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

[pemerton]

one of the fascinating things about much earlier editions of D&D that I really enjoyed when I went back to them (particularly when I looked at the white box), is how short and open the spell descriptions are. By 3E the descriptions were very specific about what the spell could do. So the GM had less power to interpret in a lot of ways.

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For example a player kills a minotaur and decides to forge an axe made from its bone and blood. Not using a spell he calls upon some crazy god to imbue the axe with the spirit of his fallen foe. I like the GM being able to rule on that. Ruling here isn't a simple yes or no. And it isn't mother may I. The GM should consider the attempt honestly. I certainly would at least give that a chance of working, and if it succeeded I'd probably allow it to be a pretty bad ass magical weapon (not just some +2 item).

I personally don't find classic D&D conducive to what you describe here, because I learned it from the rulebooks, and in those books - especially in Gygax's DMG - there are too many admonitions not to make life easy for the players. So I would never walk away from those books thinking that the minotaur thing you describe is a possibility.

For me, the version of D&D that most opens up the sort of play you describe is 4e, because it's structure - for resolution and for character advancement - is so transparent. So we did have things like what you describe happening: the players could make confident action declarations, and as a GM I could make confident declarations. I know there is a whole swathe of D&D players dedicated to the proposition that 4e D&D could not support open-ended play, but because I only knew it from its rulebooks, which are full of descriptions of and encouragement towards open-ended play, my experience was exactly the opposite. (We never had a minotaur bone axe, but we did have a Fire Horn imbued with its power from the chaotic energy of a defeated firedrake.)

In the thread I started about a fighter praying to heal their dying ally, I've been a bit surprised by how many posters think that is simply not on the table. In 4e that sort of thing was easy to adjudicate (and other than just by saying it can't be done).

One thing that was always clear to me, in classic D&D, was that a fireball could set things on fire, and 4e seemed to me to be equally clear (its fireball spell has the fire keyword, which is defined (in part) by reference to ignition; and the DMG has a discussion of fire effects setting flammable things on fire). It puzzled me that many D&D players seemed to think that using a fireball to set things on fire was against the rules of 4e D&D; and I've seen it suggested by 5e players that it would be against the rules of that system for a GM to describe the victim of a fireball spell as having (say) scorched clothing, because the spell only refers to setting unattended objects alight.

 

[Ovinomancer]

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).

Do you have some cite for this? Claims to popularity are often of little merit. Especially when then claim has little use to it and it's rejection is subjective and arbitrary.

 

[FrogReaver]

I think the terms used in discussions like this are most often derived from a compare and contrast with other games approach.

Compared to a game where the player can just say X and it happens or he can say X and it just happens if he rolls well enough, I can see how contrasted to such a game the one featuring reliance on the DM to determine the outcome can easily be perceived as mother may I.

That said it would be alot like critiquing those games as 'player decides' or 'always gambled outcomes' when comparing them to a GM decides style game.

It's all relative and next to totally useless IMO. At some point stripping away the positives that a style/approach imparts and taking the negatives to infinity always leaves you with a horrible sounding RPG compared to the style of RPG you are comparing/contrasting it to. IMO, the best approach is take each game on it's own terms with what it is trying to do instead of deconstructing them to extremes.

 

[Ovinomancer]

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.

No, you describe the same structure but then say that one use is different from the other. But the usage is still the same application of fiat, you just deckare that there is a right and wrong way to deploy this fiat. You don't provide anything from the systems to show this, just claim that it is so, and further include uses that are "good" at one table but "bad" at another. The structure is tge same, and even the use can be the sane, but the reception can differ. It's entirely likely that play you consider to be good I would feel is not. So, then, are you willing to accept that your play is MMI, if only we find the right vantage? I do nit think you would, and would instead argue how it is not, but you haven't shown any real difference in structure of play. The claim that MMI is mostly saying no cannot be true as some of the worst play I've experienced was overly permissive. As @hawkeyefan notes, you have have disliked play even when the GM is saying yes.

But all of this is trying hard to ignore that even in the "good" play you're still showing it as the GM saying yes. Which neans they can, as easily, say no, and therfore the only agency being deployed us the GM's.

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.

I 100% strive fir a MMI game when I run 5e. That's what the system is. As GM, I determine outcomes entirely based on my thinking. The players have no authority to push for outcomes I don't permit. I go ahead and do put constraints on my use of fiat above and beyond tge system, yes, but tge balance of play is still MMI. Doesn't bother me at all.

 

[Bedrockgames]

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"?

I do not have time to address every issue you raised, so I will just take on a couple. Here there is nothing contradictory the GM is expected to defer to rules. If you cast a spell, no matter how much authority the GM has, the GM is expected to honor what the spell says, and this is the important part: there is a good reason to nullify the outcome. For example, a player casts fireball, but the player is underwater so the Gm rules it can't take effect in that environment. If the GM had arbitrarily ruled the player couldn't cast fireball without adequate reason, it would have presented a problem. Thus there is an expectation that there are rules and those will largely be followed, but it is also understood the GM can countermand the rules when it is needed.

