games expect some mix of that."
• You said: "The second bolded portion is similar to the first. If the players don't agree in advance that a railroad is okay, it's never okay."
• To which I responded : "There is nothing of the kind in the rules, written or otherwise (and if you think there is, prove it).
• To which you responded: "Prove that removal of player agency and invalidation of their choices in order force them to do what I want is bad? Well, that kinda sorta speaks for itself. "

There is a large difference between "many levels of sandboxing and/or railroading, but most games expect some mix of that" and "removal of player agency and invalidation of their choices", which makes it an obvious strawman. Yes, the way you present it is bad, but it's not what I said, and, being incapable to disprove what I said is obvious from your answer.

Not according to Tasha's. Nothing there says that.

Actually there is, you should read it again: "The players will respect you and the effort it takes to create a fun game for everyone. The players will allow you to direct the campaign."

You should avoid speaking for anyone but yourself. That way you won't be wrong like you are now. YOU will not run a game for that group. If you want to take your ball and go home because the players want to go in a different direction, that's on you.

I'm sorry, but I'm pretty sure that the majority of DMs will pack up and leave the players to find another DM if they have announced "I will be running [published adventure]/[my Homebrewed Campaign] and the players were to say "screw this, we don't care what you did and we are scared of demons, so we will go and have some pirate adventure overseas instead".

 

[prabe]

It's extremely easy. Every single published adventure has a plot.

And this is why I don't run (or by preference play) published adventures. They are roughly never about the PCs, IME: They're about all these things that happen regardless of who the PCs are.

 

[overgeeked]

Yes, that's largely my point. I think that they chose the words they did for a reason.

You're cherrypicking that phrase from all the others and claiming that it somehow means what you want rather than what it says.

"A Dungeon Master adjudicates the game and determines whether to use an official ruling in play. The DM always has the final say on rules questions."

But there are others...

"One player, however, takes on the role of the Dungeon Master (DM), the game's lead storyteller and referee. The DM creates adventures for the characters, who navigate its hazards and decide which paths to explore...Then the DM determines the results of the adventurers' actions and narrates what they experience. Because the DM can improvise to react to anything the players attempt, D&D is infinitely flexible, and each adventure can be exciting and unexpected."

This is formalized as the play loop:
1. The DM describes the environment.
2. The players describe what they want their characters to do.
3. The DM narrates the outcome.

Doesn't sound like there's much that the players control. Sounds like it's the DM's show, for the most part.

"The Dungeon Master (DM) is the creative force behind a D&D game. The DM creates a world for the other players to explore, and also creates and runs adventures that drive the story."

Wow. The "creative force behind a D&D game". And they get to "create a world for the other players to explore." And "create and run adventures that drive the story". Wild. That sounds like a lot.

"A Dungeon Master gets to wear many hats. As the architect of a campaign, the DM creates adventures by placing monsters, traps, and treasures for the other players' characters (the adventurers) to discover. As a storyteller, the DM helps the other players visualize what's happening around them, improvising when the adventurers do something or go somewhere unexpected. As an actor, the DM plays the roles of the monsters and supporting characters, breathing life into them. And as a referee, the DM interprets the rules and decides when to abide by them and when to change them.

Inventing, writing, storytelling, improvising, acting, refereeing-every DM handles these roles differently, and you'll probably enjoy some more than others. It helps to remember that DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is a hobby, and being the DM should be fun. Focus on the aspects you enjoy and downplay the rest. For example, if you don't like creating your own adventures, you can use published ones. You can also lean on the other players to help you with rules mastery and world-building.

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."

It's almost as if this question was thoroughly, specifically, and explicitly answered in the books themselves. I guess some players just don't like the DM to have that much control over the game. That's fine. I guess. But don't pretend that the books haven't already answered the question.

That phrase doesn’t just grant the GM total authority.

Maybe not, but the ones I quoted above explicitly do.

This is my point; absent such potential mitigating factors, the rules work as described.

Like the DM changing how the rules work, as is their explicit mandate as described in the DMG.

I’m not challenging how it’s worked for decades.

Except that you are.

I’m saying that taking the phrase:

"A Dungeon Master adjudicates the game and determines whether to use an official ruling in play. The DM always has the final say on rules questions."

and reading that as “The DM is allowed to do whatever they want” is probably not a good way to approach play. If you happen to play that way and it works for you, that’s awesome, go ahead and have fun. But for anyone new to the hobby, or as a general discussion of how to approach play, I wouldn’t recommend that approach.

Again, you're cherrypicking that phrase and ignoring the block of text from the DMG that explicitly counters your argument.

"And as a referee, the DM interprets the rules and decides when to abide by them and when to change them."

"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."

I mean...I know no one reads the DMG...but this is getting ridiculous. Legit the whole thing explicitly answered on page 4 of the DMG.

