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

[hawkeyefan]

To start - any that don't fit with the genre or setting.

Okay, sure. I had kind of figured that was covered by genuine play… where the players can be trusted to adhere to genre and don’t start trying to escape from orcs on their helicopter! Setting’s likely a little fuzzier because until something’s established as certain, it may be unknown. But even still, if you have players who are playing in a principled manner, then neither of these is likely to come up.

Do you have any other examples?

I hope we fellow ENworlders played meaningful (if necessarily modest) part!

Yeah, absolutely. Until I started discussing things with people here, I wasn’t even looking beyond the games I was playing. Like, I was dissatisfied with parts of play, but didn’t realize how other games had addressed some of the things that were dissatisfying.

This kind of connects to my point about how the D&D books don’t even comment on problems like Mother May I and/or Railroading. It’s much harder to figure out the problems if the books don’t cite them as unwanted in some way, as something to be avoided.

Without disagreeing with that, I wonder if there is also something in the distinction between player declaring an action - Intimidate Ilmater say - and declaring a result - my fallen ally is healed.

I think there’s a distinction between stating a goal and declaring a result. It seems an important distinction to me that perhaps you’re not making.

 

[clearstream]

I think there’s a distinction between stating a goal and declaring a result. It seems an important distinction to me that perhaps you’re not making.

Okay, that's an interesting line of thought. It feels to me like "Avoid the Duke's mean" is a goal. One I hope to accomplish by using RH. I believe there could be many other ways to achieve that goal - steal horses and flee more speedily, for one example.

It seemed to me that the desire was that the goal would match the result. An example: if our goal is to avoid the Duke's men, then high rolls on our group Stealth check could yield results that match our goal.

In 5e, players say what their characters think, act and talk. They decide what they want to do. Typically, those actions relate to goals they have in mind. The results are then the connective tissue. DM narrates results.

A silly example could be that at 1st-level, without leaving this charming cafe on the Waterdeep docks, I have the goal of becoming God Emperor of Toril, worshipped and obeyed by all, by lunchtime today. I want to cast Guidance twelve times with the clear and stated desire of achieving that. The results of casting Guidance twelve times at 1st level while seated in a cafe, normally won't match a goal of becoming God Emperor of Toril.

Is that more or less what you had in mind? (Not the silly example, the ideas behind it. Actions - Results - Goals.)

 

[Manbearcat]

No. That's called "writing a novel" not "playing d&d".

The players could have ran away into the sewers and come into combat with oozes Kobold cultists or whatever... But they didn’t, they instead expected to world to pause while they took a long rest

The players could have fled into the wilds and run into any number of things in the wilds... But they took a long rest instead...
Tge players could have fled on horseback along roads to another town... But they took a long rest instead and the world didn't pause.

"Assume the gm is a novelist without players" doesn't change anything because it's still carrying an "explain orassume the gm is wrong"

It doesn’t assume “the GM is wrong” at all. It assumes “there are multiple answers” and then works to unpack how any given answer is derived in a way that removes the confounds of both Skilled Play priorities and PC build.

 

[hawkeyefan]

The players could have ran away into the sewers and come into combat with oozes Kobold cultists or whatever... But they didn’t, they instead expected to world to pause while they took a long rest

No we couldn’t have. As I’ve said repeatedly, the GM jumped ahead to the encounter. There was no time between the Rustic Hospitality seeming to work and then the outbreak of a fight.

What @Manbearcat is asking you to do is to fill in that blank with the mental steps the GM took to get there. Like as a process, how does the GM decide how this is what happens?

As for the players, I won't go as far as to say that perhaps we couldn’t have tried to declare additional options. But I’d also add that there didn’t seem to be any need to do so unprompted by the GM at that point in the game. Even a simple “Okay, you’re up in the barn, you’ve set a watch… does anyone want to do anything else?” may have been a clue that what we’d done wasn’t sufficient in the GM’s mind.

I realize you want to blame the players here, but maybe set that urge aside for a minute just for funsies and like pretend you were the GM for a minute and think about what you would have done.

Strictly speaking, RH cannot be deployed to "avoid encountering the Duke's men." Conditioned on your not posing a threat, it can be deployed to hide you, to rest you, to recuperate you.

