D&D 5E How do you define “mother may I” in relation to D&D 5E?

[Ovinomancer]

Exactly. It’s the conflation of GM authority with arbitrary use thereof that’s a problem. The GM having authority isn’t a problem. The GM using that authority arbitrarily is a problem. Posters intentionally and insultingly conflating the two is also a problem.

This is smuggling in the invisible rulebook, specifically yours, to make an argument about what the system in a game actually does. Looking at 5e, the core loop is that the GM says what is, the players say what they want to attempt, and the GM says what happens. There's nothing here that says how the GM is suppose to say what happens, no constraints on this, because 5e specifically made the choice to NOT say these things to allow for the greatest accommodation of any given table's invisible rulebook. So, when I say that 5e is extremely MMI, that's a 5e thing. I can't speak to whatever invisible rulebook you're using at your table, and don't. Arguing that other people are conflating authority with practice can only be done after you've done your own conflation.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I agree to the above. MMI is usually just used as a slight at people who think the DM is the arbiter of the rules.
I am having a hard time to stay diplomatic here..
lets say, some players want hard and fast rules to resolve any possible situation, some are more happy to have a dialogue with the DM.

Conversely, I have found "MMI" to be a criticism voiced when the dialogue has broken down (often more than once) so the player feels unmoored and upset with zero remaining effective recourse. Most likely, it's a spectrum.

"Mother May I" criticisms can be valid. Consider, for example, a player who wants to have confidence that they are making good, productive decisions that will help the group succeed, and will avoid feeling like "dead weight," assuage anxiety over "playing badly," etc. (These are all concerns I have personally had, so this is not a hypothetical, I have really been there.) A DM who responds to that with a flippant attitude, who pulls a Vader-like "I have altered the deal, pray I do not alter it further" move, etc. is one that will quickly convince me that my anxieties are both well-justified and impossible to address. Since emotion usually desires an outlet, complaining about it on a forum is a way to release that pressure and cool off a bit, in hopes that a more productive dialogue can follow...but frankly if the DM has already taken the aforementioned Vader approach I'm not sure there is anything that can be done.

And this is the problem people often deny or overlook about "rulings over rules." Human minds are not axiomatic systems. We struggle mightily with consistency and accuracy. All too often, we let emotional responses control our actions and decisions. When this is then compounded by the "rules" being inaccessible, present exclusively in the mind of their arbiter and not visible or tangible to those subject to those "rules," you have a massive amplification of the risks associated with such freewheeling efforts.

Of course, the immediate follow-up whenever someone mentions this is to cast summon straw golem and say, "oh so you want a game where there's a perfect, prewritten rule for EVERYTHING? That's obviously idiotic." And of course, it IS obviously idiotic, because no one is asking for that. There are, in fact, other options besides "they aren't so much rules as suggestions" and "Math 404: Introduction to Transfinite Gaming." Because the thing so often left out is rules as frameworks: generalizable rules, which do not cover explicit individual cases separately, but which cover a broad swathe of concepts and which can be expanded to cover new, related situations without needing any modification or rewrite (and which can be expanded to even more situations with minor tweaking.) Such extensible framework rules use a small number of rules elements to cover potentially infinite variety. One such thing is Skill Challenges from 4e D&D. Another is the "Ritual" move from Dungeon World. 13th Age offers its take on Backgrounds, its One Unique Things, Montages, and Fighting In Spirit.

"Mother May I" is certainly uncharitable. Sometimes it is so because someone is butthurt and just wants to rag on a perfectly reasonable DM who refuses to be browbeaten. Sometimes it is a perfectly valid complaint that "rulings not rules" has many points of breakdown that its fans either deny or overlook. There are solutions to these problems if people are willing to give up the illogical and false dichotomy of "either there are individual rules for everything,or there are no rules for anything, just suggestions."

 

[briggart]

That's what I thought. So it's simply one's preferences for heavier rules and less referee authority couched in a snide dismissal of the reverse preference, i.e. rules light games and referee authority-based play.

To me it's more about consistency of game adjudication, which is fundamental to creating suspension of disbelief. Players and DM need to have a shared understanding of what is the reasonable outcome of a given action based on the current situation as presented to the players.
If not, then you get into MMI territory.

I personally find that it's easier to get that shared understanding toward the rules-heavier side of the spectrum, provided that the rules are clearly written and everybody involved wants to put in the effort to learn them. Rules light systems require a higher level of consistency on the DM part, which I find more difficult to achieve in practice.

 

[Reynard]

That's what I thought. So it's simply one's preferences for heavier rules and less referee authority couched in a snide dismissal of the reverse preference, i.e. rules light games and referee authority-based play.

In 3.x skills had defined DCs for specific actions. What you had to roll to.jump so far or to climb this particular sort of surface. DM-may-I exists in all the places outside that. So in 5e and pre 3.x editions it is a bigger "problem" (if it is a problem).

