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

[Lanefan]

Here is what your thoughts above are missing:

Let us say that at the apex of the "fiat decision tree" (lets call it), I have a creative menu of 1000 possible items. Complete GM fiat (no constraints, no boundaries, no player say and no system say...ALL GM SAY).

1) We have a constraining premise of play.

That creative menu of 1000 possible items is now winnowed to 200 items.

What constraining premise of play is that? By this I mean are you referring to making sure challenges are vaguely level-appropriate, or are you referring to the PCs are always expected to be heroic, or ... ?

2) We have table-facing and transparent machinery which further winnows a GM's decision-tree (I can't choose framing and action resolution results and consequences that are violations of this stuff).

That creative menu of 200 possible items is now winnowed to 50 items.

I agree re direct action resolution results but disagree as regards down-the-road consequences; as what you're implying but not saying is that there's no behind-the-scenes backstory. The mechanics don't prevent you from having and maintaining backstories of the type which might interfere with what the PCs are doing - EDIT and-or have done /EDIT - ; that's your own choice to eschew such devices, not something forced by the game.

3) I have player-authored Quests, Theme, Paragon Path, Epic Destinies and prior fiction which all must be honored as the volitional force of play.

That creative menu of 50 possible items is now winnowed down to 25 items.

Prior fiction is locked in and must be honoured, yes. All the rest I see as guidelines rather than rails: the players choose their destinations but don't get much say in how they might get there.

4) I have a game with clear principles (cut to the action, fail forward, follow the fiction and change the situation based on goal of conflict) and tools/techniques for those principles to integrate with all of the stuff above.

That creative menu of 25 possible items is now winnowed down to 5 items.

That is BS math, but that is the reality of it. In any given instance of play, your GMing decision-tree (in situation framing and in consequence adjudication is going to be dramatically winnowed down from MAXIMUM FIAT because of all of the constraining factors of the system which winnow your cognitive workspace and focus your creativity to a handful (ish) of "play-honoring framing and outcomes."

Squinted at only slightly, this seems to be concluding that instead of the DM railroading the players, here it's the game and-or players largely railroading the DM. I'm not sure how this is any improvement.

 

[Manbearcat]

TO BE CLEAR

I'm not going to engage with clueless and petty edition warring. Not going to do it. Don't have the time. Don't have the inclination (and I've done it plenty of times before with 0 RoI).

I'll talk to you right quick on this Lanefan.

Why on earth would you ever give all that bolded technical info in the narration of the scene when the players-as-PCs in the fiction would have, at first, no way of knowing any of it? (unless you're presenting the scenario to the players as an isolated one-off connected to nothing, in a manner akin to a chess puzzle "here's the position, Black to mate in three moves, figure out how").

Rules encode information so players can (a) marry thematics to gamestate inputs and outputs and (b) make decisions and understand the consequences.

Why would I tell them all the stuff above?

* A father who is a Standard Soldier with an Aura that buffs his daughter and an Immediate Interrupt that protects her by soaking an attack says:

- This is a capable father (possibly a huntsman or a town guard) who is ready, willing, and very able to protect his daughter and trade his life for hers.

- Mechanically it says, "keep her close to him...don't let the monster's capabilities (eg grab him and move him or dunk him in the water) separate them."

- For the girl it says, she is scrappy and cunning and (shocker) small enough to be able to squirm in and out of trouble.

- The Skill Challenge conflict resolution mechanic encodes specific info so the players are intimately informed on how to get the NPCs out of trouble (it establishes finality...the GM doesn't get to just say "nope...you need to do more"; or "it establishes a win condition for the scene").


Rules and PC build structure and situation framing encode and integrate information so players can make thematic and tactical and strategic decision. Love it or hate it (you hate it...we know), that is what all that stuff does.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Rules and PC build structure and situation framing encode and integrate information so players can make thematic and tactical and strategic decision. Love it or hate it (you hate it...we know), that is what all that stuff does.

What it does is make things dry and gamey and feel like speradsheet, instead of being immersive and feeling like you're actually experiencing a dramatic and uncertain situation.

 

[Manbearcat]

What it does is make things dry and gamey and feel like speradsheet, instead of being immersive and feeling like you're actually experiencing a dramatic and uncertain situation.

See my statement above about clueless, petty edition warring.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

See my statement above about clueless, petty edition warring.

Not really about editions. You can describe things in dry and mechanistic manner in any edition.

 

[Malmuria]

It leans heavily into 4e's strengths as gamey tactical tabletop MMO. Some people loved that, others loathed it.

What that has to do with 'story now' or railroading I have no idea.

[EDIT: the opening of this post was a needless caricature on my part in an attempt at humor and I apologize.]

I think some degree of these things are good dm practices in any edition. Situations and conflicts are more meaningful when the stakes are at least somewhat known. The world should react to the PCs actions, which then help determine the "plot" rather than pre-imposing it. And I think transparency about what you have not prepared + randomness (via dice and encounter tables, for example) is more fun for everyone than heavy prep + illusionism.

