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

[hawkeyefan]

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.

I doubt that a ranger being highly effective in a specific terrain really does much at all to lessen the imperfection of the game world.

So your goal in reducing how effective the Natural Explorer/Favored Terrain abilities would be added realism? Anything else?

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

The ability is so situational. If you find your PCs in the exact situation where the feature could come into play, why not let it play out?

Give the player the moment to say “this is what happens” and then it happens.

Is it really a challenge to realism to have a Robin Hood type folk hero and his friends be allowed to sleep in a farmer’s barn?

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.

What do you mean by your (b) here?

 

[Campbell]

The sorts of abilities that 5e allows to function perfectly are basically ribbon abilities. They exist outside of the game's usual nexus of conflict. They often come up so rarely that in the course of a campaign they might happen so rarely you can count their relevance over the course of a lengthy campaign on a single hand. Many of them already feel pretty underwhelming. Limit their effectiveness any more and they basically don't feel like something worth having.

 

[FrogReaver]

Here's my admittedly word salad take on this:

Generally the idea of a spectrum between railroading and sandbox play tends to come up whenever someone expresses a preference for nonlinear play, often with the basic conceit that the only viable alternative to linear play is heavy GM prep sandbox play. It's easy to see how that would be untenable for GMs that lack the time to run a game with a heavy amount of prep work. By basically throwing out forms of nonlinear play that do not require a heavy amount of prep work linear play is presented as the only viable way to play that does not require an inordinate amount of preparation.

I think it's worth pointing out that oftentimes that other 'viable alternatives' have already been rejected by that person/group/community as either requiring too much unliked baggage or the system they are playing doesn't really support those other styles.

For example, this thread is primarily about D&D 5e and 5e just isn't capable of running the way other games that have created those viable alternatives do - at least not without heavy houserules. So I think in D&D 5e you'll generally find that play happens on some spectrum between linear and sandbox. I mean... is there realistically any other style of play the D&D 5e really supports?

I also find there's an implication involved that linear play is fundamentally a part of pretty much all roleplaying. Basically you are secretly doing the thing you do not want to do.

I'm not following this.

This defense and justification are both somewhat misguided and completely unnecessary. If you enjoy running and playing linear games embrace what you feel the storytelling involved brings to the table. It does not have to be the only tenable form of play to have value.

Typically the 'sandboxers' devalue linear gameplay and even often mistakenly associate it with railroading. Linear Play is a style whose value often does need defended.

 

[Lanefan]

I doubt that a ranger being highly effective in a specific terrain really does much at all to lessen the imperfection of the game world.

So your goal in reducing how effective the Natural Explorer/Favored Terrain abilities would be added realism? Anything else?

Added realism is IMO the only justification I need.

That said, there's also another one: see below...

The ability is so situational. If you find your PCs in the exact situation where the feature could come into play, why not let it play out?

Give the player the moment to say “this is what happens” and then it happens.

Is it really a challenge to realism to have a Robin Hood type folk hero and his friends be allowed to sleep in a farmer’s barn?

What do you mean by your (b) here?

That if an ability always works perfectly and then one time it doesn't, it's a metagame red flag to the players that there's something funny going on. This is not desirable.

Contrast this with an ability that works most of the time - even as high as 95% - but occasionally doesn't. Here, if the ability fails there's no meta-flag, in that it might simply be a bad day at the office for that particular character.

 

[pemerton]

My guess is that @Xetheral is trying to avoid the sense of it being or becoming an either-or choice by - quite rightly - saying there's a whole range of options rather than just two outer-end choices.

I am reluctant to speak for @pemerton here, but I think the objection is less to the idea that one game might be more sandboxy than another, than to the idea that there is a single type of game that a completely not-sandboxy game must be. I think I understand that objection.

I just don't think there is a spectrum. When we say a game is "less sandboxy" do we mean that (i) the players have less authority over situation or (ii) the players have more authority over backstory or (iii) something else?

It's like saying that cars are on a spectrum of more-or-less car-like: if we say a vehicle is moving away from the car end of the spectrum are we saying that it is more like a truck (ie not really a passenger vehicle), or more like a pedal car (ie not fully reliant on an engine for its motive power), or more like a motorcycle (ie fewer wheels, frame rather than a chassis - I hope that's the right terminology - etc).], or something else.

Many editions of D&D are flexible enough to be run in a wide variety of styles. In several such styles commonly discussed on these forums, the only constraint on players' strategy-level choices is an expectation that at least some of those choices are made among the options the DM has presented.

<snip>

doesn't the fact that the same conclusion on player authority can be reached either by comparing levels of sandboxiness or by your preferred framework suggest that both are valid comparison tools, in contrast to your orginal claim that viewing sandboxiness as a spectrum "is an unhelpful and even misleading confusion"?

I'm not seeing what the posited spectrum is. All the options in a sandbox are presented by the GM - the players have no authority to author backstory that would present options. All the options in "linear" play are presented by the GM, for the same reason.

 

[pemerton]

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.

What do you mean by your (b) here?

I think that @Lanefan wants to have the ability (be it the ranger's favoured terrain, or the folk hero's reputation with the folk) to be able to be blocked by the GM without revealing that there is some unrevealed background element that explains the failure. This can be done by secretly rolling a die and pretending it matters when it doesn't. It can't be done if the ability auto-succeeds when the fictional positioning is right, because the GM is then revealing that there is some thwarting aspect of the fictional positioning, which Lanefan would rather keep secret.

