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

[James Gasik]

I wonder what the game would look like if we added more "Mother, May I" elements to spell-casting. For example, if Knock had the following restriction:

"Gnomish locksmiths have a secret method of making locks which makes them resilient to magic. A lock made by a Gnome cannot be opened with Knock."

Allow me to introduce you to Grod's Law: "You cannot and should not balance bad mechanics by making them annoying to use."

 

[tetrasodium]

I wonder what the game would look like if we added more "Mother, May I" elements to spell-casting. For example, if Knock had the following restriction:

"Gnomish locksmiths have a secret method of making locks which makes them resilient to magic. A lock made by a Gnome cannot be opened with Knock."

Spoiler: 3.5 knock

The knock spell opens stuck, barred, locked, held, or arcane locked doors. It opens secret doors, as well as locked or trick-opening boxes or chests. It also loosens welds, shackles, or chains (provided they serve to hold closures shut). If used to open a arcane locked door, the spell does not remove the arcane lock but simply suspends its functioning for 10 minutes. In all other cases, the door does not relock itself or
become stuck again on its own. Knock does not raise barred gates or similar impediments (such as a portcullis), nor does it affect ropes, vines, and the like. The effect is limited by the area. A 3rd-level caster can cast a knock spell on a door of 30 square feet or less (for example, a standard 4-foot-by-7-foot door). Each spell can undo as many as two means of preventing egress. Thus if a door is locked, barred, and held, or quadruple locked, opening it requires two knock spells.

Spoiler: 2e knock

The knock spell opens stuck, barred, locked, held, or wizard-locked doors. It opens secret doors, as well as locked or trick-opening boxes or chests. It also loosens welds, shackles, or chains. If used to open a wizard-locked door, the spell does not remove the former spell, but simply suspends its functioning for one turn. In all other cases, it permanently opens locks or welds—although the former could be closed and locked again later. It does not raise barred gates or similar impediments (such as a portcullis), nor does it affect ropes, vines, and the like. Note that the effect is limited by the area; a 3rd-level wizard can cast a knock spell on a door of 30 square feet or less (for example, a standard 4-ft. × 7-ft. door). Each spell can undo up to two means of preventing egress through a portal. Thus if a door is locked, barred, and held, or triple locked, opening it requires two knock spells. In all cases, the location of the door or item must be known—the spell cannot be used against a wall in hopes of discovering a secret door.

The reverse spell, lock, closes and locks a door or similar closure, provided there is a physical mechanism. It does not create a weld,
but it locks physically operated locking mechanisms, set bars, and so on, up to two functions. It cannot affect a portcullis.

There is a reason why the falling portcullis & other not so common real world door analogs are so common in d&d worlds/adventures. The difference is that you've moved from a "yea I should have read the spell/oh... that's what a portcullis is!?" problem that the player & often the entire group can see at a glance that informs them the spell will not work on this door to a possibly unknowable form of pixelbitching flubber.

 

[seebs]

This has come up again and again, so here’s a thread about it. 5E players and referees, how do you define “mother may I” style play?

Just to avoid survivor bias: I've never heard this term for an RPG thing before this thread, I don't think.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Is that why caster supremacy is such a problem? The game is designed for you to eyeball guess and miss target half the time?

I feel like caster supremacy ties into this because they have just so many more discreet effects where they don't have to rely on the DM's permission.

The non-caster needs adjudication to jump and swing from a chandelier. The caster just flies.

The non-caster needs adjudication to put a dude in a sleeper hold. The caster puts a whole room to sleep.

 

[overgeeked]

I wonder what the game would look like if we added more "Mother, May I" elements to spell-casting. For example, if Knock had the following restriction:

"Gnomish locksmiths have a secret method of making locks which makes them resilient to magic. A lock made by a Gnome cannot be opened with Knock."

