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

[prabe]

Ah the power mad chaotic DM, Doc Hyperbole, raises his strawman head once again.

Good grief. While I do believe the DM is in charge of the rules, a DM that runs bizarro D&D probably isn't going to have players for long. I do it once in a great while based on the setting and the scene. Examples:

• A Halloween episode where darkvision didn't work (everyone had it either via race or magic) so that I could create an atmosphere and have things in the dark without resorting to the ubiquitous fog.
• There's a region in my world where magic is unstable; sometimes magic doesn't work, sometimes it's more effective, sometimes we roll on the wild magic chart.
• I once told the fighter type that they didn't swing their sword, that something stopped them mid swing; it was because of a suppressed memory and they were about to kill someone they loved.

So yes, crazy world where rules don't exist! Woo-hoo! Everyone jump on the DM's power fantasy! Or not. There are many ways to play D&D, I usually follow the rules pretty closely except for established house rules. When I don't follow the letter of the rules, I bend them in favor of the PCs as often as not and to make the scene more interesting. Based on some other threads, other DMs do this kind of thing far more often than I do.

But Doc Hyperbole? If they're out there I suspect they're pretty lonely, gloating about how amazing they are to an empty room.

I think what people are saying is that if the rules say the DM isn't bound by dice rolls, or prior fiction, or anything--which seems to be what some people mean by "absolute DM authority"--then much of what most people here would consider good DMing is ... if not against the rules, outside the rules.

Personally, I think the rules are written with the understanding that the DM will be bound by dice rolls and prior fiction, at a minimum; but this expectation is ... not, that I know of, explicitly stated in the rules. I have a suspicion this means I'm going to be drawing fire from both sides. Oh comma well.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

It's a potential explanation, but it can only be one of the factors, because it's more than just a ratio. I have NEVER met a "bad" DM, whereas I have met plenty of bad players, I would say at least 20 people who were really bad, plus various obnoxious types. It's much more than the ratio of players to DMs...

Hang on a minute, I think you're being a bit strict about what you define as a "Bad DM" and very loose on what you define as a "Bad Player". A bad DM can be one that doesn't know the rules to the extent that it ruins the fun of the players, one that railroads the players so much that it feels like they can't make any meaningful decisions or be in charge of their characters' agency, or even one that shows up ill-prepared for the game, sucks at improvising, and half-asses the session, making the game less fun than it should be.

Those are all examples of bad DMs, and a lot of them aren't malicious or intending to be bad, they just don't have enough experience or are in the wrong position to be a good DM when doing those things.

You've never met a DM that didn't know the rules to the extent that it hurt their campaign? Because I've played with several. You've never known a DM that railroaded so much that the players complained about having lost fun because of it? Because even I made that mistake when I started DMing, as have all my players that have started DMing, and basically every DM that I have ever known. You've never met a DM that didn't prepare for the session and left the players disappointed because it seemed like they weren't into the game? Because that's a major sign of DM Burnout, something that practically every DM gets at one point or another, and even if it isn't intentional or permanent, it's still being a bad DM.

And then, again, have you encountered a really bad DM ? What did he do ? What kind of damage did he cause and why ? Because for me, they are more urban legends, or things dating from long ago with "Killer DMs of AD&D"...

Yes, I have. My very first DM was really, truly bad. I honestly don't know why I stuck with D&D, because those first few sessions were so frustrating and unfun that I didn't even like playing. My DM railroaded so much that we literally made no decisions for our characters besides who we were going to attack and how, had literally never read the core rules (despite having owned the Core Rulebooks), would not let us look at any of the 3 Core Rulebooks, would change the mechanics of the game between sessions (or even sometimes during the same session), and TPKed the party on purpose because he was getting bored of the campaign and wanted to move on to a different one, without even asking us.

That was 5 years ago, and the DM was my younger cousin. I love my cousin and will be forever grateful to him for introducing me to the game, but he was a terrible, awful DM that was frankly infuriating to be a player for.

I've had other bad DMs, too. I was a bad DM when I started DMing, because my first DM was an awful DM and also due to the fact that I was inexperienced in both playing the game and DMing for it.

So, yes, bad DMs absolutely exist. Truly awful, horrible, absolutely unfun DMs are definitely out there. A lot of them grow out of it, but it obviously cannot happen to all of them, and I've had enough friends tell me of their bad experiences with bad (and even downright abusive) DMs that I can with 100% surety say that your claim that "DMs create, and so it's really hard to be a bad DM!" is absolute BS.

 

[Mannahnin]

Ah the power mad chaotic DM, Doc Hyperbole, raises his strawman head once again.

