D&D General DM Authority

[Imaculata]

Yeah, I imagine folks who like to DM because they like creating worlds probably appreciate the notion of having final say over the worlds they create. Just a hunch

Thats the reason for me. I like to DM, because I really enjoy thinking up worlds and settings, and writings plots and characters.

I don't welcome the input of my players into the world building, because I want to have final say in my campaign and be the only author of its setting.

As a side note, but relevant:

I've been running a 3.5 pirate campaign for several years now. To man a ship, you need a crew. So I wrote various named npc's to fill the crew. As the players formed alliances, and more ships joined their fleet, this meant more crew. I did not intend for the off screen crew to all be named npc's. However, one of my players took it upon himself to write all the npc's of this crew and tried to push them into my story. Not only was this addition unwelcome to me, but I noticed the rest of the players also didn't appreciate someone elses writings being forced into a campaign they've enjoyed for years. They really like my npc's and they don't like npc's written by this player. Further more, I would not know how to run these npc's... I'd have to memorize their backstories, and I don't even like them myself.

 

[Maxperson]

If two "reasonable people" are genuinely incapable of coming to an agreeable consensus, maybe they shouldn't be gaming together. Maybe they shouldn't be interacting all that much at all. I'd say, if this applies to any two people ever, they're GOING to have a bad time sooner or later unless they go their separate ways.

That's simply untrue. Hell, there are times when my wife and I don't agree on something, yet we love each other and are very happy. We're coming up on 12 years together, 9 of it married come March.

If people in my gaming group don't agree, and we are all friends who have known each other for a minimum of 15 years, then we don't agree. That doesn't mean we fight about it or hold grudges. It just means we have a difference of opinion. It happens both in and out of game. When it happens out of game we agree to disagree and move on to something else. When it happens in game, the DM makes the decision and we move on and enjoy the rest of the session and all the future sessions. It's really not a big deal.

You guys on that side of the issue make it sound like every disagreement has to be a major deal breaker, when the fact is, the vast majority of the time they are just minor disagreements.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That's simply untrue. Hell, there are times when my wife and I don't agree on something, yet we love each other and are very happy. We're coming up on 12 years together, 9 of it married come March.

If people in my gaming group don't agree, and we are all friends who have known each other for a minimum of 15 years, then we don't agree. That doesn't mean we fight about it or hold grudges. It just means we have a difference of opinion. It happens both in and out of game. When it happens out of game we agree to disagree and move on to something else. When it happens in game, the DM makes the decision and we move on and enjoy the rest of the session and all the future sessions. It's really not a big deal.

You guys on that side of the issue make it sound like every disagreement has to be a major deal breaker, when the fact is, the vast majority of the time they are just minor disagreements.

The bolded is an example of coming to a consensus, even if it's not much of a resolution. The underlined, for a group that seeks consensus, is also coming to a consensus, it's just a temporary one until you can put in the time to have the proper discussion.

But remember Oofta being so insistent about this? That's why I'm taking such a hard stance here. Anything less than total disagreement wasn't acceptable before. Why is it acceptable now? I'm not the one who wanted to talk about totally insoluble problems!

 

[Maxperson]

The underlined, for a group that seeks consensus, is literally also coming to a consensus, it's just a temporary one until you can put in the time to have the proper discussion.

But it's not temporary. On rare occasions we revisit something after the game. This happens when there just isn't time during the game to resolve the issue without disrupting game play. The vast majority of the time when the DM makes a decision and we move on. It's over. The decision has been made and that's the way it is from there on out.

 

[Minigiant]

Depends on the game and group. I've played plenty of games where the goalposts have moved and it's been great. One game the PCs started as realistic citizens pressed into the British army. A few months later we all had "supernatural" powers and were fighting robots, witches, and a T-Rex and time-traveling.

Yes a game can change.

But here's the thing, the DM does not have the authority to change the campaign's setting, tone genre, or style once it has started without player agreement.

That is a limit of DM Authority. A DM cannot switch up the game without player permission.

 

[Chaosmancer]

What behavior do you think he's claiming disagreements lead to?

I made a list of all his player examples a post or two ago. They are all, in my opinion, immature people trying to win DnD.