There are entire games based around free-form (or nearly free-form) magic. They can be quite fun and you get to see players being really creative with magic. Ars Magica, Mage, Over the Edge, and X-Treme Dungeon Mastery are four of the more well-known examples.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I feel like caster supremacy ties into this because they have just so many more discreet effects where they don't have to rely on the DM's permission.

The non-caster needs adjudication to jump and swing from a chandelier. The caster just flies.

The non-caster needs adjudication to put a dude in a sleeper hold. The caster puts a whole room to sleep.

This is the kind of situation where I as the DM try to do my best to actually give more/better results on a really good ability check that I ask of my players, in order to compensate for the possibility of failing on a really bad one. I don't always remember to do so... but I try my best.

As you say... spells allow for a caster to just "succeed" on certain things because they have spent a resource-- a spell slot. But because ability checks do not require a resource and in theory can be done over and over and over again... DMs I suspect are often reticent to just let players "succeed" automatically on a lot of checks (at least ones that could go badly). And in addition I think it's also because of the fact the players have these skills on their sheets... I think players and DMs both want to use them because rolling dice is fun.

Which is why in my own way of thinking... if I'm having players make ability checks because there is a chance of failure and because we all at the table agree that we want our PCs to use the abilities on our sheets by rolling dice because the act of rolling dice is a fun part of the game... it is only fair in my mind that I open up additional awards for great success on these checks to match the possibility of failure. So spells grant just the "Succeed" level of something... whereas Ability Checks can grant "Super-Succeed", "Succeed", and "Fail" options.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

To the points above, just want to throw out two questions:

1) When is the last time, in real life, you've misjudged a distance, and maybe tossed something to someone which landed at their feet, or found the piece of aluminum foil you cut off is Way too short to be useful, or ran out of gas, or whatever else?

2) When is the last time, in D&D, you've had someone fire off a spell or shoot an arrow or something, and had them a bit out of range, and the spell fizzles short or the shot goes wide, and everyone just rolled with it? Conversely, when is the last time finding out 'that person is out of range of that spell' or 'you have disadvantage on that shot since it's long range' has resulted in 'well then I wouldn't have targeted them' or 'well then I'm doing something else' or something to that effect?

Someone trying to lightning bolt a target and them being just out of reach (or equivalent) happens all the time in books, movies, whatever, because it's narratively compelling. It's also deeply relatable, we've been there and done that. But it pretty much never happens in D&D in my experience, and attempting to ensure it doesn't happen often takes significant time and discussion and ends up with the plan for someone's 6 second turn taking minutes as the 2nd or 3rd iteration of their plans are formulated around a new piece of info.

Just saying, someone eyeballing minis on a map without grid markers, saying 'I cast X at Y', the DM whipping out a tape measure, and announcing 'you complete the casting but since they're not a valid target (being outside the range of the spell) the magic fizzles without effect' is not necessarily a sign of a bad GM or inadequate information being provided or even an undesirable result in my opinion. To each their own of course and I'm not at all saying that folks Should be operating on 'less than perfect' info in game, again, around my tables folks certainly get to mulligan and act as if their players Did have all the info. I can simply see why a different approach might be seen as desirable.

Many things are real-life experiences that make books or movies more compelling but which make gameplay experiences much less pleasant, even actively frustrating. Pacing and user experience are extremely different between different media, and trying to apply the techniques of one medium to another without further consideration is facile at best. A written explanation of essential world concepts is the only way to present information to someone reading a novel, but is by far the inferior method of imparting that information to someone watching a movie or playing a game.

Or, consider: we would almost certainly feel that a character is more like a real living human being if we consistently see them use the bathroom, if we watch them complete the entire process of cooking and eating food, if we sit through the entire ~8-hour sleep they take each night. Doing so would also obliterate any sense of pacing in a film, and video games which enforce such concerns to the hilt tend to do very poorly because such minute detail and hard-enforced requirements are almost always both boring and frustrating. The benefits are meager and the costs are massive, so very, very few games do that. Even games specifically centered on survival and attending to bodily needs abstract away everything but a generic "hunger" meter, for example.

