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

[Oofta]

...
I am a big believer in Open Door games. Basically everyone should feel comfortable to express their concerns and can leave at anytime without judgement.

Has anyone said anything different?

 

[Lyxen]

Sorry, but no. And you can stop tagging me, thanks.

Then we'll just have to disagree.

The DM controls literally everything in the game except the PCs. If the DM can’t manage to run a good game without also taking away the one thing the players get to do in the game (i.e. control their characters), then that’s a bad DM. If you need to control the PCs in addition to everything else in the game, then go write a novel and stop running games.

And if a player can't be even a little bit understanding about the difficulty of a DM's job, and can't even abide that the DM might just be following a module, or is just a beginner, or lacking confidence, or is just running the game to please friends, or just thinks that overall, the game is going to be better for the majority, then they are bad players, they should go write and adventure and try being a DM, just to see what they are capable of.

 

[Lyxen]

No. They've left it. I'd prep stuff dealing with what the PCs are heading towards.

And you are not pissed off that, in addition to the fact that you did preparation for nothing, it might even have cost you money to procure the module?

You're reading into that statement that which is not there. Nothing in that sentence says the only paths are those which the DM has already created. If my character decides to forge down a new path, it is also a path that the DM creates as an adventure for the character to explore. You're trying to treat it as only having one possible interpretation and it has multiples, including mine.

And again, this is a session 0 discussion.

It is, I'm just telling you what the default way of playing the game is, and has been since its inception.

Yes necessarily. An unapproved railroad is always a bad thing, regardless of the DM's intent.

Yeah right, I'm sure that we'll find many certified railroading approval forms all over the net, for all the official modules that do it.

So no, I disagree. Complete and utter refusal to compromise for the general benefit of the games and the players is a much worse thing.

The DM does not have the right to take away from or invalidate my decisions regarding my character. Authority sure, but not the right. A DM that does that is abusing his power.

Yeah right, with an attitude like this, I guess I understand why DMs are so hard to come by...

 

[prabe]

Has anyone said anything different?

It seems plausible--easy, even--to (mis)interpret "The DM has ultimate authority" as saying "the players' concerns don't matter." I can definitely see some DMs as seeming less approachable than others.

I don't think anyone has said players were subject to the Third Law of Thermodynamics (revised): You can't quit.

I might be wrong about the latter.

 

[loverdrive]

I don't think anyone has said players were subject to the Third Law of Thermodynamics (revised): You can't quit.

I personally was at more than a couple of games where leaving was, uhm, a complex thing.

 

[prabe]

I personally was at more than a couple of games where leaving was, uhm, a complex thing.

Yeah. It can be complex and complicated to leave a game, but that's not so much a matter of GM Authority as ... {waves hands} ... social stuff.

 

[Maxperson]

And you are not pissed off that, in addition to the fact that you did preparation for nothing, it might even have cost you money to procure the module?

No I'm not. I'm not even slightly annoyed, because I want the players to have fun, not get forced through a module that I bought. Especially since I can probably use it at some point in the future, or if not completely, cannibalize parts of it(neat traps, etc.) for use elsewhere.

It is, I'm just telling you what the default way of playing the game is, and has been since its inception.

The game has progressed a long way since that time. There are many different playstyles in the DMG that differ from what the game was at its inception.

Yeah right, I'm sure that we'll find many certified railroading approval forms all over the net, for all the official modules that do it.

What is in a module that you consider to be a railroad, because in the ones that I've purchased, I haven't seen any rails. Linear yes. Rails, no.

Yeah right, with an attitude like this, I guess I understand why DMs are so hard to come by...

I have 3(including me) in my group of 5. None of which are insistent that they be able to force players around and invalidate their choices.

 

[Oofta]

It seems plausible--easy, even--to (mis)interpret "The DM has ultimate authority" as saying "the players' concerns don't matter." I can definitely see some DMs as seeming less approachable than others.

I don't think anyone has said players were subject to the Third Law of Thermodynamics (revised): You can't quit.

I might be wrong about the latter.

Yeah, I'm just kind of envisioning some kind of weird horror movie where you have to put up with this diabolical scheming DM who chuckles evilly as they thwart the PCs at every turn. The only way to leave the game to jump into a giant woodchipper always running in the background.

I can see it now

Joe: "I umm ... attack the orc with my battle axe"​

DM: "Actually you attack Julie's PC, Sprinkles"​

Joe: "Am I dominated or something?"​

DM: "Nah. Just do it. Oh, and you automatically hit doing 3,000 points of damage"​

Joe: "Okay ... I guess ..."​

DM: "Bwahaha! Bow down to my might!"​

Julie runs screaming into the wood chipper screaming "I can't take it any more!"​

 

[Oofta]

I personally was at more than a couple of games where leaving was, uhm, a complex thing.

In all fairness, abusing their authority as a DM is only one way to be a bad DM. You shouldn't be limiting people's creativity!

 

[Lyxen]

No I'm not. I'm not even slightly annoyed, because I want the players to have fun, not get forced through a module that I bought. Especially since I can probably use it at some point in the future, or if not completely, cannibalize parts of it(neat traps, etc.) for use elsewhere.

The game has progressed a long way since that time. There are many different playstyles in the DMG that differ from what the game was at its inception.

And still, as shown many times in this thread, everything pointed out in 5e shows that it is very conservative in these approaches about the role of the DM, I have pointed you already to the list of extracts that shows this clearly.

What is in a module that you consider to be a railroad, because in the ones that I've purchased, I haven't seen any rails. Linear yes. Rails, no.

Then you have not read the most extreme example around, WDH, where, basically, in addition to being extremely linear, it totally ignores what the players might have done in a previous scene in favour of what is needed for the current scene to occur as planned and take its place in the plot.

I have 3(including me) in my group of 5. None of which are insistent that they be able to force players around and invalidate their choices.

I'm not insisting to do it, I'm just pointing out that it's not a capital crime when this happens. Having a zero level of tolerance for it is for me not the mark of a collaborative player, and therefore the mark of a bad player.