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

[Bedrockgames]

Yeah, I've had situations where the GM decided one thing and literally everyone else at the table disagreed. How we handled that in the past has varied over the years, but there's been a steady progression toward discussing with everyone and deciding as a group.

The only thing I'd say is that GM having final say is fine, but for me, that's more about when it's otherwise a "tie". Like I want everyone's ideas about the game to be considered equally.

I think my view on this is I just find the games works most efficiently for me when we all agree one person ultimately has the final call on these things. And so when something like this comes up, generally with the kinds of people I play with, we are happy to raise our concerns if there is an issue, but we also have no problem letting the person we've all agreed is the GM make the final call and move on. If someone is particularly bad at doing this, we probably wouldn't keep them GMing too long or someone would talk to them if their judgments are becoming an issue. Hasn't really been much of a problem for most of my groups (these kinds of issues are something I've mostly not had since high school I would say. So for me, it doesn't need to be a democracy. But I also wouldn't want a GM who just told people to shut up if they had a serious issue with a ruling. In general, I'd say a single player holding up the game (whether that player is the GM or one of the players) over something like this, would be more of a problem for us than a bad ruling (i.e. we don't like getting bogged down in disputes over rulings or rules, and just want to move things forward).

I don't think the nobles need to know each other, or even of each other, for the ability to make sense. It's not contingent upon recognizing the specific person. And while I would agree with you that I wouldn't expect every GM to rule the same way, I would say my expectation is that the ability should work unless there's compelling reasons it shouldn't just as if I cast a spell and the GM decided that the typical results of the spell didn't happen. Can there be reasons? Sure, of course.... but in my opinion, those better be better than the GM saying "I don't like that idea".

Sure, I'm not giving my personal ruling on that ablity. I'm just saying I can see how it would lead to different feelings on what should be the case, and I would generally be okay as a player with a GM saying to me "this ability doesn't work because of X reason having to do with the setting" if that reason seemed sound. Aain I wouldn't have to agree with the reason, but if the reason makes sense, its fine, and even if the reason doesn't, I'm generally okay with the GM making that call because that is my understanding going into a game. So if I am with a new group and a new GM and the GM makes a ruling on it I find kind of odd, I'm just going to roll with it and figure that's how this person thinks about these things, that's how this group handles it. If over time, I wasn't gelling with the group, I'd just find another one. But overall I vastly prefer having the GM be able to keep things moving along and maintain fidelity to the setting (over what any rules might say) because 1) I've always been a flavor first kind of player----this was something that irked me about 3E even though I quite liked that edition and 2) What annoys me most in games as a player isn't odd calls, being ruled against, or questionable application of rules but the game bogging down in debates, conversations around rules. Again experiences will vary here, but with the groups I play with, we are all kind of one the same page in terms of being okay with that. Plus most of us get to take our turn in the GM seat at some point anyways so you are always seeing differences in how people rule on this stuff (and my reaction tends towards curiosity over ruling differences than towards disagreement).

That said "I don't like that idea" isn't particularly compelling for a reason. I'd hope there is more to it than that if the GM blocks an ability. But "I don't like that idea" can just be another way of the GM saying "it feels off somehow" and not being able to put their finger on it. And I do generally expect an ability is going to work unless there is a reason for it not to. I'm just also not going to get hung up on it not having worked. Maybe if half the time a GM was making rulings I strongly disagreed with, I'd feel different, but I find with my groups, I hardly ever find a ruling unsound or not having reason. When it occasionally happens, it isn't really a problem for me (I don't expect the GM to make perfect rulings every time). And my approach as a GM when I feel I have made a bad ruling or when someone fairly points it out, would be to admit it was a bad ruling (there have been instances where I've changed things, but in instances where changing a ruling would be too disruptive, I've pointed out the flaw and made a point of the group keeping that in mind next time a similar situation arises).

 

[clearstream]

I appreciate the attempt.

Let me summarize my issue. My comments were not "labeling A with Mother May I". They were labeling A as "susceptible to Mother May I".

I feel you've taken it a step further, which was not my intention.

