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

[Maxperson]

Question for all, most examples we have seen of MMI is when the GM says no. If the GM says yes is it still MMI in your opinion?

Mother May I is when you have to excessively(and abusively) have to ask the DM for permission to do things. At that point yes or no doesn't matter, it's the excessive asking that is required of you that makes it Mother May I.

 

[Xamnam]

Question for all, most examples we have seen of MMI is when the GM says no. If the GM says yes is it still MMI in your opinion?

I can see it for my definition. A player can have decided to play by the expectations of their GM, and goes out of their way to make sure they're phrasing everything in a way that aligns with what they anticipate the GM saying yes to, but is frustrated because they feel internally hamstrung. But that still does require enough initial denial that the dynamic was established. MMI is an unhealthy dynamic, but not necessarily a table shattering one.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I can see it for my definition. A player can have decided to play by the expectations of their GM, and goes out of their way to make sure they're phrasing everything in a way that aligns with what they anticipate the GM saying yes to, but is frustrated because they feel internally hamstrung. But that still does require enough initial denial that the dynamic was established. MMI is an unhealthy dynamic, but not necessarily a table shattering one.

Yeah, I commented on the fact the more a GM absolutely has to be engaged with process to figure out if something will work, the more the game can turn into learning to "play the GM" as it were (by figuring out the kind of things and presentation of things he's liable to go along with and which he won't).

 

[Bedrockgames]

Again, compare to an example where more clear-cut mechanics are involved. Did I hit the troll with my sword? Did I charm the noble with my spell? These aren't really up to the GM to say yes or no.... they're up to the play process of rolling dice and so on.

But even in these cases the GM has final say. That's what things like rule zero are all about. And it need not be about what the GM has in mind (though it could be) it might also be to maintain fidelity with what has been established in the last five minutes of play, to fix a weird moment in the game where the mechanics feel like they pop out of place and aren't producing a sensical result, etc. With Charm the GM could always have you up against a monster he invented that is immune to charm effects. The GM might decide what you are trying to do with Charm exceeds the spirit of the description of charm. Or there may be some other interference in the setting that doesn't have codified mechanical effect but the GM thinks would interfere.

I don't think any disagrees the GM is final arbiter, it just doesn't seem like mother may I to us. In a lot of these instances its framed as "The GM says no because he wants them to do Y instead, or the GM says this can't work because I have other challenges you need to confront". I would say that is often bad GMing, but I don't think that is how most GMs are expected to use their power in an RPG where they are given final say.

I do think some of this does come down to how we see the game element of RPGs. I do think the game side can be important. It produces exciting and unexpected results. But I also do give more primacy to the R I think in my games (and I think many do). I.E. I don't treat D&D the same as I would a board game. In a board game, I expect if I have a card or an action or move I am allowed to make for it to operate exactly as written. I think most people tend to play board games with some fidelity to the rules and if they make changes they tend to stick with those changes as house rules. In D&D and other RPGs, the point for me isn't he moves or the abilities, its the characters, what they are doing in the setting and story, what has come before, what specifically they are trying to do, what specific things are happening on the ground. When you are trying to manage an unfolding session or campaign, I think it is rare for mechanics to land 100% of the time the way they are written. Especially one like the Rustic ability because that makes a lot of assumptions about what is going on in its description. So I can see it being potentially contentious in a game where what is going on, is going to matter a great deal when it comes to implementing that kind of ability. I mean if its established in the GMs notes or in the course of play that all the farmers are secretly working for the bad guy, the GM is going to find themselves in a situation where they either have to just say it doesn't work, or at the very least creatively interpret it into the current situation (i.e. the player connects with a small group of resistance farmers who assist them). That isn't always easy to do, and it is one of the reasons why GM calls sometimes go sour. Obviously if the GM is intentionally just lording their power over the players that is different. But I am thinking here more of scenarios where the GM is making a good faith effort to facilitate play fairly.

 

[James Gasik]

Question for all, most examples we have seen of MMI is when the GM says no. If the GM says yes is it still MMI in your opinion?

Of course. MMI is when you need the GM's explicit permission to perform a task.

It should be said that there are degrees of permission as well, ranging from:

"never in a million years"

"sure but in reality make these impossible checks first"

"sure, but make this nearly impossible check first"

"sure, but make this hard check"

"sure, but make this reasonable check"

"sure, you do it"

Where a given GM typically falls in how they handle "soft" mechanics (things like background features or ribbons) and "outside of the box" ideas is where the crux of the problem, if there is a problem exists.

