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

[tetrasodium]

To take an example from the video above, let's say a player wants their character to take just a sip of a potion. How should a game handle this to maximize player agency? How should the GM handle this to maximize player agency?

5e doesn't have a rule for this, though they do have a rule for drinking more than one potion at the time, squirreled away in the dmg. It's essentially a d100 version of a success/partial success/failure. And I guess it's...ok? The likelihood of a dm remembering this rule exists and finding it quickly is relatively low. The roll itself will result in some outcome of maybe it works maybe it doesn't, with the more interesting examples either killing the PC or making the effect permanent.



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There's no rule for it with good reason. It would be like wanting to only take part of a (day/ny)quil gelcap, the dosage is too low for you to do that & get useful results. If you want a potion with dosage suitable for using it bit by bit you need to buy one made for doing that like a restorative ointment

 

[Ovinomancer]

Again, mother may I refers to a broken mode of play where the GM is constantly denying players requests. It doesn't refer to the traditional Gm-player power structure. Mother may I is a pejorative term, it is a criticism of this type of power structure, but it fails to describe it (it only describes it in its broken mode). It's like using the term wrecked vehicle to describe an intact vehicle because an in order to have a car wreck you first need a functional car. Mother may I is a child's game where you are constantly trying to guess what one person in the group has in mind. It is about giving one person arbitrary control over others. A GM with this kind of authority is not supposed to be using it arbitrarily or for their own amusement.

This is just insisting that MMI be a negative case. You seem to acknowledge that tge authority structure is tge sane, it's just how much it's liked by tge players that makes tge determination if it's good GM empowerment or bad MMI. The problem here is that the exact same situation will be viewed differently by different people, so some will exclaim it good use of GM empowerment whole others decry it as MMI without any changes to what is happening. This is my problem with tge insistence that MMI is only failed play -- that failed play can be another table's great play.


And, taking exactly what you describe as MMI here, it 100% applies to the GM empowerment you advocate -- the same authorities and fiat -- just the outcome is different based on who's subjective preferences are sitting at the table.

On the topic of whether an empowered GM can enable agency, I think I would just have to strongly disagree with you. This is subjective I think to a degree. Not everyone is going to have the same experience with the same power arrangements in RPGs. But I think one of the problems I often ran into with more robust rules systems was they actually ended up constraining player agency because all of their actions are expected to be filtered through the rules. So if you want to make a magic item, you need to do so through the subsystem for that. This can be liberating for some people, but it can also be very constraining, especially if a player is trying to do something that feels like it comes out of a story or out of legend. This is where, for me, rulings over rules, can be very helpful in empowering players and promoting agency. The player tries doing something very interesting and the GM is able to find a way to make that happen using the system. If you are in a campaign where the GM is always blocking you, it is going to feel like mother may I. But if you are in a game where the GM is seriously considering all the things you suggest (and using pretty consistent principles and ideas to render a ruling), to me it feels much more real, like I am there, than if I am constantly going through a set of complex rules or procedures. It empowers the player to try something legendary, dramatic, cool, mythic or clever, and it empowers the gm to say "something mythic/cool/dramatic/clever/etc is happening, let's see where this leads".

And again, very importantly, the GM's authority in this situation requires player buy in. A GM isn't just issuing decrees in a vacuum. He is considering player reaction to his judgements.

If player agency is gated by, granted by, and must have the approval of the GM, it's not the players' agency, it's the GM's. You're advocating for what I've termed the benevolent dictator mode of play
I agree, this is the best case play in games with strong MMI authority structures, but it's a mistake to say that the dictatorship affords more agency to the subjects. Structurally, 5e doesn't afford much agency at all outside of combat and spells unless there's a social construct that acts to constrain the GM's fiat.

That's how I run 5e, with a strong social contract constraining my fiat. The system puts almost no constraints on this, and my table's intentional choices to do so do not attribute themselves to 5e. Those are ours.

 

[hawkeyefan]

And to be clear I am not knocking rules as anti-agency. I am just pointing out it is more complicated than "more rules, less GM authority, equals greater agency" and "fewer rules, more GM authority, equals less agency" . I am cool with games that have robust rules systems and one of the advantages is exactly what you point out. But over time, I tend to find the rules system itself more constricting than having fewer rules with more GM authority because it is the ability to go beyond any pre-laid down rules that really gives me the sense of freedom (and that's just my taste, I don't think this is a very black and white thing).

