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

[Ovi]

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!

Yup, that is, in context, far better. 100%

 

[Ovi]

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.

Can you show further information that confirms your assertion? I don't recall 5e providing that advice. The statement "say yes, if you can" doesn't convey your assertion on it's own. As @pemerton showed, the supporting advice in 4e gives real teeth to "try not to say no."

 

[tetrasodium]

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.

By not mentioning the other side of that coin it explicitly says whatever a player wants it to say whenever they want. That's part of what what 5e does to kind of make it easy for a player to resist game play on a way that becomes toxic, the advice is entirely aimed at one side of the gm screen and absolves players from pulling any weight in the whole "try to say yes" type push it repeatedly makes. I run a game that's very JiT in nature with a world filled with npcs & who react logicals to player actions based on the goals motives and so on of whatever npc is acting. That allows a huge amount of agency to players but also means that players need to respect the world by having their characters act logically given what is known about the world and never engaging in player vrs gm game play or the whole thing starts to crumble from the toxic injection of illogic they bring to the world otherwise bounds by it.

I'm pretty sure that every single time I heard a player at my table say "whatever happened to o'yes and'man" or "aren't you supposed to say yes" it was immediately after having their efforts to ignore their own responsibilities in it being shut down.

With PCs bssed with no responsibility no needs and a level of survivability bordering on Deadpool/wolverine/loony toonsthe gm in that situation is stripped of soft power once central to d&d and soft power present in more eotrad style games so their only options place the gm on bad footing in ways that make them look bad.

If the gm tries to discuss it with the player said player feels empowered to ignore it as an unreasonable request from a gm who just refuses to accept that "d&d is about telling your story" zs wotc often says loudly. The player is free to ignore the gm "because whatever reason the ym is spouting isn't part of my story.". Since the player has already committed to a player vrs gm mindset or refused to put any effort into playing their character in a way that respects the way the world works the gm can't even explain the reasons without giving the toxic elements more ammunition to continue or turning it into a sure fire way of gathering information about the world beyond their character

 

[Bedrockgames]

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.

I am only familiar in the general sense too but this is a long standing divide in the hobby and D&D. I think it really boils fine to preference. For some people stuff like this feels like they are being made to fill in gaps in the hand and do the designers work. For others it is liberating because it opens up more space for adapting and applying mechanics creatively. I don’t think anyone is wrong if right, it just meets different preferences

 

[Ovi]

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.

That seems like a fair opinion to dislike this design choice. I won't argue it with you except to note that it might not be good design for your preferences, it seems to have resonated with the larger market well enough that there's a sizable plurality of players and GM that laud 5e for exactly this. So, it might be an area you'll find disagreement. I'm not offended by your opinion, and can easily put myself into a frame of mind where I can agree with it. I'm mostly chosen a different take because it's evidently successful design, so I'm looking to understand why it's successful design.

 

[Maxperson]

Can you show further information that confirms your assertion? I don't recall 5e providing that advice. The statement "say yes, if you can" doesn't convey your assertion on it's own. As @pemerton showed, the supporting advice in 4e gives real teeth to "try not to say no."

It says more than just "say yes if you can." I'll repost the quote from the list of those I posted earlier.

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."

That would include character creation since race is part of the player's desire to develop the character's story. ESPECIALLY when it's to come up with a unique race to play. I mean, how cool is that.

 

[Maxperson]

Can you show further information that confirms your assertion? I don't recall 5e providing that advice. The statement "say yes, if you can" doesn't convey your assertion on it's own. As @pemerton showed, the supporting advice in 4e gives real teeth to "try not to say no."

"Try not to say no" is really the same as "Say yes if you can." The teeth 4e gives is in the rest of the advice to the DM that went along with it. The examples and such.

 

[FrogReaver]

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?

I agree with that. Perhaps you are taking my use of ‘concern’ to be different.

If I might try to rephrase.
Players absolutely should have expectations about what their actions are likely to achieve. That’s a big part of playing the game. I am saying they shouldn’t be concerned when some action isn’t resolved to their expectations.

 

[Ovi]

It says more than just "say yes if you can." I'll repost the quote from the list of those I posted earlier.

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."

That would include character creation since race is part of the player's desire to develop the character's story. ESPECIALLY when it's to come up with a unique race to play. I mean, how cool is that.

I do have my 5e DMG handy, so let's look at that in a broader context. That quote is in the "Modifying a Class" section, under the subheading "Resticting Class Access." This section speaks, broadly, to how you can root a class more firmly in the fiction by associating it with a race.

"Without changing the way a class functions, you can root it more firmly in the world by associating the class with a particular race or culture." -- 5e DMG pg 287

It does end with a paragraph with the above sentence, but in full context it is:

"You decide how flexible you want to be in allowing a player character to break these restrictions [the GM assigned restrictions on class]. Can a half-elf live among the elves and study their bardic traditions? Can a dwarf stumble into a warlock pact despite having no connection to a culture that normally produces warlocks? 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." -- 5e DMG pg 287

In context, I'm not sure that advice is as generally applicable as you're claiming. It seems to be "sure, put additional restrictions on player options if you want, but after you do that maybe try and allow exceptions."

 

[Bedrockgames]

For what it is worth I am much more of a say 'maybe' person, or say 'you can try' while maintaining an open mind about the players choice. And to me this does seem like it is encouraging the GM to lean more into say Yes. So I would certainly find that a bit more constraining than my own style. Obviously its advice, it can be ignored, but so can mechanics. And there is some subjective wiggle room, but to me it doesn't read like it wants the GM shutting down whatever it is players are trying to do (and I would say it even sounds like it doesn't want the GM shutting down what the players are trying to do even if that conflicts with the GM's world: though I am only going by what I have seen quoted). I would say it isn't quite my cup of tea, but I also don't find it objectionable. And it seems like there is a real emphasis here on getting around the problem of the GM who does just shut things down or who makes players feel frustrated with where they allow the campaign to go. Also I think they are trying to be careful in their language because they know there are going to be edge cases.