So actually, we could be quite close here. I'll just put it in a more natural form

Factors like principles or design choices + individual's concerns and preferences = their experienced play, in dysfunctional cases feeling like "Mother May I"

I've very happy to chew over what factors matter. For instance, I gladly agree that

DM-decides (that's a factor) + your concerns and preferences = in dysfunctional cases, feelings of "Mother May I"

Why would I want to subject you to MMI, were I DMing? Obviously (or I hope it's obvious) I would not. Therefore we might want to constrain DM-decides (so modified factors.) And this says nothing about the case when we insert me as the individual in question (and note here I use "me" to just mean, random individual with a differing culture of play.)

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't think the nobles need to know each other, or even of each other, for the ability to make sense.

To be clear here, I don't think you are wrong on this. I could honestly see arguments for both positions. I'm just fine with the arrangement that the GM is the one who gets to decide that, and we all essentially sign up for that arrangement. It may well be the GM has a good reason, and so does the player, but the GM decides to go his own way on it, and I am fine with that. And even if the GM has a weaker reason than the player, my general feeling is "its the GMs setting and he is the one running the campaign, so let him decide".

 

[FrogReaver]

So actually, we could be quite close here. I'll just put it in a more natural form

Factors like principles or design choices + individual's concerns and preferences = their experienced play, in dysfunctional cases feeling like "Mother May I"

I've very happy to chew over what factors matter. For instance, I gladly agree that

DM-decides (that's a factor) + your concerns and preferences = in dysfunctional cases, feelings of "Mother May I"

Why would I want to subject you to MMI, were I DMing? Obviously (or I hope it's obvious) I would not. Therefore we might want to constrain DM-decides (so modified factors.) And this says nothing about the case when we insert me as the individual in question (and note here I use "me" to just mean, random individual with a differing culture of play.)

I’d also note that it’s not just one player and dm but multiple players and a dm (sometimes even rotating gms). So I don’t think the dm can always make an adjudication that makes everyone happy. Hopefully he can most of the time though.

This does speak to one strength of games that rely mechanics and principles to really constrain dm or player in the fiction they can introduce. Everyone gets a voice and can drive things to their own preferences sometimes.

 

[Thomas Shey]

You can of course do that and discuss about things later, but I feel ideally you'd get it right in the first place.

Like a lot of ideals, I don't hold my breath on that one. Especially since its being done on the fly without a lot of time to think about implications.

And the concerns are real, and it is a bit of tightrope to walk. On the one hand you want the cool stunt to be effective and encourage them, on the other hand you don't want it to overshadow the actual features people have invested build options on or become a go-to tactic that is always used from now on. My metric is that more the stunt relies on environmental or other situational conditions that cannot be reliably replicated, more powerful I'll allow it to be.

A reasonable position and approach. But like you say, its a tightrope and people fall off of it pretty regularly.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I do get the idea that, as on Earth, maybe nobility in profoundly different cultures might not treat each other as they would other nobles within the same culture. This runs into the Favoured Enemy problem which motivated the coining of MMI. Essentially, if a mechanic has a narrow application, it needs to be sufficiently powerful that although it seldom matters, it matters enough when it does to be worth bothering with. But that in turn can result in volatile levels of challenge which can be harder to manage... and unfortunately less times it's useful (can feel bad if someone else is deciding when it's useful.)

It also can passively discourage a GM from creating situations where its useful if the value is too high. Even when meaning well, the knowledge that there's an "I Win" button out there for some situations is not, for most GMs, going to push them toward situations where that applies. (Ideally they should sometimes deliberately do so to make sure the trait involved has value, but a lot of people are not prone to deliberately putting in low-balled opposition either (and I'll admit to being guilty of this one) on the sense of poor challenge, so it can come up here, too).

Solutions then have to hit the balance of

• I can see why I would take this... and what it would say about my character (I'm a noble), because either
• It almost always counts, so does not have to be all that powerful (always-on or no-cost-to-use features are generally lower power)
• Or, it hardly ever counts, but when it does we really value it (conditional or limited-use features are generally higher power)

5e Nobility seems to me to be intended to be almost always on (relatively free to use, although... noblesse oblige and all that). If a group changed that - per the notion that elites are more diverse in their world - then they might prefer to be generous with the effect when it does apply.

