D&D 5E What DM flaw has caused you to actually leave a game?
- Thread starter MNblockhead
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That's an easy question to answer, sir.Batman's alignment.
Allow me to provide you with a handy picto-guide:
In the abstract, sure.
But here is [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s argument: X is true because I believe X, I'm an English teacher, and therefore I would know.
And here is your argument: X is true because I read it in a book, and the book is right because the people who wrote it would know.
Those arguments are both appeals to authority.
Maxperson, every argument I have ever seen you run is logically invalid. (I have never seen you make an argument in mathematics or logic.) Practally every argument every human being has ever made in the history of humanity is logically invalid. The argument that If you jump off the roof of a bulding, you will fall is logically invalid. That doesn't make it a bad argument; it just means that it is defeasible by contrary emprical evidence.
That an argument is not logically valid doesn't make it a bad one. That my best reason to believe X is that someone who knows about X told me so doesn't mean my belief rests on a fallacy. Authoritative testimony is the overwhelming source of all my knowledge, just as it is the overwhelming source of your knowledge. How do you even know that the owner of this website is Morrus? Simply because he told you so!
Ad hominem attacks are not universally fallacious either (on this point, Wikipedia is just wrong).
A simple example is the following: I don't believe much that I hear about North Korea from the North Korean news agencies because I don't trust them. I think that, so far from being fallacious, my policy of distrust of the North Korean news agencies is likely to further rather than undermine the truth of my beliefs.
Only a very credulous person would not regard the reliability, credibility etc of someone as relevant to whether or not one believes their testimony.
Well, as I understand a RPG it's about pretending to be a different person, often a more adventurious person, in some sort of challenging situation. It's not about suggesting to someone else what story they should tell.
In other words, I don't play RPGs to describe what I want my PC to do. I play RPGs to (among other things) describe what my PC is doing.
What you describe here appears to be the GM playing with him-/herself. You even have the GM describing what the PC does!
And this just reinforces my point.
You are positing a "social contract" according to which the GM, in playing the RPG, will take seriously the players' suggestions about the actions of certain characters.
That is not how any of the RPGs I play describe the way the game works. Not even 2nd ed AD&D is quite this bad. For the record, I don't think it is what the 5e rules state either - in my view you are seriously misreading them.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
There's a huge problem with the players getting to dictate the actions in the fiction, and it's one of timing. If they player dictates that his PC jumps the stream, then according to you, that action has already happened in the fiction. The DM would then be unable to determine auto success, auto failure, or require a roll to see if the PC succeeds or fails. It's too late by the time the DM gets to it, as the action has already occurred as the player stated it.
This is not true in the slightest. What I described was the DM(this is D&D I'm talking about) playing the game with players.
5e RAW is explicitly, "The players describe what they want to do." Not, "The players describe what they have done." Followed by, "The DM narrates the results of the adventurers' actions." Not, "The DM sits back and listens to the players' narrations."
The 5e DMG has this to say on page 5, "A player tells the DM what he or she wants to do, and the DM determines whether it is successful or not..." The player is only describing what he wants his PC to do, not what his PC has done. The DM is the one to determine success or failure, and then narrate the action as occurring.
This order of things has been consistent since 1e.
Hussar
Legend
Just to back up a second [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION].
In 5e D&D, which is where we'll stay for just the moment, social and combat mechanics are quite different. Social mechanics are very loosey goosey and require a lot of DM and player input in order to work. They are not particularly formulaic in their presentation. How we use skills is left largely up to the table.
Combat, OTOH, is not. It is very formalized, even if the language isn't. You have your 6 second round. Player takes an action, and that action needs to be entirely mechanically resolved, before it can be narrated. You flat out cannot narrate any action in 5e combat any other way. Even movement can't be since you have feats like Sentinel which can cancel movement. And attacks are subject to a shopping list of pre and post modifiers that can completely change the result of any given die roll. Even damage can be modified considerably.
Each "action" in 5e is a discrete unit that must be entirely resolved before you can move on.
In 5e D&D, which is where we'll stay for just the moment, social and combat mechanics are quite different. Social mechanics are very loosey goosey and require a lot of DM and player input in order to work. They are not particularly formulaic in their presentation. How we use skills is left largely up to the table.
Combat, OTOH, is not. It is very formalized, even if the language isn't. You have your 6 second round. Player takes an action, and that action needs to be entirely mechanically resolved, before it can be narrated. You flat out cannot narrate any action in 5e combat any other way. Even movement can't be since you have feats like Sentinel which can cancel movement. And attacks are subject to a shopping list of pre and post modifiers that can completely change the result of any given die roll. Even damage can be modified considerably.
