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

[Oofta]

At the core of RPGing is collectively creating a shared fiction. As a player, I expect to able to create some of that shared fiction. The standard medium for doing so is declaring actions for my PC. These are then resolved by using the relevant system. If that system is nothing beyond the GM decides what happens, then what am I there for? I'm nothing but a suggestion-giver to the GM.

In my games 99.99% of the time the action works just fine. Actually, that's a guesstimate because I'm sure I've said something along the lines of "it doesn't work and you don't know why" but I can't remember when. Might have been a couple of years ago.

If I do decide that it doesn't work, it will be for a reason that hopefully adds to the world. Just like I let PCs do things that are outside the rules now and then, I reserve the right to do the same as the DM. I'm not a slave to the rules if I think it will tell a better story and be more enjoyable. The vast majority of times I run things by the book unless it's an established house rule, but there are exceptions to every rule and, in this case, it's in the favor of the PCs as often as not.

 

[pemerton]

Two extreme examples: a player says that their character would like a new mountain range to appear, without reference to any specific rules, and the dm says, "no, that's not possible." Is that indicative of a denial of player agency? Or, a player says their character would like to go talk to the blacksmith, and the dm says, "rocks fall, you die" for seemingly no reason. Is that outside the purview of the dm, who is in control of the world?

I think that these examples are underspecified.

The main way that a player contributes to the shared fiction, in D&D play, is by way of PC building and by playing their PC by declaring actions.

So in your mountain range example, what is going on? If we're talking PC build, and the player says I want to play a person from the mountains, then that is a discussion about setting and backstory. I think that the default GM reply should be OK, but obviously there might be reasons to say no or to seek some sort of compromise. (Eg everyone's agreed to play a campaign of urban scoundrels living in their home city which is also an ocean port.)

If we're talking action declaration, then what is the declared action? I look for a mountain, I travel to the mountains, I look around - do I see any mountains?, I say to the NPC "Like you, I am from the mountains" - these are all different action declarations, and for each there are various ways they might be resolved. There are ways of giving players agency here which don't extend to mere fiat player authorship. There are also ways of preserving GM authority over backstory and setting - as is typical in a "sandbox" game.

With the blacksmith example, the player declares an action: I go to visit the blacksmith. What is the fictional positioning? What is established already? If the fictional positioning seems propitious - eg the PC is in a town of reasonable size, with plenty of money to hand and under no particular time pressure - and yet the GM is inclined to say anything other than OK then, why is the GM so inclined? The player wants a scene of their PC meeting the blacksmith, but the GM is refusing to frame it - why? To what end? Based on what sort of assertion of authority?

Here are two possibilities: (1) The GM is just asserting authority over backstory (and letting that bleed through to situation) because of some inner sense of the "integrity" of their creative vision, or because they happen not to have thought of it first in preparing their notes. I personally think that is bad GMing. (2) The GM's response is that there's no blacksmith - and the town is in consternation as a result!, and this is the introduction to some sort of mystery or adventure. That may be good GMing or not depending on whether anyone is interested in that adventure and similar considerations. But as far as the exercise of authority is concerned, (2) is completely different from (1). And progress can't be made, in discussions of GM authority, until we start to drill down to these sorts of differences.

 

[pemerton]

I rarely see players in a traditional game author content

I think AD&D and Rolemaster are pretty traditional games. And players of those games, in my experience, generate content all the time.

@Ovinomancer has already given the example of casting spells. But those are only some among many action declarations. In the AD&D and RM games I GMed, players declared all sorts of actions. We resolved those by following the rules. The result was more fiction, or if you prefer more content. And the players helped author that.

You do realize a literal reading of what you've written is that it's OK for the DM to narrate a successful roll as a failure state, yes? And that further literal reading is that it's OK for the DM to pre-determine the outcomes, since they have authority to control them?

Yes.

Some people read the GM narrates what happens as if it was synonymous with the GM makes up what happens and then tells everyone else. Whereas it can equally be read as the GM ascertains the outcomes of the action resolution process and then makes sure that everyone is on the same page vis-a-vis that.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Totally acceptable. Roll for initiative.

You used your background ability. Great. It didn't work out the way you expected. Too bad- that's life.