The monk player trying to act like the Flash or the Cleric of Odin thinking that Odin will just point them to whatever it is they are looking for. Things like that. They are his only examples with anything beyond vague "but people disagree"

You and I both know this isn't true. Hyperbole to this extreme is never a good look.


This isn't true either.

What is being said is that reasonable people don't always agree, even after they talk it out. When that happens one of those in the disagreement either ends up deferring to the other person or the group splits over irreconcilable differences. All calling the DM the final authority means is that when something comes to this, he's the one that everyone has agreed to defer to.

In the post i just responded to, where I quoted him back at himself because "I never said that" he took the position that some people are claiming to have "complete harmony and never any disagreement"

That is how he characterized the question of "why can't a group of reasonable people come to a consensus", that it is basically a fairy tale of no one ever disagreeing. Heck, I straight up asked , because Oofta said he and his wife had been playing together for multiple decades, if she had ever tried to do something outside the rules, and after she presented which rules she thought applied, he agreed with her proposal. His first response? "Yes, I have disagreed with my wife." The exact opposite of what I asked.

Additionally, if two people disagree, but one decides to defer to the other? That is still reaching a consensus. The issue is that the "deferment" has come into this via the idea that it is only being done to save relationships. But, it can be done for other reasons as well. If I disagree on how a rule works for the barbarian, but the barbarian makes a reasonable claim for their side and it mostly affects them... yeah, deferring works. It is mostly about their character and how they want it to run. The problem is, this example is likely to immediately get taken to something ridiculous instead of being reasonable.

Of course it's possible. It happens 99% of the time. It wouldn't change anything if it happened 99.99% of the time. What matters is that it doesn't happen 100% of the time.

Of course it doesn't. I never claimed it did happen 100% of the time.

But here is the kicker.

If the DM is only needed for the rare 1% of the time that reasonable people can reach a consensus.... then 99% of the time, you don't need a DM. That's the facts. If you are only needed for the rare occurrence, then by definition, you aren't needed the rest of the time.

So sure, maybe a game that has a "rulings by committee" set-up is going to very rarely have to deal with a big disagreement that they can't work through... but since everyone seems to be saying that these events are incredibly rare, then on the off chance they happen, that group can likely figure out some solution.


People do that. A lot.

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Sure. But it's equally reasonable for them to disagree on what the vague rule means and not be able to come to a consensus. We see it here all the time in threads. Multiple interpretations with different people thinking that they are right. So #3 is an example of a situation where people very often don't come to an agreement and need a DM ruling.

But those situations are rare. Quite rare, and additionally, they are rather static.

And, it is completely possible that the group does reach an agreement on it, after all, many of those threads end up having people who are quibbling over small differences. People can handle those situations without needing to turn to a DM.

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Thats the reason for me. I like to DM, because I really enjoy thinking up worlds and settings, and writings plots and characters.

I don't welcome the input of my players into the world building, because I want to have final say in my campaign and be the only author of its setting.

As a side note, but relevant:

I've been running a 3.5 pirate campaign for several years now. To man a ship, you need a crew. So I wrote various named npc's to fill the crew. As the players formed alliances, and more ships joined their fleet, this meant more crew. I did not intend for the off screen crew to all be named npc's. However, one of my players took it upon himself to write all the npc's of this crew and tried to push them into my story. Not only was this addition unwelcome to me, but I noticed the rest of the players also didn't appreciate someone elses writings being forced into a campaign they've enjoyed for years. They really like my npc's and they don't like npc's written by this player. Further more, I would not know how to run these npc's... I'd have to memorize their backstories, and I don't even like them myself.

I'm curious about this example, because I did something similar for my DM a while back giving a whole bunch on names and some small bits of backstory for citizens of our city.

Was there something inherently wrong withe the PC making those characters? As in, no matter the content, what they did was wrong? Or was it more that some of the characters they created that were the problems?


Because, it sounds like it is the specific NPCs that were written, not that the player sat down and wrote them at all.

After all, whether you named the NPC or this guy named the NPC, player #3 is just absorbing the information. And you specifically said they like your NPCs, but not this guys, making it sound like it is the content, not the act of creating it, that is the problem.

 

[Imaculata]

I'm curious about this example, because I did something similar for my DM a while back giving a whole bunch on names and some small bits of backstory for citizens of our city.

Was there something inherently wrong withe the PC making those characters? As in, no matter the content, what they did was wrong? Or was it more that some of the characters they created that were the problems?