I think it’s about the nature of the rules and how they work, especially how specific or broad they may be. I’m not necessarily saying the “more rules = more agency” because I agree rules can be limiting in some ways.

Certainly it does work with more rules, fewer rulings. But I find presently I feel more free as a player to try creative tactics and maneuvers when you have fewer rules and more rulings (because rulings are all about adapting to what the players are specifically trying to do, rather than be tied to a list of mechanics).

But what I mean here… what makes combat not Mother May I… is how the outcome of an action is determined. Attacks, spells, class abilities… these all work in specific ways that I as a player can predict. If I’m playing a Fighter, and I’ve not yet used my Action Surge, then I can declare that I use it and I get another Action. The GM can’t say “no, it doesn’t work” without violating the rules of the game.

The GM doesn’t get to decide this. I am not given this ability by the GM.

Its just pointing out that relying more on rulings and GM authority doesn't take away my freedom as a player.

I don’t see how it doesn’t, honestly. The more the GM has the ability to deny or approve your actions, the more Mother May I a game would seem to be.

How could it not be so?

I would say no. It is only mother may I if the GM handles it in a very bad way. Again, Mother May I is the GM regularly saying no tot he frustration of the players.

I don’t know if I agree. Mother May I can have “yes” as an answer. It’s this approval or disapproval by GM that makes it so.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don’t see how it doesn’t, honestly. The more the GM has the ability to deny or approve your actions, the more Mother May I a game would seem to be.

How could it not be so?

At this point we are both largely repeating ourselves. So I think we are at an impasse on this particular point. I can only reiterate it is because mother may I isn't about how much power the GM has, but how the GM uses his power. It is only mother may I if the GM is denying the players requests enough, and impinging on their freedom enough, that it frustrates them and it feels like they are just asking if they can do this, that, etc until the GM decides they can. That is very different from a GM using the kind of adjudication I described in order to help the players interact more fully and specifically with the world or with the story. That power gives you the ability to transcend the limits of a mechanic and the limits of what is written on the page about the setting.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don’t know if I agree. Mother May I can have “yes” as an answer. It’s this approval or disapproval by GM that makes it so.

But the point is the game mother may I is about asking questions until you get a yes. It is very binary, it is a children's game, and the whole point is one person gets to arbitrarily decide 'yes you may raise your left arm". Mother may I is also about telling other people what to do. It is usually related to physical movement and positioning. A GM with this kind of authority is not meant to use it arbitrarily. And these kinds of interactions between the GM and the players aren't binary 'yes' or 'no' question. Also the GM is not really supposed to say "no you can't do that" because the players can try anything they want. The GM is supposed to adjudicate the outcome of the attempt. Mother may I is you literally have to ask to move. In D&D players don't say "May i step towards the door", they say "I go yup to the door and try to open it". Now something might intercede on the way, but the players don't have to ask for every little thing they want to do.

 

[Bedrockgames]

This is just insisting that MMI be a negative case.

Because it is, because that is how it has been used in the gaming community for years. And even if it were just a term invented this week for this thread, it obviously has negative connotations in the context of gaming because it is a children's game and it is about a person who has an excess of power over the players (a game that closely resembled mother may I, would be, and is, very unfunny and frustrating for most people).

 

[Bedrockgames]

You seem to acknowledge that tge authority structure is tge sane, it's just how much it's liked by tge players that makes tge determination if it's good GM empowerment or bad MMI. The problem here is that the exact same situation will be viewed differently by different people, so some will exclaim it good use of GM empowerment whole others decry it as MMI without any changes to what is happening. This is my problem with tge insistence that MMI is only failed play -- that failed play can be another table's great play.

