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

[Maxperson]

It would be like telling someone you'd like them to join you for some doubles tennis, except there are five people, and it's played with baseball bats, and the ball is a large hollow rubber thing, and the court is actually circular and the team of three stands on the outside while the team of two stands on the inside, and...

It's more like asking someone to come play doubles tennis, except that you're asked to wear dark shorts, not white shorts. The rackets are to be wood and strung with sheep gut, not store bought, the ball is orange, green and blue and you get three chances when you serve. Oh, and if the ball lands out of bounds you can declare two do overs.

You're all still playing essentially the same game, but with some small changes in how it is done.

 

[Maxperson]

That's an incredibly tame example (and a rather petulant other player.)

Most of the time when someone says "it's what my character would do," it's excusing their own crappy behavior.

Sally: "You stole all of our personal treasures and sold them so you could get a ring of flight?! And you figured we'd never notice?!"
Bob: "It's what my character would do!"

The "explanation" fobs off responsibility onto an entity that only exists, in a loose sense of the word, because the player wills them to. "It's what my character would do" tries to pretend that the player is not culpable for bad things done by the character they created, play, and wholly control.

See, I don't have a problem with that, because kicking sally's PC out of the group is what the rest of our characters would do and now Sally makes a new PC.

I play in a group where we all understand that our characters have set personalities and if they sometimes clash, the result could be anything from an in-fiction argument, to fight, to one PC leaving the group or even just ignoring it because circumstances require you just endure it. It's a very roleplaying focused group and we hold no grudges if a bad consequence happens because of something "out character would do." Extreme conflict like that is still pretty rare, though. The great majority of the time the groups get along reasonably well.

It takes a very specific kind of group to play that way, though. A lot of people can't let go if PvP happens or a PC betrays the group and wouldn't fit into a group like that.

It's not a player engaging crappy behavior, unless the person is really a crappy person. You can easily tell the difference between playing in character and using the character to justify your own personal behaviors.

 

[Cadence]

Again, this is why I would say it's better to talk about it as a quality of play rather than a feeling.

The English language seems to go out of its way to make it hard to pick just the right word.

• quality as in qualitative (as in a categorical descriptor) seems spot on
• quality as in high quality and low quality seems not useful for productive conversation

Would "characteristics", "features", "facets", or "aspects" of play be better?

 

[Cadence]

See, I don't have a problem with that, because kicking sally's PC out of the group is what the rest of our characters would do and now Sally makes a new PC.

I want to assume you mean Bob, the thief gets kicked out, and not Sally who is ticked off about being robbed? But I'm curious enough to ask...

 

[Maxperson]

Experience in the role of GM may help, yes. Especially if the GM is actively seeking feedback from the players and honestly evaluating their performance as GM.

But it may not. There are GMs who've been doing their thing since OD&D and they ain't gonna change.

So rather than leaving it up to trial and error across years or even decades, I think actual guidance in the books on this stuff is likely a good idea. I think presenting principles of GMing and best practices and the like would go a long way.

I'm very much in favor of better guidance in the books. From the posts in this thread 4e seems to have been significantly better at talking about "say yes when you can." I just don't want to see it hard coded into the game. While DM fiat is sometimes abused, and when it is abused it's usually very bad, but it's also the single best tool in the game for the rest of us.

So let us keep the table saw(fiat) in the game, but require it to have a cover on top, and a sensor to stop if it senses something in front of it(better guidance in the books), so that the DM can use it to cut reasonably safely.

This is all the stuff I meant by "perhaps at the design stage", with the exception of dis/advantage which may be decided situationally in play. But I only say perhaps because there are books of monsters and NPCs with stats already set, and then of course the adventures themselves offer specific stats for the featured NPCs. Of course, a GM may change these to suit... but very often won't.

Again, I'm not saying that combat is free of GM judgment, just that there are so many more rules involved in that sphere of the game that the GM has a lot to work with to help guide his judgment.

Far less so with out of combat elements.

Fair enough.

Well part of my point and why I think this is something to be aware of is that I think it absolutely can happen without ill intent. GMs simply can make bad calls... doesn't mean that they're not trying to be fair.

Yes, bad calls absolutely happen, but I don't think they constitute Mother May I or justify a need to put in hard coded rules to restrict DMs. Most DMs aren't like the OD&D DMs who still haven't learned. Most will learn from their mistakes and make a better call next time.

Because there's so much wiggle room in how the game is run based on how the rules are presented, there's no baseline for "good" performance.

Yeah. That's why I use group enjoyment as the metric. If the group is having enjoying themselves when you play, it's a "good" performance.

One person may see a problem, and another may not.... who's "right"?

Well, I am of course. Haven't you learned that by now?

 

[Maxperson]

I want to assume you mean Bob, the thief gets kicked out, and not Sally who is ticked off about being robbed? But I'm curious enough to ask...

Yes! My bad.

 

[hawkeyefan]

The English language seems to go out of its way to make it hard to pick just the right word.

• quality as in qualitative (as in a categorical descriptor) seems spot on
• quality as in high quality and low quality seems not useful for productive conversation

Would "characteristics", "features", "facets", or "aspects" of play be better?

Yes, likely "characteristic" would have been better! I meant your first bullet point, and thought it was clear, but I can see how it may not have been!

 

[hawkeyefan]

I'm very much in favor of better guidance in the books. From the posts in this thread 4e seems to have been significantly better at talking about "say yes when you can." I just don't want to see it hard coded into the game. While DM fiat is sometimes abused, and when it is abused it's usually very bad, but it's also the single best tool in the game for the rest of us.