Because, it sounds like it is the specific NPCs that were written, not that the player sat down and wrote them at all.

After all, whether you named the NPC or this guy named the NPC, player #3 is just absorbing the information. And you specifically said they like your NPCs, but not this guys, making it sound like it is the content, not the act of creating it, that is the problem.

To me the problem is two fold:

First and fore most, I want to be the soul author of the setting. I don't like players doing my work for me, because what they come up with may not be as good as what I'd come up with. I never asked the player to do this. No one did. So it was an unwelcome addition.

But another reason, is that because he pushed these npc's into my campaign, he now also expected me to run these characters that he came up with. I run a homebrew campaign for a good reason; I don't like running other people's stories and characters, which is what this was. I want to retain ownership, because I have a special bond with the characters I come up with... not with the characters HE comes up with. And the other players had the same problem with it.

Running an npc that I created myself, means that I can weave them into the narrative with ease, and gradually reveal elements about them (and their role in the plot) to the players. Running someone elses characters in my plot, is a whole different story. I have to memorize their names, which is difficult, because I have certain rules that I adhere to when naming my npc's. I also have to memorize their backstory and personality, which is also difficult, since I did not create them. I do not have the same bond with them, as I have with characters I wrote myself.

What made it worse, is that he would then want to interact explicitly with these characters, and expect me to play them; Npc's that I specifically sidelined so they would not be involved in the plot. There are already plenty of characters for the players to interact with. I deliberately limit the amount of names my players need to memorize, by having only a few npc's take an active role in the story. Not every npc needs a name and a backstory, especially if the players are not meant to interact with them.

 

[Maxperson]

But those situations are rare. Quite rare, and additionally, they are rather static.

And, it is completely possible that the group does reach an agreement on it, after all, many of those threads end up having people who are quibbling over small differences. People can handle those situations without needing to turn to a DM.

If by rare you mean fairly common, you would be correct.

Just look at the druid wildshape threads. When wildshape + disintegration came up, I said that by RAW at 0 disintegrate triggered dusting the druid as he changed back. Reasonable conclusion. Many others said no, the damage carried over and the druid had to hit 0 in his regular form to be dusted. Also a reasonable conclusion. There's no middle ground there. You can't dust half the druid. Either it happens or it doesn't. There was a smaller 3rd faction that said that the druid never hit 0 before reverting, despite the text explicitly saying that the druid did, and therefore the dusting effect never triggered. Less reasonable, since it directly contradicted printed text.

If this came up in a game and you had people on both sides of the two reasonable positions, someone would need to make the decision as no compromise would be possible.

I stated in that thread that for my game, I wouldn't dust the druid, because it didn't seem right to do that to a player since the wildshape ability was core and involved forms with low hit points, even at high levels. It turned out that I was correct on both fronts. When Sage Advice came out it agreed with me that by RAW the druid gets dusted when the wildshape hits 0, but RAI was for the druid to survive.

That's just one example of the many contentious rulings threads on this and other sites. While most threads do have minor quibbles, they also have a lot of major ones.

 

[generic]

I don't understand how Chaosmancer can assert that groups can handle rules debates without a DM as final arbiter. I understand the thesis of group consensus, but there needs to be a referee, after all.

And, as @Maxperson said, these rules questions are exceedingly common, and, at the table, require a DM to intervene as referee.

 

[Helldritch]

Screw SA. Sometimes it's right, sometimes it's wrong. Most of the time the rules contradict themselves.
Look at the new Initiate feats from Tasha's. You can now spend spell slot to cast the "learned" spell. But you can't with the magic initiate feat in the PHB... Yet, it was not stated in the PHB that you could not spend but SA said you could not... So I got debunked and yet, all initiate feats in Tasha's go out of their way to specify that now you can... This shows that it should've been this way since the beginning.

But as Max, says, disagreement in rulings happen a lot. Not all of them end up in a word fight to the death of relations. That is why a DM's adjudication is so necessary. With a final arbiter, you prevent endless and bitter discussions. I am all for rule discussions at my table, but once I make a clear decision, I expect my players to abide. Only once 37 years did it not worked out that way, the player left and never came back. And no! I was not to hand him out an artifact because he saved the last heir of the kingdom... It takes more than one action to redeem yourself. God that felt good to say it.