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

[Maxperson]

Where does it say that the DM cannot do so?

Again, bad faith and the social contract. I mean, if you want to play with a jerk like that you can, but the game doesn't say that the DM should be a douche.

Should implies an obligation. Where is this obligation rooted? Is it in the rules, or does it exist only in the social contract?

Should does not imply obligation, at least not on the DM's part. Should implies that the players are playing the game and paying attention to details, and have a modicum of common sense. They should be able to figure out if something is possible or not, or at least have a very good idea. The players have an obligation to pay attention and try to think things through.

Okay. Now take this answer, and apply it to the next three things the party attempts for reaching whatever they need to reach beyond the Cliffs of Insanity before the Wizard proposes teleporting up there using some magic reagents the party acquired earlier.

At 1st level?

"What makes you think you can survive the trip through the Fire Swamps?" "Do you really want to risk an encounter with the Dread Pirate Roberts, who has notoriously destroyed every ship trying to sail through the Strait of Nightmares?" Etc.

I don't see how these are any different. They'll have heard about the Fire Swamps and can ask around to find out more. I mean, I suppose if they just don't bother to talk to anyone or see if anyone in the group knows about the Fire Swamps and charges in, they may not know it's impossible, but that's on them.

I don't assume incompetence or malice on the part of the players or DM. I assume the opposite, since the vast majority of DMs and players are at the very least competent. That means that I am assuming that the players tried to find out information(competence) and that the DM didn't try to jerk them around(malice).

With no incompetence or malice involved, the players should have a good idea of what is possible and what is not.

Indeed, you are correct that such blatant and frank behavior is rare. But it need not be so frank. A "thwarter in chief" can come up with all sorts of reasons, to give guise to them saying no which "justifies" them doing so. I gave some examples of this way upthread. Sometimes it manifests as railroading, e.g. "We need to get to Darmir-upon-Pyne, let's go check out the cost of renting horses." "Remember how I mentioned the Countess' soldiers were on foot before? That's because there's a horse plague affecting this area. Even if a horse is healthy it isn't being let out for fear of it dying or spreading the plague." "Okay, how about we check in with the mage tower and see if we can teleport like we did to get to Lyonesse, beyond the Cliffs of Insanity?" "You used up the last of your reagents last time and don't have the money to get more." "Alright, I guess we have to go by boat then?" "There are several boats in the harbor, you probably have your pick of the litter...."

It's very easy to figure this out in short order. Players are good at realizing when the DM is shooting all of their ideas down and just coming up with weak justifications.

Other times it manifests in even more "covert" ways, like technically letting something happen but setting an impossible DC or, as was the case with the Rustic Hospitality example, saying that it works and then denying any meaningful benefit that its use would provide.

This is even easier to figure out. Players have a good idea of what is reasonable and what isn't. If the player rolls a 23 and the DM says, "Not high enough," the player is going to know that the DM is jerking him around.

Other similarly covert MMI can include making all roads lead to the same answer or allowing something to seem to work for a while before slowly introducing problems that eventually become insoluble, so the players are forced to switch tactics until they eventually happen upon one the DM approves of (note, it need not be one specific tactic!)

Illusionism is the hardest thing to figure out. The rest is fairly easy. Illusionism isn't Mother May I, though. Mother May I is when the players are forced to get explicit permission from the DM to do things.

 

[Manbearcat]

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. They also often rely on the sort of fluff that might be really hard to justify in many situations; for example if you travel into some faraway land (rather common occurrence in D&D in my experience) how will the commoners there know your folk hero? No wonder the designers are changing them to provide blander but easier to adjudicate feats in 5.5.

It’s no coincidence that I called out 3 things as what I liked about 5e upon release!

* Background Traits (for doing exactly what you and @tetrasodium are lamenting!).

* The Social Interaction conflict resolution scheme.

* Lair Actions and the Legendary Actions that enrich combat through thematic, tactical moves for BBEGs (but not the boring ones that harm it like Resistance).

 

[Thomas Shey]

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.

See, at least in my case, I don't think my issue involves "bad GMs". It mostly involves what I'd consider "routine GMs" who are prone to inconsistency or just seeing things differently than I am. If I consider it protection, its against a process, not a "bad GM".

 

[Maxperson]

Can you point to the instructions in 5e which explicitly say this? That is, which tell the GM not to be "thwarter in chief"? Because a lot of people have been defending examples given here as perfectly valid play, and yet which look to my eyes exactly like being a "thwarter in chief."

I can.