Each "action" in 5e is a discrete unit that must be entirely resolved before you can move on.
I've boded a few words/phrases in your post that seem relevant to what I'm saying.
If certain things cannot or must be done, that implies that outcomes of declared actions are not all at the discretion of the GM.
If certain things are left up to the table, that implies that outcomes of declared actions may not all be at the discretion of the GM.
Which in my view is quite consistent with (what the Basic PDF, p 3) calls the "basic pattern" of play:
1. The DM describes the environment. The DM tells the players where their adventurers are and what’s around them, presenting the basic scope of options that present themselves (how many doors lead out of a room, what’s on a table, who’s in the tavern, and so on).
2. The players describe what they want to do. Sometimes one player speaks for the whole party, saying, “We’ll take the east door,” for example. Other times, different adventurers do different things: one adventurer might search a treasure chest while a second examines an esoteric symbol engraved on a wall and a third keeps watch for monsters. The players don’t need to take turns, but the DM listens to every player and decides how to resolve those actions.
Sometimes, resolving a task is easy. If an adventurer wants to walk across a room and open a door, the DM might just say that the door opens and describe what lies beyond. But the door might be locked, the floor might hide a deadly trap, or some other circumstance might make it challenging for an adventurer to complete a task. In those cases, the DM decides what happens, often relying on the roll of a die to determine the results of an action.
3. The DM narrates the results of the adventurers’ actions. Describing the results often leads to another decision point, which brings the flow of the game right back to step 1.
2. The players describe what they want to do. Sometimes one player speaks for the whole party, saying, “We’ll take the east door,” for example. Other times, different adventurers do different things: one adventurer might search a treasure chest while a second examines an esoteric symbol engraved on a wall and a third keeps watch for monsters. The players don’t need to take turns, but the DM listens to every player and decides how to resolve those actions.
Sometimes, resolving a task is easy. If an adventurer wants to walk across a room and open a door, the DM might just say that the door opens and describe what lies beyond. But the door might be locked, the floor might hide a deadly trap, or some other circumstance might make it challenging for an adventurer to complete a task. In those cases, the DM decides what happens, often relying on the roll of a die to determine the results of an action.
3. The DM narrates the results of the adventurers’ actions. Describing the results often leads to another decision point, which brings the flow of the game right back to step 1.
The description of (3) makes it clear that the outcomes of action resolution feed back into (1). In other words, the outcomes of action resolution are one crucial source of shared fiction. Step (2) is therefore the crux of it - it is the presence of step (2) that distinguishes the game as an RPG from (say) the GM just telling a story about some stuff that happens to some people.
It's interesting to note that the full statement of Step 2 - including the bits that [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] left out upthread - includes the missing steps I identified, of (i) working out what actions the adventurers take, and (ii) working out what the results of those actions are. We can see this in the examples of opening the east door and perhaps having to deal with locks and traps.
Moreover, and again quite consistent with what I posted earlier, nothing in the description of step (2), nor in the step (3) phrase the GM narrates the results of the adventurers' actions, states or even implies that the GM just makes stuff up about what happens to the PCs when their players decide that they want to do something.
Likewise if we turn to the desciption of Ability Checks on p 58:
The DM calls for an ability check when a character or monster attempts an action (other than an attack) that has a chance of failure. When the outcome is uncertain, the dice determine the results.
For every ability check, the DM decides which of the six abilities is relevant to the task at hand and the difficulty of the task, represented by a Difficulty Class. The more difficult a task, the higher its DC.
For every ability check, the DM decides which of the six abilities is relevant to the task at hand and the difficulty of the task, represented by a Difficulty Class. The more difficult a task, the higher its DC.
Nothing in what I've quoted sets out the method or rules whereby the GM determines whether or not a declared action has a chance of failure, nor how the GM determines how difficult such an action might be. That said, other parts of the rules make it pretty clear - to me, at least - that the fiction is not the sole relevant factor here in deciding whether or not something might fail: clearly in the fiction it should be possible to sometimes mis-cast a spell, or fail to raise a Shield spell in time, but the whole tenor of the section on spellcasting is that under ordinary conditions these are things that cannot fail (because the rules don't specify ability checks associated with spellcasting, quite unlike eg grappling someone in combat, or stabilising a dying creature, or hiding).
