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

[FrogReaver]

It just struck me that a lot of this discussion seems related to the

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!

whether you want to classify those as principles of play or insufficient principles of play doesn’t really matter IMO. In any event we agree that Principled D&D DMing is not handled by the system albeit it can be by the individual DM

 

[TwoSix]

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.

I've always used Fail Forward, even in the '90s. Also, Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

 

[prabe]

I obviously don't agree that this is true.

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

There are principles, yes, but I'm not so sure they're explicitly called out as such, and there seems to me to be a lot more wiggle-room than you seem to see.

1 - Find the fun (for your table)!

It's a known thing that they specifically wanted to allow for different tables to play differently. That heterogeneity might make analysis difficult--even fraught--but I don't think it's bad.

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

That phrase "lead storyteller" does have some problems, but it can also be interpreted in multiple ways.

1. "Boss" at the table. Decides where things go, what happens, shapes the narrative to lead to the next prepped scene. This sounds an awful lot like someone running a published AP-style adventure, working to keep it "on track."
2. "Clockmaker Gawd." Makes the world, sets things in motion. Drops the players in a place where there are things for them to find and/or do nearby, expects them to go find and/or do them. This sounds very sandboxy to me (and might in fact be a less-than-generous description of the playstyle, which has never been my favorite).
3. "Scenarist." Makes at least something like a setting. Places the characters into a situation where things are happening right now and where there is at least something like an action-call. Continues to place situations in front of them, with the idea of engaging the characters and/or players. Which situations the characters and/or players engage with, and in what order, and how, is entirely up to them; and they might not succeed. This is more or less how I run my games.

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

I think the discretion is intended to be more about making the game enjoyable for the participants, with some acknowledgment that edge cases will arise and an explicit empowerment of DMs to handle those. I'm not convinced that, for instance, the DM is intended to have authority to narrate success out of the story--there does seem to be a difference of opinion on that.

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

This is ... conventional D&D, I think. Back to the 70s, at least.

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

There is flexibility here, I think, but it'd need to be agreed to around the table. Also, how deadly the perils are will likely vary among tables.

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.

I think in that case, the people around the table want the story that emerges to be about hacking and slashing, to the extent they care about that at all.

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.

I don't entirely disagree that 5E could and should have done more to help DMs ... work out what "the fun" is for their tables and figure out how to get to it. I don't particularly agree that it's a problem for a game that intended to be as big-tent as D&D is (leaving aside whether it should be, or should want to be) to leave it to a given table to figure out what they want from the game. I've been able to work it out at tables compost half of strangers, twice, so it's not impossible.

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.

We've been through that, I think. I don't think there is a conflict--I think a table that sets out to do Skilled Play makes the story about that. But I'm not precious about where I think things should go, or how situations should resolve.

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!

I don't disagree there are ... things in 5E that tie it to earlier editions--particularly the AD&D you mention. As someone who played a lot of that, and played and DMed a lot of 3.x, and skipped 4E (because no one I gamed with played it or advocated for it) the game ... fit well with my previous experience. I do (I'm sure, to no one's surprise) disagree that the game is so explicitly in service to GM Story Hour as you seem to think it is; I'm sure neither of us is likely to convince the other, though, and I'm not interested in that particular strife.

 

[Ovinomancer]

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.

Nope. I mean, I guess you can just dismiss everything and say something like this, but I play 5e. I love 5e. I can absolutely describe how I run 5e, and it doesn't result in different outcomes.

If I'm running a Wizard's AP, like I did with STK, then I'm very much doing the work to read the adventure and use the established backstory (mostly secret and discovered through play) to determine the possible outcomes of player actions first and foremost. If there's something that's unclear, like say a player declared an action who's result is not clear from the backstory or the backstory doesn't provide a clear direction on which system mechanic to use, I extrapolate as best as I can within the genre tropes established (these differ by adventure), but always to make sure I do not invalidate the backstory. Now, as it happens, I ended up very much disliking the backstory as the adventure went on, so I made changes, but I still did this at the prep/backstory level and ran the game the same way.

If I'm running something I've come up with myself, like my recent Sigil campaign, then I choose what's important to the game at the start and make that clear. In this game, I still created backstory and it was still the primary metric by which adjudication occurred, but I tailored it to what the players did, and ran segments of the game as skill challenges like 4e -- which were situation framed with let it ride and focused on PC dramatic needs. These segments gave direction to the play and prompted me to prep various follow-on segments. In addition, I had a number of independently prepped "jobs" that could be picked up and run for coin and/or other treasure. There was also a very loose meta-plot regarding an artifact, but it's directions were primarily influenced by the skill challenge segments rather than planned out for me. Essentially, I used some situation-framed tech like skill challenges to generate prompts for me to prep more Classic/Trad adventures. Ultimately, though, outside of the skill challenges, I was still very much in backstory-first framing and using backstory as the primary means of adjudication -- it either answered questions or directed what system tool was needed to resolve the situation. Since I was using the skill challenges to handle player prompts for content, this worked out okay as a hybrid system.

In the game I'm playing in, another AP (Rime of the Frostmaiden), the primary resolution gauge is, again, the backstory. Essentially, we only are making checks when the backstory suggests them (and the results provided) or in combat challenges. If the backstory prevents something, it is prevented. An example is one location has magical braziers of fire that regenerate denizens of the area and the backstory says they can only be disabled through dispel magic. The GM ruled that all other attempts we made failed because they were not dispel magic. This is backstory as primary at it's strongest.

It's not hard to analyze play. It does require being a bit blunt and unromantic about what's going on. I've had fun in every example I list here, although my Sigil game was the most entertaining for me and the AP I'm playing in the least (I'm playing for friends and enjoying the game for what it is, not what I want it to be). I can absolutely get real about how I'm doing things and considering my play. I'll gladly answer questions about it. I don't care if you think you don't like it. It is what it is, and what I'm doing is not far at all, if at all, from mainstream play. I've read enough of that and seen it and played it that I can absolutely say my largest departure from the mainstream in the above was the use of skill challenges as situation-framed devices.

 

[Ovinomancer]

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

Yes, but then you can't stick to them. Or they move around as needed to refute whatever argument you think needs to be refuted. It's special pleading -- principles exists, but they're whatever or not they need to be or not be at any time or untime.

 

[Ovinomancer]

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.

Okay, so what you're trying to say isn't that you're concerned that backstory-first may be an arbitrary categorization just to set it aside from situation-first? You're saying something else entirely? Yes, I have missed this.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Yes, but then you can't stick to them. Or they move around as needed to refute whatever argument you think needs to be refuted. It's special pleading -- principles exists, but they're whatever or not they need to be or not be at any time or untime.

Nothing has changed or moved, the point was from the get go that there are several principles in play to begin with and when making decisions the GM is holistically guided by all of them.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Nothing has changed or moved, the point was from the get go that there are several principles in play to begin with and when making decisions the GM is holistically guided by all of them.

What are all of these principles, and how to they interact in the holistic approach to generate play?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

What are all of these principles, and how to they interact in the holistic approach to generate play?

In what, for whom?

Of course the principles are different for different games and different GMs.

 

[FrogReaver]

In what, for whom?

Of course the principles are different for different games and different GMs.

That this has even been a contentious point astounds me.

after 4e the d&d fan base was largely fractured - having vastly different playstyles, DMing styles, settings, and priorities of play. While some broad trends can be analyzed, each individual table tended to have its own individual style.

Enter 5e and the big tent approach and the game didn’t attempt to push toward any particular style or play priorities or DMing techniques.

How something like this can be compared to something more specifically defined with less differences between tables I have no idea.