Much of what you talk about is the product of a game mechanic abstracting away tedious elements that either wouldn't generally be relevant (for reasons mentioned by Hussar below) or which would be incredibly tedious to have to deal with IRL. Yes, judging distances precisely is a difficult skill few humans master IRL. But few humans are constantly jumping over gaps, fighting for their lives in melee combat, or carefully aiming a bow to slay an opponent--to say nothing of a world where said humans must contend with (or employ) outright spells and supernatural beings.

I'm going to tell you that anyone with military experience, or any hunter worth anything, can probably tell you within a few feet how far something away is. At least anything you could reasonably expect to shoot anyway. Part of training is spent on exactly that and being able to accurately eyeball ranges is very, VERY important. It's a skill just like any other.

Or do you think a pro-football quarterback couldn't accurately throw a ball within a few feet of any range you cared to call out? Again, presuming he's actually physically capable of throwing that far? Or, heck, ask any golfer how far away they are from the hole and they'll probably be close enough. Certainly within tolerances anyway.

I find that people vastly underestimate how much information people are capable of processing.

Precisely. We are not comparing ordinary average shlub humans here. Of course I expect we ordinary-average-shlub humans, such as myself, to be significantly worse at these tasks than adventurers. My career--to say nothing of my life--does not depend on such skills.

Heh... and that's the problem with a lot of these "playstyle" discussions and arguments here on the boards. More often than not, a person's issue with a particular playstyle isn't actually the playstyle itself, but how the style was played and used by the other people at the table.

If you are playing with someone whose use of a playstyle just doesn't jive with you, or whom others would say was not using that playstyle in the manner that should be the most effective... it's no wonder why a person bounces off of it or says the playstyle is bad.

While that's fair, it's worth noting that a lot of people--and I mean a LOT of people--act like these "don't hate the game, hate the player" responses work only in one direction. That they only apply for deflecting criticism of "freeform"-like playstyles. You may not personally do so, but several people on this forum deploy them that way. "Just don't play with a bad DM! Stop playing with bad DMs!"

This response swings both ways. Stop playing with players who refuse to engage creativity. Just as the absence of rules alone does not inherently and unavoidably cause DMs to (whether intentionally or accidentally) abuse the power vested in them by such approaches, the presence of rules alone does not inherently and unavoidably cause players to (whether intentionally or accidentally) abuse the benefits provided by such approaches.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I understand. I just disagree with you. We're coming at this from opposite angles. To you, seemingly, having enough info to make a good game decision is the goal. That's fine, but that's not my goal. To me, having only the information your character would have so you can make a good role-playing decision is the goal. Having meta-game knowledge inevitably gets in the way. It's only natural, but it gets in the way.

I think the issue is that there is no way for a GM to actually convey the amount of information or level of detail to the players that would equal the info available yo the characters simply by being in their environment. It simply cannot happen.

So if we accept that, then it’s less about precise correlation than it is about informing the players sufficiently enough that they can make decisions for their characters.

That some of this information may be beyond what the character knows isn’t really all that relevant, it’s more that the information provided to the player informs their decision making just as in-world information would inform the character.

This is the reason for rules. They’re the translation from fiction to non-fiction, character to player. The less these are known to the player, the more we move into a Mother May I kind of situation. The reason many view that as problematic is that without the rules, we’re putting the GM in a position to achieve the impossible: to create a situation that’s as vivid and clear to the players as it would be for people experiencing things firsthand.

Simply put; informed player ——> informed character.

That the GM is also then responsible for determining the results of choices made by players, consequences for the characters’ actions, just compounds the concern. I’m not averse to GM judgment, I just prefer when that judgment is more related to the process than to the outcome.

 

[Malmuria]

I feel like caster supremacy ties into this because they have just so many more discreet effects where they don't have to rely on the DM's permission.

The non-caster needs adjudication to jump and swing from a chandelier. The caster just flies.