I didn't say the power structure in an RPG where the GM has authority to fiat or make rulings is the same as mother may I. I don't think they are the same. I have gone into reasons why they are different in other posts. Again, in a game of D&D the level of power you see a person wielding in mother may I, wouldn't be considered reasonable. In mother may I you have to ask if you can lift your arm. In D&D, unless there are very good reasons for why that is specifically not allowed in that particular moment, the player can assume they are able to lift their arm. A typical player will say "I grab a bottle of ale from the counter" or "I lift the sheet off the table with my arm; what do I see?". Sometimes new players will frame this stuff as questions, but that isn't normally how I see players taking actions in games.

Again, I have never encountered a group who strove for a game they would describe as mother may I. I have played in groups where GM authority is exercised differently. And so in those instances the game might feel like mother may I to one player and not another. That is why I have said, it is a valid subjective criticism. It just isn't an objective description of the power structure of play.

 

[pemerton]

This is why @Ovinomancer mentioned earlier in the thread that often the areas of the game with the most agency are combat and spell use.

I was talking recently to someone who, after a long (approximately 2 decade) break from RPGing, has been playing 5e D&D with his kids, with a friend, etc. He was describing some of his play, one-on-one with him GMing and his friend playing, and it seemed largely to be consensual storytelling but with roughly equal agency on the part of the participants. I was curious about how this was being achieved via the 5e medium - and then he explained that the player's character was using spells. And that answered my question!

 

[Bedrockgames]

If player agency is gated by, granted by, and must have the approval of the GM, it's not the players' agency, it's the GM's. You're advocating for what I've termed the benevolent dictator mode of play
I agree, this is the best case play in games with strong MMI authority structures, but it's a mistake to say that the dictatorship affords more agency to the subjects. Structurally, 5e doesn't afford much agency at all outside of combat and spells unless there's a social construct that acts to constrain the GM's fiat.

I wouldn't call this "benevolent dictator" mode of play any more than MMI. Again, you can't just insist on these labels as objective descriptors. Also note, the two descriptors you are choosing are highly negative. Again if they are critiques of a style of game you don't like, fair enough. i.e. I don't like systems that give the GM too much power because at best it feels like a benevolent dictatorship: that's just an honest reaction. Its this move into thinking these are objective descriptors where I am really taking issue here.

I'm not there to rule over the players in a game like this at all. I am there to help facilitate a game, and I have powers over certain aspect of the game in order to do that, which we have all bought into because it is a very workable process. But I can't say to a player "You are going to that dungeon now, and then you are going to open the left door, and then attack what you find behind it". Again, my approach here is all about taking what the players are trying to do and seeing where that takes us (using things like rulings, etc). I don't think benevolent dictatorship describes the best case scenario with a typical D&D GM power structure at all. Not even a little.

That's how I run 5e, with a strong social contract constraining my fiat. The system puts almost no constraints on this, and my table's intentional choices to do so do not attribute themselves to 5e. Those are ours.

Except every table has a social contract. Every GM's fiats are constrained by the players in some way. If I make egregious fiats, my players, even ones who like me a lot, are going to walk. That is part of the social nature of gaming. I think with 5E, like most other roleplaying games, this social contract is assumed. When you present a rulebook with traditional GM powers, you do so with the assumption that one thing that will likely help that work is the social contract at the table.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

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 would argue it is more specific than JUST "tastes awful." The "tastes awful" equivalent is "it wasn't fun" or the like, which tells you nothing whatever, not even whether you were making the right moves but something beyond your control undercut you.

When I describe something as "Mother-May-I" (or "Red Light/Green Light," which I'm trying to switch to), there are identifiable concerns present. Even if you don't agree with the fundamental concept being communicated, you can see that there is more to it than mere distaste. The dislike arises from a feeling of (as I have said repeatedly) capricious adjudication and needing to pass literally every tiny thing before the magistrate DM because if you don't you'll be slapped down. It indicates feeling constrained and frustrated by DM adjudication, likely as a result of being disallowed from doing things that seemed perfectly reasonable and expectable, and/or being expected to do something bizarre and confusing and running into a brick wall when you didn't do whatever that was,

Now, is it sufficiently specific to figure out which specific ingredient or action was the problem? No. But it's certainly more than just "tastes awful." Much more like "way too salty and fatty." One would expect a lot of salt and fat from something made with rendered pork fat, egg yolks, and tons of cheese, and salt would not be unexpected either, so it could just be an "I just don't like carbonara" situation. But it could also be saying that you really shouldn't have added any extra salt, or that you maybe could have reserved some of that guancale fat rather than using ALL of it.

