D&D General DM Authority

[Lanefan]

Advocating for your character is not the same as trying to run like the Flash and create a tornado.

Truth be told, in this particular example it is - because you included the words "trying to".

In advocating for one's character a player is free to try anything. The rules might stop what's tried from succeeding, as might common sense, genre conventions, or any number of other things. But the player's free to try it nonetheless.

So, it is hers, because she has put in all the effort to make it happen... and when she sits down with no players the game doesn't happen.

Game's still hers. That said, it'd be a rather foolish DM who misjudged her potential player base so badly as to design a setting and-or system that appealed to exactly none of them, and thus the odds of this happening are fairly close to zero.

Yet I could do this - propose a game that would get exactly no uptake from a player group - tomorrow if I wanted. All I'd need to do would be to say I'm using 4e D&D as the rules system and they'd most likely run away as fast as their little feet could carry 'em. Therefore, I'm not going to be so foolish as to make such a pitch (and note this is hypothetical in any case: I can't see myself ever wanting to run or play 4e).

And during the game, the players are driving the action, but the game in no way whatsoever belongs to them, even though it would be impossible without them and they are shaping the directions it goes in?

That doesn't make sense.

Ideally the players are driving the action. The game as a whole, however, remains mine.

As with the example with the Queen vs the Canadian Parliament and her never-used authority to overrule it, I hold an authority over the game I'll likely never use: that being to simply shut it down. No player can do this.

So, you have already determined the only possible places a paladin could be made, and the possible cultures they could come from.

Usually decisions like that are the player's to make. Since the player is in control of their character

The character, however, still has to fit within the setting.

Clerics and Paladins have to follow a deity. I have a long list of deities (about 70 at last count) already in place, along with noting that there's further deities of very foreign cultures that remain yet unknown in these parts. I have three types of Clerics - War, Normal, and Nature - and Paladins; each deity supports some or all of these.

Some cultures simply don't support traditional* Paladins. The wild Celt equivalents, for example, just don't generally do heavy armour, mounted combat, or Lawful pretty-much-anything; meaning that while a Paladin of Celtic origin could be done as a PC it certainly got its training (and said its vows) to a non-Celtic deity. Other cultures might not support some other classes, and while these are noted in the game-world write-ups there's usually ways to work around stuff if someone is really hell-bent on doing something that doesn't make sense for the culture.

* - I say traditional because I've expanded Paladin alignment possibilities from just LG to also include CG, LE and CE. They're still usually extremists, though.

What part of that prevents a reasonable discussion and clarification of the rules, perhaps by another player who is highly knowledgeable in the rules? Why must the DM be the one to sort of rules confusion?

Here's a question, I know you are a fairly old player, probably considered a veteran. Have you ever sat at a table with a new player, and helped correct them when they make a rules mistake?

Yes, if it's something bone-simple such as what dice to roll when. If it's anything more complicated I usually defer to the DM.

Would hard data like pointing to Oofta's post where he literally says he doesn't tolerate murderhobos help prove that a lot of tables don't tolerate murderhobos?

I mean, that would make three of us. You, me, and Oofta.

Or maybe, instead of me providing hard data, you could provide hard data showing that the majority of games do include murderhobos.

Mine does, along with lots of other character types.

If a player happens to be a DM, they tend to care about the game as whole.

But those not blessed with the DM mantle tend to only look out for themselves.

Again, your bias towards seeing DMs are somehow special is... really blatant.

Once one has done any amount of DMing, one's view toward the game as a whole changes. It's inescapable.

 

[generic]

This is a bit tangential to the issue, but how do my fellow ENWorlders handle NPCs authored in by players?

I've found that player retention over family and "friend" NPCs can be useful for relieving DM strain, but quickly becomes unfeasible if said NPC supposedly has access to goods or services which the player desires.

 

[Lanefan]

This is a bit tangential to the issue, but how do my fellow ENWorlders handle NPCs authored in by players?

I've found that player retention over family and "friend" NPCs can be useful for relieving DM strain, but quickly becomes unfeasible if said NPC supposedly has access to goods or services which the player desires.

Depends who the NPCs are and why they're being authored in.

For example, if someone wants to author in their PC's parents as living on a farm somewhere, or put a name* to their old commander from their militia days, they can have at it. There's no advantage sought or gained, and the player gains more investment in the setting: win-win.

But authoring an NPC in order to gain some sort of advantage just doesn't happen, and the players know this. That said, if a player asks in-character whether a particular NPC (usually by position) can be found or accessed I'll roll some dice and figure it out.

* - I just love it when players come up with names for already-known-of but nameless NPCs e.g. guild heads, temple leaders, innkeepers, merchants, etc., because it saves me having to do it.

 

[Oofta]

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!

The only thing I'm insistent on is that sometimes, occasionally, a DM needs to make a final call. As I and others have said 99% of the time it's not a problem.

But once in a while mature, reasonable adults have different opinions and someone has to make a decision. If we're playing D&D it's the DM.

 

[Oofta]

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.

I think this is an important point. Most of the time there's not much of a discussion, it's just "that's not how it works, it's ___" followed by "right, I forgot".

But if it really comes down to something people just disagree on something the DM is the final arbiter of the rules. That's widely accepted and when the DM makes a call (in my game in a minute or two) everybody just moves on and 5 minutes later most people forget all about it. Game is not disrupted, there are no hard feelings.

