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

[Aldarc]

I don't think anyone sits down with the expectation of a game of mother may I though. It's a negative descriptor. It's a reaction. It is like tasting someone's carbonara and saying it tastes awful. "Tastes awful" isn't the style of food the person is shooting for. If there is a mismatch of expectations, you have to drill down way further than 'tastes awful' or 'mother may I'.

Replace "mother may I" with "railroad" and you will have described a lot of discussions on this forum. So why does "railroad" (mostly) get a free pass for describing a player's frustrations?

 

[Ovinomancer]

I don't think anyone sits down with the expectation of a game of mother may I though. It's a negative descriptor. It's a reaction. It is like tasting someone's carbonara and saying it tastes awful. "Tastes awful" isn't the style of food the person is shooting for. If there is a mismatch of expectations, you have to drill down way further than 'tastes awful' or 'mother may I'.

I expect every game of 6e I run or play in to strongly feature MMI play. As a GM I strive to make it not onerous and as a player I look for similar attempts by the GM. At the end of the day, though, it's a good descriptor of the authority structure of the game. Everything through the lens of the GM, especially the determination of outcomes.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Replace "mother may I" with "railroad" and you will have described a lot of discussions on this forum. So why does "railroad" (mostly) get a free pass for describing a player's frustrations?

Again, both railroad and mother may I, I think are valid reactions. No one wants to feel like they are in a session that is mother may I or a railroad. But I think when you take the next step of assuming these describe broad styles of play, then that is where you aren't really engaged in objective description. For example saying anything that isn't a sandbox or open style adventure, is a railroad, and then going on to assign attributes of a railroad that just match a pretty mainstream style module or mainstream style story focused session of D&D (and I am out of D&D for a few years so my examples might be off), isn't really describing what is going on. People involved in those sessions don't see what they are doing as a railroad (they would see it as a railroad should things start to break down because the GM is nullifying every choice they try to make and keeping them on a predetermined rail no matter what they do). The same with mother may I, it describes frustration that can arise when a GM engages in practices most people acknowledge as being a bad way to GM. Railroad and mother may I are both examples of bad GMiing, they aren't descriptions of play styles

 

[Bedrockgames]

I expect every game of 6e I run or play in to strongly feature MMI play. As a GM I strive to make it not onerous and as a player I look for similar attempts by the GM. At the end of the day, though, it's a good descriptor of the authority structure of the game. Everything through the lens of the GM, especially the determination of outcomes.

I just don't think that is what mother may I is. You can choose to pick it up as a descriptor of games where GM has a certain amount of authority, but I really don't think its a good or accurate description of what is being aimed for. Mother may I suggests going through a litany of requests before landing on the one the GM allows, it suggests a GM who isn't flexible, and it suggests the players have minimal impact or agency. Maybe I am way off when it comes to what 5E and 6E are going for, but nothing I have seen strikes me as particularly mother may I.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I just don't think that is what mother may I is. You can choose to pick it up as a descriptor of games where GM has a certain amount of authority, but I really don't think its a good or accurate description of what is being aimed for. Mother may I suggests going through a litany of requests before landing on the one the GM allows, it suggests a GM who isn't flexible, and it suggests the players have minimal impact or agency. Maybe I am way off when it comes to what 5E and 6E are going for, but nothing I have seen strikes me as particularly mother may I.

The GM has veto authority, and any outcome reached will be one the GM approves. Look at how 5e says it plays, at the core loop of play. All of it is up to the GM. Intentionally. A table can choose to add additional constraints and expectations on how the GM is to use this blanket authority to fiat say what happens, which is great. That was the intent behind this design choice. But arguing that having to have GM agreement for anything to happen is not well described by MMI seems like trying to deny the system design because there's a disliked implication.


The easiest example I can reach for that clearly shows the MMI nature of 5e is the trued and true troll argument. There are multiple answers, but the one that says that the GM tells you what your character can know and do is not wrong according to the system. I don't want to play that way, and don't, but that's me adding addition constraints and expectations to 5e.. And, even here, the general concensus is that this is something GMs can do if GMs want.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The GM has veto authority, and any outcome reached will be one the GM approves. Look at how 5e says it plays, at the core loop of play. All of it is up to the GM. Intentionally. A table can choose to add additional constraints and expectations on how the GM is to use this blanket authority to fiat say what happens, which is great. That was the intent behind this design choice. But arguing that having to have GM agreement for anything to happen is not well described by MMI seems like trying to deny the system design because there's a disliked implication.


The easiest example I can reach for that clearly shows the MMI nature of 5e is the trued and true troll argument. There are multiple answers, but the one that says that the GM tells you what your character can know and do is not wrong according to the system. I don't want to play that way, and don't, but that's me adding addition constraints and expectations to 5e.. And, even here, the general concensus is that this is something GMs can do if GMs want.

