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

[tetrasodium]

And yet the Count of St Germain seems to have done precisely this, repeatedly, all across the courts of Europe in a way that suggests that travelling nobility would get a presumption of good faith. Hangers on as guests at stately homes are a fairly common character in Austen and similar period literature. Hospitality is an important theme in Arthurian legend. We've even got modern examples that suggest robust background checking isn't a big thing of people who claim certain backgrounds even today.

I absolutely get your point that it seems illogical, but a player who is more thinking about the kind of conventions that some literature suggests may find a flat denial capricious. An introduction or some proof may be needed, but the Noble background starts with a signet ring and a scroll of pedigree, so they should have that available to them.

Shadiversity did a pretty good video on how & why that was normal in mediaeval times.

Spoiler: here

The average d&d party looks more like the A team outfitted for war at all times though. Even things like "it would be rude to visit the mayor kitted for battle" or "the invitation was to an extremely upscale dining establishment, they would not let you in the door to meet [npc] if you came dressed in armor carrying weapons" are IME going to be a fight from players who expect the world to make accommodations for them to walk in armed for dragon.

 

[clearstream]

I think you're tilting at windmills here, seeing any constraint (including social constraints) on GM decision making processes as an indication of hostility towards GM judgement.

That's not what I have argued. Really far from what I've argued in fact.

I'm in favor of a strong GM role. I don't think it should be unbounded and I think everyone at the table should be accountable to everyone else.

Me too, but I don't expect everyone else to feel that way, and when they do not, I don't conclude that they are automatically prone to MMI... because MMI is subjective.

You don't have to agree, but please stop misrepresenting the arguments that are being made.

I think you intended the correction (in bold), but I would say that I am representing the arguments that are being made. I recall way back when studying anthropology being introduced to the concept of cultural lenses, and the need to be conscious of cultural blindspots. In this thread, I feel I've revisited those lectures.

• Some players don't experience MMI even when GMs decide
• That means MMI is strictly not present in those cases: there is no corrective action to take, no prone-ness to MMI
• The intuition that MMI-prone-ness is intrinsic and corrective actions are needed, is due to a cultural lense that can't see it any other way

So again, I favour constraints because of my preferences for play. I've often enough on these forums asserted that games are about constraints. But play is not always about constraints, and further which kinds of constraints are most desirable is very subjective. Our RPG playing activity is extraordinarily complex.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I assume by "D&D" here you mean 5e D&D?

In my 4e D&D game the players would invoke "rule zero" - ie insisting that resolution incorporate/honour/respond to established fiction, genre logic, narrative trajectory, etc - quite often.

EDIT for clarity: I'm referring to this sort of thing:

I am not very familiar with 4E: it was a throw away phrase basically saying we all know the answer to the question you asked me. I wasn’t trying to make an argument about the state of rule zero across all editions

 

[hawkeyefan]

These things are distinct

• After a bad bout of insomnia I sometimes suffer from some cognitive impairment
• I am cognitively impaired, and I make choices about the style of play I prefer because of my cognitive impairment (as if those choices could not be made for any reason but being too limited to make better choices, and as if folk who perhaps are differently abled are not perfectly able to have all kinds of preferences)

It surprises me hugely that you cannot see the problem here. That you've doubled down on it is really concerning. It sounds like you may be under other pressures and I hope you return refreshed and are able to see what I'm saying. @hawkeyefan @Campbell really? This line of argument is vile.

I don’t appreciate the moralizing here. Clearly you have read something into the comment made by @Manbearcat, something you did not like. I don’t think your interpretation is fair or accurate, but you’re entitled to it.

Please don’t assume I’ve read it the same way and then judge me for that.

If you are wondering why I liked the comment, you can ask, and I’d elaborate. But don’t wag your finger at me for liking a post.

 

[pemerton]

I am not very familiar with 4E: it was a throw away phrase basically saying we all know the answer to the question you asked me. I wasn’t trying to make an argument about the state of rule zero across all editions

Well, I don't think we do all know. That's why I asked!

I've run AD&D games where "rule zero" as you seem to be using it wasn't confined to the GM.

 

[Cadence]

I am not very familiar with 4E: it was a throw away phrase basically saying we all know the answer to the question you asked me. I wasn’t trying to make an argument about the state of rule zero across all editions

For anyone who would have a good page reference (since I couldn't find it), did 4e itself have something it called rule 0 or a "rule" given similar prominence in the books?

