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

[Malmuria]

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

do you truly not see the qualitative difference between a mechanic that references the core d20 ability check system and one that does not? between the majority of abilities in the game that, when invoked, call for a roll of some kind, and this particular set of abilities that does not?

 

[pemerton]

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.

Taken purely literally, this claim isn't true. The rules for jumping don't reference either of these systems. The rules for Blindsight, Darkvision, Tremorsense and Telepathy don't; nor do the rules for the effects of a True Seeing spell. The rules for drawing a map while travelling don't. Much of the rules text for the Ranger Natural Explorer ability do not. The rules for Disguise Self reference and INT check to see through the illusion, but also include rules that do not make reference to the ability check system, such as "The changes wrought by this spell fail to hold up to physical inspection. For example, if you use this spell to add a hat to your outfit, objects pass through the hat, and anyone who touches it would feel nothing or would feel your head and hair."

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.

To me, they seem to resemble many other rules of the system, which describe certain things as "just working" or "just happening". These all require the GM to adjudicate the fiction. As @hawkeyefan has pointed out, in many cases the GM will also have some (maybe most) of the responsibility for establishing the fiction, which can make the adjudication tricky. That's why I agree with hawkeyefan that there is ample scope here for helpful advice and principles.

 

[pemerton]

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.

In this thread, I've engaged with actual play examples - we've had three about background features.

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.

As well as those examples in this thread, I've read a lot of other discussions of 5e D&D which evidence "Mother may I" as a feature of play.

Also, when you say "5e players" I don't know whether or not you mean to include or exclude @Manbearcat, @Campbell, @hawkeyefan and @Ovi, all of whom play and/or GM the game more or less regularly. But for my part, I take their analyses to be good guides for me.

Upthread I also mentioned another conversation I had, with someone I know well, who was talking about the collaboration in his 5e RPGing (between him as GM and the single player). When I drilled down a bit to work out how it was working, the answer emerged clearly and without any shame: the player was using spells. Perhaps he is also not someone you count as a "5e player". I don't know.

 

[clearstream]

Taken purely literally, this claim isn't true. The rules for jumping don't reference either of these systems.

PHB175, jumping references an ability check. But I think I agree with your general point if I understand it correctly. As you say, there are many just - do the thing - rules. One way of chracterising such might be to say that the totality of the mechanic is contained in the distinctly named rule. Spells may more of an ambiguous case than they seem on surface as they work within the general rules of spellcasting, possibly making them more like combat.

To me, they seem to resemble many other rules of the system, which describe certain things as "just working" or "just happening". These all require the GM to adjudicate the fiction. As @hawkeyefan has pointed out, in many cases the GM will also have some (maybe most) of the responsibility for establishing the fiction, which can make the adjudication tricky. That's why I agree with hawkeyefan that there is ample scope here for helpful advice and principles.

Expanding on your observation, most mechanics are conditioned on or check the fictional position, and most if not all "write" to the fiction. We've good evidence to believe this introduces a wide scope for interpretation. Perhaps that's what bedevils some of these conversations?

For those with a goal to ensure the terms of player-GM interaction are constrained in specific ways, because they want to avoid feelings they know they sometimes have (or picture themselves having) of needing the DM's permission to do something in the game, there is scope for helpful advice and principles of the sort we've many good examples of in this thread.

Note edits.

 

[clearstream]

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."

Aside from being literally correct (the best kind of correct) I have some thoughts on those pieces of text. All are sentences I have had in mind in forming my views of 5e.

DMG4 - Being in charge is a circumstance I can enjoy even when I only use the mechanics. For example, we readily refer to being in charge of an automobile. That's true, even if I only use and cannot change at a whim the mechanics of the automobile.

DMG34 - Changing or ignoring rules to fit players roleplaying needs doesn't authorise it in other circumstances. It implies a concrete constraint, much different from what Rule Zero is normally taken to mean.

DMG235 Rules serving you does not grant any authority to change them, it means use them in service to your ends. A hammer may serve my purposes. I don't change the hammer to have it serve my purposes: I use it.

DMG237 Dice are like rules doesn't say anything not already said.

DMG263 This can be interpreted in several ways, but the literal meaning does not amount to Rule Zero. It doesn't change or suspend any rule in the PHB, DMG or MM. It tells you that you can avail yourself of additional rules - house rules, rules in books to come like XGE, TCoE.

I realise that you can read the same words and come to different conclusions, and I'm not saying that your conclusions are wrong or even particularly out of the ordinary. Rather I suggest that there is quite a different way to read them, that falls squarely within what the words actually say, and is very far from Rule Zero.

 

[Manbearcat]

I actually think there are 3 core definitions of MMI in this thread. IMO there's also been quite a bit of conflation and jumping from one of these definitions to another mid discussion.

• MMI is a criticism of the reliance on DM adjudication for PC action success/failure present in some RPG's.

As you note above, those that enjoy and play such RPG's don't find that this definition of MMI describes their games. The children's game MMI is about asking permission, but that's not present in such RPG's as the games don't actually give the player the ability to ask the DM's permission. Instead, these games only grant the player the ability to declare actions. IMO, the conflation of 'declaring an action' with 'asking the DM's permission' is the easily seen failure point of this criticism.

• MMI is strictly certain dysfunctional state(s) of RPG's reliant on DM adjudication for PC action success/failure.

IMO, whether everyone adopts this definition of MMI, we all agree that reliance on the DM for adjudication of success/failure can factor toward dysfunction at some tables. Thus, I don't think this definition is invalid. It just lacks explanatory power for what we are seeing in this thread. If MMI was really primarily about something external to a player then we would expect to see broader agreement around the external situations where it occurs. We don't see that though. And it's not just around 'sides'. There's significant nuance and difference of opinion on many examples, even from those whose core positions mostly fall on the same 'side'.