Good grief. While I do believe the DM is in charge of the rules, a DM that runs bizarro D&D probably isn't going to have players for long. I do it once in a great while based on the setting and the scene. Examples:

Oofta, no one is trying to employ a strawman. They're trying to understand where people draw the lines. From what I can read in your post above and what Pemerton has written in this thread so far, you both seem to be on pretty much the same page about action resolution here, so I'm a little confused why you're being hostile.

Players have the authority to declare the actions of their characters, using the rules. They have the reasonable expectation that in resolving those actions, the DM will follow the rules and his narration will therefore be in keeping with the rules, unless there's a specific and good reason.

The DM has the ability to change rules, but the game does not expect or endorse him to do so willy-nilly, nor is the intent that he has the authority to do so. Maxperson has explicitly opined that the game tells the DM that he can do whatever he wants, and that he would be perfectly within his rights to abuse the rules, but that he should reasonably expect his players to leave if he does so. Someone responded that this makes no sense; the game is fundamentally governed by the social contract and expectations of good faith. The GM is not granted permission to change the rules for no reason or abusive reasons.

This bit may be fundamentally a semantic disagreement, of course.

 

[prabe]

@Lyxen

Just to make sure everyone is clear, there is enormous difference between:

(1) a GM framing provocative situations, letting players and system have their say in what comes out of that, and then letting that emergent outcome dictate the trajectory of play (from the next immediate situation on down to 20 to 30 situations from now)

and

(2) a (no matter how rough) through line of preconceived, seminal situations that are more or less prescriptive such that “the (preconceived) story” stays online.

There is no value judgement here (by me) between the two, but they’re quite different beasts. The latter features a metaplot which play is anchored to and orbits around. In the former, “whatever the hell happens between situation 1 and situation 20/30" becomes "the plot" after we reflect and play is anchored to and orbits around the marriage of the game's premise (*) + player evinced interests (through the intersection of PC build flags, system widgets, and the back-and-forth of conversation during play.

* Here is The Between's premise (which has no metaplot, no through line of preconceived, seminal situation...just premise and provocation to action):

The Most Important Thing (p 6)

The hunters are intentionally occluded; the game is called The Between because we find these characters caught between a very dark, mysterious past and an equally dark, possibly tragic, future. We aim to explore these dark pasts, but only at the right time—dramatically-speaking—and only when the game’s rules tell us to.

I read this as "the epic story (if it happens) is going to be apparent/understood backward, even if it's not planned forward." That's ... consistent with how I run, at any rate.

 

[Oofta]

I think what people are saying is that if the rules say the DM isn't bound by dice rolls, or prior fiction, or anything--which seems to be what some people mean by "absolute DM authority"--then much of what most people here would consider good DMing is ... if not against the rules, outside the rules.

Personally, I think the rules are written with the understanding that the DM will be bound by dice rolls and prior fiction, at a minimum; but this expectation is ... not, that I know of, explicitly stated in the rules. I have a suspicion this means I'm going to be drawing fire from both sides. Oh comma well.

It's a DM's job to make an interesting world and campaign. The vast majority of time I'm bound by dice rolls and prior fiction but I reserve the right to ignore the dice and improvise the fiction on the spot.

DM's authority in most cases is telling the player that wants to swing from the chandelier that there is no chandelier to swing from, the player doesn't get to determine the light fixtures available to them. Maybe I did say there was a chandelier, but in my vision it's not strong enough to hold a person and so I tell the player that (not that I would do that, all my chandeliers are Acme Heavy Duty(tm) light fixtures).

But it also gets fuzzy. If there is a chandelier, how do you handle it? Just let it happen? Roll some dice? It's there and clarifying what actions are available based on the scene that DM authority comes into play the most of time. All I'm saying is that I'm not 100% bound by the letter of the rules. Probably 98% bound by the rules, but I use that 2% to make the game more enjoyable because I'm not a computer, bound to enforce the rules come hell or high water.

 

[Lyxen]

This is wrong. You are misunderstanding what Pemerton is writing. If you have any intent to converse with him in good faith, you should probably read his posts again, figure out what the difference is between a plot and a situation, and go into it with an attitude more like "Hmm, this doesn't make a lot of sense to me, and our games are evidently different, but I should presume he's being truthful."

And maybe, just maybe, you should read my posts again, as well as his game summaries.