DMG page 4

"That said, your goal isn't to slaughter the adventurers but to create a campaign world that revolves around their actions and
decisions, and to keep your players coming back for more."

That says don't be a jerk(thwarter in chief).

DMG page 26

"Listen to the players' ideas, and say yes if you can."

No thwarter allowed there.

DMG page 287

"As always, it's better to say yes and use the player's desire as an opportunity to develop the character's story and that of your world, rather than shutting down possibilities."

This also says no thwarter in chief

PHB page 4

"Playing D&D is an exercise in collaborative creation. You and your friends create epic stories filled with tension and memorable drama. You create silly in-jokes that make you laugh years later. The dice will be cruel to you, but you will soldier on. Your collective creativity will build stories that you will tell again and again, ranging from the utterly absurd to the stuff of legend."

That strongly implies that thwarter in chief is wrong.

PHB page 4

"D&D is a game that teaches you to look for the clever solution, share the sudden idea that can overcome a problem, and push yourself to imagine what could be, rather than simply accept what is."

That says no thwarter in chief, since clever solutions to overcome a problem would be irrelevant if thwarting was okay.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The trad/neotrad terminology from the blogpost don't need to be perfect to be useful for describing goals & styles. The fact that ttrpg systems leaning towards neotrad playstyle describe themselves with terms like shared narrative game & story games doesn't make the blogpost terms less useful for purposes of discussion. Trying to use story game & shared narrative type terms actually makes discussion more complicated as system specific mechanics rather than just goals come into play.

No but I think my point is really a lot of mainstream games are freely taking preferences that exist in the Zeitgeist and not worrying about this particular taxonomy (and to an extent I think with any taxonomy like this, it is attempting to be descriptive, not create hard and fast rules about what can and can't be mixed). I do agree, that will throw off someone who is deeply invested in internet discussions around play style around these kinds of terms. However I think that isn't most D&D players.

You mention that there might be something that your missing with the greater context, I think there might be. Specifically 5e uses "natural language" rather than some form of technical writing. As a result we have a system where mechanical crunch & fluff are indistinguishable making the entire entry for rustic hospitality and folk hero into a quantum rule of both fluff & crunch simultaneously. The player is given every indication that the entire thing should be treated as crunch while the GM is left fighting the social contract with no real room for interpretation baked in for them. Worse the player is also given many reasons to expect the GM to empower them with treating it as absolute mechanical crunch.

I do seem to recall there being mention of natural language when it came out. I have to admit, personally I do prefer natural language over a more technical writing approach (and I do think many of these debates often fall on those preferences). It can be cloudy, that is one of the potential issues. Like I said, I found it incredibly refreshing going to something like the White Box OD&D after years of playing 3E, with its emphasis on key terms, stacking limits, and just with the general accruement of specifications of the more flavorful elements of play like spells in D&D. I loved getting back to a more open interoperation. And that does mean you need an interpreter of the fluff. Doesn't have to be the GM. You could have a system where people all need to agree on what something means, and even in groups where the GM has final say, there is often an unspoken consensus around those types of things. I play a lot of games where its more natural language and crunch isn't always explicit. As an example I am making a game right now where one class has powers that only affect spirits, but I left what spirits means open. When I make a calling on that, I am the GM, the players do give me the authority to make the call, but I know when I make it, it needs to make sense to them. If they are being attacked by a classic ghost that would fit in any ghost story or haunted house movie, I better have a very good reason if I rule the power doesn't affect that creature. I like the flexibility because it gives me more room to handle exceptions, it allows for more openness and creativity and it goes more with common sense understanding of terms than a technical understanding (which requires less lookup, less memorization of game terminology, etc).

The one part of this post I don't quite get is how it can be natural language open to GM interpretation yet " The player is given every indication that the entire thing should be treated as crunch while the GM is left fighting the social contract with no real room for interpretation baked in for them. Worse the player is also given many reasons to expect the GM to empower them with treating it as absolute mechanical crunch." If the baseline assumption of the game is language is naturalistic and open to interpretation, and the GM has these powers, I would expect the players and GM to have a conversation about that power to hash out expectations. I'm genuinely asking about this part here because I don't know this system well.

I've literally seen players convince the group not to find an inn/hotel to rest after arriving in a town simply on the principal of "we don't need to I have rustic hospitality". That's not to say the inn wanted to charge them a fortune or that there was some reason making it difficult to find one.... It was simpl Alice: "Lets find a hotel or something where we can rest" -> Bob: "No we don't need to because I have rustic hospitality & it should be safer" ->GM: "well an inn would have been 5gp each but you can find some guy with a barn you can crash in... You sure? didn't you all just find several thousand GP?" ->multiple players: "Yea barn's good"

Maybe I am missing something but I am not seeing what the problem is in this example.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

* Background Traits (for doing exactly what you and @tetrasodium are lamenting!).

