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

[Crimson Longinus]

Here are some of the key passages in the 4e DMG about saying yes and trying not to say no:

As often as possible, take what the players give you and build on it. If they do something unexpected, run with it. Take it and weave it back into your story without railroading them into a fixed plotline.​

​

For example, your characters are searching for a lich who has been sending wave after wave of minions at them. One of the players asks if the town they are in has a guild of wizards or some other place where wizards might gather. The reasoning goes that such a place would have records or histories that mention this lich’s activities in the past, when the lich was still a living wizard. That wasn’t a possibility you’d anticipated, and you don’t have anything prepared for it.​

​

Many DMs, at this point, would say, “No, there’s no wizards’ guild here.”​

​

What a loss! The players end up frustrated, trying to come up with some other course of action. Even worse, you’ve set limits to your own campaign. You’ve decided that this particular town has no association of wizards, which could serve as a great adventure hook later in your campaign.​

​

When you say yes, you open more possibilities. Imagine you say there is a wizards’ guild. You can select wizards’ names from your prepared lists. You could pull together a skill challenge encounter you have half-prepared and set it up as the encounter that the PCs need to overcome in order to gain access to the wizards’ records. You could use a mini-dungeon map to depict the wizards’ library if the PCs decide to sneak in, and then scrape together an encounter with a golem or some other guardian. Take a look at your campaign lists, think about what would help the PCs find the lich, and tell the players they find that information after much digging through the wizards’ records.​

​

Instead of cutting off possibilities, you’ve made your campaign richer, and instead of frustrating your players, you’ve rewarded them for thinking in creative and unexpected ways. (pp 28-9)​

​

​

Thinking players are engaged players. In skill challenges, players will come up with uses for skills that you didn’t expect to play a role. Try not to say no. . . . However, it’s particularly important to make sure these checks are grounded in actions that make sense in the adventure and the situation. If a player asks, “Can I use Diplomacy?” you should ask what exactly the character might be doing to help the party survive in the uninhabited sandy wastes by using that skill. Don’t say no too often, but don’t say yes if it doesn’t make sense in the context of the challenge. (p 75)​

​

​

Sometimes the best or the most fun ideas for countering a trap or hazard come as a flash of inspiration during play.​

​

Remember the first rule of improvisation: Try not to say no. When a player suggests a plausible countermeasure for a trap, even if that possibility isn’t included in the trap’s presentation, figure out the best way to resolve that using the rules: a skill check or ability check against an appropriate DC, an attack, or the use of a power. You can always use the DCs that are included in the trap’s description as example DCs for using other skills and abilities. (p 86)​

​

​

You should allow and even encourage players to come up with their own quests that are tied to their individual goals or specific circumstances in the adventure. Evaluate the proposed quest and assign it a level. Remember to say yes as often as possible! (p 103)​

​

​

Once you’ve identified where you want to start your campaign, let the players help tell the story by deciding how their characters got there. . . . This step is one of your best opportunities to get the players doing some of the work of world design. Listen to their ideas, and say yes if you can. (p 142)​

It's not Burning Wheel, but it's not hopeless either. We've got player-authored quests, including inside the context of a bigger adventure/scenario (the wizard example, with the relatively straightforward nature of 4e prep being leveraged). We've got player participation in setting/start-up. And we've got glosses on p 42 for skill challenges and using skills vs traps and hazards.

It's actually better than I remember!

That's good advice, also in spirit very much the same than what @Maxperson quoted from 5e. Though 4e advice probably is better worded as it uses more actual examples.

 

[Maxperson]

Catching up, and this exchange brought it to my attention, but I have no idea what "say yes if you can" actually means. What are the constraints on "if you can?" It seems that "I, the GM, have a different idea" is sufficient to trip that last clause. This is another bit of non-advice that the DMG provides that is more akin to Rorschach blots than anything else -- it's still going to be up to the table's social contract and the GM's personal set of principles of play to actualize this.