The module has a clear plot, I have posted the table of content. It has a number of events, happening in sequence, in which the PCs can interact. It is not "a situation" which gives a free field to the PCs with no interference. The events have to happen in rough order, in particular day after day, otherwise the story does not make sense and it does not give the PCs the clues that they need to solve the mystery and to react properly. There's a meeting with the captain, then an eclipse, then a game in the evening, etc.

It's actually, much more of a plot than a number of sequences in other published modules where the PC can choose what they do. In this case, they can't even go where they want because they are "trapped" aboard that ship.

Then here comes @pemerton with his "theories" that he wants to impose on everyone as "the truth and the reason for which he is such a great DM and other DMs not conforming to them suck". And in particular "I don't have a plot that has to be roughly followed", this in response to a number of us telling them that having a plot is a very usual (and probably the most usual) way of conducting D&D games, but because he is so self-righteous about his positions on railroading that he of course had to jump on the bandwagon of "if you are not doing a total sandbox, you are railroading your PCs to some extent and therefore are not as good a DM as those who do".

Which I find particularly comical when one sees - by his own account - how he actually runs things in his game and in particular the type of scenario and the summaries. And doubly comical when, instead of answering simply and in good faith (for example, it could be what he strives for, but other types of game are OK too), he dissembles for page after page in the hope of justifying his position.

Although this sort of thing makes me really doubtful that you are interested in a good faith discussion. Physician, heal thyself.

I am interested in good faith discussions, true, but I'd rather that they are on real basis and not on the figment of imagination that his theories are, not to mention the contradictions such as the one above.

Lyxen, I would strongly appreciate it if, before castigating Pemerton again, you compare what you know about the Sea Maiden scenario to what Pemerton has written above about The Crimson Bull, and see if you can perceive any meaningful difference between how these two scenarios work.

Unfortunately, I had per chance a copy of the Maiden Voyage, but not the Crimson Bull, so I can't compare on paper rather than through the impressions of someone who, for the obvious reasons above as well as some encountered on other threads, I am not particularly prone to trust.

Pemerton has offered one as an example which has events on a timeline, to which the PCs can respond in many different ways and come to different outcomes, and the other as an example which has events in a sequence, which will happen no matter what and the GM is specifically instructed to figure out how to have happen no matter what choices the PCs make.

Are these different, at all, to you? Or only trivially?

If that is the difference, then there indeed a difference, which does not change the fact that they both had PLOTS. Neither is a sandbox in which the characters are free to do what they want (especially for the Maiden Voyage, if the characters decide that they don't care about the events and want to become pirates in the south instead, the only alternative is to die at sea). And it is not a static "situation" either, like a murder mystery to which you come only when it's done, and then you only have to solve it. It has events before this (which again @permerton visibly put in place, at least some of them), and events after the murder, including the attack. This is not a situation. It's a plot.

Moreover, even if a plot has different potential outcomes, it does not change the fact that some events will occur and affect the PCs whatever they do. In Maiden Voyage, the PCs WILL be attacked by the undead crew. It is foreseen from the start of the plot. And it happened in @pemerton's game. So he followed the plot. And note in particular the use of the word "roughly", because it's one of my words, meaning that it also covers plots with various ways through them and various outcomes. @pemerton indeed did not follow the scenario and its plot to the letter, but he certainly roughly followed it.

So I am still waiting for @permeton to come and explain how he reconciles is "I don't have a plot that has to be roughly followed" with the way he actually runs his games, simply, clearly, without throwing theories as smokescreens.

Because while I agree that the two scenarios above are different, they are not different in the fact that they are scenarios, they have a plot, and Maiden Voyage is actually fairly constraining on the PCs, who are trapped aboard a haunted ship with no means of escape other than solving the mystery.

 

[prabe]

It's a DM's job to make an interesting world and campaign. The vast majority of time I'm bound by dice rolls and prior fiction but I reserve the right to ignore the dice and improvise the fiction on the spot.

DM's authority in most cases is telling the player that wants to swing from the chandelier that there is no chandelier to swing from, the player doesn't get to determine the light fixtures available to them. Maybe I did say there was a chandelier, but in my vision it's not strong enough to hold a person and so I tell the player that (not that I would do that, all my chandeliers are Acme Heavy Duty(tm) light fixtures).

But it also gets fuzzy. If there is a chandelier, how do you handle it? Just let it happen? Roll some dice? It's there and clarifying what actions are available based on the scene that DM authority comes into play the most of time. All I'm saying is that I'm not 100% bound by the letter of the rules. Probably 98% bound by the rules, but I use that 2% to make the game more enjoyable because I'm not a computer, bound to enforce the rules come hell or high water.