Make it a debate, make it some variation of contested vote, and I think it could lead to hard feelings not to mention being far more disruptive. Now, that may not be true with every group. If it's not a problem, that's fantastic. My stating that I've never seen it and that I'm not sure how it would work doesn't make it impossible, just something I've never seen and honestly don't see a need for.

Depending on the group disagreements that need a ruling may never happen, may happen a couple of times a year, may happen every session. Depends on the individuals involved.

 

[Oofta]

This is a bit tangential to the issue, but how do my fellow ENWorlders handle NPCs authored in by players?

I've found that player retention over family and "friend" NPCs can be useful for relieving DM strain, but quickly becomes unfeasible if said NPC supposedly has access to goods or services which the player desires.

First, they are NPCs, so I have editorial control. Depending on the player I may take complete control once the NPC is established, I may just have the player run them, usually it's somewhere in between.

If someone has wealthy relatives or relatives that have influence I generally ask the player why they aren't supporting the PC. At low levels it's possible for Mom and Dad to bail the PC out now and then, but at higher level I'll try to work out a reason (usually with player input) as to why that can't happen any more. But basically NPCs, no matter how they are created or by whom, should not be the stars of the show and cannot significantly contribute to any one individual.

The exception is if the NPC is a patron, but then they are the patron of the entire group. Hasn't come up for quite a while but even parents can be patrons as long as it's part of the story and benefits the whole group. As a DM I'm deciding what kind of aid the patron can provide.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Truth be told, in this particular example it is - because you included the words "trying to".

In advocating for one's character a player is free to try anything. The rules might stop what's tried from succeeding, as might common sense, genre conventions, or any number of other things. But the player's free to try it nonetheless.

They're really not the same. The former is value-neutral; it can be good, bad, or indifferent. Tornado-Monk is not value-neutral; it was explicitly brought up as an example of bad player behavior. And that's the critical point. People ARE acting like a player being a self-advocate means behaving badly.

Ideally the players are driving the action. The game as a whole, however, remains mine.

Not really sure what this means.

As with the example with the Queen vs the Canadian Parliament and her never-used authority to overrule it, I hold an authority over the game I'll likely never use: that being to simply shut it down. No player can do this.

On the contrary, I have repeatedly had situations where a single player's absence meant I couldn't justify running a session, because we have a very story-heavy game and sometimes a particular character is central. One of my players gets random intense migraines, which make focus (and thus roleplay) effectively impossible. We had a session that was specifically centered around that player's character meeting with his succubus great-grandmother. Not having that character present would have completely neutered that session; there would be little to no point, as we had stopped literally JUST before that meeting. I could name at least half a dozen other situations where a specific missing character would derail the session, and where I'd be highly reluctant to do a temporary timeskip or whatever due to the retcon headaches involved.

It is true that no player is always as vital as the DM. But I am quite familiar with the possibility of temporarily having players whose presence is as vital to continuing the scene as the DM's is.

TI have a long list of deities (about 70 at last count) already in place, along with noting that there's further deities of very foreign cultures that remain yet unknown in these parts.

And that allowance is exactly what I ask for: the flexibility to allow something you didn't plan for. The rest is fine.

Once one has done any amount of DMing, one's view toward the game as a whole changes. It's inescapable.

I...honestly can't relate. I don't feel any different about the game now than I did before I started DMing. My whole DMing style and process specifically came out of what I learned to value as a player. I honestly don't think it makes nearly as world-changing (no pun intended) an experience as you claim.

 

[prabe]

This is a bit tangential to the issue, but how do my fellow ENWorlders handle NPCs authored in by players?

I've found that player retention over family and "friend" NPCs can be useful for relieving DM strain, but quickly becomes unfeasible if said NPC supposedly has access to goods or services which the player desires.

In principle I don't mind if a character's backstory includes some smallish number of NPCs. I don't even mind if those NPCs are part of the character's motivation for becoming an adventurer. I'm ... less thrilled if I'm expected to remember all the NPCs in a given backstory--especially if someone has written a backstory with a Cast of Thousands--considering I run largish tables (five or six) and remembering all the details of every character's backstory is a thing I'm likely to do.

 

[Oofta]

And which part didn't you say? That we've claimed complete harmony and no disagreements?



Nope, you said that.

Did you claim a reasonable DM?




Yep, you did that.


Do you continuously assume unreasonable players?

Well between the monk who wants to run in a circle and create a Flash-Tornado, the Cleric of Odin who wants their god to reveal the location of everything they are looking for, the Half-Vampire Half Dragon whos cloak billows in an imaginary wind, The Albino 7 ft tall elf who every is frightened of just by looking upon him, and the group of players at your local gamestore who made it their lives mission to join games with inexperienced DMs just to bully them into giving them everything they wanted....

Yes, I do believe that covers almost every single example you have given in this thread, repeatedly, that I keep pointing out to you.


Huh, that's strange, that covers my entire post. And yet it seems that I have evidence that you said those things. Wonder why that is.

I've also many, many times repeatedly given additional explanations that you ignore. Why make this such a personal attack?

 

[prabe]

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

...and people who enjoy exploring worlds probably have a hard time enjoying exploring and figuring out what they helped create.

These two posts seem like a good summary of the phenomenon.