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

[FrogReaver]

Okay, sure. I had kind of figured that was covered by genuine play…

IMO, if 'genuine play' naturally excludes all things that might need invalidated then it seems this is solely in how you are defining your terms.

where the players can be trusted to adhere to genre and don’t start trying to escape from orcs on their helicopter!

I think a helicopter in a medieval setting is fairly egregious genre violation. But it's not only examples that far removed that I'm talking about.

Do you have any other examples?

I'll give an example from a long time ago:

Spoiler: Strahd Spoiler

My group was play Curse of Strahd a long time ago. I was a player. We encountered the Burgomaster who was basically the leader of one of the factions. I can't remember precisely what was said to the Burgomaster but the jist was that he was shutting down all the players plans and ultimately a player insulted him with a milder insult. Immediately it was guards and jail the offender.

I did ask the DM afterwards because he does tend to play medieval rulers with a very specific lens. But this wasn't so much him as how the book explained to run the Burgomaster. We talked about it some more and I don't think we ever figured out a great way to run him and adhere to the rules about him that would have been fun for the players.

 

[FrogReaver]

I think for me the basic issue with the Duke example is that the dm had a wide range of responses and chose the one that is the worst result from the player’s perspective. There were all sorts of things that could have happened but “found and ambushed “ was probably the worst result that could have happened.

And I find that those who most vocally denounce any sort of MMI criticism routinely will choose the results that are the worst from the player’s perspective. Typically because they want to “challenge “ the players.

I don't think you meant this the way it sounds, but it does imply that all of us that don't share a position similar to yours on MMI, that we nearly always choose the worst result from the players perspective. That comes across not only untrue but highly offensive.

 

[FrogReaver]

You seem to treat the combat rules as a binding supplement to the play loop. I'm not sure on what basis (given your other posts in the thread).

IMO, D&D groups often have an unspoken/unwritten principle that combat rules should be played as more binding than the rest of the game rules. This is a very common principle across D&D tables.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

IMO, D&D groups often have an unspoken/unwritten principle that combat rules should be played as more binding than the rest of the game rules. This is a very common principle across D&D tables.

Which I honestly find quite baffling. Why does this major subset, where most of the actual rules are, get treated as sacrosanct when the places where the rules are so thin they barely exist don't? It just seems like the silliest stance when contrasted against the seemingly pervasive "rulings not rules" approach.

 

[FrogReaver]

There is a difference between "adjudications which make a sustained, good-faith effort to reach true consensus" and "you absolutely cannot ever adjudicate unless every single person is overwhelmingly, ecstatically, blissfully thrilled with what you're doing."

There's also a difference between saying make us happy vs 'esctatically, blissfully thrilled'.

IMO, to reach a consensus each participant must have some measure of happiness with the result. IMO, it's a valid concern to worry what focusing on consensus like that actually does to gameplay.

It's honestly really tedious to see very careful, circumspect assertions turned into "so...you want everything to be absolutely perfect 100% of the time?"

I don't feel I did that at all. I can certainly say that wasn't my intent. IMO, i treated your careful circumspect assertion just as that and added my own careful, circumspect assertion after that to further discussion.

Because that's obviously not true, no one has said or implied otherwise, and having to repeatedly exhaust multiple paragraphs specifying "no, that's not true, perfection is not the goal, we are not advocating absolutism, we do not want DMs walking on eggshells, we are not supporting bad player behavior," etc. is just...really tiring.

IMO, this is so far removed from anything I said I don't really know how to respond.

 

[FrogReaver]

Which I honestly find quite baffling. Why does this major subset, where most of the actual rules are, get treated as sacrosanct when the places where the rules are so thin they barely exist don't? It just seems like the silliest stance when contrasted against the seemingly pervasive "rulings not rules" approach.

Maybe. We might could say they are being inconsistent, MAYBE. But at the end of the day D&D let's them set their own principles. And IMO, it's not like there's not good justifications for desiring to treat the combat rules more binding than the rest. The stakes are generally higher, life vs death. There's a whole book designated for monster stat blocks. Etc.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

There's also a difference between saying make us happy vs 'esctatically, blissfully thrilled'.

IMO, to reach a consensus each participant must have some measure of happiness with the result. IMO, it's a valid concern to worry what focusing on consensus like that actually does to gameplay.