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.

That's exactly what the criticism is stating, yes. And notice how that is significantly more specific than "it wasn't fun." It is a pithy phrase for an unhealthy and often fun-killing combination of inflexibility, capriciousness, and denial of player agency. Just as with food, finding the actual changes to method, ingredients, or presentation will require more specifics. But the criticism is in fact pointing at exactly what the speaker finds frustrating or off-putting about the experience, in a way that (despite your claims above) you can quite clearly identify.

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.

Then listen to what others say about it. 5e has put extreme, overweening emphasis on "never ever trust ANYTHING about the rules, because you never know what the DM might change, even from one scene to the next." Practically every thread at least used to get a "better ask your DM if you actually get this feature explicitly written in the rules" disclaimer of some kind. People had to bend over backwards to specify just how absolute the DM's authority is, just how unreliable the rules written down might be, because the game is so deeply enamored with "DM empowerment!" (As if DMs had ever been depowered!)

This is why I don't particularly like the whole "core play loop" concept that often gets brought up in these discussions.

Then you are always going to run into issues. The fact that some games may deviate from a central tendency, or an expected result based on how the rules are structured, is not a reason to ignore that that central tendency or expected result. The core loop concepts is extremely useful as an analytical tool for studying game design and the incentives a game's design will provide to players.

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.

Yes: the spirit of the game. That's the problem here. You are talking about someone failing to abide by an unwritten, unspoken, assumed social baseline. The problem is, what happens if the rules are in fact very poor at supporting that unwritten, unspoken, assumed social baseline? What happens if the overall design or ethos of a particular system in fact fights against the intended spirit of the game?

Because I can give you a game where we know, without doubt, that that happened. Mostly because the designers told us it did. That game would be 3rd edition D&D.

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.

Where is this supported in 5e rules? I genuinely don't see how 5e in any way embraces this. (Which, yes, might be part of why it can fall into RL/GL issues more easily.)

I also believe they are very much overplaying the role of GM authority and not paying as much attention to the fluidity of play and how GM authority is meant to be in service to player agency (whereas mother may I is very much about things being in service to the whims of the GM). And there is also a lot more fluidity to this authority structure. I.E. GM authority of this kind exists in order to maximize the players ability to interact freely with the world and/or to influence the direction of story

I get that that is what it is "meant" to be. The criticism is literally built on calling out the mismatch between intent, and both actual content (that is, the rules) and actual practice (that is, the actions taken by one or more DMs.) It is the lack of that fluidity, the lack of focus on player agency, and the fact that the rules and advice do not emphasize them and the designers seem to have simply presumed every DM will always bring them no matter what, which leads to the problem.

And importantly there are still rules, procedures, etc that the GM is expected to defer to. The GM can always nullify those outcomes if it is needed. But the reasoning behind that is very important. The GMs power in that situation only exists so long as the players support him or her being the GM.

These statements are contradictory. If the GM is expected to defer to the rules, then "the GM can always nullify those outcomes" is not true; and, conversely, if "the GM can always nullify those outcomes" is true, then it cannot be true that the GM is expected to defer to the rules. You are not expected to defer to something you can always ignore, especially when (as is so often the case with 5e) the justification will be "I can't tell you, it's for national security DM reasons, just trust me." Which, yes, is what I have been told multiple times about questionable or frustrating rulings proposed by actual users on this forum: "Don't you trust your DM?" (As though trust were a rigid binary between "absolutely none whatsoever" and "utterly unreserved, I would trust her with my life, my bank account, my spouse, and my children.")

More importantly: WHICH rules? Because, as stated, people still bend over backwards to emphasize how nothing can be relied upon, how the DM can render whole classes completely different just because they feel like it. What are these "rules, procedures, etc. that the GM is expected to defer to"?

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).

