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

[Malmuria]

Well as you know I think it has these - background abilities. But judging from this thread, GM's apparently ignore or override them on a regular basis! In which case, what would be gained by adding more of them?

So how do you rule background abilities in your 5e game? In my experience when background abilities have come up (rarely), the DM has no problem interpreting them in a player friendly fashion. But then, as a player, I’m also looking for the ability to make sense within the established fictional context?

RPGing is a creative pastime. The individuals, plus the way they come together as a group, should make a difference in my view. My personal dislike of "Mother may I" GMing isn't the fact that it affects the play experience, but that it makes for a poor one.

I mean, to look at your jumping example, what's the deep cause of the problem? The fact that D&D measures distances in such a granular fashion! - and therefore requires the GM to be able to form opinions about how hard or easy it is to jump, throw things, hear things, etc at those various specific distances. The issue wouldn't even come up in Prince Valiant, because I'd just say "It's a pretty hard jump - obstacle 3" and then the player would roll Brawn + Agility applying any appropriate penalties for their PC's armour.

So when you set an ad hoc dc in 5e, how is it different from you setting an challenge rating in Prince Valiant. I haven’t played the latter, so I won’t hazard a guess on how obstacle ratings are decided upon, but IME dcs in 5e are not set via the DM consulting charts or calculating numbers, even if those exist, and they exist to a much lesser degree than previous editions. Rather, it’s a similar easy-medium-hard assignation. Further, the swinginess of the d20 means that the player either knows it is likely a failure or success right away. In your experience of 5e (playing or running), what are the stumblings blocks that you’ve seen in setting difficulty ratings?

 

[pemerton]

The contrast (in the post you quoted) is between “defined mechanic” and something that is “up for the DM to interpret.” What counts as ‘need’ or an ‘audience’ or ‘local noble’ is not translated into the other mechanics of the game. The contrast would be, “you have advantage on cha checks in x and y situation.”

To me it seems obvious is that the player is the one who decides what their PC "needs". That rule could be rewritten as "if you want to" and make no difference.

I don't see that the GM has to do any interpretation here other than working out whether or not a candidate NPC is a noble. But all RPGs require judgements of fictional positioning from time-to-time.

 

[pemerton]

I do think the rules, and not DM, have final say in the case you described. Which I gather to be your point, right?

I think you think that. I think that @Maxperson thinks that. I infer that @Bedrockgames doesn't think that, given that he posted a (reasoned) disagreement with @hawkeyefan who inclined towards the same view as you and Maxperson.

I don't really understand why the combat rules are rules but the background feature rules are (it seems) not rules. That's completely opaque to me.

 

[Malmuria]

I think you think that. I think that @Maxperson thinks that. I infer that @Bedrockgames doesn't think that, given that he posted a (reasoned) disagreement with @hawkeyefan who inclined towards the same view as you and Maxperson.

I don't really understand why the combat rules are rules but the background feature rules are (it seems) not rules. That's completely opaque to me.

The issue is that, as rules, they are dissimilar to everything else in the game which references the ability check system and/or the rest system. Even racial ribbon abilities have more concrete definition to them. So I can see, in the instances where they come up, a DM potentially being confused as to how to deal with them, because they don’t plug in to anything else. This is not a problem with the fundamental resolution process but rather with the way that background abilities are written, and its only a problem insofar as it might be confusing for a new DM.

 

[Maxperson]

Can you find specific game text. The DMG has some examples that I find pretty reckless, and one has to decide how to take, but I have not yet found an actual rule zero. It's actually something I would like to clear up, in part because for me personally, the authority to interpret is more than sufficient as regards the extant text.

Additionally, where the text is silent, DM must speak. Perhaps that is what you are thinking of?

DMG page 4

"The D&D rules help you and the other players have a good time, but the rules aren't in charge. You're the DM, and you are in charge of the game."

DMG page 34

"Since combat isn't the focus, game rules take a back seat to character development. Ability check modifiers and skill proficiencies take precedence over combat bonuses. Feel free to change or ignore rules to fit the players' roleplaying needs, using the advice presented in
part 3 of this book."

DMG page 235

"RULES ENABLE YOU AND YOUR PLAYERS TO HAVE fun at the table. The rules serve you, not vice versa."

DMG page 237

"Remember that dice don't run your game-you do. Dice are like rules. They're tools to help keep the action moving. At any
time, you can decide that a player's action is automatically successful."

DMG page 263

"AS THE DUNGEON MASTER, YOU AREN'T LIMITED by the rules in the Player's Handbook, the guidelines in this book, or the selection of monsters in the Monster Manual. You can let your imagination run wild."

 

[chaochou]

I don't really understand why the combat rules are rules but the background feature rules are (it seems) not rules. That's completely opaque to me.

A clear and obvious rationale for the distinction would be to facilitate Mother-May-I play.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't really understand why the combat rules are rules but the background feature rules are (it seems) not rules. That's completely opaque to me.