I mean, the ability as described sounds like you get the assistance from the common folk without having to make rolls to do so. I know that the ability isn’t as explicitly codified as it could be (one of my complaints about background features, which are otherwise a great element) but it would seem a reasonable interpretation.

As @Ovi described, replace the use of it with some ability checks and then I think it’s harder to not see a flaw with how things turned out.

 

[clearstream]

I mean, the ability as described sounds like you get the assistance from the common folk without having to make rolls to do so. I know that the ability isn’t as explicitly codified as it could be (one of my complaints about background features, which are otherwise a great element) but it would seem a reasonable interpretation.

EDIT If need be I can respond on codification separately.

As @Ovi described, replace the use of it with some ability checks and then I think it’s harder to not see a flaw with how things turned out.

Unfortunately, I guess, that sort of analysis is what led me to my current conclusions. I also mentally worked through a flipped situation (PCs pursuing Duke’s men, who were hiding.)

 

[Ovi]

EDIT If need be I can respond on codification separately.


Unfortunately, I guess, that sort of analysis is what led me to my current conclusions. I also mentally worked through a flipped situation (PCs pursuing Duke’s men, who were hiding.)

Can you show that work? Where the PCs declared actions and succeeded on all checks to get to the barn, got in a full rest with watches, but were surprised to be surrounded in the morning?

 

[tetrasodium]

It doesn’t assume “the GM is wrong” at all. It assumes “there are multiple answers” and then works to unpack how any given answer is derived in a way that removes the confounds of both Skilled Play priorities and PC build.

If you are asking for a general process that is going to be different from situation to situation and gm to gm but you keep asking about this situation. For a general "how to spin the plates for that style of game" I touched on it in 41 49 & 545 but out & about today a d trying to answer from my phone. Others may or may not use similar methods.

 

[FrogReaver]

It's an interesting question @FrogReaver. If you start from the position that the DM is interpreting things correctly - that invoking the background only allows for the long rest, is it still a Mother May I situation.

Thanks.

But, here's the thing. Even if the DM is 100% in the right, the player is still unhappy. The player isn't really unhappy about the interpretation of the rules, but rather, how that interpretation was used in the game which resulted in a situation that wasn't fun for the player.

So, in my mind anyway, it really doesn't matter who is right. The issue is that there is a problem at the table. Who's correctly interpreting the rules doesn't change that.

I think it matters who was right. The solution to the problem depends on who was right IMO. If the DM was wrong about the ability the solution is to use the correct rules interpretation going forward. If the player was wrong about the ability, then gaining the correct understanding of how it works is the remedy to such unhappiness.

There's still the possibility the player learns how the ability actually works and is unhappy it works that way. At that point it becomes a social contract issue - does the groups social contract mean they continue playing by the rules as they are, or does it mean they talk it through and potentially alter the rules because none of them are happy with that rule.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that MMI is the symptom of a problem at the table, not the problem itself. The problem is that the DM ignored the players unstated but pretty clear goals in order to use his own.

Essentially the thought is (and correct me if i'm wrong) - the DM should have understood the players goal (i agree) and because of that he should have elaborated on any obvious risks with their approach (i think i agree here as well).

I'll add this caveat though, the table had just read the ability in question - it's very possible the DM thought that doing so was sufficient elaboration around the risks with the approach. In hindsight we know it certainly was not, but does this potentially change anything?

The players wanted to be able to hide from the bad guys and then formulate some sort of strategy to move forward.

Agreed.

The DM took that away and forced the players into a reactive rather than active role.

IMO, that comes with the territory of determining outcomes. IMO, it's a complaint not about this scenario at all but about D&D's reliance on the DM as a whole.

The players couldn't avoid the encounter, couldn't plan for the encounter. They could only react to the encounter. The DM's choices deprotagonized the players. It took away their choices.

For me the first question this bring up is - are there valid states where the players make a choice and then the DM can determine they didn't get to avoid an encounter? I think that obviously happens quite often during the course of regular play. The question in my mind is really, was this one of those situations and more broadly how do we determine when this is okay/legitimate and when it is not.

And, note, it wasn't the player's choices that resulted in this scenario either. If the players chose to enter the bad guy's stronghold and get caught in a trap, well, that's on the players. The players in this case though, have pretty strongly signaled that they want to be in the driver's seat and the DM completely ignored that.