 

[Oofta]

I'm all for open sandbox style campaign if everyone including the DM have agreed to it. Personally I do a bit of a hybrid, I throw out several options during session 0. At the end of a story mini-arc (usually 2-3 sessions) I ask what they want to do next so I can plan for the next session.

On the other hand, if I'm playing with a DM that's using a published mod (I don't) then I assume we're going to follow the breadcrumbs the mod provides. Heck, if the DM just isn't into open sandbox campaigns, I'll let them do a bit of railroading.

It's a game. Not everyone wants a truly open sandbox, many if not most people want some sort of over-arcing story in my experience. They want to feel like they're changing the campaign world for the better and having an impact outside of just going against more and more deadly opponents because they can because that can feel like a treadmill.

As @overgeeked points out the default assumption is that the DM is in control of the world, the campaign, the story arcs. If the DM wants to have a more collaborative game, that's fine too. But there is no one true way, there are many ways to play the game.

 

[pemerton]

Speak for yourself. I play RPGs to play RPGs. If I want to be entertained by someone's story I'll read a book or watch a film.

It's not black and white like this, sorry, never was in a RPG.

I'll say again: speak for yourself.

I've told you why I do and don't play RPGs. I don't think you are in any position to tell me that I'm wrong about that.

The DM usually has a plot that has to be roughly followed.

Which DM are you talking about? You? The bad ones I mentioned? I can tell you that I have done a lot of GMing of RPGs in my life - thousands of hours - and I don't have a plot that has to be roughly followed.

So it was not even the same DM ? And the first one's only crime was that a captured kobold did not want to spill all the beans for you ? What a crime indeed

That's not what happened. As I posted, the GM failed to play the kobold honestly. The kobold was portrayed as having the intellectual abilities of a small child - an inability to understand such concepts as number and direction. The reason why the GM did this was transparent - in order to avoid giving us, the players, the information which would permit us to declare actions that would take the fight to the kobolds and their encampment or secret base or whatever. Hence, as I mentioned, the players (there were four or five of us) ended the game and started a new one.

And the second one dared to have an NPC betray you ?

As I said, the GM presented us with one option for play: take the quest from the questgiver. Then when we performed the quest and returned to the questgiver, had the questgiver betray us - thus retrospectively making all our actions and efforts somewhere between pointless and silly. I realise that this is a very popular adventure trope - I regard it as a sign of a GM who has extremely limited dramatic imagination and who doesn't know how to use a system of action resolution that differentiates between successful outcomes and consequences for failure.

The DM has the ability to say no to anything during character creation. Any race, class, subclass, feature, feat, background, arms, armor, gear, spell, etc can be excluded by the DM. Any backstory element can be overwritten by the DM. Up to and including making characters for the players with backstory already written...though that’s exceedingly rare outside of teaching beginners how to play or learning new editions.

During play the DM has control over what the characters know about the world. The DM has explicit control over the outcomes of actions in that they can declare actions automatic successes, automatic failures, or ask for a roll...and determine what the DC is. The DM also is explicitly given control over narrating the outcome of actions in the three-step play loop given in the PHB and DMG.

1. The DM describes the environment.
2. The players describe what they want their characters to do.
3. The DM narrates the results of the characters’ actions.

The DM also has complete control over all NPCs and monsters, including how they act and react.

So when you get down to it, the player doesn’t really have all that much authority in D&D. They can make a character within the confines set by the DM and they can declare the intent of a proposed action, but not the outcome of that action.

It is absolutely in agreement with the standard way of playing 5e (which this threat is about), which states that all the rules are within the scope of the DM anyway: "A Dungeon Master adjudicates the game and determines whether to use an official ruling in play. The DM always has the final say on rules questions."

If it is the GM's job to decide all setting, all backstory, all situations, and all outcomes - without regard to any of the rules for PC build (like background) or any of the action resolution rules - then what is the job of the players? What are they there for?

What is the point of action declarations by the players for their PCs? Are these like prompts to the GM, as if it was a creative writing class with the GM as author and the players as brains trust?

 

[pemerton]

I agree that those examples make for bad DMs. However, I'm curious about the first example. What made you think that he was playing the kobold incorrectly in order to keep information from you?

As I posted just upthread, the GM played the kobold as lacking the mental capacity to answer questions about numbers, directions, etc. Similar to a small child.

It was transparent.

 

[hawkeyefan]

You're cherrypicking that phrase from all the others and claiming that it somehow means what you want rather than what it says.

"A Dungeon Master adjudicates the game and determines whether to use an official ruling in play. The DM always has the final say on rules questions."

But there are others...

"One player, however, takes on the role of the Dungeon Master (DM), the game's lead storyteller and referee. The DM creates adventures for the characters, who navigate its hazards and decide which paths to explore...Then the DM determines the results of the adventurers' actions and narrates what they experience. Because the DM can improvise to react to anything the players attempt, D&D is infinitely flexible, and each adventure can be exciting and unexpected."