 

[Bedrockgames]

Well, I don't think we do all know. That's why I asked!

No but you asked how I meant it. And that is what I was responding to. I wasn't saying every RPG or every version of D&D has the same version of rule zero, and I also wasn't saying there aren't going to be other ways it gets implemented at different tables. My only real contention here is that a GM being equipped as the final arbiter of the rules and with the power to make rulings through rule zero, isn't inevitably running railroads or mother may I. Every approach, every mechanic, every procedure, has upsides and downsides. Also I never said the players have no input. We just approach that differently. In most groups I'm in, a GM who makes an idiotic change to the rules on the fly (something by the way we'd only rarely implement) is going to be challenged by players. If something nonsensical or contradictory arises the players are likely going to point that out to the GM. You don't need a formal system for players to invoke rule zero themselves, for them to prompt the GM to invoke it or request that he do so.

But the point again is just that there is nothing railroady about a GM having the power of rule zero, of being the one who has final say on the rules and the players largely being limited to acting through their characters. I get that for some, that raises the possibility of the GM using those powers to railroad, and if you find that to be a problem, not liking that arrangement is totally fair. But after countless debates on this sort of topic, I think it is pretty clear we just have different preferences in that respect. I don't expect you to share my preferences (not is it that important to me that others share them in general).

I've run AD&D games where "rule zero" as you seem to be using it wasn't confined to the GM.

Sure and back then I don't recall it being all that formalized anyways. And rule zero in particular if I remember was something that was much more assumed from how the DMGs spoke of the GM's abilities (personally my experience was more with the 2E DMG and the Mentzer boxed set when I first started as I didn't really begin GMing until 2nd edition came out). I remember many tables being different from one another in all kinds of respects. There was one group in my area who always had two GMs for example (I think one was in charge of managing adjudication and running the adventure while the other handled NPCs and kept records). Heck, I used to run Masque of the Red Death as situation comedies (which the the boxed set never mentioned, the tone of the game never suggested, etc). But for whatever reason, that was a source of endless amusement for us for about a summer or two.

All I'm saying here is generally speaking, when I've seen rule zero in action in D&D groups, and granted I don't play much 4E at all, it is generally something confined to the GM. But I am not saying it has to be that exclusively. Nor do I particularly care about the history of rule zero over time, or what varieties it comes in now. I was just responding to the question of how I meant it in that instance.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don’t appreciate the moralizing here. Clearly you have read something into the comment made by @Manbearcat, something you did not like. I don’t think your interpretation is fair or accurate, but you’re entitled to it.

Please don’t assume I’ve read it the same way and then judge me for that.

If you are wondering why I liked the comment, you can ask, and I’d elaborate. But don’t wag your finger at me for liking a post.

I wasn't particularly in agreement or fond of Manbearcat's analysis on this point but I think we shouldn't get bogged down in accusing each other of wrongdoing for liking a post or for a corner someone may have painted themselves into (and for the record I am still not sure what my analysis of Manbearcat's intentions were on that one, but it is also something I am not going to read too deeply into). So I am in agreement with Hawkeyefan on this one. And just to be clear Clearstream, I think any argument that says people like a particular style or don't because they lack intelligence or have some kind of dysfunction isn't a good one and not accurate (I'd say these things are much more about personality types, and if they involve something like intelligence it is probably closer to types of intelligence: i.e. I can see an engineering or math person playing certain types of RPGs and see a history or philosophy person playing other types of games, but nothing is set). But we are 80+ pages deep into splitting hairs on a topic, we got to be generous in our readings of one another's posts I think (I think we are at the 'dizzy phase' of forum discussion).

 

[Bedrockgames]

For anyone who would have a good page reference (since I couldn't find it), did 4e itself have something it called rule 0 or a "rule" given similar prominence in the books?

I am sure Pemerton or someone else can give a page number but I seem to recall page 42 was very important in 4E (can't recall exactly the details around it though).

