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

[Bedrockgames]

Well...you could choose not to take offense and simply answer? They're good questions, and and answering would keep things going constructively!

This isn't a response to Hawkeye as I have found his questions reasonable. But I do think one reason people are wary of questions in these discussions, on both sides of the aisle, is they can frequently be made in bad faith ways. For example someone can ask you a litany of questions, not with the aim of gaining clarity but of just getting you to speak more until you say something our of exhaustion they can object to or to confuse you. There is also the classic move of taking a socratic approach to the point of sophistry that sometimes happens. I am not saying that has happened here. But I do think the more good faith our questions are, the more we are likely to get better answers overall.

This is largely why I've learned to ignore the conlcusions that arise in online forums. We often paint ourselves into corners in the question and answer phase, because we are fielding responses quickly and sometimes the discourse builds into this thing where, because there are a few flawed premises no one catches a long the way, it leads to ideas surrounding play style that don't function at the table. To use an example outside what anyone is advocating here, I've been guilty of picking up a particularly narrow view of agency and sandbox in the past, which worked beautifully in online discussions (you had a beautiful platonic ideal of play that looked great in text) but could fall apart or become overly rigid and cloud out a lot of fun things, in a live group (who aren't really interested in platonic ideals or style so play stemming from someone trying to build a consistent argument over pages and pages on a forum). My games vastly improved when I shed that platonic notion. Not sure if this clear, it is also a bit of a tangent that has nothing to do with your initial premise. But the comment brought this to mind

 

[Bedrockgames]

... It is probably better to keep our conversation more productive without getting into he-said/she-said about what others are saying, as per the bold. Let's focus on what I am saying and what you are saying or even our respective experiences with the term. Agree?

I am just trying to reiterate the point of views expressed and the camps that have formed in the discussion so I can address some of my issues with the use of mother may I. I'm fine moving beyond nomenclature into description of what the actual issues are. But it keeps coming back up so I keep addressing it

 

[Aldarc]

I am just trying to reiterate the point of views expressed and the camps that have formed in the discussion so I can address some of my issues with the use of mother may I. I'm fine moving beyond nomenclature into description of what the actual issues are. But it keeps coming back up so I keep addressing it

I think that the conversation would be more fruitful by personalizing discussion rather than factionalizing it. I understand that it can be difficult to keep track of who is arguing what, but throwing people into easily compartmentalized camps to make it easier for you doesn't really do justice to any individual's argument.

 

[Aldarc]

Sure, I said earlier that the GM saying yes can lead to issues. And I said that when it feels like you are always trying to guess what the GM has in mind that isn't fun. For me the ideal state here is the GM has the power to make a ruling, to invoke fiat, and has rules where needed, in order to give the players the strongest sense that they are there in the world. I get that for some people this feels like mother may I. My point has been if that is your honest reaction to such systems, fair enough. That is your reaction, but you also have to understand that this doesn't feel like mother may I for everyone.

I don't think that this necessarily is MMI. Others may disagree. I don't think that any definition of MMI that fundamentally amounts to "the GM has fiat to make rulings" is a useful one regardless of whatever camp or box you are putting people into.

The problem I have with mother may I as a descriptor is its a highly negative one and an inaccurate one (it invokes a child's game that is about controlling other people, and as a descriptor it feels because it is all about the yes/no binary and all about playing a guessing game with the leader: who also controls your actions.

Clearly the people who feel frustrated by what MMI describes find it accurate as a term or otherwise they wouldn't use it. It's not as if this was term was picked arbitrarily out of a hat to describe the issue.

I can't say that MMI is any more negative than other commonly used TTRPG terms - e.g., railroading, metagaming, badwrongfun, munchkin, etc. - so what makes MMI any different?

The whole reason to give the GM this power is not to control your actions, but to empower the player to be able to try anything in a fantasy world or in a story that is unfolding (it is the thing that choose your own adventure promises but can't deliver, the thing that computer games, at least the ones from my time---I can't speak to present day ones---promised but failed to deliver because everything had to be programmed in advance. Life isn't programmed in advance and the point of a GM who hears what the players are trying to do, and tries to resolve how that can unfold, is to give you the sense of living in a real world or being in the shoes of a real character in a story. Mother may I is the death of that IMO.