The non-caster needs adjudication to put a dude in a sleeper hold. The caster puts a whole room to sleep.

Except for illusion and enchantment spells. And a lot of divination spells.

 

[Giant Octopodes]

Many things are real-life experiences that make books or movies more compelling but which make gameplay experiences much less pleasant, even actively frustrating. Pacing and user experience are extremely different between different media, and trying to apply the techniques of one medium to another without further consideration is facile at best. A written explanation of essential world concepts is the only way to present information to someone reading a novel, but is by far the inferior method of imparting that information to someone watching a movie or playing a game.

Or, consider: we would almost certainly feel that a character is more like a real living human being if we consistently see them use the bathroom, if we watch them complete the entire process of cooking and eating food, if we sit through the entire ~8-hour sleep they take each night. Doing so would also obliterate any sense of pacing in a film, and video games which enforce such concerns to the hilt tend to do very poorly because such minute detail and hard-enforced requirements are almost always both boring and frustrating. The benefits are meager and the costs are massive, so very, very few games do that. Even games specifically centered on survival and attending to bodily needs abstract away everything but a generic "hunger" meter, for example.

Much of what you talk about is the product of a game mechanic abstracting away tedious elements that either wouldn't generally be relevant (for reasons mentioned by Hussar below) or which would be incredibly tedious to have to deal with IRL. Yes, judging distances precisely is a difficult skill few humans master IRL. But few humans are constantly jumping over gaps, fighting for their lives in melee combat, or carefully aiming a bow to slay an opponent--to say nothing of a world where said humans must contend with (or employ) outright spells and supernatural beings.


Precisely. We are not comparing ordinary average shlub humans here. Of course I expect we ordinary-average-shlub humans, such as myself, to be significantly worse at these tasks than adventurers. My career--to say nothing of my life--does not depend on such skills.

I get that it may make the experience more frustrating for you and those at your table, and thus why you may not find such things desirable. It's hardly an unprecedented concept though. 40k, before the latest edition, didn't allow pre-measuring. It introduces an element of player skill in estimating the distances (which may or may not be seen as desirable) and simulates the experience of having misjudged the distance and attempting to fire at a target out of range. Now, the latest edition Does allow pre-measuring, and one might argue for good reason. Again, not promoting it as preferable, it's not used at my table. But I can see that there may be a playerbase for which it is preferable. It's also true that folks sitting around for 10 minutes as someone redoes their turn 3+ times over can also make gameplay experiences much less pleasant, even actively frustrating, and significantly and negatively impact the pacing of the combat for all involved.

Not letting someone sit and analyze all possible options and pre-measure to determine the exact optimal actions to take, spending minutes of everyone's time, in order to execute on their 6 second turn is not at all the same as sitting through an 8 hour sleep, nor would sitting around for 8 hours particularly add to immersion from what I can see. I do not think that is a fair or apt comparison at all, nor do I accept that providing players with infinite perfect information abstracts away tedious elements.

As far as us ordinary-average-shlub humans, I just want to point out that professional quarterbacks and NBA players (the top .00001% of athletes at their sports, conservatively) Also miss short or miss long, or try for a throw which ends up being a bit out of their range. They hit FAR more often in far more difficult circumstances than us ordinary-average-shlub humans (your words), absolutely. But their livelihoods and the chance at multigenerational wealth Does depend on those skills, and they still do not, in the moment, execute perfectly on those assessments.

Again not arguing for employing that system, I have no intention of employing it personally, just saying I don't think it's fair to dismiss the rationale behind why someone might employ it out of hand. I also readily accept that there may be a happy middle ground to strike somewhere between the idea of 'all information must be perfect, you have unlimited time and information with which to craft your perfect turn, and anything you misjudge is the fault of inadequate information conveyance, freely warranting redoing your plans' on the one extreme and 'you have the information which has been shared, whether or not you were paying attention, make your choices, NOW, and live with the consequences' on the other.