The real.issue with 5e at least is it doesn't know whether it wants set DCs for specific actions or loose goosey GM fiat DCs. Every adventure and supplement seems to offer a different answer and I don't think "One" is going to.solve it.

 

[Campbell]

Action resolution has been well covered here, so I will address some setting concerns that make me feel like I basically have to ask permission to do things.

For me personally a player character's connection to the setting essential. If I am ask to play an itinerant wanderer, man with no name type where I am constantly a fish out of water that adds to the sense of "Mother May I?" to me. I want to have resources I can depend on, information I can have confidence in and reliable means of gaining information I lack. That means real allies, real contacts and some measure of authority/responsibility. I need an actual context that I can operate within and leverage so I don't have to spend an inordinate amount of table time focused on finding information about how the setting works.

I want to spend my time acting on the setting, not trying to suss it all out.

 

[Reynard]

Action resolution has been well covered here, so I will address some setting concerns that make me feel like I basically have to ask permission to do things.

For me personally a player character's connection to the setting essential. If I am ask to play an itinerant wanderer, man with no name type where I am constantly a fish out of water that adds to the sense of "Mother May I?" to me. I want to have resources I can depend on, information I can have confidence in and reliable means of gaining information I lack. That means real allies, real contacts and some measure of authority/responsibility. I need an actual context that I can operate within and leverage so I don't have to spend an inordinate amount of table time focused on finding information about how the setting works.

I want to spend my time acting on the setting, not trying to suss it all out.

In 5E at least the GM-may-I comes after the roll is called for and the player works very hard to convince you their expertise in History applies to the strength check. That's where you have to worry about context, including setting.

 

[Charlaquin]

This has come up again and again, so here’s a thread about it. 5E players and referees, how do you define “mother may I” style play?

It’s just a label people use to trash talk how other people play.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It’s just a label people use to trash talk how other people play.

I take it, then, that you have never once been frustrated by a DM behaving in an arbitrary manner?

Because even with my overall positive experience with most DMs, I absolutely have had to deal with that. Where idea after idea gets slapped down until you feel there's nothing you are allowed to do unless you ask, and you have no idea what the limits are for what you can and can't do because the DM refuses to tell you, whether in a "you have to figure it out for yourself! That's how you play the game!" kind of way, or in a "you can have any color you want as long as the color you want is black" kind of way. (Edit: that is, the former is flat-out refusing to tell you, while the latter is a DM who thinks their style is dramatically more open-ended than it really is, thus being less a refusal and a failure to realize that there is something to tell.)

And, yeah, "Mother May I" feels like a perfectly valid description of that incredibly frustrating experience. You have to play by the rules, and you are not allowed to know what the rules are, and negotiation not only can but WILL be stonewalled if the adjudicator feels it appropriate, and the adjudicator is under no obligation whatsoever to explain their reasoning or even discuss the matter with you. It borders on Kafka-esque.

 

[Charlaquin]

I take it, then, that you have never once been frustrated by a DM behaving in an arbitrary manner?

Because even with my overall positive experience with most DMs, I absolutely have had to deal with that. Where idea after idea gets slapped down until you feel there's nothing you are allowed to do unless you ask, and you have no idea what the limits are for what you can and can't do because the DM refuses to tell you, whether in a "you have to figure it out for yourself! That's how you play the game!" kind of way, or in a "you can have any color you want as long as the color you want is black" kind of way. (Edit: that is, the former is flat-out refusing to tell you, while the latter is a DM who thinks their style is dramatically more open-ended than it really is, thus being less a refusal and a failure to realize that there is something to tell.)

And, yeah, "Mother May I" feels like a perfectly valid description of that incredibly frustrating experience. You have to play by the rules, and you are not allowed to know what the rules are, and negotiation not only can but WILL be stonewalled if the adjudicator feels it appropriate, and the adjudicator is under no obligation whatsoever to explain their reasoning or even discuss the matter with you. It borders on Kafka-esque.

I have no doubt that was an awful experience. I just think explaining it and why it was awful, as you just did, is much more useful than just calling it “mother may I,” even if that label is a fitting one.

 

[FireLance]

Terminology aside, I think one of the key issues is that it tends to impact martial/non-magic characters more than magic-using characters because spells are one of the key ways to avoid it. I think the game would be well served if it had a section on alternate ways to acheive the results of certain spells, for example:

If the PCs don't have access to plane shift, they can find a portal to their destination if they succeed on the following skill challenge/series of ability checks (...)

If the PCs don't have access to remove curse, as part of a long rest, a character with with proficiency in Arcana or Religion and a base proficiency bonus of at least +3 can remove another character's attunement to a cursed magic item.

If the PCs don't have access to greater restoration, as part of a long rest, a character with proficiency in Medicine or herbalism kits and a base proficiency bonus of at least +4 can create a salve to remove petrification using 100 gp of diamond dust.

And so on.