You don't find that the effect is sometimes hard to justify by the assumed fluff? Folk hero just is recognised as folk here everywhere? Pirate's reputation encompassed the entire world, and even the multiverse if needed?

I like the idea of the backgrounds a lot, and I don't have a huge beef with them, but I certainly can see why interpreting some of them might lead to disagreements. I'm not even sure that I like that they replace the current benefits with feats, but I certainly understand why they're doing it.

* The Social Interaction conflict resolution scheme.

Yeah, I reread it after the last time you praised it and it is roughly how I run things. (Though I don't really use ideals bonds and flaws as such. But basically engaging the NPC from an angle corresponding to their values and desires will be easier.) And it is exactly the sort of resolution framework I think the game should have more and it helps the GM adjudicate things more consistently.

* Lair Actions and the Legendary Actions that enrich combat through thematic, tactical moves for BBEGs (but not the boring ones that harm it like Resistance).

Sure.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I can.

DMG page 4

"That said, your goal isn't to slaughter the adventurers but to create a campaign world that revolves around their actions and
decisions, and to keep your players coming back for more."

That says don't be a jerk(thwarter in chief).

DMG page 26

"Listen to the players' ideas, and say yes if you can."

No thwarter allowed there.

DMG page 287

"As always, it's better to say yes and use the player's desire as an opportunity to develop the character's story and that of your world, rather than shutting down possibilities."

This also says no thwarter in chief

PHB page 4

"Playing D&D is an exercise in collaborative creation. You and your friends create epic stories filled with tension and memorable drama. You create silly in-jokes that make you laugh years later. The dice will be cruel to you, but you will soldier on. Your collective creativity will build stories that you will tell again and again, ranging from the utterly absurd to the stuff of legend."

That strongly implies that thwarter in chief is wrong.

PHB page 4

"D&D is a game that teaches you to look for the clever solution, share the sudden idea that can overcome a problem, and push yourself to imagine what could be, rather than simply accept what is."

That says no thwarter in chief, since clever solutions to overcome a problem would be irrelevant if thwarting was okay.

I have to say this sounds like it is very much a game in favor of players contributing to the story to me, and not very much like mother may I at all.

 

[Ovi]

You'll have seen my recent posts where I have said that I am being swayed towards your non-pejorative use of "Mother may I". But I'm not fully there yet, and I think this post brings out why.

You might have seen my recent replies to @Bedrockgames, which included some self-quotes of posts I made way upthread, about the principles that I think are implicit in the 5e rules - carried by the use of words like everyone and together and the description of the GM as lead but not sole storyteller.

To my mind, the 5e rules suggest that these impose some constraints on how the GM is to exercise their decision-making power as to what results from the players' declared actions. And this, I think, is a meaningful difference from the children's game.

For me, the main source of doubt about the account I've just offered comes not from your posts, but from the posts of other 5e players who seem to think that my suggestion of these principles contradicts the rules of 5e D&D! The main source of support I feel for my account, besides its textual basis, is @hawkeyefan's responses to those earlier posts way upthread.

EDIT: I'm just now reading your reply to me which is relevant to this post.

I can follow all this. In terms of agreement or disagreement, I vacillate.

I think that the textual elements I've pointed to sit at odds with this being the intentional design, but then again there are probably other textual elements buried in the DMG that I'm not familiar with and that push the other way. (The fact that my textual elements appear on p 2 of the Basic PDF in my mind does give them more weight, though!)

And I do find it puzzling that a game would confer an ability on a player which, by the game's own rules, is intended to achieve nothing unless supplemented by something extra-textual at the pure table-convention level.

But the anthropological evidence runs your way.

Still vacillating!

Those ideas are written so generally and vaguely that they're open to pretty wide interpretation. Like, if the players declare actions, that's sufficient participation in the shared storytelling for quite a lot of tables. There are posters in this thread that defend this as sufficiently good. And the person that defaults to interpreting those statements is pretty much the GM, so they have very little in the way of teeth. As such, any use these have towards moving the system around are going to be a matter of the social contract (ie, the table's agreement as to what they mean) and/or the GM's personal principles of play (ie, what the GM thinks they should mean). This is further eroded by the system's unclear statements on whether the text is rules or suggestions, which then becomes a similar system.