Both are rules, but not all rules have/are mechanics. See the fireball example vs. the ability granted by the noble background.

 

[pemerton]

So how do you rule background abilities in your 5e game?

I don't GM 5e D&D. In other RPGs which has abilities like that - that is, abilities that give the players fiat authority to dictate what happens in the fiction - when the player declares the use of such an ability I listen to what they have to say, and then proceed on the basis of that new shared fiction.

So when you set an ad hoc dc in 5e, how is it different from you setting an challenge rating in Prince Valiant. I haven’t played the latter, so I won’t hazard a guess on how obstacle ratings are decided upon, but IME dcs in 5e are not set via the DM consulting charts or calculating numbers, even if those exist, and they exist to a much lesser degree than previous editions. Rather, it’s a similar easy-medium-hard assignation.

No one in Prince Valiant talks about feet of distance as mattering to resolution. In that respect it resembles (inter alia) Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, Burning Wheel, Cthulhu Dark, HeroWars/Quest, and 4e D&D in the context of skill challenge resolution. So the issue of I can jump N feet because I have N strength, but want to jump N-plus-a-bit feet, doesn't come up.

In 4e D&D, precise distances in feet do matter to combat resolution - distances are tracked very carefully in that context - but the game also includes rules for determining how far people can move (including by way of jumping) and so @James Gasik's particular problem won't come up.

I personally find it odd design to make precise distances (or weights, or sizes, or whatever it might be) matter to resolution, but to leave it open how they matter. It puts pressure on the GM to know things and to then persuade others of the reasonableness of what they take themselves to know. In this thread that has come up in the context of swimming in armour, and now jumping in armour.

This is an obvious design feature of free kriegspiel, which is a tool used by experienced officers to test and train less experienced ones. It's intended to be a design feature of Gygaxian D&D, although it's not as obviously successful in that context. I think it's a curious feature of 5e D&D, given how it typically seems to be played, although in a sense I guess it's not: 5e D&D seems to remain wedded to the D&D idea of mapping things out in relatively precise distances, and so in that sense needs to give answers to questions about movement and distance in those terms; but eschews the sorts of DC-to-move calculations found in 3E and 4e D&D; and so lands where it does.

 

[clearstream]

I think you think that. I think that @Maxperson thinks that. I infer that @Bedrockgames doesn't think that, given that he posted a (reasoned) disagreement with @hawkeyefan who inclined towards the same view as you and Maxperson.

I don't really understand why the combat rules are rules but the background feature rules are (it seems) not rules. That's completely opaque to me.

To clarify on that last, by my interpretation background features are rules. So I parse RH to invoke the hiding rules (through the keyword "hide"), and resting rules (through the keyword "rest"). "Recuperate" seems like a handwave toward other restoration such as to hit point maximum or from poison and disease. The feature then has two three preconditions on the fictional position. They must be commoners. You can't present a threat to them. They won't risk their lives.

For me then, so far as the rules go, this background feature parses out very easily. In any case, to address your specific concern, I interpret combat methods and background features to both be rules. More broadly, they are both game text, and I aim to follow the game text holistically. Up-thread (or was it another thread) I characterised the parts of game texts, and elsewhere I have discussed the kinds of rules. So I'm not here committing to putting all game text on an undifferentiated footing. For example, one can wonder if Dwarf characters must only bear the Male, Female and Clan names on PHB20? The normal answer is a resounding "No", but why not? Through reflecting on intuitions in response to questions of that sort, it seems easy to see that parts of game text must have a differentiated footing.

 

[Malmuria]

I don't GM 5e D&D

I personally find it odd design to make precise distances (or weights, or sizes, or whatever it might be) matter to resolution, but to leave it open how they matter. It puts pressure on the GM to know things and to then persuade others of the reasonableness of what they take themselves to know. In this thread that has come up in the context of swimming in armour, and now jumping in armour.

I think it's a curious feature of 5e D&D, given how it typically seems to be played, although in a sense I guess it's not: 5e D&D seems to remain wedded to the D&D idea of mapping things out in relatively precise distances, and so in that sense needs to give answers to questions about movement and distance in those terms; but eschews the sorts of DC-to-move calculations found in 3E and 4e D&D; and so lands where it does.

Ok well I think if you actually GM’d or played 5e, you might be able to better sort out the actual impact background abilities or jumping distances or anything else has consistently on gameplay. I would agree that there are many aspects to the game that are “vestigial” in that they evoke the aesthetics of earlier editions without much weight in the mechanics, but that means that actual play coalesces around the ability check system along with advantage/disadvantage. Of all the problems that 5e players cite with the game—they are innumerable—MMI as a problematic form of action resolution is not one of them, or if it is, it is articulated as a problem of DMs lacking support, not in terms of player agency. Of course, you can always critique a game just from reading it, but if you’ve read it and decided that it’s not for you, I’m confused as to the strong investment you have in analyzing edge cases and hypothetical examples.