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

[Bedrockgames]

I don't get how this is relevant to the current discussion.

When @hawkeyefan's PC, being a Folk Hero and thus able to receive Rustic Hospitality, hid in a barn, that was something that his character was doing. There was no attempt to exercise "external control". But that doesn't get us very far in making sense of who had what authority over the fiction, who was under what constraints, etc.

Of the four RPGs I mentioned upthread as not amenable to "Mother may I" - Agon, In A Wicked Age, Apocalypse World and Burning Wheel - only one (BW) allows for what you would call "external control", although personally I would tend to contest that characterisation of it.

Its possible I got lost in the conversation at some point. I was responding to a poster who specifically brought up these things. It may be it isn't connected to Hawkeye's points (I tried to address Hawkeye's post directly and separately form that)

 

[pemerton]

When do you think it is fair for the GM to decide that an anti-magic zone applies?

Is it fair for a DM to have something that players are not yet aware of? That depends on the culture of play. The expectations of the group. In some circles it would not be fair. In others - in many of the cultures by which 5e is played - it would be fair. The example is so bare of context however, that it's impossible to say.

This doesn't answer my question - not that you're obliged to, obviously, but for the sake of clarity I'll restate the question:

When is it fair for the GM to decide - in the context of a player declaring that their PC casts a spell - that an anti-magic zone applies?

This is not something on which D&D has been forever silent - in Gygax's AD&D and B/X, for instance, the rulebooks make clear that the answer is in advance of play, in the GM's notes concerning the area where the PC is attempting to cast the spell.

Lewis Pulsipher didn't use the phrase "Mother may I?", but he noted the existence of that style of play in essays written in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and was critical of it because of the way it made the outcomes of play depend on GM in-the-moment authorial decision-making.

And like the posters in this thread, Pulsipher was aware that there are different sorts of preferences. He made his own clear, but that wasn't the main purpose of his essays. Their main purpose was to set out the techniques that a GM might use who wanted to deliver a certain sort of RPG experience. The possibility, and utility, of discussing techniques isn't negated by the fact that different people enjoy different things.

 

[Bedrockgames]

It also occurs to me that I may be talking about this phenomenon in a different perspective than some people others may be viewing as on "my" side in this.

My issue with things that too regularly require interaction with the GM to find out if they'll produce any meaningful result, let alone what I may wish as a player is that it progressively paralyzes my decision making. GMs have enough overhead that I don't want to be constantly grilling a GM about how X is liable to play out (both in process and likely results) every time I'm thinking about doing so, especially since in some cases this may be planning for an event that is not yet proximate in time. So in a game with too much fundamentally arbitrary decision making on the GM's part (arbitrary in the sense that its being made heavily by his internal sense of situation) I'm stuck with a bad set of options (and getting to know the GM's mindset isn't actually a better one, as it too easily leads to playing to his prejudices).

It isn't an issue so much about controlling results as having any sort of consistent model of how such results will be derived in the first place. If I'm playing a game with degrees of result in resolution, each of which will produce slightly different end-states, I don't really control how things will come out, but I can make decisions for my characters that are better than just guessing or constantly querying the GM.

I do get what you are saying here. And I really appreciate the clarity with which you make it. I think this is a legitimate point of contention in the gaming community around D&D and has been for a while. I don't think there is one right answer either (in a lot of ways I think whoever is making D&D has to respond to where they think the hobby is on this in that moment because it often changes).

Again, I have no dog in this fight. It doesn't matter to me one way or the other which direction D&D presently goes. I've certainly met players who have difficulty when the GM has this kind of authority and they can't really decipher how decisions are being made. For me personally, just where I am with gaming now, I prefer RPGs that give the GM that power, because I find that it does maximize my ability to feel like I can try to do anything in the setting (the GM isn't constrained by what the rules say I can do or how). But the downside is in the hands of a bad GM that turns sour, in a group where players and GMs have trouble getting on the same page (which is very much a 'does this group gel' kind of a thing), it can become a problem. And further there are players and GMS who just like having these things more clearly laid out (which I think is totally fair). I don't think the game going more in my direction is bad, nor do I think it going more in the direction you are stating is bad, though. It is always going to make some of us upset with its choices.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Of the four RPGs I mentioned upthread as not amenable to "Mother may I" - Agon, In A Wicked Age, Apocalypse World and Burning Wheel - only one (BW) allows for what you would call "external control", although personally I would tend to contest that characterisation of it.

I just don't think is true if we understand MMI in broad sense like it seems to be applied to 5e by some posters. Examples of GM adjudication and approval for actions being required in Apoc World were provided. And IIRC in Burning Wheel the GM has to make all sort of adjudication regarding PC actions too. For example setting the difficulty for tasks which in BW scale way more steeply than in 5e, thus making that part of GM adjudication more impactful.

 

[Ovi]

Because people don't always use pejoratives or appeals to emotion in bad faith. Sometimes they just use them because it is an effective way to persuade. Sometimes they do it because they think it is true (i.e. it may be a pejorative but they also think it is accurate).