ETA: I'm just using your quote as a jump off, not responding directly to something you've said. It was where I noticed the "say yes if you can" phrasing.

It means that if there's a way to reasonably say yes, you should do so. So if the DM doesn't have warforged in his setting as a race, but a player wants to play one, if you can reasonably come up with a way for one to exist(artificer makes one, ancient civilization had them and PC is only one left, etc), then let the player play it.

"I, the GM, have a different idea" is not sufficient to overcome that policy, since that's not the DM saying yes if he could and no only if what the player wants is unreasonable. In the context of skill action, giving a roll in good faith(not jacking up the DC) is sufficient. If the outcome is in doubt and there is a meaningful consequence for failure, "yes" just means a roll.

 

[Maxperson]

That's good advice, also in spirit very much the same than what @Maxperson quoted from 5e. Though 4e advice probably is better worded as it uses more actual examples.

Yes, and I suspect that's deliberate in order to promote the rulings over rules mindset. The DMG gives advice, but doesn't spell it out so that how the DM meets the advice is up to him to come up with.

 

[FrogReaver]

@Maxperson has also cited some text from the DMG that advocates listening to players idea. If that just means players' ideas for the actions they declare, then it seems like needless advice. If it means players' ideas as to what might follow from the actions they declare then it contradicts the many posts in this thread (eg from @clearstream and at least to some extent from @FrogReaver) that have said the players have no business concerning themselves with what might follow from declared actions, as that is solely the GM's remit.

I think both things can be true.
1) The players shouldn’t concern themselves with what might follow from their declared actions and 2) the DM should listen to player ideas where possible.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I view this as excellent design, as the 5e team were put against having to design a game that the maximal number of tables would accept and yet the playtest was showing that any attempt at codification of principles and constraints (or gift of player-side abilities) was getting panned by one group or another depending on where it ran afoul of each. So, rather than some of the really good (in my opinion) bits of design during the playtest, they backed off into this generic, non-binding system to let each table make whatever decision on principles and constraints to suit. It's such a good design point that people fall over themselves to attribute greatness to the system when they're clearly deploying their own set of principles and constraints in provided examples of that greatness.

Remembering again that I'm only familiar with 5e in the most general sense, to me that comes across as "We'll only design half the game and fob off the rest on the end user." Being able to rework a game into what you want at your table is a virtue; being forced to do so far less so.

 

[Asisreo]

Remembering again that I'm only familiar with 5e in the most general sense, to me that comes across as "We'll only design half the game and fob off the rest on the end user." Being able to rework a game into what you want at your table is a virtue; being forced to do so far less so.

Isn't that just a computer game that can be modded?

 

[FrogReaver]

Remembering again that I'm only familiar with 5e in the most general sense, to me that comes across as "We'll only design half the game and fob off the rest on the end user." Being able to rework a game into what you want at your table is a virtue; being forced to do so far less so.

On a theoretical level I could agree. And yet on a practical level that design philosophy has made 5e a very successful business venture. So i think there must be something to that kind of design.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think both things can be true.
1) The players shouldn’t concern themselves with what might follow from their declared actions and 2) the DM should listen to player ideas where possible.

I don't see that first as sensible. After all, most of the time the character presumably has some particular result he's expecting from an action before he does it, and barring abnormal circumstances, probably expects he knows what he expects it to be. Why shouldn't the player?

 

[Thomas Shey]

On a theoretical level I could agree. And yet on a practical level that design philosophy has made 5e a very successful business venture. So i think there must be something to that kind of design.

I'm just going to note, without going down the rabbit hole again that this requires that the primary cause of that success is the system design, which is not a self-evident truth.

 

[James Gasik]

Isn't that just a computer game that can be modded?

It's more like an Elder Scrolls game. "Sure it's only 75% complete and the graphics are terrible, but don't worry, the modding community will fix it for us."