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

[Cadence]

Well, the examples have largely revolved around background features. One of the small slices of input in 5e that gives the player any authority about the setting.

People seem to be doing anything they can to render what would seem to be a standard use of said abilities and find ways that make them “absurd” or “unrealistic” or “inconsistent with the setting”.

If genre is a concern, then the background shouldn’t even be in play. If the fictional positioning makes it insensible (we’re wanted for killing the duke…pretty sure his son isn’t going to grant us an audience) then it’s easily explainable.

Sounds good.

What makes it an issue is that you have what the player sees as a reasonable situation to use the ability, and the GM deciding it is not reasonable without sufficient reason other than his own preference.

Is this still ok with this added ", or the player wants to do what the DM thinks is unreasonable and doesn't find the DMs in world justification for not allowing it reasonable"?

The DM saying they had the party found in the barn because he wanted to stage a big shootout seemed lame. A DM saying they had the party eventually found because this is one of the villages the Duke has a spy in and the spy got a decent roll earlier seems different to me.

 

[hawkeyefan]

The fiction isn't one where a noble on the other side of the world is going to 1) magically recognize your PC, 2) automatically have the same values of what it means to be nobility just because you took that background, and 3) be friendly to your PC because of it. Unless the DM established such things at the outset of the campaign.

None of your 1-3 are required. Perhaps this is what led to the comment on lack of imagination?

Perhaps the NPC noble doesn’t recognize the PC at all. Perhaps he decides to grant an audience purely out of curiosity? Or purely to see what leverage can be gained? Or out of fear of what the repercussions of not granting the audience could be?

Maybe the noble thinks such traditions of etiquette are outdated but feels obliged to honor them because not doing so may cause scrutiny he wants to avoid. Perhaps he only wants to grant an audience to this stranger because he thinks he can convince them to do him a favor. Orthat he can otherwise manipulate them to his own purposes.

Or maybe he just wants to host a guest from foreign lands that would spark gossip at court.

Or any number of other reasons that have nothing to do with magic or friendship or giving the PC exactly what they want.

There area myriad of ways to make this work.

Expecting fictional consistency to change for you just because you took a background with a minor ability(and all of them are minor and won't work under all circumstances).

They are minor. They come up so infrequently, according to nearly all accounts shared in this thread. All the more reason to try and make them work. Have that player choice matter.

Or at least go to the dice and see how it turns out rather than just shooting it down out of hand.

So does fireball, but other abilities say they don't work. Try casting one on a creature immune to fire. Oh, and flying works, unless you are tied down. And A-ZZZZZZ work, unless...

Because the ability says something is not sufficient to have it break the fictional consistency of a setting

Nobles granting audiences to other nobles.

What rules would you invoke along the lines of fire immunity that would make this action not work?

The bolded is the important part. Yet when we say there are some specific fictional circumstances regarding this ability that limit it, you fight against it and use the pejorative Mother May I to describe it.

Because your “fictional circumstances” read much more like personal preference.

 

[Thomas Shey]

This I don't think is fair. I've certainly met GMs who were on power trips (again mostly when I was younger or at public gaming events), but I think a lot of the people here expressing this preference (and to be clear I don't think there has been many people against backgrounds themselves or even backgrounds that deal with setting stuff: they just want the GM to retain the ability to preserve important setting details), have said they prefer it both on the player and the GM side.

I don't think its necessarily a power trip when a GM clings to it very strongly. I think if you add the word "creative" in, "creative authority" has a slightly different feel to it, and I think is often more the case. You can still argue whether its benign, but I think when its present (and especially when it present when one or more players would like the GM to let loose just a little bit, thanks) its more a case of a GM who has a feeling about how his setting should look and is simply not comfortable for the players to respect that.

(Obviously this is complicated by how hard his borders are about this. There are players who really don't want their oar in regarding any major worldbuilding elements, but still want to define things about their families and possibly home towns, and there are GMs who are even resistant about the first of these (ignoring for the moment those people who are hostile to players coming in with any sort of backstory whatsoever). I'm kind of prone to wanting make all the major setting decisions (with upfront consultation with my players when they care) myself, but I tend to cock a jaundiced eye when even letting a player come up with a village is a bridge too far.)

 

[Thomas Shey]

What seems to me to be a common answer here is “to uphold the preconceived notions the GM has about the setting”.

Which is a perfectly valid reason. Just doesn’t seem to contradict the idea of Mother May I.

As I've noted, it can also be about preventing sidestepping of challenge for GMs who care about that.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Is this still ok with this added ", or the player wants to do what the DM thinks is unreasonable and doesn't find the DMs in world justification for not allowing it reasonable"?

Let me try another route. If the players are clearly not honoring the fiction, then they’re in the wrong. If the GM is not honoring it, then they’re the one that’s wrong.

The majority of cases of “plausible” are going to fall somewhere between those two things. When that happens, and there’s an ability in play like the background features, tie goes to the player.

 

[tetrasodium]

Again, it was a hypothetical.



But that’s just it… the examples aren’t ridiculous. They’re all reasonable by other peoples’ reckoning.



None of these things is at risk by honoring the background ability in all but the extreme examples.

It sounds more and more like pure setting ownership on the part of the GM.



Because the ability says it works?

Like, if my character casts waterbreathing on himself, he can then breath underwater. It just happens. Barring either some really specific fictional circumstances or the GM being a real jerk, it just works.




I think this phrasing is very telling.