So, the fundamental structure of play is MMI, which is altered table by table according the vagaries of table social contract and idiosyncratic GM principles.

If we have this at least under consideration, I'll be happy to speak to how I think this structure leads to more satisfactory play by creating (at least loose) constraints through play. But those constraints are what occurs from the accretion of individual GM choices to approve or not.

 

[Ovi]

As someone who is pretty "neo-trad" in interests, at least from what I've read of it, I may be able to clarify the link here. "Tight math" means I can relax. I don't have to stress about whether I'm going to be a dead weight because of a dumb choice I made six levels ago. I still need to make wise choices, but those choices are usually not hard to identify and are easy to address if I did err. Much more important are the choices I make moment to moment in combat, how I help bolster my team and advance our goals.

Because I can stop worrying about performance, I can dedicate more of my time and interest to story. I can explore directions I would have ignored before, because I can be confident that either they won't hurt the team. If they create a weakness, I can address it, or coordinate with others to ameliorate it. If they spread my focus out, that's fine, because my core competencies remain. Etc.

It's less that "tight math" serves my neo-trad preferences, and more that it eliminates distractions so I can focus on those preferences more.


This is the argument I asked not to be used earlier. I won't respond to it as I did before, so I will try a different analogy.

Let's say you're in the house construction business. Someone, let's say me, wants a house built on some lovely beachfront property they just acquired in a bequest. I have you examine the site where I want the house, as it will give the best view of the ocean. You determine that this is a bad place to build a house, because the bedrock is very deep, and above it is a layer of pumice stone, clays, and material that is very likely to settle unevenly. You could dig deep enough to set the foundation on bedrock, but it would be an expensive and laborious undertaking. You recommend that I consider a different location.

Instead, I respond, "I understand how you could see this location that could become affected with settling and possible damage resulting from it. But just because it could become beset by those problems doesn't mean it is a place with a severely unsteady foundation."

That is my problem with this argument. You are relying on the fact that problems are not 100% guaranteed in order to dismiss any and all structural effects on this issue. Structure, game design, can still be a vital and determinative factor even when problems are not guaranteed to occur.


What examples were these? I gave DW examples and those did not involve "GM approval" for reasons I laid out. Any AW examples would have come from Pemerton himself as I understand it. Where were these you speak of?


It is a valuable quality for others. Particularly when the game is growing at the astounding rate 5e has. Why does its presence hurt you?

But there is a more fundamental issue here. You are asserting a dichotomy: that rules which "protect the players from bad GMs" are wholly different from rules/tools which "good (or adequate) GMs can use to make their games run even better and run them smoothly." I assert exactly the opposite: that most well-made rules which protect players from bad GMs are in fact rules which help good GMs, and which make it easier for merely adequate GMs to become good ones.


Can you point to the instructions in 5e which explicitly say this? That is, which tell the GM not to be "thwarter in chief"? Because a lot of people have been defending examples given here as perfectly valid play, and yet which look to my eyes exactly like being a "thwarter in chief."

Perhaps that's a useful acronym here. TIC. What do you think?


Notice your structure of this concept: "The GM is also expected (by whom? under what authority?) to entertain the players..." So are the players passive consumers of entertainment? There to hear the GM's fantasy novel played out before them? If so then that sounds very much like MMI. Instead, as others have noted, the game seems to actually tell us that it is everyone's job to contribute to an entertaining story, not just a unilateral descent of entertainment from GM to player(s). How is this compatible with the sweeping and seemingly unilateral authority structure people have repeatedly defended in this thread (IIRC including you?), where it is completely within the GM's authority and latitude to override any contribution the player might theoretically make.


Yes. That is literally our point.

The technical authority exists to do this. A meaningful proportion of actual DMs exercise that authority, and claim they are justified in doing so. That is, as you say, destructive to the experience.

Just to reply to the neotrad points, I'm not sure I see what I take as neotrad from the 6 Cultures article in what you're describing. You might have a different understanding, which is fine, but it isn't speaking to my understanding of the term. I mean, we don't have to make a case on this, and it's off topic, but it's an interesting difference.

 

[Ovi]

I have to say this sounds like it is very much a game in favor of players contributing to the story to me, and not very much like mother may I at all.

If the GM is the one approving the additions, then it's just a permissive use of that GM authority. The players don't have a fiat way of directing the course of the story -- it comes from the GM enabling it. This is a decent example of non-dysfunctional MMI play. It's what I strive for when I run 5e.