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

[pemerton]

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.

This correlates, I think, to my remark upthread that there has to be a constraint imposed on outcomes - often by ignoring "Let it Ride", sometimes by even more flagrant devices - to ensure that enough of the pre-planned content survives to contribute to the framing in that final session.

This is the basis on which I contrast scenarios like The Crimson Bull, Maiden Voyage, or the 4e scenario Heathen (with a bit of cruft removed) from (say) The Speaker in Dreams or Bastion of Broken Souls. That's not to say that the latter ones are useless, but like The Prodigal Son In Chains, work is needed to prise interesting set-ups, characters, particular colourful moments, etc off the pre-determined trajectory presented by the module.

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.

Yes.

But let's make it more literal and more technical/precise: there is a difference between map as colour and map as a constraint on, or input into, action resolution. In my Prince Valiant game, the PCs are travelling through Europe and so - for instance - have to travel through Dalmatia and Dacia before they can arrive at Constantinople overland. But that's just colour. Nothing about the process of play, the resolution techniques deployed, etc, changes based on the fact that they're making that long journey rather than travelling from (say) York to Warwick with Britain.

The same thought can apply to other contexts (ie we can step from the literal back to the figurative): If the PCs get the MacGuffin "early", and the plot requires them to also have spoken to the gangsters before the MacGuffin can be "cashed in" for the next step towards total victory, then instead of stealing the MacGuffin back, or making the players jump through gangster-related hoops, the GM can have the gangsters approach the PCs (motivated by rumours of their having obtained the MacGuffin!). Now the gangsters become colour, and perhaps a component of some over-arching framing, but not a "Pittsburgh" that needs to be explored.

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

I don't think @prabe, or anyone else posting in this thread, is puzzled by causality, either as it operates in the real world or as we - by a type of projection - imagine it to happen in fictional worlds.

Of those two "categories" of causality, the one that is relevant to discussing agency and authority in RPGing is the causality as it operates in the real world. Ie who gets to author what, when, in accordance with what principles? It's trivial to preserve ingame causality and yet allow players to shape the fiction. My example of how to handle the MacGuffin/gangster interaction is one illustration of the point.

My general issue with published adventures is that they presume player goals.

<snip>

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.

I tend to agree (as you know!) but think this can very across systems in a way I'll try and explain.

In Burning Wheel what you say is absolutely true. I think my Maiden Voyage play excerpts show how that can play out in the context of a module that presents a situation, a group of interlocking and conflictual NPCs, etc. It's why (for instance) we get one PC trying to befriend someone that someone else murders.

But Prince Valiant is a bit different. There is a default assumption, in most published scenarios, that the PCs are knights errant. Hence the situations speak to that by default; a it like DitV, perhaps, though much more light-hearted. Where the player orientation towards particular goals, allies etc arises is all within that broad framework - eg is another kinght going to be a friend or a rival; will the PCs openly oppose the wicked Duke, or reach a compromise that leaves a bad taste in the players' mouths; etc. This is why - at lesat as it seems to me - an Episodes Book makes much more sense for Prince Valiant than it would for BW.

I'm now currently running a campaign of Spire. The game is odd and definitely falls into the more narrative game category than D&D, and so I wanted to get a sense of what a scenario would look like. There are three "Campaign Frames" (which are actually available for free in pdf format on the publisher's site and on drivethru) so I picked them up.

They're very interesting, and definitely help you understand the way the game is meant to be played and GMed. They totally eschew a linear sequence, and they say this throughout. There is no final scene or final encounter or anything like that, as @prabe says the idea seems contradictory to letting the players do what they want throughout play. They each have an "Ending the Campaign" section where they make suggestions and offer advice, but that's about it.

What you describe here reminds me of Robin Laws's scenarios in the HeroWars Narrator's Book. Those are a bit more "mulitple scenes"-y than the typical Prince Valiant episode. And the way he avoids pre-scripting is by setting out multiple options that reflect multiple possible approaches by the players.

A linear adventure still requires the players agree to stay in their lanes to some extent, regardless of how emergent or unplanned smaller-scale outcomes can be.

<snip>

Since the adventure is linear, it consists of a series of steps, each causally linked. But each step is, or can be adjusted to be, its own little "status quo situation" that the PCs disrupt, upend, or destroy, a disruption that in principle can be an emergent and unplanned outcome of the interaction between the existing situation at its outset, the actions of the PCs, and the dynamic world reacting to those actions, even if the outcome at each step is intended to encourage the PCs to follow the causal chain to the next step and its attendant status quo. What is more, this potential emergent and unplanned resolution of each step allows for downstream consequences that are themselves emergent and unplanned to come to pass, consequences that can change the status quo situation at the outset of the sequel adventure Rise of Tiamat or (if the DM is canny enough), change the status quo situation of subsequent steps in Hoard of the Dragon Queen, if not so much so as to break the causal chain of steps.

