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

[Snarf Zagyg]

My first post in this thread referred to an actual game element with a toggle completely under the DM's control, the Wild Sorcerer's Tides of Chaos.

Without Tides of Chaos, the entire Wild Sorcerer subclass boils down to "5% of the time you cast a leveled spell, you have a roughly 1/3 chance to do something cool, something weird, or something detrimental". Oh and another way to use Sorcery points, as if you didn't have a lot of competition there already.

Tides of Chaos, when used, guarantees that the next leveled spell you cast causes a surge, which again, has that 33% chance of actually being useful.

Then the game says you don't recover it until you either rest or the DM gives it back to you. This makes the entire subclass play experience vastly different if you have a DM who "loves the chaos", "is on the fence about it", or "hates the chaos". Not to mention DM's who just can't remember that their Sorcerer is chomping on the bit to get their ability back online.
(SNIP)

Dropping in to address this point, which is a good one regarding frustrating rules in the context of 5e.

I snipped the later part of the thread when you also use the example of tying someone up (and the book references a possible DC check).

I think that these examples, in 5e, are very different and speak to different things. 5e (and D&D in general) traditionally has a divide in authority like this:
Players are responsible for their characters. The DM doesn't change that.
DMs are responsible for the world.

As a general rule, player-facing mechanics that require the DM to keep track of tend to fail in D&D. Whether it's inspiration or tides of chaos, because it goes against the general gestalt of the game. I would say that it's a failure point in design because it forces the DM to keep track of player-facing mechanics and 'award' player abilities, which is something DMs are not used to in the overall D&D design philosophy.

On the other hand, setting DCs for things that are not explicitly within the rules is generally within the ambit of the DM within 5e. These expectations for the fiction can (and should) be set be table consensus and discussion, and shouldn't come as a surprise. Whether that's done through experience (playing together), at session 0, through table conversation, or a shared knowledge of the fiction depends on the table.

 

[jmartkdr2]

People keep pointing out that it's extremely "vulnerable" to it because mother may I from a player plays out as a destructive & toxic protest aimed at undermining the entire gamestyle being that the GM is running rather than a mere disconnect. There was a great blogpost on the alexandrian earlier pointing out a number of ways it can be done & it even notes how the problem is one that more railroady gms are unlikely to ever see or even notice it if it happens at their table.

I’ll agree “vulnerable” is a strong word here. There are ways to mitigate the problem via game design, but not to eliminate the possibility in anything we’d recognize as a ttrpg. Going too hard on addressing this issue also has costs.

Often MMI comes from railroading - rulings are based on what furthers the gm’s script. MMI isn’t the real problem here.

Other times it comes from players not understanding the limits on their characters - this an expectations issue, and can’t be fixed with rules.

But the other places where it comes up accidentally can be addressed and mitigated or reduced: have rules and procedures for things likely to come up in play, have good general rules and procedures that can be broadly applied, have solid rules for stunts/doing stuff to gain advantage, etc.

PF2 has less MMI than 5e not because it has more rules, but because it has rules for all the things adventurers are likely to attempt, so the gm makes fewer calls. Fewer calls -> fewer bad calls.

On the other hand, Fate tends to have less MMI than 5e because the few rules it does have are applicable to pretty much anything the players might want to try (assuming they’re in-genre).

It’s worth noting that rules are only one way to structure play - a good sense of shared genre conventions can do the sane thing, especially if the genre is narrow. Fate and many PbtA games let genre hold a lot of weight and work fine, often being less subject to this particular problem.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

While I agree that MMI is often a negative term - along with a wide range of other commonly used terms in TTRPG parlance (e.g., metagaming, power gamer/munchkin, railroading, etc.) - I personally don't agree that it's a tautology for "Bad GMs are Bad GMs" as I don't think that the fundamental issue with MMI is about "Bad GMs." MMI can happen with Good GMs and it can happen with Bad GMs.

I think that a lot of the issues (or even frustrations) with MMI stems from the uneven distribution of authority or decision resolution in some roleplaying games and tables, particularly with how player actions and character knowledge are gated through the GM or what is gated through the rules system itself. So players can feel like they are having to play MMI with the GM in order to make informed play decisions about how their character can act and interact in this world. While MMI may seem like a pejorative, I do think that it speaks to a real frustration of players and that those feelings are valid. I don't think that dismissing MMI as a pejorative or a "Bad GMs are Bad GMs" tautology really does anything to address the underlying issues behind it. I think that it risks sweeping it all under the rug.

Since I've addressed this repeatedly, and I don't think further elaboration is helpful, I will reiterate that the issue I have is with the bolded section. Or, if you prefer, I will quote what @hawkeyefan said previously-

Mother May I is a term used for games that rely so much on GM judgment that the players cannot sufficiently predict the odds of actions or reliably engage with the fiction.

As I said before, most people who play games that rely on "GM Judgment" (such as OSR games and FKR games, or, to use the instant example, D&D and 5e) think that this is not an accurate statement. That this is simply a possible failure state of the game. Played correctly, these games (for the people that prefer them) are the best way to reliably engage in the fiction.

When we see this term, then, we know (because it's always the same, and has been since it was introduced by Mearls) that it can't stop at a description of a Bad DM; instead, it's going to be indictment on a whole section of games.

 

[Manbearcat]

I routinely have called various Powered By the Apocalypse and Forged in the Dark Games "Spinning Plates." I've called Torchbearer "Relentless Grind" (which isn't a big surprise because one of its most foundational mechanics is "The Grind"). As I'm sure most people know, I love those games. And I'll absolutely defend both of those phrases as "as information-dense as a phrase can get to describe a play experience."