Interestingly, there is no discussion of if or when a GM might decide that something has no chance of success, although one assumes that such determinations might be possible.
But in any event, there is nothing to suggest that the game mechanics, spelled out in (sometimes tedious) detail, are mere advice that the GM may or may not choose to follow. Nor that the players can't make various things true in the fiction, such as that I am casting a Shield spell, I am going up to the east door and opening it, I am talking to the Duchess hoping to induce such-and-such a response, etc.
Maxpewrson, it would be really helpful if you would sometimes try a bit harder (i) to think clearly about what others are saying, and (ii) think clearly about what you are saying.
On (ii) - what do you mean by saying that action has already happened in the fiction? Already is an adverb of time. But time in the fiction is not affected by, or part of, time in the real world. So let's just focus on the real world, where the action declaration is happening. Which takes us to (i): it would be helpful for you to pay more care to what I am saying about action declaration and action resolution.
If a player declares I jump across the stream, we are now at step 2(). The player has said what the adventurer wants to do. As per the (unbolded) text of step 2 that I just quoted, we now consider how that declared action resolves. There are rules for jumping - they're found on p 64 of the Basic PDF. One would expect that the GM would use those rules, in conjunction with the rules for actions other than fighting and casting spells found on pp 58-62, to determine the outcome. If there are features of the fictional situation that the GM glossed over at step (1) - that happens from time-to-time - the GM might point those out (eg "The edge of the stream is pretty slippery and a bit steep too, so getting a run-up might be tricky.")
In any event, working through these elements of step (2) will tell us whether or not the PC jumped across the stream. And there is zero reason to think that this is simply something the GM makes up. Eg the jump rules say "Your Strength determines how far you can jump." They don't say "The GM may pay attention to your PC's Strength in determining whether or not you succeed in a jump."
Exactly how much liberty the GM has to spring unexpected elements of fiction on the players during the course of resolution (eg walls of force across othewise mundane-seeming streams, grey oozes concealed on the bank from which the player intends the PC to take a running jump, etc) will vary from table to table, although my personal advice to any new GM would be that even a little bit of such stuff goes a pretty long way. But even when a GM does that s/he is obliged to do it in certain ways - ie by using his/her authority to make such stuff part of the fiction. The GM isn't entitled to just make up outcomes willy-nilly.
Once all this takes place - ie once the declared action has been resolved via the appropriate means and its outcome known - then the GM can move to step 3, and reframe the situation in light of what the PCs have done or failed to do.
You're missing all the (unbolded) stuff in between, in step 2, which talks about "resolving [the] task" that the PC is undertaking. Even in 5e, action resolution is not just the GM makes it up.
How does the GM make that determination? Ie what are the rules and principles that govern step 2? That is what I am talking about.
Like 5e, AD&D has many rules. When a player delcares (for instance) I cast Knock on the door, the GM is not just at liberty to declare Your spell has no effect because that's the outcome s/he would prefer. And that's not "social contract"; that's rules.
Furthermore, this was taken for granted back in the day. Hence repeated invocations never to include anything in a dungeon that you weren't prepared for the PCs to obtain; because you could never predict what resources and plans the PCs might come up with (eg one example from Roger Musson was of the inaccessible diamond-studded room; a PC turned up with a Ring of Wishing and got the diamonds that way, thereby wrecking the campaign). If the GM was just at liberty to decide whether or not actions succeed, such advice would be needless!
But the idea that players just make suggestions to the GM, and that the GM just makes up the fiction s/he likes in response to those suggestions, hadn't really come about yet when Musson was writing. It is an artefeact of the 80s, and even moreso the 90s - Dragon Lance is just one early poster child for it. You can play 5e that way if you want to, by treating Step (2) as a black box for GM fiat and ignoring some other stuff (like Your Strength determines how far you can jump). But the game text doesn't mandate it. (Thankfully!)
uhh... FWIW... regarding magic missiles, time travel shield spells and counterspells dancing on the head of an ettin - maybe we are alone in seeing it this way - but the "fiction" of events is based on the final results of what happens - so the fiction behind a magic missile vs shield spell would be "Celeste shielded off the lamia's magic missiles and then..." or for counter spell the "fiction" would be "Celeste countered tha lamia's magic missiles, unravelling the weave of the lamia's inferior magic even as it took shape - enraging the lamia even further." " while the case of magic missile hits would be more like "the lamia conjures three, no four, vicious darts that unerringly struck home and Celeste shuddered with pain."