The farmer and his wife may be loyalists. There may be other factors at play of which you are unaware- maybe some of that black magic in the form of enemy scrying. Or there may have been a 'Bill Ferny' type that followed you into town and beat your passive perception checks. The point is, you don't know. It is possible the DM is railroading you into a fight? Maybe, but you don't know and you shouldn't jump to the conclusion that the DM is just being a dick. Don't get petulant just because things didn't go exactly the way you wanted.

As for the DM sharing his reasoning for the encounter- he is under no obligation to do so, especially if it gives up something you aren't supposed to know yet. Don't metagame it- just deal with the situation as it is presented. You'll probably find out how it happened later, or maybe you won't. Roll with it. Pun intended.

Well thanks for the response and for the insults and assumptions!

 

[pemerton]

I just have to say ... that's a really strange attitude. Maybe we're using different definitions of the word "entertained" but why would anyone play a game if it was [edit] not fun and entertaining, at least most of the time?

I go to the movies, sometimes, to be entertained. (Not always. I enjoyed Nine Days, but I'm not sure I would say it was entertaining. It was certainly engaging.)

I often watch TV to be entertained, eg by a comedy or a murder mystery.

Part of what I enjoy about GMing RPGs is being entertained, by seeing what happens when the players declare actions for their PCs.

When I play a RPG, I don't want to be entertained. I want to inhabit my character. I want to feel the tensions they feel, or the relief or elation. The GM doesn't need to entertain me. They do need to engage me. That's why, in my view, the most important GM skill is establishing compelling situations. That's much more important than world-building/setting curation, or having full mastery of the rules (that can often be worked out at the table by everyone reading the rules together), or thinking up intricate plot lines.

 

[hawkeyefan]

There could be more to the situation,

There was. I’m fully aware of everything that went into it at this point. I didn’t want to include all that information because I didn’t want to present the scenario with any strong bias.

I’m afraid that I probably presented a less complete scenario than I’d like.

Maybe there were some secret rolls the DM did that you got spotted heading out there. Maybe they just forgot or didn't know (not sure if you reminded them). Maybe they decided it only applied to your PC but not the rest of the party.

Maybe! I was more curious how this would play out in other people’s games than in challenging folks to try and figure out what the GM in my game did.

You’ve offered some ideas, as did @Campbell and @prabe and @Maxperson and some others, so thanks for that!

I would generally expect players to at least make a token effort at trying to establish who is sympathetic, rather than assume the first farmhouse they found was going to be a safe haven.

Yes! We did vet some of our options. The rogue was able to gather some information that gave us the lead on the farmer and his wife; they were known to dislike the duke and his men. An Insight check was also used in our dealing with them, and the result was strong (this GM didn’t share the DC with us, but the result was well into the 20s).

I should have included that in the initial description.

 

[Maxperson]

I think AD&D and Rolemaster are pretty traditional games. And players of those games, in my experience, generate content all the time.

@Ovinomancer has already given the example of casting spells. But those are only some among many action declarations. In the AD&D and RM games I GMed, players declared all sorts of actions. We resolved those by following the rules. The result was more fiction, or if you prefer more content. And the players helped author that.

That's not really authoring content the way player facing games allow. When people talk of players authoring content, they're talking about adding blacksmiths to towns and such.

 

[pemerton]

That's not really authoring content the way player facing games allow. When people talk of players authoring content, they're talking about adding blacksmiths to towns and such.

Which RPGs do you have in mind when you talk about adding blacksmiths to towns an such?

 

[Malmuria]

I want to share an experience I had as a player in a fairly recent 5E game. I think it's relevant to some of the points in the discussion and may help by presenting a specific example rather than hypothetical.

My PC is a ranger with the folk hero background. He's a bit of a Robin Hood type. The other PCs are as well. We'd recently escaped capture by the archduke, who's kind of our Prince John; he's placed a bounty on our heads. This was as a result of the first few sessions of play; the PCs have effectively become outlaws, but the reigning government is at least corrupt, if not outright evil (there's some hint of possible black magic at play).

So we had to flee the town we had been in, and we arrived in another nearby town. We crossed a dangerous stretch of river in order to throw off any pursuers. So we arrived in the other town with some sense of safety; we'd evaded the law for now, but night was coming, and there was a storm forming. So our rogue scouted the town out a bit, and discovered that the Inn was overrun with the archduke's troops. The last thing we wanted to do was to wind up in another showdown with the duke's men, so we needed to avoid the inn.