To me the players had the choice to use the feature and rest or to do nearly anything else. Unless you are claiming that regardless of what the players did that they couldn't elude the Duke's men then I think the players choices did result in the scenario. The only difference and it's a major one between this and getting caught in a trap in the bad guy's stronghold is the idea that the players had knowledge about potential risks in going into the bad guy's stronghold but no knowledge about the potential risks of hiding using this feature.

Sometimes we see choices + some knowledge of risks and rewards referred to as meaningful choices. That concept is probably pertinent to this discussion. I'm going to pause here.

 

[clearstream]

Can you show that work? Where the PCs declared actions and succeeded on all checks to get to the barn, got in a full rest with watches, but were surprised to be surrounded in the morning?

To quibble details, recollect that hiding is essentially resolved as a contest, so that PC checks would "ride" until tested and broken. Additionally, it is within the rules for DM to call auto-succeed or auto-fail on any ability check. (A DM's principles should guide them.)

That said, if your interpretation is that RH amounts to auto-successes in the PCs favour on all relevant checks, then they ought to have remained hidden. I don't see how NPCs can find PCs who have cover and auto-pass all relevant checks. Still less be capable of sneaking up on them!

Regarding surprised, did the DM rule a surprise round for the NPCs?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Okay. But IMO, you also have consistently provided definitions that under examination don't seem to separate the 2 with respect to whether they are mother may I. So, for me it appears you are consistently saying two different things. That's frustrating for me as well - but I'm confident we can get this sorted out.

*Note: I'm not blaming you. Defining stuff just the right way is hard!


I fully agree that those are different. So let's start here. Are both of those mother may I? If not, can you define mother may I in a way that exempts the scenario that isn't? I think for me that's where I keep getting hung up.

The former is not, the latter is.

Various things (many of which I have said before, perhaps in different words) may serve, though I have said repeatedly that this is a line which can only be drawn by human judgement, not by strict and unbending adherence to a rigid line. This is because it will always, always be possible to dance on that line and do just enough to respect the letter of the definition while subverting the spirit thereof.*