Yup. Crimson Longinus said something to the effect of this regard ad-hoc rulings in the post I just replied to, and its just as true with this). Though I think there's kind of an event horizon here; if you have a limited number of resources of some sort (feats or other traits), if the benefit is rare enough, its probably not worth taking no matter how powerful it is, unless you can actively steer it toward use by your actions, because it may well never end up mattering.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I commented because the idea of the player not getting what he wants so that the table gets what it wants seems contradictory, at least as far that player goes.

How is such conflict resolved?

Does it help if the words "the rest of" are inserted in that sentence?

 

[pemerton]

Now what I find to be a bigger challenge is the assumption of such a class based society in the first place. Not all historical, let alone modern human societies operate in that way. And of course in a fantasy world we also have non-human cultures to deal with. How common such societies must be in the setting for the background to not be unreasonably foiled, and will it need to have any effect on "common folk" or leaders of societies that do not recognise aristocracy? Could it even have negative effects in some circumstances?

If there are no nobles, how is a PC having the Noble background? And where are the NPC nobles coming from to trigger it?

This seems like a problem that takes care of itself in the fiction (though it may disrupt the balance/utility of certain backgrounds).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

If there are no nobles, how is a PC having the Noble background? And where are the NPC nobles coming from to trigger it?

Obviously there would be nobles in some parts of the setting if the PC is able to be one. But for example in my current game world such social structures only exists in certain city states, rest of the world is mostly some nomads or hunter-gatherers without analogous hierarchy.

(though it may disrupt the balance/utility of certain backgrounds).

Right, exactly.

 

[Thomas Shey]

If shutting down an unreasonable action through whatever means is unreasonable in itself you seem to be saying that the gm should allow unreasonable actions from players or they themselves are being unreasonable.

No, I'm saying just shutting it down without finding out the source of the problem is, in and of itself, usually unreasonable. Its using the GM's bully pulpit to, at best, put a bandaid on the problem instead of treating it. Most likely because they want to flow of the game to consider and are willing to just rumble through to do it (and I'm on record for saying that if speed-of-play is your first priority, I consider that a bad priority).

When it comes to solving dysfunction its important to consider and advise both sides. If that is not done then you just wind up blaming one side while excusing the other to continue contributing towards the initial dysfunction as they were before. In this matter though there are a few reasons why 5e is very much a "special snowflake" as you put it.

Having read the rest of what you said, no, I really don't think any of that makes a significant difference, and I'll explain why.

You should not need in-game carrots and sticks for people to engage with the game usefully. If that was what was needed, no superhero game would work at all, as those are virtually nonexistent in almost all of them. They can sometimes be helpful, but their lack is not an excuse for throwing up your hands about dysfunction, since the most basic method of working out such problems (talking to people on a person to person level about expectations amongst you all about what the game is about and how its expected to be played) is entirely independent of game structure.

Also we are discussing 5e specifically, would you agree that the nuances that 5e as a system itself brings to the conversation about "general RPG issues" are pretty important to a 5e discussion.

As you can see, no.

I realize its really hard for some people to simply step back and do what I say above--its extremely obvious from discussion everywhere in the hobby that people are often aren't good at having frank discussions about expectations, and players are often as much a part of the problem as GMs (and I've sometimes failed myself)--but fundamentally, when this sort of problem starts to occur, nothing else will do, and as far as I'm concerned complaining about the lack of systematic tools to address it is to dodge the problem rather than address it.

Edit: I want to add this on because I suspect the above is blunt and can come across as kind of harsh. My take on it is that even the question of what carrot-and-stick tools a system makes available to you is just another set of expectations. And if the ones needed for those expectations are not present, that's more of an argument of "wrong tool for the job" than saying they're necessary to run a game per se. But they're fundamentally smoke-and-mirrors over the most basic questions of what everyone is there to do, and until you shake that down, at best all you're doing is trying to have handles to, at best nudge, and at worst force, players into the mold you expect them into, and that's fundamentally going about it the wrong way.