D&D 5E (2014) How do you define “mother may I” in relation to D&D 5E?

[Crimson Longinus]

One of them has been explicitly rejected by several people in this thread, IIRC @Crimson Longinus being one of them (please correct me if I'm wrong on that!)

Wait, what am I rejecting?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Wait, what am I rejecting?

I might have been mistaken, but I had thought you were one of the people who explicitly rejected the "say yes if you can" policy.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I might have been mistaken, but I had thought you were one of the people who explicitly rejected the "say yes if you can" policy.

What makes you think that?

I'm very much in "you can certainly try" camp, and I really like when the game is driven by PC actions. Now sure, there are some occasions when the GM seem to say flat out "no" but in practice I find that to be pretty rare.

 

[Campbell]

I don't think bad intentions are a core feature of play where players feel like they need to ask permission to have any sort of meaningful impact on the game world. It's usually born out of a sincere desire to run the best game possible - to shock and surprise players, to create thrilling set pieces, to have the best story outcomes, following well established patterns of play. The last bit is pretty critical. There is a lot of established wisdom in traditional RPG communities that I feel leads many GMs astray. Stuff that is definitely not essential to trad play, but encourages protecting the game from rogue players (which often results in a much worse experience for good players).

Look at the example provided in this thread. The GM was well intentioned - they wanted to provide a thrilling set piece. They just did so in a way that had a marked impact on players' ability to skillfully navigate the fiction.

 

[Ovi]

I might have been mistaken, but I had thought you were one of the people who explicitly rejected the "say yes if you can" policy.

Catching up, and this exchange brought it to my attention, but I have no idea what "say yes if you can" actually means. What are the constraints on "if you can?" It seems that "I, the GM, have a different idea" is sufficient to trip that last clause. This is another bit of non-advice that the DMG provides that is more akin to Rorschach blots than anything else -- it's still going to be up to the table's social contract and the GM's personal set of principles of play to actualize this.

ETA: I'm just using your quote as a jump off, not responding directly to something you've said. It was where I noticed the "say yes if you can" phrasing.

 

[pemerton]

@Ovi

The 4e DMG says "Try not to say no" - it clearly recognises that the GM may have a reluctance that they have to overcome!

 

[Ovi]

@Ovi

The 4e DMG says "Try not to say no" - it clearly recognises that the GM may have a reluctance that they have to overcome!

Is there more context for that? It seems, to me, to be about as weak as "say yes, if you can" just phrased in the inverse. You don't have to dig it up, but I'm not exactly sure where my 4e DMG is right now.

 

[Xamnam]

It says try not to say no in reference to skill challenges, and then likewise in hazards.

Reward Clever Ideas
Thinking players are engaged players. In skill challenges, players will come up with uses for skills that you didn’t expect to play a role. Try not to say no. Instead, let them make a roll using the skill at an appropriate DC (usually moderate or hard), or make the skill good for only one success. This encourages players to think about the challenge in more depth and engages more players by making more skills useful.
However, it’s particularly important to make sure these checks are grounded in actions that make sense in the adventure and the situation. If a player asks, “Can I use Diplomacy?” you should ask what exactly the character might be doing to help the party survive in the uninhabited sandy wastes by using that skill. Don’t say no too often, but don’t say yes if it doesn’t make sense in the context of the challenge.

But, it also actually does say "Say yes," several times, that's even the entire heading of a section. Page 28:

Saying Yes
One of the cornerstones of improvisational theater technique is called “Yes, and . . .” It’s based on the idea that an actor takes whatever the other actor gives and builds on that. That’s your job as well. As often as possible, take what the players give you and build on it. If they do something unexpected, run with it. Take it and weave it back into your story without railroading them into a fixed plotline.

And then it goes on with an example.

Edit: Notably, later in the book, page 98:

Skipping to the End
Sometimes adventure designers fail to account for the capabilities of high-level characters or the resourcefulness of clever players, and the players find a way to skip over most of the adventure and get right to the climactic fight. Again, it’s better to say yes and go from there, rather than coming up with an arbitrary reason why their plan doesn’t work. Let the players feel clever, and reward their ingenuity.

 

[Guest 85555]

This is very clear. I think it's possible to write sensible advice for GMs about how to run that sort of game. And in that sort of game an ability like Rustic Hospitality is probably out-of-place.