This is formalized as the play loop:
1. The DM describes the environment.
2. The players describe what they want their characters to do.
3. The DM narrates the outcome.

Doesn't sound like there's much that the players control. Sounds like it's the DM's show, for the most part.

"The Dungeon Master (DM) is the creative force behind a D&D game. The DM creates a world for the other players to explore, and also creates and runs adventures that drive the story."

Wow. The "creative force behind a D&D game". And they get to "create a world for the other players to explore." And "create and run adventures that drive the story". Wild. That sounds like a lot.

"A Dungeon Master gets to wear many hats. As the architect of a campaign, the DM creates adventures by placing monsters, traps, and treasures for the other players' characters (the adventurers) to discover. As a storyteller, the DM helps the other players visualize what's happening around them, improvising when the adventurers do something or go somewhere unexpected. As an actor, the DM plays the roles of the monsters and supporting characters, breathing life into them. And as a referee, the DM interprets the rules and decides when to abide by them and when to change them.

Inventing, writing, storytelling, improvising, acting, refereeing-every DM handles these roles differently, and you'll probably enjoy some more than others. It helps to remember that DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is a hobby, and being the DM should be fun. Focus on the aspects you enjoy and downplay the rest. For example, if you don't like creating your own adventures, you can use published ones. You can also lean on the other players to help you with rules mastery and world-building.

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."

It's almost as if this question was thoroughly, specifically, and explicitly answered in the books themselves. I guess some players just don't like the DM to have that much control over the game. That's fine. I guess. But don't pretend that the books haven't already answered the question.

Maybe not, but the ones I quoted above explicitly do.

Like the DM changing how the rules work, as is their explicit mandate as described in the DMG.

Except that you are.

Again, you're cherrypicking that phrase and ignoring the block of text from the DMG that explicitly counters your argument.

"And as a referee, the DM interprets the rules and decides when to abide by them and when to change them."

"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."

I mean...I know no one reads the DMG...but this is getting ridiculous. Legit the whole thing explicitly answered on page 4 of the DMG.

I’m not cherrypicking anything. Someone posted that quote, and I gave my thoughts on it.

Nothing you’ve posted changes what I said. I don’t think that the game is meant to be played with the GM as the absolute authority.

Let me ask you….all the passages that you quoted…do any of them say “you as DM must exclude any and all player input to the fiction of the game”? Do they say “you can and should disregard the rules as presented for any reason whatsoever”?

They don’t appear to do so from what I can see. Largely because that would suck.

 

[pemerton]

Yes, this is what I had in mind. Just recently I had my Hound in a Blades game track down a sinister dude to his home, and I snooped around in there and rolled a success, and the GM said to me, "So, what's this guy up to?" He left it totally up to me to come up with why the guy had shown up at our score.

I think this sort of approach is far more viable in D&D than threads like this current one seem to allow.

I've GMed plenty of Rolemaster, AD&D and 4e in which the situations, motivations of the antagonists, etc are established in the course of play. There is nothing about D&D that I can think of that pushes against this (and less in more recent editions, which have less divination magic than older versions and so are less likely to produce action declarations that require everything to be locked down here-and-now).

When I was GMing AD&D and Rolemaster I would also often invent geography on the fly if necessary. 4e needs more detailed maps more often, and so I tended to have some maps ready in advance. 5e might be similar in this respect. But even if these versions of D&D aren't ideal for allowing a high degree of spontaneity in respect of minutiae of geography, that doesn't have to carry through to other aspects of situation.

 

[Oofta]

I think this sort of approach is far more viable in D&D than threads like this current one seem to allow.

I've GMed plenty of Rolemaster, AD&D and 4e in which the situations, motivations of the antagonists, etc are established in the course of play. There is nothing about D&D that I can think of that pushes against this (and less in more recent editions, which have less divination magic than older versions and so are less likely to produce action declarations that require everything to be locked down here-and-now).

When I was GMing AD&D and Rolemaster I would also often invent geography on the fly if necessary. 4e needs more detailed maps more often, and so I tended to have some maps ready in advance. 5e might be similar in this respect. But even if these versions of D&D aren't ideal for allowing a high degree of spontaneity in respect of minutiae of geography, that doesn't have to carry through to other aspects of situation.

It's completely left up to the DM and the group though. The baseline assumption is that the only thing the player has control of is their PC and what they attempt to do. In my campaign I have people run things past me before they become "real" for their background because I run a consistent campaign world. If I just let them make stuff up it could conflict with established lore they aren't aware of.

It's also just personal preference. I know a lot of my players would feel put on the spot if asked to describe a scene, some people just aren't good with that kind of spontaneity.