D&D 5E Respect Mah Authoritah: Thoughts on DM and Player Authority in 5e

[Ovinomancer]

Thing is, its not usually that tidy. Most players don't want no input; they just have sharp lines where they want their input to stop (often anything beyond the reach of their character's actions, and almost always beyond the extent that directly bears on their character's backstory) and anything beyond that makes them uncomfortable and requires them to engage with parts of the game existence that, if they put it bluntly, if they wanted to do they'd be a GM.

I don't think its so much "passive" as "sharply bounded."

I honestly think a lot of this is learned and not desired. I get this because I have players in my group that when we play D&D are very much color in the lines players, but when we play a game like Blades are fully into it. Unless you get players to try something different, and with clearly different expectations and outcomes (which usually means a different game from a familiar one), it's really hard to say that this is a player thing.

Not that it can't be. I mean, I very much know people like this. I'm just saying you cannot just make this claim as a blanket statement.

 

[pemerton]

I still think part of the issues that arise on this is the question of who gets to decide when action resolution is necessary at all. Both players and GMs can have some pretty strong feelings about that, and I think there's a fair bit of ground where its not abundantly clear which side of the fence who should land on (for example, what are the borders of what a player is allowed to say about his backstory?)

In 5e D&D, at least, the borders of player authority over backstory seem to be settled by the choice of background. So I don't think that is the source of most controversies about railroading and the like.

And isn't action resolution necessary whenever a player declares an action for their PC, in response to the GM framing the PC into a scene/situation? I mean, even if the GM's response is you see nothing interesting or nothing happens, that's still action resolution.

 

[pemerton]

I honestly think a lot of this is learned and not desired.

Absolutely.

My case studies aren't extensive. But when I was part of the great-revolt-against-the-kobold-based-railroading-GM-of-1990, the other participants were (relative to me) random members of a university RPG club. When I started a game that (purely informally) invited them to set some context and priorities for their PCs, they had no trouble with that. Likewise a number of other players who joined our group over the years.

One of those was my BW GM, who had never played a RPG until he joined our RM group in the late 90s. Straight away he expressed the assumption - without even any sense that it might be contentious - that the point of the exercise seemed to be to collectively establish a fiction together. He certainly took it for granted that part of his role as a player was to establish a context, backstory, goals etc for his PC. Maybe he was following the lead of the other players, but he certainly didn't find it strange or hard to do so.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But I don't like when folks just passively want the game to entertain them. I don't like the idea that the GM is there to provide the bulk of "the show" and the players have little input.

I agree. However...

Thing is, its not usually that tidy. Most players don't want no input; they just have sharp lines where they want their input to stop (often anything beyond the reach of their character's actions, and almost always beyond the extent that directly bears on their character's backstory) and anything beyond that makes them uncomfortable and requires them to engage with parts of the game existence that, if they put it bluntly, if they wanted to do they'd be a GM.

I don't think its so much "passive" as "sharply bounded."

In these threads this doesn't seem to be an acceptable stance. If you want to play a game where the players don't have narrative level tools/authority (you know what I mean) you get told that as a player you want just to be passively entertained and as GM you just want to tell stories to the passive players. And this simply is not true, and implying such just leads to pointless conflicts.

Which is not to say that people can't like such techniques. Of course they can. They however are not in any way required to avoid player passivity. That's about attitude. The players simply need to be proactive, and GM needs to not block them with railroads.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Thing is, its not usually that tidy. Most players don't want no input; they just have sharp lines where they want their input to stop (often anything beyond the reach of their character's actions, and almost always beyond the extent that directly bears on their character's backstory) and anything beyond that makes them uncomfortable and requires them to engage with parts of the game existence that, if they put it bluntly, if they wanted to do they'd be a GM.

I don't think its so much "passive" as "sharply bounded."

That may be the case, sure. I've known players and have chatted with folks online who vehemently hate when any decisions they make as a player are made beyond the character level, "as" the character. I think that's an impossible thing to achieve, but I get it as a goal of play if that's what folks are into.

I don't know that I disagree, but I still think part of the issues that arise on this is the question of who gets to decide when action resolution is necessary at all. Both players and GMs can have some pretty strong feelings about that, and I think there's a fair bit of ground where its not abundantly clear which side of the fence who should land on (for example, what are the borders of what a player is allowed to say about his backstory?)

I think the question of who gets to decide and when is pretty much the point of this thread (or at least, the intended point, which as been discussed at times, but there have also been plenty of tangents and sub-conversations).

I think that, in the case of 5E, most of that authority lay with the GM. And, as @pemerton mentions, some instances where it may fall to the player, the rules are fuzzy enough to leave it unclear....hence my Folk Hero example.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I honestly think a lot of this is learned and not desired. I get this because I have players in my group that when we play D&D are very much color in the lines players, but when we play a game like Blades are fully into it. Unless you get players to try something different, and with clearly different expectations and outcomes (which usually means a different game from a familiar one), it's really hard to say that this is a player thing.

Not that it can't be. I mean, I very much know people like this. I'm just saying you cannot just make this claim as a blanket statement.

This has been my experience with my group, as well. When we play D&D, even after playing Blades in the Dark for a while and now Spire, they slip right back into.....I don't want to say passive, but maybe more reactive? That may be a better word for it.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I agree. However...


In these threads this doesn't seem to be an acceptable stance. If you want to play a game where the players don't have narrative level tools/authority (you know what I mean) you get told that as a player you want just to be passively entertained and as GM you just want to tell stories to the passive players. And this simply is not true, and implying such just leads to pointless conflicts.

Which is not to say that people can't like such techniques. Of course they can. They however are not in any way required to avoid player passivity. That's about attitude. The players simply need to be proactive, and GM needs to not block them with railroads.

Why do you think this? No one has said as such. If players just want to passively consume the GM's story, that's peachy! We can talk about how the GM does this, and what that play looks like.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Why do you think this? No one has said as such. If players just want to passively consume the GM's story, that's peachy! We can talk about how the GM does this, and what that play looks like.

Did you not read what I wrote or did you not understand it? Your reply is a non sequitur.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Did you not read what I wrote or did you not understand it? Your reply is a non sequitur.

This is what you said:

In these threads [doesn't seem to be an acceptable stance.

To which I point out that no one in this thread has made a "passive" or "sharply bounded" player approach out to be unacceptable. Not one person. That's directly on point and not at all a non sequitur.

The follow up to this is that if you have a game like this, it's still worthwhile to analyze and discuss and make sure the goals of play (delivering the desired experience for the sharply bounded player) are being met.

However, if you think this isn't on point, I'm very curious as to why -- can you elaborate?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

To which I point out that no one in this thread has made a "passive" or "sharply bounded" player approach out to be unacceptable. Not one person. That's directly on point and not at all a non sequitur.

Which was not my complaint. My complaint was that people equate "passive" and "sharply" bounded, like you just did.