How about empowering the player(s) directly rather than the GM? Are they not humans like the GM is? Do they need to be programmed in advance like the computer games you describe? For comparison, I don't feel empowered as a citizen by giving an autocratic populist more power even if people claim that it is done for my sake. Quite the opposite.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think those thinking of MMI negatively are envisioning cases like the following

• The game text that we agreed to up front says I can do X, but one or more other participants require me to seek their approval before I can do X.
• I think X rightly follows our fiction, but one or more other participants require me to seek their approval before X can become part of our narrative.

To put MMI positively - notwithstanding that I believe when it is used, it is almost always intended to imply degenerate cases - I think it easy to see that non-degenerate cases like the above come up all the time and at many tables are resolved not as negative-MMI, but as simply doing what amounts to playing a game, which is accepting constraints. Which we do for the very positive reason that, as Suits puts it, "they make possible such activity".

I know we haven't always seen eye to eye on stuff, but this is a very fair take.

It also gives us an example of games that can work like this: games that don't have a GM at all, and instead share authority in some way. Under those circumstances, yeah, sometimes you do have to "ask for permission" to affect someone else, and there is no central clearinghouse, it's contextual, meaning you have to keep asking.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't think that this necessarily is MMI. Others may disagree. I don't think that any definition of MMI that fundamentally amounts to "the GM has fiat to make rulings" is a useful one regardless of whatever camp or box you are putting people into.

Unless I am misunderstanding what others are arguing, many of the posts I have been responding to, have been around the GM's power to fiat and to make rulings. I'm not saying this is your position, but it is certainly a position I think I am seeing on the thread.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Clearly the people who feel frustrated by what MMI describes find it accurate as a term or otherwise they wouldn't use it. It's not as if this was term was picked arbitrarily out of a hat to describe the issue.

I can't say that MMI is any more negative than other commonly used TTRPG terms - e.g., railroading, metagaming, badwrongfun, munchkin, etc. - so what makes MMI any different?

I never said it was different. Again, I am fine with it as a criticism. Where I've taken issue is people saying it accurately describes the power dynamics of standard D&D. From my first post here, I've been saying if its your criticism of play, just like railroad is a criticism of play when the GM doesn't let them do what they want, that's fair. It is even fair to say D&D is too mother may I for me, or too railroad for me (personally I found the linear style adventures at the height of 3E to be railroady). I would however maintain that these complaints don't add up to an objective analysis or description. I may find 3E to be too railroady, but I don't think 'railroad structure' is an accurate way to describe 3E or its adventures. That game can be run entirely in a non-railroad way, running a railroad isn't the point of play, and linear adventures are not necessarily railroads (if the GM is letting the players go off course, than the linear structure is really just a starting point and something they can return to, but not an imposed railroad)

 

[Aldarc]

Unless I am misunderstanding what others are arguing, many of the posts I have been responding to, have been around the GM's power to fiat and to make rulings. I'm not saying this is your position, but it is certainly a position I think I am seeing on the thread.

Cats and dogs may be tetropods but does it provide an accurate context or scale of the conversation if we talk about them as tetropods rather than as cats and dogs?

The problem IMHO is that MMI is not broadly about "the GM's power to fiat and to make rulings," but, rather, it's more restricted to "the GM's power to fiat and to make rulings" as it pertains to the gating of player character actions and knowledge.

I never said it was different. Again, I am fine with it as a criticism. Where I've taken issue is people saying it accurately describes the power dynamics of standard D&D. From my first post here, I've been saying if its your criticism of play, just like railroad is a criticism of play when the GM doesn't let them do what they want, that's fair. It is even fair to say D&D is too mother may I for me, or too railroad for me (personally I found the linear style adventures at the height of 3E to be railroady). I would however maintain that these complaints don't add up to an objective analysis or description. I may find 3E to be too railroady, but I don't think 'railroad structure' is an accurate way to describe 3E or its adventures. That game can be run entirely in a non-railroad way, running a railroad isn't the point of play, and linear adventures are not necessarily railroads (if the GM is letting the players go off course, than the linear structure is really just a starting point and something they can return to, but not an imposed railroad)

Let's put those people and their arguments to the side for the time being.

Do you believe that MMI can transpire in D&D? Do you believe that good GMs can commit MMI practices or is it strictly something "bad GMs" do? How do the 5e rules enable or hinder a GM from committing MMI practices in D&D 5e?