 

[Manbearcat]

These things are distinct

• After a bad bout of insomnia I sometimes suffer from some cognitive impairment
• I am cognitively impaired, and I make choices about the style of play I prefer because of my cognitive impairment (as if those choices could not be made for any reason but being too limited to make better choices, and as if folk who perhaps are differently abled are not perfectly able to have all kinds of preferences)

It surprises me hugely that you cannot see the problem here. That you've doubled down on it is really concerning. It sounds like you may be under other pressures and I hope you return refreshed and are able to see what I'm saying. @hawkeyefan @Campbell really? This line of argument is vile.

What in the world are you on about here?

You’re escalating this pretty crazily and challenging my integrity (vile?) and I’m starting to get really annoyed, so you need to mea culpa or take measures to resolve this that don’t contain communication with me. I’ll spoil the below:

Spoiler: Spoiled stuff

You need to understand who you’re talking to (and perhaps reread what I wrote in light of that).

Understand that you’re talking to someone that has dealt with chronic Insomnia since age 4. Not a sleepless night. Not “here-and-there.” Not consecutive sleepless nights. Not a few months worth. Not a spate with it for a year. DECADES. I’ve worked through this with cognitive therapy and tons of various (ultimately ineffective) regimes…but I’m persistently cognitively impaired to one degree or another because of it and I do the best I can (despite 2-3 hours of sleep a night…maybe 4 once every few weeks…and then a complete Narcoleptic spiral).

Understand you’re talking to someone working through the progressive cognitive (and more) limitations of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy due to dozens of concussions from age 3 onward.

Understand you’re talking to someone who has cared for multiple people with low-functioning Autism, some of which we attempted various games with (including games that have cognitive loops akin to TTRPGs).

Understand you’re talking to someone who has cared for (and loved deeply as she was my sister) a severely impaired (cognitively and emotionally) drug addict for a decade until her suicide.

Understand you’re talking to someone who carried for his mother…every day (complete care with virtually no Hospice help)…through 22 months of grade 4 glioblastoma, the last 4 months of which were total body Neuropathy and cognitive decline until collapse.

Understand you’re talking to someone’s whose partner is a PHD Chemist yet wakes up routinely with night terrors because of her childhood (one that included a long term regime of self harm which we still deal with).

Understand you’re talking to someone who two of his closest friends run games for someone (his brother) with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and the other with Congenital Hydrocephalus (his best friend’s brother). I have also run multiple games for them both.

Understand you’re talking to someone who worked within and adjacent to cognitive science and field work for nearly a decade and have multiple colleagues who still work in the field and keep me abreast of research.

Understand you’re talking to someone who has the deepest possible empathy and well-practiced understanding for people beset by such things.

But also…

Understand that I’m not just talking about these things. Cognitive and behavioral impairment ranges significantly in its impacts and frequency. Infrequent, mild, impairment might be sufficient for someone to OPT-INTO a game that features (what might others might label as dysfunctional…but is not only 100 % FUNCTIONAL FOR THEM…BUT THE INVERSE WOULD YIELD DYSFUNCTIONAL PLAY) MMI, Force, and/or outright Railroading because they are personal aware of the limits of their mentally processing on Thursday evenings for the next 2 months.

My point in this…again…is that MMI/Force/Railroading are not objectively dysfunctional features of play. And those 3 cohorts I mentioned might prefer them to alternatives for those reasons I mentioned. I’m not speaking to any other cohorts…just those 3.

None of this was me saying “Only cognitively impaired people enjoy MMI/Force/Railroad games.” That isn’t even close to what I said. That shouldn’t be close to your takeaway. I spoke in defense of those 3 modes of play exclusively for a particular collective of cohorts…nothing outside of them.

Whatever you think is happening in this exchange…I hope it’s abundantly clear that you’re not only profoundly wide of the mark but boy do you have the wrong target. This was shaping up to be a good, clear series of exchanges and conversation and you’ve just completely nuked it by weaponizing some misbegotten grievance out of nowhere and tried to shame me for it. I am not playing ball with that.

I mean this. If you want to have any exchanges with me in the future you need to apologize and course correct asap. If you think I’m going to back down at your impugning my integrity with “this argument is vile” (utterly wrong) public commentary…man do you have the wrong person.

If an apology and course correction isn’t in the cards on your end, we should go our separate ways permanent-like. I have never blocked anyone on here and never reported anyone ever (nor will I). But say the word and I’ll put you on block so we don’t have any future interactions.