The flipside of this is when a GM says "no" to "hard" mechanics (things like spells or feats). This is where you find "antimagic fields" and other such nonsense, which is probably (but not definitively) bad GMing.

Like my much earlier posts, the problem I see in 5e is when there are mechanics that the GM must rule on, with no real guidance ("how often should I give the Wild Sorcerer his cool thing?" is completely unsaid in the rules). Deciding if a foreign noble wants to put you up for the night is completely GM territory, and they are on their own. How they rule will inform the players how useful an ability really is. Is Outlander the difference between survival in the wilderness or a pointless ribbon? Who knows until the GM tells you!

On the other hand, when an Eldritch Knight uses her Action Surge to cast a second leveled spell in a turn, and the GM says "no, that's not how we do things in my game", that's a wholly different story.

This thread has conflated both sets of behavior, but I think they really are two different things.

 

[FrogReaver]

Mother May I is when you have to excessively(and abusively) have to ask the DM for permission to do things. At that point yes or no doesn't matter, it's the excessive asking that is required of you that makes it Mother May I.

I think you are on to something here

 

[tetrasodium]

I don't know if I can agree with or even entirely understand your take on this. You're saying that 5E is a maximum player agency system and that makes it difficult for the GM to do his job?

I mean, if that's your experience, then I understand your frustration. But I feel this may be very particular to your interpretation of the books and your interactions with your players.



I mean, it seems pretty MMI to me.

Player: Mother, may I use this class feature that clearly relates to this situation to help us out?

GM: No, you may not as I did not account for it, and this obstacle must be dealt with by other means I've actually considered.

I agree with you that the Background Features generally lack teeth. But that's certainly not helped by the rest of the game's authority structure. And, as it did with you, it has a negative impact on the game in that it makes backgrounds less important, potentially removing a thematic element that the player has selected for their character.



I think the only difference is that the GM could say "yes" in that situation. If he said "yes" then it's not railroading, but it still seems like Mother May I.

Like, if there is no binding rules or constraint on the GM, but instead it really boils down to them just saying yes or no, that's pretty much MMI. It's entirely up to them.

Again, compare to an example where more clear-cut mechanics are involved. Did I hit the troll with my sword? Did I charm the noble with my spell? These aren't really up to the GM to say yes or no.... they're up to the play process of rolling dice and so on.

Less maximum player agency than sacrifices are made to tools the gm can use to constrain & direct agency while players are given a heavy dose of you are the star & should expect to be. The recent discussion on the scholar feature to know where info can be looked up & noble feature to be known & put up by other nobles is a good example of this kind of thing. People have said that instead of naming unrealistic to reach locations for information that the GM should have said no rather than expecting the players to hold to "I showed up & that's obviously not even close to the something for our characters to do that was prepared" while others have suggested that the GM shutting down other background features like RH wrong.

There's a lack of guidance & tools for the GM alongside a lack of responsibility to maintain the implied guaranteed success of many background features. Nobles get all kinds of perks simply by knowing noble stuff that nobles would study & connections that nobles would have but noble PCs are not even hinted at being expected to maintain noblesse obliege or similar.

 

[hawkeyefan]

There can't be clear cut rules for everything, so we have to make due with rules that don't cover everything. When a situation comes up that falls through one of the many cracks, the DM is going to have to make a ruling(say yes or no). I don't view one off decisions as Mother May I. Mother May I requires a great deal more consistency.

It's more about how often this will come up in a game. And how these these rulings are guided... what other elements are involved, and how are those elements determined?

So try to convince a stubborn noble NPC to assist you? Okay, the GM crafted the NPC, the GM decided he's stubborn and what impact that has, the GM decides the DC, the GM decides who else is around that may make things easier or harder, the GM decides if the player's Noble background impacts things at all.... and so on.

The more we throw into the bucket of "GM decides" the more the game leans toward Mother May I. Or is at least prone to problems that may arise from Mother May I, depending on how you want to define it.

And the only real situations that I can think of where a player is truly asking the DM, "Can I do this?" is when they want to step outside the rules for an exception. "Can I play a dragon?" "Is it okay if this prestige class(going back to 3e for this one) loses it's alignment restriction, because it fits my character so well?" "Can I sub this class ability for this one of the same level over there, because it fits my character better?" Those are all requests I have gotten in the past and truly are the player asking for permission to do something. But those are rare, so still not Mother May I.