I don't feel I did that at all. I can certainly say that wasn't my intent. IMO, i treated your careful circumspect assertion just as that and added my own careful, circumspect assertion after that to further discussion.


IMO, this is so far removed from anything I said I don't really know how to respond.

Okay so...what do you mean when you say you are concerned about a focus on getting participants happy with the resulting consensus? Because it absolutely came across as painting the search for consensus as a ridiculous extreme as I described. That consensus-building is a fool's errand because making players happy means sacrificing essential goods for (apparently?) frivolous ends.

Because it read to me rather a lot like saying that the fundamental agenda of game design should be something other than "making enjoyable game experiences." (Now, obviously, this agenda is too broad and insufficiently specific to actually inform the design process, but it is a check designers should keep in mind as they work.) Reaching consensus, where everyone is "happy" with the result (meaning, in general, content or better) seems to me to always be desirable, and situations where consensus is truly impossible should be seen as a Very Bad Sign that should be addressed ASAP.

 

[pemerton]

IMO, D&D groups often have an unspoken/unwritten principle that combat rules should be played as more binding than the rest of the game rules. This is a very common principle across D&D tables.

I think this may be what @hawkeyefan had in mind when, quite a way upthread, he identified spells and combat as the places in 5e D&D which are less prone to "mother may I" because of the difference of orientation towards adjudication of those things.

I think that it shows that pointing to the play loop without also considering principles is not an adequate account of how the game is meant to be played. And (as you know) I think once principles are brought in, there is a pretty clear basis for diagnosing the bad GMing in the episode that @hawkeyefan has described.

As I've posted several times now, I don't see that 5e necessitates that things outside of combat and spells be handled in a way where no principles govern other than the GM adhering to their conception of the fiction.

 

[pemerton]

Right, and in which case I would suggest perhaps

Druid: Alright. Could we conduct a ritual to draw spiritual energy?
DM: Your druidic learning makes you confident that can power up spells or other produced magic that way, but actually build up a spirit? It's outside your current knowldege.
Druid: Hmm... so who would know, I wonder?
Etc

Here again I feel it is okay for DM to explain that characters don't currently have a way to make this work.

Why? What is the benefit of this sort of "postponement" of a player's action declaration to further exploration of the GM's fiction?

 

[FrogReaver]

Okay so...what do you mean when you say you are concerned about a focus on getting participants happy with the resulting consensus? Because it absolutely came across as painting the search for consensus as a ridiculous extreme as I described. That consensus-building is a fool's errand because making players happy means sacrificing essential goods for (apparently?) frivolous ends.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to elaborate. First, I can see now how it might come across that way.

Question: what do you mean when you say you are concerned about a focus on getting participants happy with the resulting consensus?
Answer: My concern is primarily around the pros and cons of what it takes to accomplish such a thing. I hope we can agree there's pros and cons (there is in most everything). For me and my preferences, even as a player, I think the pros for doing that may not actually outweigh the cons. I also think that developing the kind of consensus you are aiming for is not easy - but that's factoring into the pro/con analysis. Also, this may help ease your concerns, I think there are many games that work well that have developing consensus as a primary principle.

Because it read to me rather a lot like saying that the fundamental agenda of game design should be something other than "making enjoyable game experiences." (Now, obviously, this agenda is too broad and insufficiently specific to actually inform the design process, but it is a check designers should keep in mind as they work.)

Sure. But I don't think you believe I want unenjoyable game experiences. I'm working toward the same goal as you.

Reaching consensus, where everyone is "happy" with the result (meaning, in general, content or better) seems to me to always be desirable, and situations where consensus is truly impossible should be seen as a Very Bad Sign that should be addressed ASAP.

A real world analogy.

Being a high level business executive would seem to always be desirable, but after you factor in the sacrifices you have to make to get there most people really wouldn't want it.

Bringing it back around. Consensus is a good goal most of the time. However, to achieve extremely high levels of consensus will involve some sacrifices and for some people those sacrifices are worth it and for others they are not.

IMO, what's happened here is that in an effort to address each others points we both make statements that in isolation can be construed as extreme - whereas what both of us are doing is trying to establish a more middle ground. I think there is a middle ground here and that middle ground is closer to both of our actual positions than what we are reading each others as.