D&D General DM Authority

[Lanefan]

But to a brand new player they are.

If brand new players are coming in thinking D&D is a board game someone's been pitching the game wrong.

 

[Lanefan]

@Lanefan wasn't even talking about just system mastery, but cheating. He was saying it's the players' job to try and cheat and the DM's job to stop it.

It's not the players' job to outright cheat - I'd never in my life promote that!

It is, however, clearly in their interests to advocate for rules favourable to the PCs and to seek out advantageous loopholes in the rules that already exist. It then falls to the DM to push back against that advocacy when it goes too far, and to close loopholes either before they're discovered or as soon afterwards as possible.

 

[Imaculata]

It is, however, clearly in their interests to advocate for rules favourable to the PCs and to seek out advantageous loopholes in the rules that already exist. It then falls to the DM to push back against that advocacy when it goes too far, and to close loopholes either before they're discovered or as soon afterwards as possible.

Can you give an example?

 

[generic]

Authority as DM doesn't mean "what I say goes, always!".

It means that the DM is the arbiter of the fiction, and gets to choose what happens in it. Bad DM? Move to another group. Don't wanty to play only humans? Find another DM. Unhappy with a DM's ruling? Either debate it or simmer in eternal wrath.

It's not a question of the DM being the ultimate authority, it's a question of the role of the DM, as Game Master and bender of the rules. It's perfectly reasonable to expect the DM to tell you what kind of game they're running, and to expect that the DM will be willing to take player input, but all of these things don't imply player control of the narrative or the rules. A group consensus is all well and good, but the DM is the narrator. The DM's final word sets the course of the entire game.

 

[generic]

Can you give an example?

Paladin player at my table argues that expending a spell slot does not count as it being gone as long as it's in the same turn, and that she should be able to use the same spell slot to use Divine Smite.

 

[Lanefan]

And in that case, you're discouraging people from contributing to the game world.

I'm not discouraging them from making stuff up about the game world just like we used to make stuff up about the real world. I will discourage them from expecting what they make up to be or become anything more than words passing in the air, particularly if it's anything big.

Sure, if your PC did time in the militia and you-as-player want to dream up the names of some of your unit commanders I'm not going to stop you - have at it! But if you start making up what battles you were in (as opposed to using ones that might be in the setting history) then I'm going to stop you hard as you're almost certainly going to run aground on pre-established setting history, with or without realizing it.

Both of these sound like GM not being a fan of the PCs, which is like... What?

I'm neither a fan of nor cheering against the PCs. I neutrally and - I hope - fairly present the setting and the challenges within it and it's up to them/their players to sort out how to defeat or get through or avoid those challenges.

To me, if I were truly a fan of the PCs I'd never truly challenge them as I'd want them to win all the time without hurt or suffering, just like any sport team I'm a fan of; and that'd make for a pretty boring game.

Conversely, if I were actively cheering against the PCs I'd just kill 'em all dead, raise a cheer, and have done with it; which would make the game both pointless and extremely short.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Then they just have a communication problem and clear that up. Come on, that's not rocket science.

Usually, but not always. There are some situations which require a final arbiter, even amongst the most reasonable of groups. This is the point that people are contesting with you in case that wasn't clear.

 

[Mecheon]

Good thing I play with people who have the common sense to know that Goku doesn't fit in Fantasy, or a Warforged in Low Fantasy.

You ah...

You do know that Goku is based on Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, from Journey to the West, right?

Just asking, because Journey to the West is the good stuff.

 

[Oofta]

If you have a person whose main source of fantasy are very differernt from another, they must get on the same page. Adding a dynamic where one person has ultimate authority on top of that is a recipe for disaster if they don't clear up mindsets.

Any advice on how to do that?

For me, I have a wiki type campaign documents in Obsidian Portal*. In it I have an intro page that describes what type and style of campaign I'm going to be running with a short intro story and a "current situation" and a link to the known timeline. I also have links to character creation guidelines and restrictions, other links include the pantheon of the region, maps and so on. It would take a while to read everything if people are interested so I do a quick "what I do" on the invite/intro post or email. If it's not clear that I value RP and story from everything, it should be.

But even with all of that, hundreds of words if not thousands I'm sure I don't communicate everything. How could I other than to stream some of my old games?

*Not the greatest site in the world, but I've been using it for a while now and transferring all my info would be painful.

 

[Oofta]

"Could easily be," is a hypothetical.

If you are going to assert that the PHB is actively hurting the hobby, you kind of have to have some evidence the hobby is, you know, hurting, don't you? Otherwise, the assertion is entirely speculative.

And, as I said, the hobby seems to be doing phenomenally, so evidence of any real harm is going to be hard to come by. Anecdotes from a couple of people that the book was not helpful aren't going to cut it with an Amazon sales rank of #81 in all of books nearly six an a half years after publication.

I personally don't think the book is a great teacher itself. However, I recognize the possibility that this is fine, because it could easily be that folks learning from the book is a rare occurrence. Online actual play, tutorials, and people bringing their friends in may be taking the teaching role, so that the book simply doesn't have to do that job.

If so, writing the book to teach may actually hurt the game, by reducing its utility at what it is actually doing - acting as the game reference, which it seems to do well enough.

I seem to remember an interview about the role of the PHB where they basically said that they assume people will go online to find out how to play the game so while they touch on it they didn't want to use up a lot of page count on it. That they'd let others do it because streaming and podcasts can do a better job then they ever could with a book. Which to me makes sense. I mean, watching a few episodes of Chris Perkin's Dice Camera Action or any number streams will show you how D&D is actually played and then you get the PHB to actually create your PC.

Or it was all a dream because the chili I had for supper was too spicy.