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

[TwoSix]

Do you remember my post perhaps 6 months ago ruminating about this very thing; when this needle moving occurred in the last 7-9 years (because it certainly wasn’t present in the DC 30…35 thread)? I think it would be very interesting to re-litigate the gorge example and see how much the universality of harumph and disdain has been throttled back.

It's nice to see 13+ years of forum arguments changing minds.

 

[Xetheral]

It does. But I disagree with your claim about a "residual category". As I already posted:

Using the same degree of authority over backstory, and using that backstory as an input into scene framing and action resolution, is not an uninteresting point of resemblance - especially in the context of a thread about GM authority.

That's fine--there's plenty of room for disagreement here.

And I entirely agree that the Backstory-first vs Situation-first dichotomy is relevant to this thread. I think it's similarly relevant to discuss perceived drawbacks to, and/or perceived shortfalls of, that analytical approach.

 

[Manbearcat]

It's nice to see 13+ years of forum arguments changing minds.

Wegener's Continental Drift paper was published in 1912. It took over 50 years for Geology to establish consensus around plate tectonics!

We're better than Geologists!

 

[prabe]

Wegener's Continental Drift paper was published in 1912. It took over 50 years for Geology to establish consensus around plate tectonics!

We're better than Geologists!

We didn't even need maps of Africa and South America ...

 

[FrogReaver]

No. I said that there are several principles and the GM balances between them using their personal judgement.

I’m Just seeing more of them trying to describe every playstyle with language that best describes and differentiates story now.

GM principles aren’t set out in such detail and forcefulness in D&D.

Which makes it really hard to contrast DMing principles in D&D to a story now game with explicit and concise DMing principles.

 

[prabe]

Going back to pacing, do you think it's fair to note that one of the major differences with story now and living sandbox play tends to be the pacing at which dramatic events are arrived at?

(Though it may be interesting to attempt a living sandbox that drove straight to those dramatic style events).

From the very little experience I've had with "living sandbox" play and the maybe a little bit more or less experience I've had with Story Now play ... I'd be inclined to say that pacing as such isn't really a big concern for the GM in either. The "living sandbox" GM is waiting for the players to do something, so the GM can make things happen in response to what the players are doing; the Story Now GM is waiting for the dice to come up with a given result, so the GM can make things happen in response to what they feel fits the dramatic needs of the characters and the scene. Neither GM is really pacing the story.

I think your parenthetical--depending on how stringently you apply "living sandbox"--might describe something like what Critical Role presents itself as (not trying to open that particular barrel of debate-monkeys) or less ... ambitiously, what my games tend to be. I have a suspicion there are some gamers who'd find that neither hot nor cold and spew it from their mouths; I have a suspicion there are other gamers who'd drink it right up.

 

[Manbearcat]

Then there's, at best, weak governing principles and play is just going to be what the GM thinks should happen right now, yes? Totally fine, by the way, lots of play does this and works out fun, but you're the one that claimed a governing principle. The moment that was challenged you've retreated into basically disclaiming the principle.

When you have principles that may possess some inherent tension, you can solve them via top-down agenda (which can resolve the tension by establishing an apex priority) or you can have table-facing mechanics that are exception-based and principled themselves.

I'm thinking of the Doom Pool in Cortex+.

How easily would a principled Doom Pool (both in how/when it gathers and how/when it can be deployed) solve the 5e Storytelling Priority vs Skilled Play Priority, particularly when it comes to Long Rests?

GM feels like a Long Rest established via LTH and some kind of player gambit will crush the Storytelling Priority of play in favor of the Skilled Play Priority (because the BBEG showdown is going to yield 100 % anti-climax with a fully recharged group)? No problem. Your Doom Pool has been accreting for just this occasion. And its table-facing so the players know it and they can see your hand hovering over the dice like a wild-west gunslinger.

"Nah...efff all that...you can't get your Extended Rest because of x."

"Ok...cool...he's got tons of offsetting reinforcements because of y."

"Ok...cool...the chamber of the BBEG is empty! His contingency teleport has taken he and all of his BBEG pals to their other redoubt...oh they left you a note that says LOL Go Eff Yerself...aaaaaaaaaaaand the entire structure starts to collapse!"



That solves that! But that is a very different ball of wax from letting GMs decide between Storytelling Priority and Skilled Play Priority at their discretion. And it also loops the players in because their decision-points (through the entire unit of play as the growth of the Doom Pool is mechanized and table-facing) intersect with all of this!

 

[Aldarc]

Universal apoplexy. There wasn’t a single 4e detractor that didn’t cry foul and call it a clear example of (a) why Fail Forward is crap and (b) why conflict resolution mechanics are crap and (c) why genre logic is crap and (d) why 4e is crap.

The needle has clearly moved since then however. Like the apoplexy of the gorge conversation was completely memory holed because Fail Forward and conflict resolution mechanics and genre logic are now vastly more accepted amongst the D&D community. Feels very Eternal Sunshine and the Spotless Mind - ey.

Do you remember my post perhaps 6 months ago ruminating about this very thing; when this needle moving occurred in the last 7-9 years (because it certainly wasn’t present in the DC 30…35 thread)? I think it would be very interesting to re-litigate the gorge example and see how much the universality of harumph and disdain has been throttled back.