The idea of either of those terms makes a host of people flinch, have anxiety, or some other form of dismay...sometimes it leads to flat out rebuke of the games before even giving them a chance, invoking their (likely correct!) cognitive and emotional orientation to how they conceive such a play experience would be in their minds. Those phrases have a negative connotation to that cohort of players...and rightly so.

What is the difference between "Spinning Plates" and "Relentless Grind" and "Mother May I?" They all 3 speak to both process of play and emotional/cognitive orientation to play by a player cohort (possibly a substantial cohort...possibly even the people who love the games!).

I mean...honestly, I might have been better put calling Torchbearer "Embrace the Suck!" Sub for Relentless Grind. Better? Worse? What is happening here?

Is it an argument over "what constitutes paradigmatic vs degenerate?" If it...that is where this gets fraught. Because I don't look at MMI as a degenerate form of the play. Its paradigmatic to me in the exact same way that Spinning Plates or Relentless Grind or Embrace the Suck is paradigmatic.

A degenerate form of Blades would be if the Spinning Plates sucked. If the throughline of play wasn't governed deeply by the thematic touchstones of the game's overall premise, and the baked-in, player-evinced, thematic flags of the PCs and Crew + and/or the skillful, Principles and Best Practices-infused management of play loops didn't lead to that "razor's edge" aesthetic (of which "everything comes crashing down can be an awesome manifestation of it").

A degenerate form of Torchbearer would be if Relentless Grind didn't deliver or participants (GMs or players) failed to Embrace the Suck. If the game is meek...softballed...lacking in brutality (in here I mean both in how difficult the decision-space is to continuously manage and in the thematic needle-threading of character/situation/setting)...if the GM or the players wilt from the challenge before them.

A degenerate form of MMI would be if the GM's conception/running/evolution of the imagined space falls down, or if their ability to impart relevant imagined space info to players by being a highly functional UI/Invisible Rulebook index falls down, or if the players fail in their ability to upload deftly relayed imagined space and Invisible Rulebook info to build-out and execute their decision-space falls down.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

What is the difference between "Spinning Plates" and "Relentless Grind" and "Mother May I?" They all 3 speak to both process of play and emotional/cognitive orientation to play by a player cohort (possibly a substantial cohort...possibly even the people who love the games!).

The difference ... is that you, as someone who chooses to play those games (for the first two), call them that.

Whereas for the last one, you are being told by the people that play and enjoy the games you are criticizing and categorizing that they do not want you to use that term.

There are a lot of real-world analogies here; I trust you don't need it spelled out.

 

[Aldarc]

Since I've addressed this repeatedly, and I don't think further elaboration is helpful, I will reiterate that the issue I have is with the bolded section. Or, if you prefer, I will quote what @hawkeyefan said previously-

As I said before, most people who play games that rely on "GM Judgment" (such as OSR games and FKR games, or, to use the instant example, D&D and 5e) think that this is not an accurate statement. That this is simply a possible failure state of the game. Played correctly, these games (for the people that prefer them) are the best way to reliably engage in the fiction.

When we see this term, then, we know (because it's always the same, and has been since it was introduced by Mearls) that it can't stop at a description of a Bad DM; instead, it's going to be indictment on a whole section of games.

Please note that I said "games and tables," because I don't think it is necessarily either/or. I have also not indicted FKR or OSR in what I wrote. I don't think that it's an indictment to say that some games and tables may enable MMI more than others, even if we say (as you do) that this represents "a possible failure state of the game." I think it's simply recognizing potential pitfalls or problem/sore spots that players or GMs may encounter in the TTRPG-sphere.

There are a lot of real-world analogies here; I trust you don't need it spelled out.

It would probably be best for everyone that we avoided making or implying any such analogies, since trying to make real world analogies that compare and equates actual issues with gaming situations tend to trivialize the former.

 

[FireLance]

Double post

 

[FireLance]

Dropping in to address this point, which is a good one regarding frustrating rules in the context of 5e.

I snipped the later part of the thread when you also use the example of tying someone up (and the book references a possible DC check).

I think that these examples, in 5e, are very different and speak to different things. 5e (and D&D in general) traditionally has a divide in authority like this:
Players are responsible for their characters. The DM doesn't change that.
DMs are responsible for the world.

As a general rule, player-facing mechanics that require the DM to keep track of tend to fail in D&D. Whether it's inspiration or tides of chaos, because it goes against the general gestalt of the game. I would say that it's a failure point in design because it forces the DM to keep track of player-facing mechanics and 'award' player abilities, which is something DMs are not used to in the overall D&D design philosophy.

To this list I would add:
Favored enemy and favored terrain for the ranger.
Magic items for the fighter.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

It would probably be best for everyone that we avoided making or implying any such analogies, since trying to make real world analogies that compare and equates actual issues with gaming situations tend to trivialize the former.

I don't think it needs to be spelled out. But there are innumerable examples, from the incredibly serious to the utterly banal, of one group choosing to name another group over the other group's objections. And that is completely different than a group naming itself, even with deprecating language.

I'm not sure, "I hear that you're objecting to my language when it's applied to what you do, and I acknowledge that it's negative language, but I don't really care because I don't find your objections serious enough to me," is a usual response.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I run and play 5e. It's MMI. It's intentionally designed as heavily MMI so as to enable maximal support of as many invisible rulebooks as possible.

While I don't play anything like FKR, everything I have seen has this same design principle dialed up.