Thanks for the extended analysis and example!

My feeling is that a lot of the changes to the status quo that you describe are closer to being colour that doesn't really affect subsequent framing. Eg nothing changes about how the next situation unfolds just because the players have (eg) upended the status quo of secrecy by making a discovery. Is that fair?

 

[pemerton]

I disagree--I think viewing sandboxiness on a spectrum is extremely helpful to understanding how authority is distributed between the GM and players concerning the direction of the campaign.

For specificity, I'm defining the spectrum by the percentage* of strategy-level character decisions which are open-ended, rather than constrained (via the social contract) to discrete choices presented by the GM.

<snip>

The closer a given campaign is to the sandbox end of this spectrum, the more de facto authority the players have over the direction of the campaign. Conversely, the closer a given campaign is to the opposite end of this spectrum, the less de facto authority the players have over the direction of the campaign.

That's one of the reasons I defined the spectrum I'm promoting on a sandbox to non-sandbox range, rather than sandbox to linear. But yes, there are certainly styles of play that cannot be easily mapped to that spectrum. The existence of such styles, however, doesn't make the spectrum less useful for considering the distribution of authority among the many styles which do fit on the spectrum.

I don't think your spectrum is useful at all, for the reasons I posted upthread.

Apocalypse World and Burning Wheel (to pick two examples) are not sandbox RPGs. They do not give the GM primary authority over backstory in the fashion typical of a sandbox (especially in Burning Wheel's case). They do not assume that backstory is always or even typically an input into resolution - very often it is an output of resolution (eg a check fails, the GM has to narrate a salient consequence, and to use AW terminology they announce future badness - eg a column of smoke is visible on the horizon - and now we have a new bit of backstory that is still in the process of being authored - what caused the smoke, what problem does it foretell, etc?). And unlike a sandbox, they give the GM stronger authority over establishing situation - ie instead of the players declaring actions that activate situations latent in the prepared backstory, the GM brings the action to the players via (by typical D&D standards) rather pushy framing, which also (by typical D&D standards) is far more responsive to player-announced hooks, and play then proceeds from there.

But these are games in which players have far more authority over the direction of the campaign than in typical D&D play, including - based on my experience and observations - many sandboxes.

Hence they refute your suggestion that The closer a given campaign is to the sandbox end of this spectrum, the more de facto authority the players have over the direction of the campaign. Conversely, the closer a given campaign is to the opposite end of this spectrum, the less de facto authority the players have over the direction of the campaign.

 

[pemerton]

As much as I encourage people to be creative about backstory and downtime if I don't draw the line somewhere I've gotten things like that 3rd level cleric that "Popped up to Valhalla to have lunch with Odin". In a campaign world where some people don't think the gods are actual entities. I want the campaign world to make sense.

So if I put someone on the spot and asked them to describe the inn they stayed at last night I suspect I'd get either stammering an muttering or "Oh, yeah. The king decided that the luxury suite wasn't good enough so he had me stay in the royal chambers instead. He even let me sit in judgement on a few cases, it was quite fun."

This really surprised me. It reminded me of accounts of introducing teenagers to RPGing - I can do whatever I want - OK, I go to the tavern and get drunk! I mean, that's a real thing, but normally it doesn't take long for it to wash out of a new player's system so that we can then actually get on with playing the game.

 

[prabe]

This really surprised me. It reminded me of accounts of introducing teenagers to RPGing - I can do whatever I want - OK, I go to the tavern and get drunk! I mean, that's a real thing, but normally it doesn't take long for it to wash out of a new player's system so that we can then actually get on with playing the game.

Bar? Get drunk? Most of the horror stories I hear about teenagers new to the game involve brothels ...

 

[pemerton]

Bar? Get drunk? Most of the horror stories I hear about teenagers new to the game involve brothels ...

I was trying to maintain a modicum of decorum . . .

 

[Composer99]

Thanks for the extended analysis and example!

My feeling is that a lot of the changes to the status quo that you describe are closer to being colour that doesn't really affect subsequent framing. Eg nothing changes about how the next situation unfolds just because the players have (eg) upended the status quo of secrecy by making a discovery. Is that fair?

Yes, I would say that's entirely fair. As a GM you could adapt the module so that subsequent framing is affected as you have described, and I think it's juuuust about flexible enough to allow that to happen. But the text itself makes very few if any allowances for such a thing.