Except that people on this very forum constantly advocate for not doing that. For breaking the rules all the time, secretly, and then concealing that they have done so from the players. Some even advocate straight up denying doing so if challenged. Even those who don't, frequently will demand trust, rather than trying to build it; they will speak of things like "don't you trust your DM?" in response to concerns, or even just straight up say "you should just trust me, this is what is best." Is it any wonder then that people get skeptical?

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.

Not according to several people I've interacted with, some of the on this very forum. Do you remember the extensive debates about fudging? Numerous users here think prep, setting, and especially player ingenuity are as binding as wet tissue paper.

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.

Keyword: Shouldn't.

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.

Not according to several people I have interacted with, including on this very forum. If the DM doesn't like it, for any reason whatsoever, or even for no reason at all, it's out. If you don't like that, tough. You know where the door is.

Yes, I have had actual people say something essentially exactly like that, to me directly (as a hypothetical game description), on this very forum. This isn't some phantom. It is a real thing.

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'.

Yes. That is a good summary of a key aspect being highlighted. That's the inflexibility. Add in capriciousness and you have what is being criticized by the phrase. I find the rules of 5e, and the advice (or, all too often, the lack thereof), encourage inflexibility and capriciousness.

And then the DM would nod "yes, all hail the rules.".

Ah, yes, because this totally comports with the "using pejoratives to criticize is bad and shouldn't be something we do" stance. And yet not one of the "don't use pejoratives" crowd is pushing back on this, despite it being no less pejorative than "Mother-May-I."

If it hasn't been made clear, I find the term "GM-based resolution" to be the ideal term for what we are discussing here, and agree with Bedrockgames that "MMI," in as much as it has any usefulness to the discussion, can only apply to GM-based resolution gone horribly wrong.

What happens if it goes horribly wrong a lot? Or the rules and advice themselves actually encourage things going wrong? Because that is exactly my argument. I think this "goes horribly wrong" a lot, purely based on how belligerent and insistent so many DMs are about saying no to so many things, how players discussing the game must emphasize how little they can trust the rules, and how the whole "trust" angle gets inverted from "DMs must earn and maintain trust from their players" to "players must always trust their DMs without question or complaint, or else they should never have started gaming with that DM in the first place."

Without verisimilitude you cannot have an immersive roleplaying experience.

Sure you can. There's no similarity to real things in magic or dragons. People play superhero games that include things like Batman types who can hide space stations in their company budget or villains who never uncover the secret identity of their heroic opposition.

Mother may I is a pejorative term, it is a criticism of this type of power structure, but it fails to describe it (it only describes it in its broken mode).

Why does a criticism need to precisely and accurately describe the whole style in all its best states? That is a very strange request. If all criticism were held to that standard it would be almost impossible to criticize anything.

It's like using the term wrecked vehicle to describe an intact vehicle because an in order to have a car wreck you first need a functional car.

No. It's like describing a wrecked car as wrecked, and then being told that you should only talk about intact functional vehicles working as intended before you can ever say anything about gas tanks that explode after fender-benders.

A GM with this kind of authority is not supposed to be using it arbitrarily or for their own amusement.

Key phrase: not supposed to.

But if you are in a game where the GM is seriously considering all the things you suggest (and using pretty consistent principles and ideas to render a ruling), to me it feels much more real, like I am there, than if I am constantly going through a set of complex rules or procedures.

What about a game that has good, functional rules...and still does this? Because that was (explicitly!) how 4e was supposed to be played. If we are supposed to only look at the game in its idealized, best-form state before we are allowed to criticize it in any way, why are you now referring to a degenerate state of the style you don't like? Why are you referring only to "wrecked vehicle" situations and not focusing on "intact vehicle" ones? Why, for example, are you assuming that the rules must be complex? 4e skill challenges are quite simple, for example.

And again, very importantly, the GM's authority in this situation requires player buy in. A GM isn't just issuing decrees in a vacuum. He is considering player reaction to his judgements.

I wish more users on this forum actually agreed with this position.

IOW, there's a significant difference between "Do I know if trolls need to be hit with fire" and "If I do this, will I still be a paladin in the morning?" Or, "I jump in the water and swim to the other side." You drown because you're wearing armor" "Uhhh, what??"

Yes. This would be the capriciousness at work.

This has already grown long, so I will post it now, but I have more posts I wish to reply to.