Yeah, Fail Forward is a loser idea when 5e endorses it, but Fail Forward is okay now because 5e endorses it.

It's nice to see 13+ years of forum arguments changing minds.

No one on the Internet ever admits that their ideas changed on account of others - that's a sign of weakness! - instead, they claim that they have always been a fan of these ideas and have always utilized them in their gaming. The trick is convincing yourself and others that nothing has changed, most especially your own mind.

 

[Manbearcat]

I’m Just seeing more of them trying to describe every playstyle with language that best describes and differentiates story now.

GM principles aren’t set out in such detail and forcefulness in D&D.

Which makes it really hard to contrast DMing principles in D&D to a story now game with explicit and concise DMing principles.

I obviously don't agree that this is true.

I think 5e has a lot of clear principles in its GMing:

1 - Find the fun (for your table)!

2 - The GM is the lead storyteller and we're all telling a satisfying story (this is a fundamental conceit).

3 - The rules and results of rules interactions are in service to play and GMs have discretion there.

4 - The GM makes the adventure and the world (or purchases one and uses that).

5 - The players make and play bold adventurers who expect to confront deadly perils.

6 - IF we're playing Hack and Slash (DMG 34), our 2nd principle is perturbed and we're going to have to figure that out how to resolve that ourselves.


So my take (which should be clear) is that the 5e ruleset has two primary issues (5e advocates think these are features not bugs...I disagree):

ISSUE 1

* Find the fun is not sufficient as a guiding principle for play. They would have been significantly better if they would have spent more time on this, given structure to the conversation that GMs and players will have (this is supposed to work for all tables of all ages...not just 50 year olds who have played with the same people for 30 years) so they can "find the fun." Something like the Traveler Lifepath system or the Torchbearer "Build a Dungeon" procedure or the BW/MG/TB/Blades Assessing Factors for Obstacles/Effect (in Blades).

Helping people understand how to suss out "the fun" (basically formally establish premise and social contract for play) for each unique table is a good thing. 5e does not remotely do enough work there in my opinion.

ISSUE 2

* Resolving the intersection of principle 6 and 2 (Skilled Play Priority vs Storytelling Priority). Like the Find the Fun above, I think more work going into this (something to structure conversation around this) would have been hugely helpful.

---

The reality of all of this together (including the lack of help in Finding the Fun and dealing with 6 vs 2 issues) is exactly what I said toward the end of the playtest. 5e is basically AD&D 3e. Its ethos and its design are significantly impress upon the user a game that is in service to Story Before + GM Storyteller Mandate = DIY Table Heterogeneity. Because of a very informal Find the Fun and a ruleset that is, by design, a Rorschach Test or "Mad-Lib-ey" in key places, play drift/experimentation is going to be a common occurrence. That is the DIY Table Heterogeneity. When hiccups inevitably arise because of play drift/experimentation, see principles 1-3!

 

[Xetheral]

This is better, but your approach is still very flawed. It still asserts that since you think there's a possibility that one of the two categories of play is arbitrarily defined as all things NOT A that it cannot be disentangled from A and therefore the entire categorization is of limited value since it's just bins for A and NOT A according to some arbitrary distinction.

The problem here, I see, is not that backstory-first is actually arbitrary - it has valid descriptive power for how games work - but that there are a number of sub-approaches that create different results. This is not indicative of an arbitrary distinction, though, but rather that there are other distinctions that apply within the scope of backstory-first. There is not an argument being made that says all play is clearly separated and delimited by the analysis of situation/backstory first, so the complaint that this distinction doesn't clearly delimit is logically flawed -- it hasn't been suggested that it does. In fact, there's been quite a good bit of talk about how various backstory-first approaches can be separated further with other analyses.

The sum total of your argument here seems to be that since situation-first vice backstory-first doesn't do all possible categorizations of play, it's therefore at least partially arbitrarily defined as A and NOT A. You're totally ignoring that backstory-first does do work in explaining how play occurs, it just doesn't do all of the possible work.

Again, there are a number of backstory-first approaches, and if you'd like to discuss them (I offered this earlier) we absolutely can talk to differences in Trad, Classical, NeoTrad and OSR play. There are distinctions here that are rather important as to how the game uses backstory-first.

Finally, the middle bit where you question if @pemerton is qualified to examine backstory-first play is an appeal to authority. You're not evaluating the argument, but suggesting that the person lacks sufficient experience for their analysis to be useful. This may be true (it's why it's an informal fallacy), but you didn't do any work to show that the analysis was, in fact, incorrect or wrong. I've often told others that they lack the experience to inform their assertions, but I do so after showing that the assertions are badly flawed and without foundation. Go for the argument first -- show why @pemerton has failed to show what he claims -- then you can suggest reasons why. Here, though, you're totally wrong -- @pemerton has clearly stated that they have extensive experience with backstory-first. The claim that they don't do much of that play is a now thing -- he doesn't do it now. Hence why he defers on system-specific arguments regarding 5e or other games he does not play.

We're continuing to miscommunicate. None of your responses address what I was trying to say. I don't know if that's because you continue to doubt my intentions, or because we use language very differently, or for some other reason.

In any case, I don't want to continue to spend the time to try to resolve our communication difficulties on this sub-topic, so I'm going to disengage from this exchange with you. Thanks for the discussion thus far. Hopefully we'll have more success communicating in the future.