I decided to use my Folk Hero Background Feature: Rustic Hospitality. It says:
Since you come from the ranks of the common folk, you fit in among them with ease. You can find a place to hide, rest, or recuperate among other commoners, unless you have shown yourself to be a danger to them. They will shield you from the law or anyone else searching for you, though they will not risk their lives for you.

We went up to a farmhouse on the outskirts of town, and I asked the farmer and his wife if we could take shelter in their barn. We mentioned that the inn was filled with the duke's men, which wasn't exactly safe for us. The farmer took our meaning, and recognized my character, and granted us shelter.

The characters woke in the morning to find the barn surrounded. The duke's men had "discovered" they were in the barn. There was no sign of the farmer or his wife. The GM had essentially overrode my use of my PC ability in order to ensure that there was a fight with the duke's men.

Is this acceptable per the rules as written? Per the spirit of the rules? Per the social contract among the group? For the purposes of discussion, assume that we're a group who knows each other well, and has played together long enough that we're comfortable with each other. Also assume that the GM hasn't yet shared his reasoning behind the duke's men arriving.

What do you all think? How would you have handled it?

This is a good example, because it is entirely within the DM authority to pull this move, but is not "good" DMing, in that it feels forced and does not lead to interesting or creative gameplay. Per the core loop of 5e, the DM described the situation, the players narrated their solutions to the situation, and the DM narrated the result, all a few times over. The players expect that their choices would be meaningful within the context of the situation, but the fact that it resulted in a fight made them seem not meaningful. You don't trust that the DM is not using their authority over the fiction ("DM narrates...") to force their encounter on to you no matter how you try to avoid it. Nothing in the rules, not even the folk hero background, makes you able to assert agency over the fiction of what the DM narrates, but it is probably the expectation of everyone at the table that a good DM would not do that. And if a DM does that sort of thing often enough, the trust between everyone at the table is broken, leading to problems.

I have two thoughts
1. Would anything have made this situation plausible, for example something in the DMs notes about how the farmer was a loyalist, or maybe just that the rogue failed their stealth check without noticing and was followed? If there was something in their prep, they could at least point to it and say they had predetermined something about this particular farmer irrespective of your decisions; aside from that, it's hard to trust that they are truly being neutral, if they are just making that up about the farmer on the spot (even though, again, it's technically within their purview as DM)

2. Would this situation feel any different if there was not a specific rule for the "folk hero" background? Let's say it's been established that you are a robin hood type, and can sort of tell what kind of common folk would see you as a hero. It seems that your group could take all the same steps and precautions, even without the explicit background feature. The background feature just allows you to skip over some of the roleplay, and establish a little more firmly that, yes, you are objectively recognized by some as a "folk hero." And yet, whether or not there is an explicit rule or feature for your character, you have to trust that the DM won't railroad you into a combat.

In sum: no set of rules in the game can really give you player agency in 5e. That can only come with a DM that is not antagonistic and can be trusted to play the world fairly.

edit: so far the responses range from "totally acceptable" to "plausible" to "clear negation" which maybe gives insight as to why we might be talking past each other in this conversation

 

[pemerton]

I want to share an experience I had as a player in a fairly recent 5E game. I think it's relevant to some of the points in the discussion and may help by presenting a specific example rather than hypothetical.

<snip>

What do you all think? How would you have handled it?

I think it's an absolute shocker! And a clear negation of the action you declared based on being a folk hero.

In a 4e game I GMed, one session concluded with the player succeeding in an extended skill challenge which established that they had successfully exposed the Baron's advisor as also - under a different name - the mastermind leader of the goblins and hobgoblins assaulting the town. The next session began with the exposed advisor turning on the PCs and attacking them. As I was narrating the initial framing of that, I said something-or-other - I can't recall the details now, but it involved the response of some third-party NPCs - and one of the players pulled me up and reminded me that the players had won the skill challenge, and hence that the NPC response I narrated had to honour that. I thanked him for the reminder/correction, and changed my narration appropriately.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the same player, as a Burning Wheel GM, does a very good job. He understands the significance of action resolution, and finality.