 

[Xetheral]

I don't think your spectrum is useful at all, for the reasons I posted upthread.

Apocalypse World and Burning Wheel (to pick two examples) are not sandbox RPGs. They do not give the GM primary authority over backstory in the fashion typical of a sandbox (especially in Burning Wheel's case). They do not assume that backstory is always or even typically an input into resolution - very often it is an output of resolution (eg a check fails, the GM has to narrate a salient consequence, and to use AW terminology they announce future badness - eg a column of smoke is visible on the horizon - and now we have a new bit of backstory that is still in the process of being authored - what caused the smoke, what problem does it foretell, etc?). And unlike a sandbox, they give the GM stronger authority over establishing situation - ie instead of the players declaring actions that activate situations latent in the prepared backstory, the GM brings the action to the players via (by typical D&D standards) rather pushy framing, which also (by typical D&D standards) is far more responsive to player-announced hooks, and play then proceeds from there.

But these are games in which players have far more authority over the direction of the campaign than in typical D&D play, including - based on my experience and observations - many sandboxes.

Hence they refute your suggestion that The closer a given campaign is to the sandbox end of this spectrum, the more de facto authority the players have over the direction of the campaign. Conversely, the closer a given campaign is to the opposite end of this spectrum, the less de facto authority the players have over the direction of the campaign.

As I acknowledged in the second of the posts you quoted, campaigns with certain styles of play may not fit on the spectrum I am promoting. Given that AW and BW campaigns are frequently (always?) run in such styles, those campaigns don't fit on the spectrum, and thus can't and don't contradict my assertion regarding de facto authority over campaign direction for campaigns that do fit on the spectrum.

I understand that you dislike the spectrum because it isn't universally applicable to all games and styles of play. But I don't understand why you think the spectrum isn't useful for comparing campaigns to which it does apply. From my perspective, different campaigns can have different levels of sandboxiness that can be roughly compared to each other, necessarily creating a spectrum. [EDIT] Why shouldn't that spectrum be used when comparing differences between campaigns that fall on that spectrum?

 

[Lanefan]

You’re removing the abilities as they exist in favor of an altered version is what I mean.

The ability is only relevant in the Ranger’s favored terrain. So they can still get lost, just not in their favored terrain.

With that in mind, what is gained by reducing the effect of an ability that’s already got a pretty narrow application?

Why not let the ranger be perfect in mountains? What is gained by reducing the ability as you suggest?

Because I don't like perfect when I'm trying to present an imperfect - and thus realistic - world.

Good, sure. Expert, sure. Perfect, no thanks.

 

[Lanefan]

I'm OK with the will here. It doesn't mean that they'll do so out in the open and in front of their oppressors. It doesn't mean you can just walk up to the front door.

To me, it does. The "will" in this context reads to me as being the same as "must"; meaning the NPCs have no choice.

It may mean we have to get creative. "More likely to" gives me an out as a DM to stymie the PC here, and I don't necessarily want that.

Where I want the out, in order to a) allow the dice a say and b) allow for situations where an ability is legitimately negated by means unknown to the PCs and not have it stand out like a sore thumb.

I will also go on record here as saying I'm perfectly OK with the druid restriction that they "will not wear metal armor" too.
Absolutes are sometimes better than a higher degree of freedom.

Here again I read the "will" as "must"; though even there a Druid can choose to ignore the restriction provided she doesn't mind losing a bunch of class abilities.

 

[pemerton]

As I acknowledged in the second of the posts you quoted, campaigns with certain styles of play may not fit on the spectrum I am promoting. Given that AW and BW campaigns are frequently (always?) run in such styles, those campaigns don't fit on the spectrum, and thus can't and don't contradict my assertion regarding de facto authority over campaign direction for campaigns that do fit on the spectrum.

I understand that you dislike the spectrum because it isn't universally applicable to all games and styles of play. But I don't understand why you think the spectrum isn't useful for comparing campaigns to which it does apply. From my perspective, different campaigns can have different levels of sandboxiness that can be roughly compared to each other, necessarily creating a spectrum. [EDIT] Why shouldn't that spectrum be used when comparing differences between campaigns that fall on that spectrum?

But what campaigns fall on the spectrum? All the spectrum tells us is that if the GM exercises both backstory and situational authority (eg a "linear" adventure) then the players have less influence over the direction of the campaign than if the GM allows them some authority over situation in the way that a sandbox does. So why not just say that! I don't see that any work is being done by the detour via the concept of a spectrum.