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

[prabe]

And things having to happen before other things can happen is pretty much how the universe works, its called causality.

Sure, but in published adventures it's less like "to get from DC to Atlanta, GA, you go through Florence, SC" and more like "before deciding to go from DC to Atlanta you must explore Pittsburgh." Dunno if that makes sense.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Is it possible that there was some sort of magical sensor or invisible spy that had already been established by the DM in the background that you were unaware of? Yeah, sure. But if so it does make all that careful play and rolling seem a bit like a pointless waste of time. Certainly a feel-bad either way.

Such a possibility was minimal based on what had been established so far in the game, but I wouldn't say it was impossible. It wound up not being the case, but if it had, I kind of agree with you that it renders all that a waste of time. But if scrying were deployed, then there would at least have been a saving throw that at least one of the PCs would have had to make. Even if the GM didn't share any kind of narration about what it was (like "you get a strong sense that you're being watched, but you don't see anyone around" or similar) we would have at least known that there had been something going on that required a roll.

About the only thing I've been able to think of that makes the DM's behavior ... comprehensible, if not exactly OK, is the thought that the player/s may not have been explicit about using that Folk Hero ability and/or the DM may not have understood it the same ways the players did. I tell the players in the campaigns I run that at least after the first few sessions (once I've had a chance to forget) they'll need to remind me about those sorts of things. I can and will keep track of non (or less) mechanical things like goals and backstory elements, but build stuff is on them.

That said, it doesn't sound as though @hawkeyefan was unclear about using the Folk Hero ability, so ... this probably isn't what happened.

No, not at all....I was very clear about it. When I mentioned it, he actually asked me how it worked, so I read it to him verbatim. His reaction of "Oh wow" was when I realized that he hadn't counted on this at all.

I'll clarify one thing.....although I didn't like how this played out, I don't think that the GM in this case is a bad GM. He's actually quite good, overall. I do think that where he's weakest is in this kind of situation where he may have a strong sense of how things are "supposed" to go, or how he expects them to go. And in his defense, we're rotating GMs for this campaign, and this was his first time in the chair for this campaign; so I'd cut him a little slack. It's certainly nothing to really complain about all that much or cause me to leave the game or reassess his ability or anything like that.

Just one instance where I think he could have handled it differently. I brought it up not because it was extreme, but because it was something that actually happened, and I expect is the kind of minor "transgression" that happens a lot.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

With respect, for D&D, preparation is a thing. Not everyone has the ability to present entertaining situations (and, say, challenging but not overpowering combat scenarios) extempore.

Sometimes you have to say "that's it for tonight, see you next week"

 

[Maxperson]

It's not just question of one choice, it's a question of not allowing the PCs choices to matter in favor of plot. Specifically, having the PCs actions be irrelevant to what happens next.

The most blatant example I can think of happens in Waterdeep Dragon Heist and it's a doozy :

Spoiler: Mild spoilers for the module

The PCs are in search for the McGuffin. IF the PCs find it early (early bring defined by the McGuffin itself, so the DM) through smart play, luck or whatever, the McGuffin will LITERALLY erase the PCs memories of them having found it and set them back, until the McGuffin (aka DM) thinks it is the right time to be found.

If I was a player and this happened, I'd be pretty upset /annoyed!

If that were me DMing, the right time would be when they found it. I'd just ignore that piece of the module and continue on.

 

[prabe]

No, not at all....I was very clear about it. When I mentioned it, he actually asked me how it worked, so I read it to him verbatim. His reaction of "Oh wow" was when I realized that he hadn't counted on this at all.

Yeah. I spent enough time supervising people that I have a gut-level instinct to reverse engineer human error. I should probably stop that.

It has sounded from all description like a decent DM having a bad moment, not necessarily contentious or overly adversarial DMing.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Sure, but in published adventures it's less like "to get from DC to Atlanta, GA, you go through Florence, SC" and more like "before deciding to go from DC to Atlanta you must explore Pittsburgh." Dunno if that makes sense.

The DM is not expected to be bound by the text, it's an aid, not a straightjacket. I once had a session planned out where the players where expected to travel from Kulahar to the Sea of Moving Ice across Icewind Dale. Players said "we use Sending to contact NPC we know with an airship and arrange to meet them in Luskan". So that happened. The adventure went of in a completely different direction. It's part of the job of being a DM, but most of the time the players can be predicted and the adventure planned.

 

[Manbearcat]

I had to tell a party with two rangers in it that as they were traveling through some particularly nasty/rugged mountains they were moving at a normal pace but weren't able to take a direct path, so weren't making many crow's flight miles in a given time. Does that count? (FWIW, the players were fine with it ...)

I don't love it! However, in a hexcrawl situation (eg you have a codified map with units and terrain implications where players are integrating that information into their decision-tree), I think its feasible that you can make the equivalent of a PBtA soft move whereby the Ranger can choose to deploy their ability (you won't face difficult terrain if you go this route) at the risk of facing a particular suite of consequences (but this area is ripe for mudslides, is home to a particular brand of nasty avian predators, the brutal wind constantly blows abrading scree in your face and eyes). However, they'll (a) get where they want to go more quickly and (b) not suffer issues of supply-based Exhaustion levels if they can manage the complications.

That sort of decision-point is great because it gives Ranger-led companies additional move-space in the wild that they wouldn't possess otherwise (therefore creating more interesting decision-points and strategic overhead).

But straight-up shutdown? Don't love it!