• Does the DM have a literal prefigured list of approved actions, and anything not present on that list is impossible, no matter how the players might approach it? That is trivially MMI, and looks nothing like "sometimes, albeit rarely, the answer is no," while being identical to "the answer is almost always no, unless it tickles DM fancy." Note that this a form of MMI which doesn't even need to rely on DM adjudication (which is somewhat unusual, at least in my view of the term); a ruleset could do the same thing, e.g. the skills in it could have very specific, defined uses, and if anything "off-label" is verboten, then it is the ruleset (or the designers) doing the MMI. The effect is no less frustrating, but it is mildly more manageable as a player because the rules are visible and can thus be actually critiqued and (perhaps) addressed, which is where the DM adjudication enters the picture; a DM playing a closed-ended ruleset with a draconian, unbending commitment to perfect RAW is going to end up contributing to the MMI by shutting down any effort to address the system's shortcomings. Also noteworthy, this has nothing to do with railroading; a pure sandbox, no-plot, "no fate but what we make" game can still be affected by this.
• The DM has an invisible, perhaps even not actually known to the DM herself, list of what is pre-approved and everything else is presumptively rejected, where the players cannot find out what is on that list without trying things and being told "nope, you can't do that." This is the "classical" form (though AIUI the person who coined the phrase intended it more in the preceding sense), where the players have no real way to know what they're "supposed" to do except by learning to read the DM's mind. "Pixelb!+@#ing" is a classic example, drawing a comparison to one of the ways classic point-and-click adventure video games could become tedious and frustrating, where you must click on exactly one correct pixel in order to achieve what you want, otherwise you fail (and may even die!) This, again, emphasizes the "nothing is permitted unless explicitly approved, you can't find out what is approved without consulting the arbiter, the arbiter is capricious or inconsistent, and you will not ever be capable of making the arbiter budge" stuff.
• "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" syndrome: situations where it doesn't matter whether you use resources or not, come up with a plan or not, or negotiate with the DM over something or not, the end result happens anyway. This is a twofer of MMI and railroading, one might say railroading by way of MMI, as opposed to railroading by way of trickery (e.g. Illusionism, quantum ogres, fudging, secret retcons, etc.) This was on display in the Rustic Hospitality situation, where the players got....nothing whatsoever that they couldn't have gotten by just hoofing it into the forest for an hour before making camp. In this case, efforts are usually invalidated not by being told "no," but by being adjudicated into irrelevance most of the time. (Again, rare instances of disallowing something outright are okay, so long as the DM is being sincere, forthright, and respectful about doing so, and instances of disallowing in part rather than in whole, with opportunities for the players to improve or redirect things to get more of what they want by taking risks, are a great way to avoid these pitfalls.)
• "Miserly" or "curmudgeonly" DMing. The latter refers to DMing which treats every player effort at improving their situation as inherently forbidden unless an arbitrary, punitive threshold is met. Often this takes the form, as is common with MMI, of paying lip service to the player's ideas, and then (intentionally or not) giving those ideas a snowball's chance in hell of actually working. "Oh you want to persuade the skeptical Duchess to try to help your party that is trying to save the world? DC 30 Persuasion check, with Disadvantage." The former, "miserly" DMing, instead denies the results, as opposed to the attempt: "oh, sure you can try to persuade the Duchess. Give me a Persuasion check. 22? Not bad. She declares that because you have claimed a noble goal, she has graciously decided she will not have you executed on the spot, but you'll get not a ha'penny from her, nor a single partisan." Point being, this technically let the player do what they wanted to do...it just had no actual impact. Curmudgeonly and miserly DMing can sometimes be identified from single extreme cases like the above, but in general they will require observing over time to detect...which means you usually can't figure out they're there until you're already invested and entangled.
• Excessive overuse of the real world, or more commonly the incorrect and faulty understanding that the DM has about the real world, as a standard for what is possible in a fantastical world. This, I grant, is pretty subjective even compared to the other examples, but it's still relevant. There are a LOT of DMs out there who think that feats which Olympic athletes achieve on the regular are legitimately physically impossible. A number if DMs have faulty, Aristotelian understandings of how physics works, and tend to get quite belligerent if you prove to them that "it can't be done by an out-of-shape nerd, therefore it's superhuman" is a bogus standard. And, as with the first point, this is one that can appear anywhere; many folks have a really erroneous understanding of what a well-trained archer can do with firing large numbers of arrows reasonably accurately even while moving (e.g. Mongolian horse archers were terrifying because they could shoot very rapidly, with high accuracy, while moving at high speed.)

Are these finally enough? I have said most of them many times, often without comment (other than getting perhaps one or two likes from folks who agree with me, so I know I didn't just shout into the void.) My position has not changed. MMI is a problem of faulty DMing where extreme and unwarranted skepticism, denial, restrictiveness, or miserly adjudication stymie players left and right, very often resulting in players not being able to achieve anything at all that they attempt to, unless that thing happens to coincidentally align with the DM's existing preferences (preferences which will get absolute authority and which cannot be challenged, questioned, or altered in any way.)

As an aside, though it is properly speaking irrelevant, I expect some people (though I doubt you will do this) to respond to this with some whataboutism. "What about unreasonable players?! Are you saying players can never do wrong?!" No, I am not. Players can obviously be petulant, demanding, irrational, narcissistic, domineering, etc., etc., ad nauseam. Unreasonable players are of course a problem. However, this is a total nonsequitur, it does not rebut any part of my argument whatsoever, it merely tries to replace the current discussion ("what is MMI? Does it even exist? If so, is it bad? If it is, how should we deal with it?") with a completely different discussion ("can players be just as bad as DMs in behavior terms? Is one problem worse than the other?") This is a distraction, rather than a valid rebuttal.

More importantly, it is not the players who are declaring special authority; it is not the players who claim to exercise absolute power; it is not the players who are claiming that their judgment is beyond question. It is the DM doing these things. Anyone who does these things, regardless of their motivation, deserves special, heightened scrutiny. That is not unfair. That is an inherent result of their claim to special, heightened status in the first place. Those who claim authority open themselves to greater scrutiny than those who do not. It is that simple.

*This is related to the problem of "legislating morality": moral judgements inform our laws, as they should, but our laws cannot act as a guarantee of moral behavior. The moment you try to replace actual human judgement with mere enforcement of law and no more, you invite abuse and amoral or even immoral behavior with an excuse already loaded and waiting to be used.