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

[chaochou]

It feels like there is a threshold somewhere in between the Duke's guardsman looks at you with a scowl, and the Duke's guardsman just lopped off your neighbor's head and says "your turn, tell me where they are".

It feels well closer to the later than the former, but still has a lot of space around it.

None of this was in the original scenario. You're simply inventing your own justification for invalidating a player ability. Anyone can do that. I can GM this game and have anything I like happen. The question is not 'Can the GM make what they want to happen?', the question is 'How can the players?'

What resources do the players have to prevent being found and surrounded which don't require the GMs permission? Where is the non Mother May I option?

 

[Aldarc]

How does one foreshadow without running a railroad?

It's only possible to give indications of what's going to happen if it's already decided what's going to happen.

I don't see an issue of the GM telegraphing or foreshadowing the upcoming fiction. Both of these are legitimate parts of play, FWIW, in PbtA games when dealing with Moves or even Fronts.

 

[Ovi]

That’s a very valid point. Though, I think the alternate should also be avoided - that being: ‘regardless of how the dm determines the outcomes of the players action he can’t have the outcome entail the villagers fearing for their lives.’

I disagree. A table is more than able to determine and insist that a GM that has agreed to the deployment of the ability cannot unilaterally decide to walk it back without further play at the table (ie, not GM solo play).

 

[FrogReaver]

I disagree. A table is more than able to determine and insist that a GM that has agreed to the deployment of the ability cannot unilaterally decide to walk it back without further play at the table (ie, not GM solo play).

The table is more than able to determine and insist anything. I don’t see how bringing up the social contract helps explain or justify your position about mother may I here.

 

[Cadence]

None of this was in the original scenario. You're simply inventing your own justification for invalidating a player ability.

How much did the Duke's men want to find the characters? I don't remember the description saying. Apparently not enough to find them in the first 8 hours - but enough that the party felt it necessary to hide.

Expecting the villagers to hide the party indefinitely if the Duke really wants them seems bizarre - if he really wants them, wouldn't Duke presumably start pressuring his men who will start pressuring the guards.

Anyone can do that. I can GM this game and have anything I like happen. The question is not 'Can the GM make what they want to happen?', the question is 'How can the players?'

Maybe the DM was going to railroad the players in this case no matter what. Maybe the DM pictured the plan as not particularly safe and so decided to have them show up. (And if so, signalling something about that would have been something I would have done).

What resources do the players have to prevent being found and surrounded which don't require the GMs permission? Where is the non Mother May I option?

The GM in D&D seems to always have the ability to screw the players by the rules. A decent GM will presumably not do that maliciously at all, and not accidentally very much. I'm guessing having something more than "The villagers like me so I'll trust them to hide me in the barn" could be supplemented by making sure they covered their tracks heading to the barn, leaving the village and circling around in case there is a spy on the village, set up a warning system, pick a barn with an escape tunnel, get up and leave before sunrise, etc... If the DM is a jerk it probably wouldn't matter. If they had written down "villager 3 is a spy" then something seems likely to be needed.

You sidestepped there. If the Duke's men are scowling, why bother hiding? By your arguments, if you actually want to hide from something, it's too big a threat for Rustic Hospitality to not void itself. That's not a strong argument.

I don't think I sidestepped it. (I elaborate above). It kind of feels like several posters on here want Rustic Hospitality to be a carte blanche get out of jail card if I read it uncharitably. I assume that's not what was meant.

So, under what conditions would you have allowed the guards to locate the party by morning?

. This means that use of tge ability is entirely gated behind the GM's agreement to let it happen, and only to whatever extent the GM wants it to happen, turning this ability into an ask of the GM for permission to deploy it. That's MMI.

And so again, it sounds like you want it to be a get out of jail card and for the party members to have complete knowledge. I assume, given you play 5e, that that isn't what you meant.

And might well not be a problem or issue for a table. MMI isn't about liking what happens or not -- the children's gane doesn't change to a different thing if you like playing it or not -- but about how authority over the fiction is apportioned. That can be fun and good for one table and bad fir another with exactly that same fact pattern in play. Insisting that MMI only be negative is silly. It's not only negative. But like all things, if you don't like how play is happening, you're much more likely to call it out. The claim MMI is only negative is survivor bias.

Some people clearly find the term MMI pejorative, and to be applied overly broadly by some in here. To dismiss that out of hand seems just as odd as others dismissing that some apparently don't see it as a negative.

 

[Ovi]

The table is more than able to determine and insist anything. I don’t see how bringing up the social contract helps explain or justify your position about mother may I here.

You've lost me. Your statement was about my claim about Rustic Hospitality and threats, the bit not about MMI. How did it suddenly become about MMI, and can you explain how that works.

 

[clearstream]

Do you similarly criticise players of wizards who declare I cast fireball with the expectation that a ball of fire will result? The ability in question (Rustic Hospitality; the Fireball spell) specifies an outcome (in the latter case, "A bright streak flashes from your pointing finger to a point you choose within range then blossoms with a low roar into an explosion of flame"). That's the point of a player-side ability: it generates a consequence in the shared fiction.

Right, so to pin down a distinction between the cases that I notice, look at your initial citation

Me: Mother May I avoid the battle with the Duke’s men?

To my reading, this is about a result, not an action. I want the result of whatever I do to be that I avoid battle with the Duke's men. In order to draw attention to that, I put forward

Player: Mother May I use Rustic Hospitality in this situation?

This describes an action, not a result. I want to use Rustic Hospitality here. It's a little bare on detail, but I felt that was unlikely to be at issue.

With those words in mind, I feel your initial citation, reframed as a fireball, would read like this

Me: Mother May I kill all the Duke's men with fire?

That is not the same as the action of casting a fireball: it describes the desired result of the Duke's men being dead.

The GM's job is to narrate the outcome that follows from the player's invocation of their ability.

We agree on this, albeit to me your examples do not really align with it as - to my reading - it seems like you are switching between an example of describing a result, to an example of describing an action (cast fireball), and calling the two the same.

Thus I'll turn it back to you to make all that a little clearer. Perhaps there is a way that they are the same, that I am not seeing?

 

[FrogReaver]

Do you really mean to suggest it is reasonable to drop fire-immune completely random guards on a party? We clearly have very different ideas of what is "entirely within the spirit of the rules."

It depends on the fiction, setting, genre, and also what you mean by completely random. Without a good fictional reason, a DM shouldn't have human guards be fire immune.

I genuinely do not understand what the disconnect can possibly be. The explicit player intent was to avoid detection. Avoiding detection is explicitly described in the feature. The DM granted the use of the feature. They then declared that avoiding detection not only did not happen, but that exactly the inverse (an instant and unstoppable ambush due to having been ratted out) happened instead.

"You are on this Council, but we do not grant you the rank of Master."

I feel like the PC's got to avoid detection for over 8 hours. They chose to use that time to take a long rest.

 

[FrogReaver]

You've lost me. Your statement was about my claim about Rustic Hospitality and threats, the bit not about MMI. How did it suddenly become about MMI, and can you explain how that works.

The whole thread is about MMI. The Rustic Hospitality portion is explicitly related to a claimed example of MMI play. Hopefully that helps.

 

[Ovi]

The whole thread is about MMI. The Rustic Hospitality portion is explicitly related to a claimed example of MMI play. Hopefully that helps.

The statement of mine that you quoted has nothing to do with MMI, nor did the other position on Rustic Hospitality that you trued to exclude. That the thread is about MMI is not sufficient to make any and all statements in the thread about MMI.

Maybe you have a more detailed explanation in mind?