I can't say for sure about Rustic Hospitality (it is the kind of ability I would really need to see in use to know how well it might fit this particular game). I'm not especially rigid about there being this inviolable line, especially if there are occasional exceptions. "But the area of player knowledge about monster weaknesses is a pretty crucial aspect of play for me, so I would notice it a lot. I don't have a Rustic Hospitality rule, but there is a class ability that allows characters to slink away if they make a successful roll (and the roll is pretty easy to make if they even just have 1 rank in the skill in question). Certainly there may be situations where I as GM might say that ability shouldn't be able to be applied because it creates a weird contradiction or doesn't make sense due to the circumstances, but I've literally never done that, and I am having trouble imagining a situation where I would.

But like I said, I am not that rigid about "everything, always, must be external" as long as the game overall feels the way I want it to. There could be a mechanic that breaches this line, but adds enough to the game, that I am fine with it. And I could imagine an ability like "Paradigm Shift" where a character can gain some control of that natural language and assert their ability to have something classified as a spirit because they are somehow shaping the reality of the setting around them. I'm not averse to the player being given that kind of control if it adds to the game and fits the cosmology, tone and themes.

 

[pemerton]

Is there more context for that? It seems, to me, to be about as weak as "say yes, if you can" just phrased in the inverse. You don't have to dig it up, but I'm not exactly sure where my 4e DMG is right now.

Here are some of the key passages in the 4e DMG about saying yes and trying not to say no:

As often as possible, take what the players give you and build on it. If they do something unexpected, run with it. Take it and weave it back into your story without railroading them into a fixed plotline.

For example, your characters are searching for a lich who has been sending wave after wave of minions at them. One of the players asks if the town they are in has a guild of wizards or some other place where wizards might gather. The reasoning goes that such a place would have records or histories that mention this lich’s activities in the past, when the lich was still a living wizard. That wasn’t a possibility you’d anticipated, and you don’t have anything prepared for it.

Many DMs, at this point, would say, “No, there’s no wizards’ guild here.”

What a loss! The players end up frustrated, trying to come up with some other course of action. Even worse, you’ve set limits to your own campaign. You’ve decided that this particular town has no association of wizards, which could serve as a great adventure hook later in your campaign.

When you say yes, you open more possibilities. Imagine you say there is a wizards’ guild. You can select wizards’ names from your prepared lists. You could pull together a skill challenge encounter you have half-prepared and set it up as the encounter that the PCs need to overcome in order to gain access to the wizards’ records. You could use a mini-dungeon map to depict the wizards’ library if the PCs decide to sneak in, and then scrape together an encounter with a golem or some other guardian. Take a look at your campaign lists, think about what would help the PCs find the lich, and tell the players they find that information after much digging through the wizards’ records.

Instead of cutting off possibilities, you’ve made your campaign richer, and instead of frustrating your players, you’ve rewarded them for thinking in creative and unexpected ways. (pp 28-9)


Thinking players are engaged players. In skill challenges, players will come up with uses for skills that you didn’t expect to play a role. Try not to say no. . . . However, it’s particularly important to make sure these checks are grounded in actions that make sense in the adventure and the situation. If a player asks, “Can I use Diplomacy?” you should ask what exactly the character might be doing to help the party survive in the uninhabited sandy wastes by using that skill. Don’t say no too often, but don’t say yes if it doesn’t make sense in the context of the challenge. (p 75)


Sometimes the best or the most fun ideas for countering a trap or hazard come as a flash of inspiration during play.

Remember the first rule of improvisation: Try not to say no. When a player suggests a plausible countermeasure for a trap, even if that possibility isn’t included in the trap’s presentation, figure out the best way to resolve that using the rules: a skill check or ability check against an appropriate DC, an attack, or the use of a power. You can always use the DCs that are included in the trap’s description as example DCs for using other skills and abilities. (p 86)


You should allow and even encourage players to come up with their own quests that are tied to their individual goals or specific circumstances in the adventure. Evaluate the proposed quest and assign it a level. Remember to say yes as often as possible! (p 103)


Once you’ve identified where you want to start your campaign, let the players help tell the story by deciding how their characters got there. . . . This step is one of your best opportunities to get the players doing some of the work of world design. Listen to their ideas, and say yes if you can. (p 142)​

It's not Burning Wheel, but it's not hopeless either. We've got player-authored quests, including inside the context of a bigger adventure/scenario (the wizard example, with the relatively straightforward nature of 4e prep being leveraged). We've got player participation in setting/start-up. And we've got glosses on p 42 for skill challenges and using skills vs traps and hazards.

It's actually better than I remember!