Ovi, I am happy to have a discussion with you. But we aren't going to be able to make any progress if you keep throwing this at me:


Its fair if you think I am not understanding your argument, but I am not being judgmental towards you. So I would appreciate if we could keep this civil and have a good conversation

Okay. You keep asserting that my use of MMI is an intentional use of a pejorative to cast a playstyle in a bad light. It looks like that ball is in your court -- I don't have to accept that your characterization of my use is accurate, especially when it either requires bad faith or ignorance on my part.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Again, I have no dog in this fight. It doesn't matter to me one way or the other which direction D&D presently goes. I've certainly met players who have difficulty when the GM has this kind of authority and they can't really decipher how decisions are being made. For me personally, just where I am with gaming now, I prefer RPGs that give the GM that power, because I find that it does maximize my ability to feel like I can try to do anything in the setting (the GM isn't constrained by what the rules say I can do or how). But the downside is in the hands of a bad GM that turns sour, in a group where players and GMs have trouble getting on the same page (which is very much a 'does this group gel' kind of a thing), it can become a problem. And further there are players and GMS who just like having these things more clearly laid out (which I think is totally fair). I don't think the game going more in my direction is bad, nor do I think it going more in the direction you are stating is bad, though. It is always going to make some of us upset with its choices.

BTW, on of the underlying trend of these discussions is that some people seem to want the rules of the game to protect the players from bad GMs. I don't need that, it is not a valuable quality in RPG for me. Why? Because I'm not a bad GM nor I would play with a bad GM in the first place. I am far more interested in the game providing tools that good (or adequate) GMs can use to make their games even better and run them smoothly.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Okay. You keep asserting that my use of MMI is an intentional use of a pejorative to cast a playstyle in a bad light. It looks like that ball is in your court -- I don't have to accept that your characterization of my use is accurate, especially when it either requires bad faith or ignorance on my part.

Again, I am not saying you are intentionally using a pejorative. You might legtimately not see it as a pejorative. And frankly pejorative is probably too strong here. I think a better term would be 'emotionally charged': it tends to get people to agree with a point because they don't want to be labeled as playing mother may I or think of their style as mother may I. But I am not saying you are doing so intentionally. I am just pointing out this is is how people feel about it. And I am not saying you are bad, or being cruel or mean for using it to be clear. It is just, in my experience, not very useful in gaming discussions to use terms like this if you are trying to have a fruitful discussion about a game (ones where clearly a number on one side or the other view it as a slap in the face to their style). Keep in mind, this was all from a response to the very beginning of my post, where I, as an aside, said 'nomenclature aside' (or something to that effect), in order to focus on the thing I did think was a viable way to move the conversation forward: your point about GM authority. Now it is possible I misunderstood the argument you were making because I was reading it in light of the entire thread (and if that is the case, fair enough). I may be having trouble seeing the position you are taking for example because there is an argument I am accustomed to seeing over the course of the thread.

 

[pemerton]

It is a terrible choice of a term for supposedly neutral descriptor of non-dysfunctional state, and it is no wonder if people have hard time believing that person who insist that they're using it so is not arguing in good faith.

Whilst @tetrasodium's post is rather harsh, I think that analysis of Rustic Hospitality is onto something. I noticed the same thing when I read the background descriptions. They are cool bits of flavour, but mechanically they seem to be from some other game and do not really jive with the assumptions of most of the other mechanics.

Why is it terrible? It's very descriptive of the fact that players cannot achieve any of their goals without GM approval. This is how 5e the system tells you it works. It's in the core loop, and throughout the text as the GM determines how things work (after deciding to call for them).

I have to admit @Ovi is persuading me towards his usage of the phrase. If an ability as anodyne (to my eyes) as Rustic Hospitality is upending of the authority structures in the core play loop, it's hard not to see that Ovi's description of that loop is accurate. At which point the authority structure is the same as in the children's game.

 

[Bedrockgames]

This doesn't answer my question - not that you're obliged to, obviously, but for the sake of clarity I'll restate the question:

When is it fair for the GM to decide - in the context of a player declaring that their PC casts a spell - that an anti-magic zone applies?

I have my own personal answer to this, but I would balance that against, this is probably something, at least for a game like D&D where eveyone and their brother plays and there are going to be a wide range of preferences around it, it is best to leave that to the individual group to determine (not leave each instance of answering this question int he campaign to the group but how they will proceed over the course of their campaigns or campaigns).

In my groups we tend to have rotating GMs, and we are generally fine with "this GM handles it this way, this GM handles it that way". I tend to prioritize pinning things down prior to the decision point in play. I don't need it in my notes before the game, but I need to make a decision about it before the player finds themselves in a situation where their choice of action would intellect with it.

 

[Ovi]

Considering that several people have for several pages told you that this is how the term comes across (if it somehow was not obviously apparent to you otherwise,) it is rather hard to argue that at this point continuing to use it is not intentional use of a pejorative.

If you feel I'm using it in a pejorative sense, you're welcome to that feeling but you need to then point out how my usage is pejorative, not reference other people's usage and impute that to mine. This thread is asking for people's definition of MMI, and is not, per multiple moderation posts, a thread to enforce only one viewpoint. I disagree MMI should be viewed as a pejorative because I also disagree that it describes dysfunctional play.