Those are more character options being allowable or not. That's a related, but maybe separate issue... or a subcategory. The ones I feel are more impactful are the kinds of rulings needed routinely in play, and how to make such rulings.

Question for all, most examples we have seen of MMI is when the GM says no. If the GM says yes is it still MMI in your opinion?

I can see a case for it, yeah, though I don't quite agree 100%.

I've been focused more on MMI as a problem, but I think if a game ultimately works with "The GM decides" as the answer to "how is this determined?" then yeah. I think this is what @Ovi's point was about the structure being one of MMI. I see the point because I mean, that's literally the way the game works in many ways. But I've been more focused on how that impacts play negatively.

Which as you suggest, is more obvious when the GM is frequently saying "No". It's less obvious when the GM is saying yes, and less problematic, too.

The reason I don't quite agree 100%, is that if we compare this with another approach to play, "Say yes, or roll the dice" as a principle, it's equally possible to always say yes. I mean, it's never going to happen if anyone wants to have any fun at all, but the distinction between these two approaches is the GM's ability to say "No" outright, so I think that's a key element.

But even in these cases the GM has final say. That's what things like rule zero are all about. And it need not be about what the GM has in mind (though it could be) it might also be to maintain fidelity with what has been established in the last five minutes of play, to fix a weird moment in the game where the mechanics feel like they pop out of place and aren't producing a sensical result, etc. With Charm the GM could always have you up against a monster he invented that is immune to charm effects. The GM might decide what you are trying to do with Charm exceeds the spirit of the description of charm. Or there may be some other interference in the setting that doesn't have codified mechanical effect but the GM thinks would interfere.

Here's the thing.... invocation of Rule Zero only affirms that the game is Mother May I. If we place the GM above even established and clear rules that (under normal circumstances) we can all agree upon, then that's making the game Mother May I.

Barring such rule zero use, the game works in certain ways. If I roll a 14 and the monster I'm attacking as a 22 AC, I've not missed due to Mother May I. I missed because the rules and the dice said I missed. If we accept that the GM can, at whim, overrule these play processes, then yes, we're saying these rules are at all times subject to GM approval, and that absolutely makes the game Mother May I.

As for certain setting elements like your immunity to charm example, I think it depends on how such things are decided. More old school play, this would be something predetermined by the GM and would be an element of the challenge in place... here's a creature they can't charm, how will they deal with this? I think for the most part, 5E assumes this approach.

But if a GM just decided during play, "I was looking forward to this fight, I'll just make this thing immune to charm" I don't think we'd see it the same way. But rule zero type thinking says that this is fine.

This is why I don't think we should ever take the rule zero type of caveats as expectations. They're not meant to support crappy GMing or bad decisions, or the GM maintaining their prep over some curve the players have taken. They're meant to deal with edge cases that the rules don't really allow for.

 

[Maxperson]

Another things I've noticed is that a lot of people here seem to view assumed questions and answers as Mother May I. So if someone with Survival wants to light a fire in the woods, they are assuming that when the player says, "Murag lights a fire for dinner." that the player is really saying, "Is it okay if Murag lights a fire for dinner." and when the DM narrates the response, "After about 10 minutes of trying, Murag gets a nice roaring fire going." that the DM is really saying, "Sure, it's okay if he does." Then they are calling that Mother May I. It's not. No such request and permission is happening.

What is really happening is that the player knows the rules and understand that either he will automatically be successful or if there's a reason for it(wet wood), get a roll. He's not asking permission to do it. He's seeing how his success might happen(yes or roll since there is doubt), not if he can light a fire. And the DM is responding with how it happens, not if it's okay that it will be successful. The rare exception would be if it was pouring rain, but then the player probably wouldn't ask or would be asking because he's not sure if the canopy is shielding him enough. That is also not Mother May I, because it's a one off ruling.

 

[Malmuria]

I agree with you that the Background Features generally lack teeth. But that's certainly not helped by the rest of the game's authority structure. And, as it did with you, it has a negative impact on the game in that it makes backgrounds less important, potentially removing a thematic element that the player has selected for their character.

The background features would work better if there was a mechanical cue for the table. Something like, 'this background grants advantage in this particular circumstance.' As written, they stand out (like inspiration based on background) as not really interacting with any of the other game mechanics. You have a switch in context, where you go from using the ability check system to resolve actions to something much more open to interpretation.