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

tetrasodium said:

If 5e imposed the responsibility of meeting that bar on players we wouldn't have seen "just give the players what they want" or "d&d is about telling your story" & similar so often over the last eight yesrs because it would be about your character finding "something" to do.

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But having the players meet at a bar is a time honored way of starting just such entertainment.

James Gasik said:

I had a similar experience to hawkeyefan, though I generally chalk it up to "backgrounds have no real teeth" than MMI.

I had a noble character, and there was one time in 11 levels where there was a local noble that I could impose upon to put us up for the night. I brought my feature up to the DM, and he was like "uh, I don't know, I don't think he's ever heard of you, so he has no reason to invite you into his home".

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That's what heraldry is for. Nobles spend a long time learning the heraldry for their country and surrounding countries, just in case a noble they don't know(which is most of them) comes knocking.

That said, the background extras are not universal. The commoners of a country 3000 miles away from yours aren't going to know that you are a Folk Hero, and a noble that is feuding with your family isn't going to put you up. Such instances should be reasonable enough that it's not going to put you off taking backgrounds, though.

Maxperson said:

Exactly, negating player agency(...negate player proposals that don't have pre-approval.) is Railroading, not Mother May I. It's a different pejorative entirely!

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Agreed. That said I can understand how railroading makes one feel as if they have to ask the DMs permission to do anything. In some sense that’s What MMI is all about. But the root cause of that feeling of MMI in such situations is railroading / GM force and if we want to solve that problem then we have to start talking about the root cause instead of the symptoms.

FrogReaver said:

Agreed. That said I can understand how railroading makes one feel as if they have to ask the DMs permission to do anything. In some sense that’s What MMI is all about. But the root cause of that feeling of MMI in such situations is railroading / GM force and if we want to solve that problem then we have to start talking about the root cause instead of the symptoms.

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I don't know how solvable abuse of power(DM force) by a DM really is, though. It's cause is rooted in the person, not the game. You will sometimes get some via ignorance in new DMs, but by and large it's because the DM is not a nice person and wants to get his way. I think the primary method of solving the problem is get a new DM.

tetrasodium said:

that sort of "I showed up, entertain me with "some stuff for the characters to do" carries with it a very high bar for the player to make "some stuff" a thing their character is interested in doing & to make sure their characters are working together. If 5e imposed the responsibility of meeting that bar on players we wouldn't have seen "just give the players what they want" or "d&d is about telling your story" & similar so often over the last eight yesrs because it would be about your character finding "something" to do.


If the players expect to show up and have the h. Find them "something" to do that turns into a more trad style than neotrad and all of this is beyond
The pale not just because it's toxic but because the player expected the option to do it to even be available for them. 5e has this weird "you be you" no bar of responsibility & expectations from the gm is low enough for the players while turning around and expecting the gm to just figure it out & make it work while granting maximum player agency.

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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.

James Gasik said:

I had a similar experience to hawkeyefan, though I generally chalk it up to "backgrounds have no real teeth" than MMI.

I had a noble character, and there was one time in 11 levels where there was a local noble that I could impose upon to put us up for the night. I brought my feature up to the DM, and he was like "uh, I don't know, I don't think he's ever heard of you, so he has no reason to invite you into his home".

I never bothered with PHB backgrounds again, from that point on, I just made custom ones for the proficiencies I wanted, since it was pretty obvious that while they were intended to be tools for the DM to integrate the players into their campaign, there was no pressing reason for them to actually do so.

As always, abilities with defined mechanics are far more likely to matter at the table than those that are completely up to the DM to interpret (see spells vs. skills debates for other example of this).

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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.

Maxperson said:

Exactly, negating player agency(...negate player proposals that don't have pre-approval.) is Railroading, not Mother May I. It's a different pejorative entirely!

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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.

Personally, I think backgrounds should have worked more like the 2e Secondary Skills option:



So instead of a fluff feature, it's assumed that "oh you're a noble, so you know all kinds of noble stuff like laws, history, customs, heraldry, etc.", in addition to your actual skills. And you would add your proficiency bonus to any check the DM assigns for you to know "noble stuff', as an example.

I'm with you that a 100% perfect solution likely doesn't exist. You can't prevent malice by outlawing it. Malice isn't the only cause though, sometimes it can be ignorance. It can be a mistake. Etc.

That said, I think there are certain things that generally help with GM force / railroading.

• Strong gaming principles (and examples)
• Transparency - there's tradeoffs here
• Systems, especially ones that limit the scope of a GM's authority far more than 5e does - this may be done via reliance on dice and/or spreading the authority around more to the players. The tradeoffs for such a drastically different system may not be appealing for all.
• Trust of your players

hawkeyefan said:

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.

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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.

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.

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?

James Gasik said:

So instead of a fluff feature, it's assumed that "oh you're a noble, so you know all kinds of noble stuff like laws, history, customs, heraldry, etc.", in addition to your actual skills. And you would add your proficiency bonus to any check the DM assigns for you to know "noble stuff', as an example.

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Some of us already do that. A noble in my game would either automatically know or get a roll(depending on circumstances) with proficiency to recognize heraldry from his country or a country near his own, for history related to things a noble would learn, etc. AND he would have his background feature.