I know this isn't exactly the same, but imagine if, in our Dungeon World game, I said to you when you tried to Consult the Spirits of your Ancient Heirloom Weapon; "can't do it...the spirit world topography in this location is creating interference with your Lion-O Thundercats-itude!"

Now, imagine if, as an alternative (revealing an unwelcome truth), I said: "when you pull the weapon close to your breast and close your eyes to consult the spirits...you see something else...something impossibly alien (like the Eye of Sauron) staring into you...through your weapon...like its trying to use the tether between you and the interdimensional space within your blade to come into this world...still want to consult your spirits?" I'm telegraphing something alien and terrible coming into this world as a hard move (perhaps you've got defeat an alien menace on your sheet...or your partner does).

 

[prabe]

The DM is not expected to be bound by the text, it's an aid, not a straightjacket. I once had a session planned out where the players where expected to travel from Kulahar to the Sea of Moving Ice across Icewind Dale. Players said "we use Sending to contact NPC we know with an airship and arrange to meet them in Luskan". So that happened. The adventure went of in a completely different direction. It's part of the job of being a DM, but most of the time the players can be predicted and the adventure planned.

I think my biggest problem with published adventures is that they make an effort to have, effectively, the last session planned in about the same detail as the first. As someone who (mostly) doesn't prep more than a session ahead, this seems somewhere in the vicinity of alien, impossible, implausible, and not to my taste. lol

 

[Mannahnin]

3. Where are the Limits to Player Authority over Narrative in 5e?
The more interesting question is- what about narrative control? What amount of control does the Player have over the narrative and the environment of the world? I will start by recounting an example I saw where this issue caused a table conflict, and then delve into why this might be important-
Briefly, an individual was trying to DM for the first time, and was running a "canned" adventure. One of the Players ("Player A") used a very heavy "narrative" approach to the game. At a certain point, there was an encounter with a guard. Player A engaged the DM in dialogue, and seized narrative control by creating fiction that had not previously exists (that Player A's character had a relative that the guard knew, that the relative was sick, etc.). Again, this was not a bluff, nor part of the prior knowledge of the world- just extemporaneously created fiction. Which caused the DM to freeze up, because the DM didn't know how to deal with it. And led some of the other Players to question Player A - as they felt Player A was trying to "game" the system.

Personally, I don't think anyone did anything wrong there. A more experienced DM who did not want to cede narrative control could easily have parried Player A ("Oh, you must have mistaken me for the other Guard. No, I don't know you.") until the table could discuss it. But it illuminates the issue of mismatched expectations regarding the amount of control Players have over narrative, and why it's important to have that division of authority ironed out. Importantly, it also illustrated the usual point of conflict that might occur-

I think the whole discussion about Hawkeyefan's game and the use of the Rustic Hospitality feature from the Folk Hero background connects pretty strongly with this.

This is a character ability designed to emulate fiction, and explicitly to do something similar to what your player with the guard example involved. In your example, the player improvised a relationship on which to try to engage the guard's sympathies. In Rustic Hospitality, the PH gives the character an ability to invoke and call on the sympathies of the common folk, based on a relationship (albeit maybe not as personal) codified in that Background.

And yeah, we saw an apparent conflict of expectations. The player expected the ability (combined with vetting possible people to stay with so they'd be making the appeal to someone genuinely sympathetic and unlikely to be an agent/loyal subject of the duke) to give them a safe respite and allow them to avoid capture. The DM ruled that it did not.

One thing I have seen repeatedly is a conflict in that interstitial area- the Player declaration prior to the DM narration. And this is where I think that it is worth exploring, at your own table, what level of narrative control and authorial responsibility should Players have? What is acceptable?

I don't think that there is a single, correct, answer. For example, if you using 5e to do a "old school" dungeon crawl with a keyed map, and descriptions of the things in each room, you should probably avoid having Players describe new things in the rooms. On the other hand, if the party goes into a bustling metropolis that hasn't been full described, is there any harm in having the Players narrate the name and location of the place they are staying, such that it becomes part of the fiction of the world? Or is this something that your table prefers remains exclusively within the province of the DM?

This one got touched on briefly in the first few pages but the conversation had moved on before I started reading yesterday. I do think this one feels like more of a departure for D&D. Ben Laurence (the Through Ultan's Door author) has a series of articles on his blog Mazirian's Garden about the pleasures of old school gaming, and one of them relates to Discovery.

When exploring a setting which the DM has created, there is often a feeling of reality/verisimilitude in learning things which I think would not be present for details I invent. That leans more toward collective storytelling, IMO. When it's the DM's existing material, it feels more like exploring a "real" space and discovering things. Like putting together clues which can be used to solve mysteries.

That being said, I do think you can have a perfectly good D&D game with players co-authoring some details. If I invent the name of the town we've just discovered, I may feel less sense of discovery, but more ownership, and greater investment in the game when the DM builds on the one or two details I came up with for that place.

 

[Campbell]

My general issue with published adventures is that they presume player goals. What's most important to me as a player is the freedom to set my own agenda. I am flexible on how much say I have over my characters' thoughts and feelings, but the ability to decide how characters should interact with the scenarios the GM presents is integral. I am fine wit the expectation that players should be expected to interact with the scenario in some way, but I think players should have the freedom to choose their enemies and allies, what their goals are, and how to go about achieving those goals. Obviously there will be some constraints, but that freedom to set and pursue (a usually somewhat shared) agenda is integral to most of the RPG play I enjoy.

If the GM is transparent about it I can casually enjoy a game where this is not the case, but will not have nearly as much fun as one where it is.