Ok lets say that your character casts water breathing on yourself, waterbreathing is a pure crunch spell so not much to interpret... If a character is inside a gelatinous cube & I don't care if it's 95% water.

Getting back to useful examples like the folk hero & noble ones that have been getting most of the discussion though. I'm sick to death of players taking this quantum action "I'm a noble".... and?... why is that on the gm "to make it work"?

Since I had a group with a noble in it get themselves banished several months ago only to have a noble player say "I want to use my noble connections to find us an audience so we can[i forget]" immediately after explaining that they were banished to the forgotten ass end of the world & all of the local commoners aren't too keen on you all because you aren't the first band of "adventurers" to screw them over but being commoners they can't really just move away." Why is it on me to make that work rather than sigh & walk into the next room to make some tea hoping one of the players will point out "The GM literally said there are no nobles in this town while telling us about the town... besides even if there was we just got banished, wouldn't they want to avoid us?!" as one did?

Let me try another route. If the players are clearly no honoring the fiction, then they’re in the wrong. If the GM is not honoring it, then they’re the one that’s wrong.

The majority of cases of “plausible” are going to fall somewhere between those two things. When that happens, and there’s an ability in play like the background features, tied goes to the player.

That's a nice example of a responsibility that players should be expected to shoulder Because of d&d's nature though a player might not always realize they are failing to honor the fiction:

• The player may have forgotten something.
• The player might not be aware of something & need a correction if their character should know it.
• The player might not know what a portcullis is when it was described
• The player might not be aware of something because their character has no way of knowing a thing like "The duke's guards had the court magician scry on the stolen macguffin to get your location during the long rest" which may or may not become clear later.

 

[Maxperson]

None of your 1-3 are required. Perhaps this is what led to the comment on lack of imagination?

There is no excuse for an arrogant and condescending comment like that. Why do you continue to make excuses for him?

Perhaps the NPC noble doesn’t recognize the PC at all. Perhaps he decides to grant an audience purely out of curiosity? Or purely to see what leverage can be gained? Or out of fear of what the repercussions of not granting the audience could be?

To respond to your questions one at a time.

1) That is possible, depending on fictional circumstances. It is not something that is going to override fictional consistency, though.
2) Leverage from some minor noble from the other side of the world? There's no leverage to be gained if the PC is telling the truth.
3) Fear of repercussions from turning away a minor noble from the other side of the world? There's nothing to fear.

Maybe the noble thinks such traditions of etiquette are outdated but feels obliged to honor them because not doing so may cause scrutiny he wants to avoid. Perhaps he only wants to grant an audience to this stranger because he thinks he can convince them to do him a favor. Orthat he can otherwise manipulate them to his own purposes.

Those customs are almost surely not going to be the same on the other side of the world. He's unlikely to even know them.

Or maybe he just wants to host a guest from foreign lands that would spark gossip at court.

Like the response to #1 above, this depends on the fictional circumstances and the background ability does not override fictional consistency.

Or any number of other reasons that have nothing to do with magic or friendship or giving the PC exactly what they want.

There area myriad of ways to make this work.

And as long as they are consistent with the fiction, I'm okay with them. A minor background ability does not override fictional consistency, though.

They are minor. They come up so infrequently, according to nearly all accounts shared in this thread. All the more reason to try and make them work. Have that player choice matter.

Not all accounts. I shared that they would work anywhere in the home country as well as any neighboring countries that are not enemies. PCs generally don't travel all that far until mid to high levels, which most campaigns never reach. The ability can see constant use as nobles are everywhere.

What rules would you invoke along the lines of fire immunity that would make this action not work?

To work it has to do 8d6 damage. Fire immunity means no damage, 8d6 or otherwise.

Because your “fictional circumstances” read much more like personal preference.

They aren't.

 

[Malmuria]

@Cadence

It would help if these examples people provide were not assuming players being absolute trolls. The answer to players being absolute trolls like that who do not meet the permissions by actually playing to the background should absolutely be talked to (and told to stop being trolls). As always the answer to anyone at the table playing in bad faith is to resolve it socially. Can we please talk about this stuff assuming everyone is acting in good faith?

Perhaps we can go one step further and posit that the GM is acting in good faith, following the rules of the game and taking its advice to heart. Both GM and players are occupying their roles, as designated by the game, with an aim to produce a fun and collaborative experience/story. In this case I would say the possibility for MMI is very low, occurring mostly within the category of "human error." The GM is using theater of the mind and is unable to accurately describe the fictional space, or there's a miscommunication. There were established setting details or house rules, but they were located in the lovingly crafted 10-page campaign guide that the players didn't read. The GM neglected to craft obstacles that took into account all the ribbon abilities PCs have (because they are a human person and hard to keep track of all that), with the result that they didn't come up. GM or player misinterpreted the text of a spell (perhaps one that was poorly or confusingly written by the designers in the first place).

In sum, though MMI might arise when a rule/ability is unclear, it is largely not a design issue, but rather a people issue. The best thing a game can do is provide advice on how to handle communication at the table.

 

[pemerton]

If the Noble background is relative to region/culture, is the same true of the CHA stat and associated skills like Persuasion? If not, why not? Are the stat and skill magical? Or is there some other explanation?

 

[FrogReaver]

There is no excuse for an arrogant and condescending comment like that. Why do you continue to make excuses for him?

Max, I think we go back far enough that I can say this to you without you taking it the wrong way. You might want to reconsider your tone.