So let us keep the table saw(fiat) in the game, but require it to have a cover on top, and a sensor to stop if it senses something in front of it(better guidance in the books), so that the DM can use it to cut reasonably safely.

Sure. I don't think D&D would work very well at all if you removed GM fiat from the process. You'd have to rebuild the game.

My point is that GM fiat is where MMI is a risk, and so if we want to prevent MMI, then we need to limit that in some way. Not remove, but reduce.

Yes, bad calls absolutely happen, but I don't think they constitute Mother May I or justify a need to put in hard coded rules to restrict DMs. Most DMs aren't like the OD&D DMs who still haven't learned. Most will learn from their mistakes and make a better call next time.

Well, it depends on what you consider Mother May I. To lean on your example of Murag and the fire.... the GM may deny Murag's player the ability to craft a fire based solely on the GM's conception of the region where Murag is. The GM had thought of it as a barren wasteland.

But Murag's player has the conception of Murag as a highly capable outdoorsman, who can start a fire under any conditions.

The GM decides not to let Murag start a fire.... that's MMI. No ill will, just a judgment call. Whether it's bad or not depends on who you ask.

If the GM allowed the fire or instead decided to let the dice determine it, then he's not allowing his perception of the way things should go to dominate play. It's not all up to him.

Yeah. That's why I use group enjoyment as the metric. If the group is having enjoying themselves when you play, it's a "good" performance.

But you can't always be sure everyone's enjoyed the game. Sure, they may have seemed like it, but maybe there was an issue and they just don't feel like it's worth bringing up.

Or maybe they enjoyed themselves, but could have enjoyed themselves more. There's no real way to know that unless you have an honest and open discussion about it... and that's not always easy to do. People can get very sensitive about a lot of this stuff, and that can prevent honest communication in a variety of ways.

Well, I am of course. Haven't you learned that by now?

Not if you're a player!

 

[Maxperson]

Well, it depends on what you consider Mother May I. To lean on your example of Murag and the fire.... the GM may deny Murag's player the ability to craft a fire based solely on the GM's conception of the region where Murag is. The GM had thought of it as a barren wasteland.

But Murag's player has the conception of Murag as a highly capable outdoorsman, who can start a fire under any conditions.

The GM decides not to let Murag start a fire.... that's MMI. No ill will, just a judgment call. Whether it's bad or not depends on who you ask.

If the GM allowed the fire or instead decided to let the dice determine it, then he's not allowing his perception of the way things should go to dominate play. It's not all up to him.

This is where we aren't going to agree I think. In my view, his concept is flawed. Is he going to expect to be able to start a fire underwater or in a vacuum? I don't think he is, so "under any conditions" becomes "under many conditions."

Now we know his skill has limits, so we go to the baren wastelands. If the DM has described it as having no brush or trees, then there is no wood. If there are no herd animals that roam the area, like Camels, then dung wouldn't be present, either. So that leaves if Murag's player said he was carrying wood(which is heavy) along. If no, then Murag's player is acting in bad faith, violating the social contract as well by attempting something that he knows isn't possible in that environment and expecting his concept to allow it anyway.

The DM saying no in that situation isn't engaging in Mother May I, he's preventing an abuse of the system. A concept ability doesn't allow the impossible. I'm all for giving a lot of leeway, but impossible is impossible and it's not Mother May I to enforce that.

But you can't always be sure everyone's enjoyed the game. Sure, they may have seemed like it, but maybe there was an issue and they just don't feel like it's worth bringing up.

Or maybe they enjoyed themselves, but could have enjoyed themselves more. There's no real way to know that unless you have an honest and open discussion about it... and that's not always easy to do. People can get very sensitive about a lot of this stuff, and that can prevent honest communication in a variety of ways.

I can see if they are enjoying the game. Even if there's a issue, that doesn't mean that doesn't mean that they did not enjoy themselves, which is the goal of the game. I think that even if someone could have enjoyed themselves more, that doesn't make the game a loss(from a goal of having fun perspective).

There have been many games that I have played in where there was some minor aspect or aspects that I didn't like, but the good/great ones dwarfed those and I had a blast. I don't have a right to expect the game to change for me. That's a very arrogant position to take as the changes I want can very easily be ones that another player or players find annoying or an issue.

If there is a minor issue, bring it up after a game and see why the game is played that way. It might be for a reason, or maybe it's not and it can change if the group wants it to. If there's a major issue(one that makes the game unenjoyable for you), bring it up right away or after the game depending on what it is, but don't get into an argument over it. If it's not going to change, find a new group.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

There have been many games that I have played in where there was some minor aspect or aspects that I didn't like, but the good/great ones dwarfed those and I had a blast. I don't have a right to expect the game to change for me. That's a very arrogant position to take as the changes I want can very easily be ones that another player or players find annoying or an issue.

If there is a minor issue, bring it up after a game and see why the game is played that way. It might be for a reason, or maybe it's not and it can change if the group wants it to. If there's a major issue(one that makes the game unenjoyable for you), bring it up right away or after the game depending on what it is, but don't get into an argument over it. If it's not going to change, find a new group.

These two paragraphs sound absolutely contradictory.

"You have no right to expect the game to change!"
"If you have a minor issue, ask about it later and see if it's important. If you have a major issue, bring it up quickly, hopefully it can be changed."

This is exactly my problem, Max. You've said things that sound perfectly opposed. How dare someone be so demanding and selfish and arrogant to think the game should change JUST because THEY want it to?! Oh also be sure to bring up issues you have so they can be addressed.

The level of logical whiplash here is disorienting.