• MMI is a player's feeling of needing the DM's permission to do something in the game.

I believe this is the best valid definition of MMI based on the full context of this thread. It explains why there are such differences of opinion around what gets called MMI by various posters. It explains why all objective definitions fail to reach any kind of consensus. It explains why we can have non-dysfunctional play examples that still get called MMI. IMO, this thread is exactly what we could expect if MMI was really about the player's feelings and their individual interaction to external circumstances.

Very good post.

As I’ve written about in my last few posts in this thread, I fall in the last camp.

HOWEVER…

Simultaneously, I hold the following to be true:

1) For purposes of examining (within the parameters of an online conversation) how one gets to that state of persistent insecurity and vulnerability in their cognitive loop while playing, it’s only useful to focus on specific instances, drill down into their dynamics, and uncover the implications of those dynamics.

2) While there is a tendency toward Force to coincide with (1) above (and where there is tendency toward Force, there is an increased tendency toward Railroading to govern a through line of play), it isn’t ensured.

3) Neither (1) not (2) are inherently dysfunctional (so when I’m speaking about these things, I’m not doing so as a pejorative).

There are two cohorts of players (how pervasive I don’t know…but they aren’t small) who NEED MMI, and possibly to likely Force and Railroading, to either (a) deeply constrain their move-space or (b) outright dictate their move-space.

This is because they DO NOT WANT TO DRIVE PLAY or THEY CANNOT DRIVE PLAY. There is s host of reasons why this might be true (from cognitive limitations to social limitations to investment limitations). For these two cohorts of players, MMI and Force (and resultant Railroads) are not only NOT DYSFUNCTIONAL, the inverse would actually lead to dysfunctional play (halted, stilted, stagnant, or otherwise FUNAR fiction/gamestate and/or an undesirable cognitive load or emotional state for those players).

I’ve seen it firsthand. I know personally of multiple players where this is true. I’ve read tons of anecdotes about these cohorts here and elsewhere.

 

[clearstream]

Very good post.

As I’ve written about in my last few posts in this thread, I fall in the last camp.

HOWEVER…

Simultaneously, I hold the following to be true:

1) For purposes of examining (within the parameters of an online conversation) how one gets to that state of persistent insecurity and vulnerability in their cognitive loop while playing, it’s only useful to focus on specific instances, drill down into their dynamics, and uncover the implications of those dynamics.

2) While there is a tendency toward Force to coincide with (1) above (and where there is tendency toward Force, there is an increased tendency toward Railroading to govern a through line of play), it isn’t ensured.

3) Neither (1) not (2) are inherently dysfunctional (so when I’m speaking about these things, I’m not doing so as a pejorative).

There are two cohorts of players (how pervasive I don’t know…but they aren’t small) who NEED MMI, and possibly to likely Force and Railroading, to either (a) deeply constrain their move-space or (b) outright dictate their move-space.

This is because they DO NOT WANT TO DRIVE PLAY or THEY CANNOT DRIVE PLAY. There is s host of reasons why this might be true (from cognitive limitations to social limitations to investment limitations). For these two cohorts of players, MMI and Force (and resultant Railroads) are not only NOT DYSFUNCTIONAL, the inverse would actually lead to dysfunctional play (halted, stilted, stagnant, or otherwise FUNAR fiction/gamestate and/or an undesirable cognitive load or emotional state for those players).

I’ve seen it firsthand. I know personally of multiple players where this is true. I’ve read tons of anecdotes about these cohorts here and elsewhere.

I liked much of your post greatly, and my main call out would be to ask why on Earth we cannot agree to use a term other than one that some find replete with negative, somewhat pejorative, and typically dismissive and belittling, connotations?

As a second concern, the listed motives for a style or culture of play are all "limitations". Why not "preferences", "choices", "differences", "priorities"... all the many non-judgemental characterisations our language affords? EDIT To list "cognitive limitations" and "social limitations" I feel sure based on all our previous conversations was without ill intent, but I hope you will reconsider and retract.

For me, "Mother May I" has its place in our vernacular solely as a non-neutral label.


Note minor edits to hopefully better explain my concerns.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Whose creativity would be stifled?

According to whom?

To me, the most natural reading of your post is that the answer to both questions is the GM. In which case, I don't see how you're setting up a strong argument that the structure of play is not "Mother may I"-inclined.

I mean, if a player chooses as their ability that they are a noble whom other nobles will recognise, then aren't they already positing that there is a fundamental respect in which nobility is not different in distant lands? That's a creative choice too. Why is it not worthy of respect?

Worthy of Respect
Interesting phrase choice.

So the man is a noble within the Known World of Mystara (essentially the Gazetteers). It is far more certain that when a PC noble meets other nobles from far away nations (Red Steel, the unchartered continents Davania and Skothar and even the lands in Brun not covered within the Gazetteers as well as the Hollow World) or even those from another setting altogether) they won't recognise each other.

You seem to think a DM ruling this way is an affront to the player or at least his creative choice.
Meanwhile the common place view would be to appreciate the setting and the table's fiction.

 

[AnotherGuy]

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."

Given this explicit advise which appears to be troublesome for some, I'm surprised some of the posters in this thread haven't directly petitioned WotC to change Dungeons and Dragons to Mother May I.
It would certainly clear up much disagreement and ambiguity if someone could, particularly since playtest feedback for the next edition is open.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

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 that is perfectly valid criticism. I think it is bonkers that the game relies on exact distances, says how far you can jump based on your strength, then says you can exceed it by a skill check, but refuses to provides specifics of how that will work.