This honestly seems like a straw man of the game to me. I am not familiar with 5E, but this doesn't match my understanding of D&D or 5E. I mean they describe a very simple overview of what actual play looks like where the GM describes what is going on, the players say what they want to do, and the GM figures out what happens. That is an extremely simplistic breakdown and one of those beats is occupied by players saying what they want to do (and some of what they will attempt has rules supporting the actions). Also these interactions are much more nuanced and involved than a simple breakdown like that can make out. This is why I don't particularly like the whole "core play loop" concept that often gets brought up in these discussions. You can try to distill how people play an RPG into play loops, but it is a simplistic model of a coversation that happens at the table and a simplistic overview of the group dynamics. A player at any time can say "I swing my sword at the man". There may be specific circumstances where the GM bringing a veto to that action would make sense (i.e. your bound in chains when you declare that action), but a GM who just said no to that request simply because he wanted to or desired to protect an NPC, would not be playing to the spirit of the game at all. And there are going to be times when the players take initiative and the first step isn't the GM describing what is going on. Plus that is just one part of the book, there are hundreds of pages of rules in the book and they are in there for a reason. The GM may have final say, but I GM who just turns the game into mother may I, is going to not have any players by the end of the campaign.

My interpretation of that three steps in the how to play section (if that is what you are referring to) is it is there for new players to help them understand a very complex idea: how to play a roleplaying game. Every edition of the game has tried to present that in as clear a way as possible, but few have fully captured how the game is actually played I think. I think if you insisted on following those three steps all the time as a pattern, you'd run into a lot of weirdness.

 

[Hussar]

The failed state here has nothing to do with MMI but rather with a mismatch in expectations followed by a choice to complain. MMI might have been the cause of the difference in expectations, but that doesn't cause a failed play state. It was working just fine for the table otherwise.

And this is why I say MMI isn't a failed play state and calling it such just leads to blaming it for other, actual problems.

But if MMI is the cause of the failed play state then saying that MMI caused the failed play state is entirely accurate. And since no one ever describes MMI as a positive, the only time it will be used is to describe a failed play state.

It’s a negative term.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The GM has veto authority, and any outcome reached will be one the GM approves.

In D&D there is still rules system and the GM is beholden to that system to a degree. Yes the GM has final authority. But you aren't just sitting there playing mother may I to find out if your axe hit the goblin. The GM is only expected to invoke that final say in situations where the rules got wonky somehow or some very specific thing requires a different outcome (and even then if the GM doesn't have good reason for doing that, the players will lose trust in that GM, and that GM will lose players over time if he keeps making those choices).

And even in cases where the GM is managing exploration, he or she is still beholden to things that have been prepped, the setting, and the ingenuity of the players. If we are exploring an old ruined castle surrounded by a wall, whether I am able to scale that wall shouldn't feel like a game of mother may I. The GM isn't being given this authority for that reason. The GM is being given this authority to better adjudicate strange actions the players may take. If the players have a fly spell, and there isn't a good reason for their fly spell not to work, the GM is expected to let them fly over the wall. If they have ranks in Climb and roll well, they are expected to be able to climb over the wall. If they formulate an ingenious wall scaling method, the GM is expected to let them climb over the wall. Now there may be specific things about that wall that make it harder to scale or impossible in some way. The GM does have the authority create a magical wall of some kind. But again, the expectation is that isn't going to be the case for most walls. And if almost every time the players ask to do something, the GM says no, that is what mother may I refers to. In virtually every conversation I have been in surrounding mother may I the whole point is players are frustrated because the GM keeps saying no to them and they don't know what will yield a 'yes'.

 

[Hussar]

It’s very much like railroading in that sense. No one ever says, hey this adventure is a great railroad!!!

It’s always a negative.

Same with MMI. It’s only used as a negative. Trying to apply it as a general neutral term just ignores connotations. No one ever says, hey I play 5e for the MMI aspects.

The dm being in control does not necessarily lead to MMI. The dm being in control and a player or players becoming frustrated by that level of control leads to MMI.

 

[bloodtide]

. I am not familiar with 5E, but this doesn't match my understanding of D&D or 5E. I mean they describe a very simple overview of what actual play looks like where the GM describes what is going on, the players say what they want to do, and the GM figures out what happens.

The part you might be missing is the 3E Monkey Wrench. So the 3E creators were made up of players that hated the MMI way of 1E/2E. So they made lots and lots of rules. The idea was a player would grab the rules and hold them up to defend themselves from the DM. "My player takes ''action A'', just like the rule on page 44 says, and you DM must approve and allow it as it is in the Rules" And then the DM would nod "yes, all hail the rules.".

5E goes back to the 2E style: much less rules for everything and letting the DM just make stuff up on the fly.

Neither MMI or Railroad is "always negative". Most of the time it's just a person complaining because they want to complain.