 

[Bedrockgames]

How about empowering the player(s) directly rather than the GM? Are they not humans like the GM is? Do they need to be programmed in advance like the computer games you describe? For comparison, I don't feel empowered as a citizen by giving an autocratic populist more power even if people claim that it is done for my sake. Quite the opposite.

Again we are talking about games. Not political systems. So I think invoking autocratic populists isn't helpful (and we can't get political but on that front I will just say I've never voted for one and never will: again I don't believe in benevolent dictators). Let's not assume peoples political viewpoints based on RPG preferences or associate RPG preferences with political views.

I am not saying there is anything wrong with your preference. But I don't see how this discussion has to be a zero sum game. D&D is going to go the way it goes on this point, maybe they change GM authority, maybe they don't. I'm not especially invested in that. There are lots of other games and other variations of D&D out there. I'm content to mostly play RPGs where the GM has the standard power allotted to him (am assuming to don't object to that, just as I don't object to you preferring games where the GM has less power and the players have more).

I feel empowering the players is an entirely valid approach to play. I don't object to it. It isn't my go to preference, I tend to have more fun in games where the GM has the standard powers we are talking about, but I've played games where that isn't the case and enjoyed them. I can take or leave them, just as I can take or leave D&D. And I don't expect you to feel empowered by things that make me feel empowered. All I am expecting is for people leveling this criticism that their experience isn't the only one, and their complaint isn't the only thing that matters. Does D&D for example need to restructure GM authority because some people prefer giving authority to the players? I don't think it needs to do that, or is bad if it chooses not to. They are going to do what they think people will like and what they think is good for the game overall.

If you really think D&D would benefit more from players having greater authority, and if you feel that is a need not being met, my feeling is I think that suggests there is an opening for a new retroclone (I am guessing there is one out there that does this already, but if there isn't sounds very doable to me and based on this discussion like it could have a great deal of popularity). I certainly would be in favor of someone taking that critique and turning it into a new version of D&D under the open license.

But when we are talking about D&D the core game, lets be honest about what it is. It is the full house of RPGs. It has to appeal to the broadest possible audience. So they aren't going to take as many big chances as smaller games. I learned long ago that there are just going to be some things in D&D I don't like. And some editions might have so many things, I don't play them. Again though, we live in a time when there are endless varieties of D&D available. If 5E bothers you because of the power structure, there are tons of alternatives. Believe me I am not trying to persuade anyone they need to play 5E here, as I don't play it myself.

 

[Bedrockgames]

(1) Do you believe that MMI can transpire in D&D? (2) Do you believe that good GMs can commit MMI practices or is it strictly something "bad GMs" do? (3) How do the 5e rules enable or hinder a GM from committing MMI practices in D&D 5e?

Note I added numbers to your quote so I can answer the questions clearly below:

1) Yes, of course.

2) Sometimes a good GM can engage in MMI practices, and any other bad practices. I think it is rare and I think good GMs generally avoid them. Also a good GM will be responsive to player expressions of concern around mother may I. I'm not bothered by the occasional poor ruling as a player. That is a preference issue though. I understand some people want more armor against the possibility of a bad ruling. I think like anything else, there is a cost and its about weighing the costs and benefits. For me, the benefits of a GM having this kind of power outweigh the occasional bad rulings I've bumped into. Some people might have different experiences though.

I think bad GMs are far, far more likely to engage in mother may I.

3) Again, I don't really have an opinion here as I don't play 5E, and I generally think one of the weaknesses of most editions of D&D is bad GM advice (at the very least, quality can vary across editions, sometimes within editions). I don't think this is an issue of rules themselves. The core rule of how a GM adjudicates is fine. And I think it is mostly handled by GMs developing good GMing practices the more experienced they get. I would also say, I think this is something where being a good GM isn't as much the responsibility of the game as it is the person GMing and the group they are playing for. That is something that takes introspecting, experience, understanding what you want in a game, understanding what your players want, experimenting with different approaches, etc. The downside of this approach is it can sometimes take trial and error. It can take time. But the upside is the flexibility I have been talking about.

There are other approaches, for example you pointed to giving players more control. Personally I don't enjoy that as much but it is an entirely valid way to manage things (though I will say having played in games where the players have greater authority, there is still a learning curve, it is just that the players also have to learn skills that normally only the GM has to worry about----at least in the ones I've played). One thing I do like about players having more power, isn't so much getting around mother may I, as much as I like how it can reduce prep and it makes everyone responsible for the campaign functioning.