At this point I'd probably say the DM's job is more to facilitate the campaign than to make it, but that's a quibble and not something I'm really looking to argue about.

I think there's an argument that if DM Authority is absolute, then anything the DM does is within the rules. I don't think the rules are intended to say DM Authority is absolute, but that doesn't change the logic, IMO, it just means I disagree with a premise. There seems to be a vast gulf between how some people interpret the rules and how most people play the game.

I think that if a DM was more inclined to say yes to questions like "is there a chandelier in this room I can swing from?" the game would still be D&D--which I don't think you're disagreeing with, to be clear, and I'm not saying you should run your game that way.

 

[Lyxen]

@Lyxen

Just to make sure everyone is clear, there is enormous difference between:

(1) a GM framing provocative situations, letting players and system have their say in what comes out of that, and then letting that emergent outcome dictate the trajectory of play (from the next immediate situation on down to 20 to 30 situations from now)

Yes, there is. But then, not only are you once again insisting on a black and white scenario, as actually most of the written one have part of 1 and part of 2, but you are completely ignoring the fact that, in the scenario that we are discussing, the mix is actually more in favor of the second one.

(2) a (no matter how rough) through line of preconceived, seminal situations that are more or less prescriptive such that “the (preconceived) story” stays online.

And this is mostly what Maiden Voyage does, as praised by @pemerton. Again, because you are painting things and black and white, it is not as bad as presecriptive as this but still, the preconceived story stays online, and in particular:

• The captain is murdered (whatever the PCs did for the two previous days in various events)
• The undead attack (again, whatever happened before that).

The fact that the intermediate scenes have some variability, and that this variability affects the final outcome is good, but it does not change the fact that the scenario is built upon the lines of (2), except for the final part, where some details about the fate of various characters can be resolved in various ways.

There is a plot, and again globally closer to 2 than to 1. It's not a static situation where players are handed all the reins.

Now, I know that there are completely different games and types of scenario, I've explored my faire share over the years. But pretending that having any sort of plot is akin to some level of railroading is a bit too much for me to digest.

 

[pemerton]

I think the rules are written with the understanding that the DM will be bound by dice rolls and prior fiction, at a minimum; but this expectation is ... not, that I know of, explicitly stated in the rules. I have a suspicion this means I'm going to be drawing fire from both sides. Oh comma well.

No particular fire from me! I don't think it's ever stated the GM narrates what happens by applying the action resolution rules. But I think that's very strongly implied by the fact that there are dozens of pages of action resolution rules, many of which address the player in the second person (when you, if you, etc).

And this means that the players have authority over the shared fiction beyond just declaring actions. When they declare those actions they typically enliven resolution procedures, which get worked through to determine what happens. There is a bit on p 71 of the 5e Basic PDF that I think I quoted already upthread:

When you describe an action not detailed elsewhere in the rules, the DM tells you whether that action is possible and what kind of roll you need to make, if any, to determine success or failure.​

​

The fact that this is called out strongly implies that where an action is detailed elsewhere in the rules, the GM applies the rules.

To be honest, I'm surprised that this is a very controversial claim.

EDIT: What I would expect to be controversial is the following further claim: that once the action resolution rules have been applied, the GM is obliged to respect what follows unless some further significant episode of play - eg a major failure of a check by a player - reopens the settled nature of that aspect of the fiction.

That further principle is an express part of Burning Wheel ("Let it Ride"). I apply it in most of my RPGing. But a lot of standard D&D GMing techniques rely on ignoring it. I think when it is ignored, player agency is significantly diminished, but that is a separate thing from the question of whether players have any agency at all in respect of the shared fiction.

 

[prabe]

EDIT: What I would expect to be controversial is the following further claim: that once the action resolution rules have been applied, the GM is obliged to respect what follows unless some further significant episode of play - eg a major failure of a check by a player - reopens the settled nature of that aspect of the fiction.

That further principle is an express part of Burning Wheel ("Let it Ride"). I apply it in most of my RPGing. But a lot of standard D&D GMing techniques rely on ignoring it. I think when it is ignored, player agency is significantly diminished, but that is a separate thing from the question of whether players have any agency at all in respect of the shared fiction.

I agree with your claim, and that it seems to be at the heart of the teapot this particular tempest is boiling in. I also am inclined to think that the extent to which the GM respects such results is connected to things like whether sneaking around works (recalling the various conversations about heist scenarios).

I have to think, as well, that at least some of the people saying "DM Authority is absolute" and "The DM has a duty to make the game [enjoyable] for the players by being responsive" are, in practice, sharing authority more than they expect, intend, or realize.