 

[Lanefan]

I'll talk to you right quick on this Lanefan.

Sounds like Dad is sitting me down for a lecture...

Rules encode information so players can (a) marry thematics to gamestate inputs and outputs and (b) make decisions and understand the consequences.

Why would I tell them all the stuff above?

* A father who is a Standard Soldier with an Aura that buffs his daughter and an Immediate Interrupt that protects her by soaking an attack says:

- This is a capable father (possibly a huntsman or a town guard) who is ready, willing, and very able to protect his daughter and trade his life for hers.

- Mechanically it says, "keep her close to him...don't let the monster's capabilities (eg grab him and move him or dunk him in the water) separate them."

- For the girl it says, she is scrappy and cunning and (shocker) small enough to be able to squirm in and out of trouble.

- The Skill Challenge conflict resolution mechanic encodes specific info so the players are intimately informed on how to get the NPCs out of trouble (it establishes finality...the GM doesn't get to just say "nope...you need to do more"; or "it establishes a win condition for the scene").

Rules and PC build structure and situation framing encode and integrate information so players can make thematic and tactical and strategic decision. Love it or hate it (you hate it...we know), that is what all that stuff does.

And all of this screams out that the players are expected to make their decisions based on player information rather than character information. Unless the PCs have somehow seen the father and daughter in action before, how can they know any of this stuff? Never mind how they can know anyhting at all about the Kraken, who I have to assume none involved have met before.

And this has nothing - nothing! - to do with edition. If in a 1e game I set the scene as:

"You're on a big lake. The little girl and her father are on a flatboat fishing when they're attacked by a big kraken like monster with huge tentacles. The father is a 3rd-level Fighter specialized in longsword, with strength 16, con 15, and 26 h.p.; the daughter is a commoner with 2 h.p. but has dex 16 and carries a potion of diminution which she'll use to get out of a tight spot. The kraken is a 6 HD beast with 37 h.p. and has 6 tentacles which each take 5 h.p. to destroy. If you are able to protect the daughter (and possibly the father) long enough to defeat the monster (ablate the Kraken's HPs while you protect the daughter and maybe father) or get them out of the lake (via non-combat means), then you succeed at saving the daughter and possibly father."

then I've made exactly the same mistake: I've given the players far too much metagame info that their PCs simply wouldn't and couldn't know going in and only might figure out as the encounter progressed.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Sounds like Dad is sitting me down for a lecture...

And all of this screams out that the players are expected to make their decisions based on player information rather than character information. Unless the PCs have somehow seen the father and daughter in action before, how can they know any of this stuff? Never mind how they can know anyhting at all about the Kraken, who I have to assume none involved have met before.

And this has nothing - nothing! - to do with edition. If in a 1e game I set the scene as:

"You're on a big lake. The little girl and her father are on a flatboat fishing when they're attacked by a big kraken like monster with huge tentacles. The father is a 3rd-level Fighter specialized in longsword, with strength 16, con 15, and 26 h.p.; the daughter is a commoner with 2 h.p. but has dex 16 and carries a potion of diminution which she'll use to get out of a tight spot. The kraken is a 6 HD beast with 37 h.p. and has 6 tentacles which each take 5 h.p. to destroy. If you are able to protect the daughter (and possibly the father) long enough to defeat the monster (ablate the Kraken's HPs while you protect the daughter and maybe father) or get them out of the lake (via non-combat means), then you succeed at saving the daughter and possibly father."

then I've made exactly the same mistake: I've given the players far too much metagame info that their PCs simply wouldn't and couldn't know going in and only might figure out as the encounter progressed.

What you, and apparently @Crimson Longinus, are missing, is that by establishing this information - by encoding the fiction of the scene in a transparent way - the GM can no longer just fiat declare the father and little girl eaten. The point of doing this isn't to put the mechanics first, it's to clearly establish how the fiction of this scene will operate and reduce/remove the fiat ability of the GM to just declare outcomes without it being blatantly obvious that they are doing so.

 

[Malmuria]

What you, and apparently @Crimson Longinus, are missing, is that by establishing this information - by encoding the fiction of the scene in a transparent way - the GM can no longer just fiat declare the father and little girl eaten. The point of doing this isn't to put the mechanics first, it's to clearly establish how the fiction of this scene will operate and reduce/remove the fiat ability of the GM to just declare outcomes without it being blatantly obvious that they are doing so.

I understand @Lanefan 's point to be that this transparency a) comes at the expense of immersion and b) is possible in any edition of dnd. I would go further and say that it's not that hard to tell, in any edition, when a dm has pre-scripted the ending to an encounter or is fudging things.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I understand @Lanefan 's point to be that this transparency a) comes at the expense of immersion and b) is possible in any edition of dnd. I would go further and say that it's not that hard to tell, in any edition, when a dm has pre-scripted the ending to an encounter or is fudging things.

I can wait for @Lanefan to make their own arguments. Is this also something you think?

ETA: I'm not going to spend time making points towards what someone thinks someone else is thinking, because that's a complete waste of time.