What rules can and should be changed are going to vary by group. That is largely about the kind of game people are interested in playing, the kind of campaign the GM is interested in running and what everyone at the table is going to be happy with. But generally I think what the average expectation is, is the GM will go beyond rules or will invoke a special ruling, when either the existing mechanics don't handle a particular situation believably or adequately or when the players are trying to do something very specific.

 

[Bedrockgames]

No, you describe the same structure but then say that one use is different from the other. But the usage is still the same application of fiat, you just deckare that there is a right and wrong way to deploy this fiat. You don't provide anything from the systems to show this, just claim that it is so, and further include uses that are "good" at one table but "bad" at another. The structure is tge same, and even the use can be the sane, but the reception can differ. It's entirely likely that play you consider to be good I would feel is not. So, then, are you willing to accept that your play is MMI, if only we find the right vantage? I do nit think you would, and would instead argue how it is not, but you haven't shown any real difference in structure of play. The claim that MMI is mostly saying no cannot be true as some of the worst play I've experienced was overly permissive. As @hawkeyefan notes, you have have disliked play even when the GM is saying yes.

I am saying you call it mother may I out of a sense of frustration when it doesn't feel like the GM is allowing enough actions or restricting outcomes without good reason. Whether it is mother may I is very much about whether the GM is doing a good job, which is going to be subjective in some way. Now we can also talk about the specific power structure of a GM deciding outcomes and using rulings, and we don't need the term mother may I to do that. We might find more common ground if we speak about that particular power structure without invoking a pejorative term.

And I would agree, overly permissive can be bad too. I never said say yes was the solution to mother may I. One of the issues with just say yes that can emerge is once players realize you are dong that, then they know anything they propose will happen and that's not fun either. I always emphasized things like feeling the room as a GM, taking player requests seriously and considering them, trying to be flexible in the application of rulings, and always at least allowing someone to try something (obviously some tasks might be impossible in a particular setting or situation, but any attempted action might still produce some kind of result).

 

[Bedrockgames]

But all of this is trying hard to ignore that even in the "good" play you're still showing it as the GM saying yes. Which neans they can, as easily, say no, and therfore the only agency being deployed us the GM's.

No, in the good play the GM is saying "let's see what happens" and the GM puts aside their own ego or desire for the evening of play and seriously considered what a player just proposed. You aren't just saying no, and you aren't just saying yes. And you aren't trying to just make them guess what you have in mind either. You are there to facilitate their participation, their exploration and their fun.

 

[Bedrockgames]

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.

4E may well achieve this. My complaints against 4E weren't about its approach to this part of play. I rather liked its emphasis on rule zero and I thought most of its core mechanics were relatively simple. For me my criticisms of 4E just have to do more with how different it is from prior editions of D&D. But I think it was a well designed game. I am just not acquainted with it enough to comment on how well it fills in the spaces we are talking about here (going by memory, what you say seems reasonable). Ideally the system you are using is able to handle things as much as possible. I do think that should be a goal of design. One way to do that is make an extremely simple system with lots of room for rulings. Another way is flesh out more subsystems but keep those more simple as well. I was contacting two extremes that were bring discussed but definitely there are more possibilities. Someone had just mentioned games with more complex rules system and so I was addressing that.

 

[Bedrockgames]

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.

I think we are getting lost in analogies here, but I disagree. I am not saying you can't examine a rule system if it isn't working for some reason. If there is a problem with a particular part of a game engine, by all means that can adjusted. My argument isn't for only playing dysfunctional rules systems or something. But my point with the analogy of mother may I is its like seeing one car's gas tank explode in a fiery wreck and concluding all gas powered cars always explode in wrecks. Yes, exploding is a danger when you drive a gas powered car, but it isn't he intention of the design. And sure some cars, like the pinto, might be defective and have way too much risk for exploding. I don't think standard D&D is defective when it comes to its power dynamics though. Again though we are probably getting lost int he analogy at this point.

 

[Bedrockgames]

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.

Fair enough, but I don't think this holds up. Again mother may I is a criticism not an objective description. You have selected the two things that in part define a carbonara. I don't think mother may I defines default D&D very well. If the issue is you dislike GM authority, then yes, I get the complaint about a game where GMs have more authority. So just say you dislike GM authority in that case, and no one will object to you describing these as games where the GM has power over key aspects of play. Equating more GM authority with mother may I? I think that fails as an objective analysis of the GM having powers like fiat and the ability to make rulings. I just don't think the dynamics of mother may I and of D&D are close enough for that comparison to hold.