The intervening steps in the resolution of an action-reaction sequence are not seen as actual fiction until they become final and resolved. In a more cinematic sense - the fiction is what is seen on the screen at the end, not the many different bits and rewrites and improvs and cuts and re-shoots and bloopers and edits (aka the mechanics process) that went into that scene as finally depicted.
thus we avoid some of these serious quandries.
The intervening steps in the resolution of an action-reaction sequence are not seen as actual fiction until they become final and resolved. In a more cinematic sense - the fiction is what is seen on the screen at the end, not the many different bits and rewrites and improvs and cuts and re-shoots and bloopers and edits (aka the mechanics process) that went into that scene as finally depicted.
thus we avoid some of these serious quandries.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
Those two if's are incorrect, though.
There is nothing that cannot or must be done, since the DM has the authority to change any rule he likes. So there is no outcome of declared actions that are not at all at the discretion of the DM
Skills are not left up to the table. They are in fact left up to the DM. The ability check rules(skills) state that the DM calls for the checks and sets the DCs. The table doesn't get to decide anything unless the DM cedes that authority to them.
You also see how after the players declare the intent to open the east door, the DM responds with the event actually happening with his narration, indicating that the action does not occur within the fiction until the DM narrates it. I left it out, because it was redundant and I didn't need anything further to prove that I was right.
Moreover, and again quite consistent with what I posted earlier, nothing in the description of step (2), nor in the step (3) phrase the GM narrates the results of the adventurers' actions, states or even implies that the GM just makes stuff up about what happens to the PCs when their players decide that they want to do something.
Context is your friend. You said that the players get to establish the action within the fiction, not the DM. By what is written in part 2 of the way the game is played, the action has not happened yet in the fiction until the DM narrates the results. All the players can establish by part 2, is the intent to do an action. However, if what you are saying is true, and the players establish the action within the fiction, it is over and done with in the fiction prior to the DM getting involved at all.
It's not necessarily an automatic thing. The players don't know how far across the stream is, and neither do the PCs. There are vague rules for jumping farther than normal, and those could easily come into play if the stream is a bit broader than the automatic jump rules cover. Or the stream might be too broad for even that to work and failure could be automatic. Even if the stream is only 5 feet across and it is an automatic success, the DM still needs to narrate the action BEFORE the action happens in the fiction. At no point has the action happened within the fiction until AFTER the DM narrates it.
I didn't miss it at all, and I never said that the DM just makes it up. That stuff in step 2 fully supports my statement that the action doesn't happen inside the fiction until the DM narrates it as happening. Until then, it's just a statement of intent on the part of the player.
The DM does have the ability to change the rules, though, so a bad DM could just "make it up" if he wanted to ignore the social contract.
Rules that the DM is at liberty to change as he sees fit. So he is at liberty to declare that the spell has no effect, if that's what he wants to do. Why doesn't the DM do that? The social contract.
Imaro
Legend
This entire thread has pretty much been that.
Someone brings up an idea and adds an example to clarify - spend the next several pages ignoring the idea and focusing on deconstructing the example. Thus magic missiles are the issue, not the idea that 5e has numerous rules that allow for rerolls and changing the fiction after the fact. Don't like Shield? Ok, a Great Weapon Fighting Style fighter potentially REROLLS damage AFTER the roll. No magic involved whatsoever. Rolled a 1 on your damage with your greatsword? No problem, reroll and get a 10. Whoohoo, your minimum damage attack now deals maximum damage. But, apparently that's time travel?
Someone brings up an idea and adds an example to clarify - spend the next several pages taking the example to extremes that were obviously not intended. So, now backgrounding a bear companion results in the DM being forced to allow T-Rex's in every town.
Someone suggests that maybe not forcing players to do stuff they don't want? - spend several pages claiming that DM will now be forced to run games they hate.
On and on and on. It would be nice if there was just a smidgeon less bad faith arguing going on here, so we could actually have a discussion without screwing around page after page correcting faulty assumptions and blindingly stupid interpretations.
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Oh, and btw, [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], since someone else has also corrected you on your English usage, it's no longer an appeal to authority since multiple sources have been stated. I didn't bother, because, well, I have been teaching English for about 20 years and feel no real need to provide my bona fides. A more reasonable response on your part would be a reexamination of where you went wrong in your use of the language, rather than, again, ignoring the point, and simply attacking me. But, hey, that's been pretty much par for the course for this entire thread.
Or to summarize it more succinctly... Someone brings up a play style (or component thereof) and decides to add that unless you play this way (or with these procedures) you are a bad DM... thread explodes.
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