 

[pemerton]

this thread is primarily about D&D 5e and 5e just isn't capable of running the way other games that have created those viable alternatives do

I don't agree. I've run AD&D quite successfully using shared backstory authority (especially in PC build, but also the GM taking suggestions from players on the way through) and GM authority over situation/scene-framing.

I don't see why 5e D&D couldn't be run the same way if a group wanted to do so.

 

[Oofta]

I just don't think there is a spectrum. When we say a game is "less sandboxy" do we mean that (i) the players have less authority over situation or (ii) the players have more authority over backstory or (iii) something else?

It's like saying that cars are on a spectrum of more-or-less car-like: if we say a vehicle is moving away from the car end of the spectrum are we saying that it is more like a truck (ie not really a passenger vehicle), or more like a pedal car (ie not fully reliant on an engine for its motive power), or more like a motorcycle (ie fewer wheels, frame rather than a chassis - I hope that's the right terminology - etc).], or something else.

I'm not seeing what the posited spectrum is. All the options in a sandbox are presented by the GM - the players have no authority to author backstory that would present options. All the options in "linear" play are presented by the GM, for the same reason.

I would say there's a spectrum of what a car is. It used to be that cars were either 2 door or 4 door with some variations on whether or not there was a hatch or trunk. On the other hand you had pickup trucks and SUVs. Despite the occasional weird hybrid El Camino there was a distinct difference. Now? It's blurry. On the one end you have traditional cars like a Toyota Camry, on the other end you have something like a Chevy Suburban. My sister was looking at a Mazda 3 which is definitely a car and ended up with a Mazda CX-3. The vehicle she ended up with is only slightly taller than the car she was looking at, it's not really a truck it's some weird in-between. To the other extreme you have something like the Polaris Slingshot which isn't really a car or a motorcycle, it's just a weird combination of the two.

So I think you're setting up a false narrative, or at least a narrative I disagree with. Saying things are on a spectrum is one useful way to categorize something which is no more less useful than just about any set of categories that we use. In other words all categories we put on styles of game are going to be artificial and subjective. It can still be useful to most people if you don't insist on using a concrete, objective, definition that does not exist.

 

[Blue]

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.

Is that expectation shared with and accepted by the players before play? Invalidating parts of their character features because you never have any intention of letting them work as written (e.g. "perfect") seems like something they should know before choosing those classes or features.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what RPGs are. It’s mistaking RPGs for finite games (which have set win conditions), when RPGs are infinite games (where the goal is to continue playing). There is no win condition for an RPG. The goal and point of playing is to keep playing. The weird thing is that within an infinite game you can have finite games (such as a mission, quest, goal, etc). You can even view common mini-games as finite games (character creation, combat, exploration, etc) within the infinite game of an RPG. But it’s a mistake to confuse winning a finite game within an RPG as winning the unwinnable infinite game that is the RPG. More people into RPGs should read game theory.

This is making the exact mistake @Manbearcat is talking about -- ignoring the short term in favor of an argument for the long term (which also doesn't hold up, but different topic).

When I'm playing Blades in the Dark, we have the entire game, where I don't have a good idea where it might end up or what I might want out of it, so I don't have a "win con" established for the entire game, especially at the start (although this changes). I do have specific goals I want to accomplish. For example, one of my character's goals right from the start was to achieve enough wealth to retire in luxury. So, I've focused on building my character's Stash, which is a measure of lifestyle (it's not fungible or spendable, although you can liquidate it at a premium in a pinch), and I've not achieved this goal for my character. I've achieved one of my Win Conditions.

Still, in a given game, we have lots of moving pieces. Currently, and for quite a long time, my character has had a rival trying to take them down. I have a definite Win Con of "seeing Harker breathe his last breath." To accomplish this, I have to expend resources and take risks and balance this against other things my character cares about. It's still a clear Win Con. In a Score, the Score has a clear Win Con -- do what you're tying to do. We've had scores to recover lost gear from the Deathlands, to negotiate the release of friends from captivity, to transport illicit goods across the city, to crush an opposing faction, to engage in a duel and win, etc, etc, etc. So, completion of a score is a clear Win Con, but even in a score there are always smaller win cons that show up -- in a recent score, I tried to implicate my rival as responsible for sabotage I just did, thereby linking multiple win cons (completing the sabotage was a diversion for the main goal, and so a minor win con). I failed, mostly, to do this (the sabotage went very badly, but I managed to hang enough of a implication that I could leverage it with future resource and effort).

Sure, you say, that's Blades in the Dark, but not D&D, which is special!

Okay, in the Rime of the Frostmaiden game I'm in, my character has a number of goals. We just sacked a duergar keep. My win con here was to get information on what the duergar were up to, and to not be killed in the process. Also, I have the win con of showing that I'm useful to the group, because my character is an outlander with a very "if you are not useful, exile" mentality. I also had a player goal of continuing my fun rivalry with the artificer. All of these things have win cons. I took very little damage, I was able to find an invisible duergar who was trying to sneak away, and I rescued a party member from a trap with clever thinking. All things that align to the various win condtions I had for the session.

Now, is there a win condition for the game? Sure is, complete the module. We're playing this game for the module, with little expectation to continue to a longer campaign. The idea of the never ending game without a point is one I increasingly find odd.