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

[pemerton]

I'd like to solve the puzzle:

The Tower. In the Gorge. With the Chamberlain.


EDIT - I forgot that there needs to be a Pudding Divining Rod in there too somewhere.

It seems fairly straightforward: the rod leads the adventurer to the gorge, wherein sits a tower occupied by a chamberlain. Does this show that there is no difference between backstory first and situation first?

 

[Thomas Shey]

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.

Its probably difficult to do without some metagame factors (and people not recognizing that is probably because of history where paying attention to such things is frowned on), but I think there's still a difference between trying to keep it in "only in reference to my character" bounds and out.

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.

Well, to be honest, I go into most 5e threads--since I'm neither a 5e player nor much of a fan of it--when the discussion seems to have more broad implications, at least applying to other trad games. This question kind of applies to all of them; where does the no-die-roll, straight-declarative authority stop? I think some of the functions of some forms of metacurrency are to keep a largely traditional separation here while permitting limited ability for the player to put his oar in in areas where most older trad games wouldn't.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Eh. I think calling that "passive" is not only not a good description, it has some semantic loading that does the discussion no good.

Okay, what do you think I'm saying about my own play, then?

ETA: Because, if I'm being loaded, it's about things I like. So, please, what is the loading here telling you? If it's "the player is mostly a receiver of fiction from the GM" then, yes, that's what I mean.

 

[Thomas Shey]

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.

People make binary choices out of ones with degrees of nuance, news at 11.

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.

On the other hand, I think this is kind of doing that too. You can sometimes think that certain results, especially as directly bearing on your character and their actions are better handled by a decision on your part than the dice (or the GM) without wanting to do so frequently, which is one of the purposes some sorts of metacurrency serve. You don't have to want to have your hands fully on the wheel of the narrative to want to nudge it more than die rolls will do sometimes.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Okay, what do you think I'm saying about my own play, then?

ETA: Because, if I'm being loaded, it's about things I like. So, please, what is the loading here telling you? If it's "the player is mostly a receiver of fiction from the GM" then, yes, that's what I mean.

Let me extrapolate as to why I find this fun. I'm absolutely on the receiving end of the fiction. I can and am expected to not contribute to the overall fiction very much at all, and in many cases not at all. I am to declare actions for my character and find out, from the GM, what fiction results. The fun here is that I am 100% in manipulation of that fiction mode. I am trying to marshal my resources against the puzzle to find a solution that results in the GM advancing the fiction. I find the combat minigame fun and engaging for the most part. My job as a player is to receive fiction from the GM, figure out how to manipulate it (often by marshalling my resources), and then declaring the appropriate actions to get the GM to narrate the next bit of fiction. Along the way (hopefully) the GM is doing a skillful job of presenting an entertaining story, but even they aren't, so long as the puzzles are intriguing, I'm good to go. It's very low effort for me -- not much is expected from me and it's relaxing play.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Okay, what do you think I'm saying about my own play, then?

ETA: Because, if I'm being loaded, it's about things I like. So, please, what is the loading here telling you? If it's "the player is mostly a receiver of fiction from the GM" then, yes, that's what I mean.

And I don't think that's how a lot of people see it, nor want to be told that's what they're doing. You're not required to agree with them, but unless you're simply interested in picking a fight (and to be blunt, from my observation of your posts since I've been on this board, I'm not convinced that not what you're trying to do--if not, I don't think you understand at all how your tone comes across quite frequently) it still pays pay attention to how a piece of phrasing is being received.

Put another way, people who wave their hands at the semantic effect of word choices either don't understand or don't care about those effects, and when trying to keep a discussion fruitful, they should.

 

[FrogReaver]

Well, to be honest, I go into most 5e threads--since I'm neither a 5e player nor much of a fan of it--when the discussion seems to have more broad implications, at least applying to other trad games. This question kind of applies to all of them; where does the no-die-roll, straight-declarative authority stop? I think some of the functions of some forms of metacurrency are to keep a largely traditional separation here while permitting limited ability for the player to put his oar in in areas where most older trad games wouldn't.

That's my take on most forms of metacurrency as well. They are simply tools to enable players to temporarily gain some 'non-character action declaration' narrative control. The purpose seems so transparent and yet it's often acted like there's no difference in metacurrency mechanics for that purpose and for ones that allow players to declare X happens in combat (whose reason for existence is to balance martial combat abilities around more than %chance to proc mechanics - example battlemaster superiority dice).

 

[Thomas Shey]

That's my take on most forms of metacurrency as well. They are simply tools to enable players to temporarily gain some 'non-character action declaration' narrative control. The purpose seems so transparent and yet it's often acted like there's no difference in metacurrency mechanics for that purpose and for ones that allow players to declare X happens in combat (whose reason for existence is to balance martial combat abilities around more than %chance to proc mechanics).

Well, I suspect its assumed the latter represent some in-fiction process mostly, whereas metacurrency is explicitly (except in some odd cases like TORG) just what it says on the tin.

 

[Ovinomancer]

And I don't think that's how a lot of people see it, nor want to be told that's what they're doing. You're not required to agree with them, but unless you're simply interested in picking a fight (and to be blunt, from my observation of your posts since I've been on this board, I'm not convinced that not what you're trying to do--if not, I don't think you understand at all how your tone comes across quite frequently) it still pays pay attention to how a piece of phrasing is being received.

Put another way, people who wave their hands at the semantic effect of word choices either don't understand or don't care about those effects, and when trying to keep a discussion fruitful, they should.

I don't really care how they choose to see it. Most of them have never done anything differently. I look at what's happening in play -- and what's often relayed (when you can get anything) is a very passive -- as in not much is actually demanded of the player by the game -- experience. The players receive the fiction from the GM who has sole authority to create this (and the expectation). The players marshal resources and manipulate this fiction to find a why to get the GM to narrate the next bit of fiction. And the GM responds by narrating the next bit, or narrating a failure of the manipulation and the cycle starts again. I mean, the basic 5e play loop has been repeatedly cited and banged hard upon in this very thread.

There's some nuance -- players may be expected to have a backstory with some drama, but then they wait until the GM shines the spotlight at them so that they know they're on stage. However, the play really doesn't change much, because what usually happens is that the GM is still inventing and presenting the fiction, just with an eye to engaging whatever the player hook was. There's been a good amount of discussion about a player looking for their brother only to get tasked by a faction to do a non-backstory thing to get a backstory clue, and that the GM may have already determined that the brother was dead without checking with the player. This was presented without irony as a totally normal thing to do. The player, in all of this, is entirely passive. They don't even declare actions. But this is held out as normal play!

And it is! If I were playing 5e, I would not be the least surprised by this play. It's what I expect. I'm not playing 5e to put my stamp on the fiction and forge forwards on a personally defining quest, to learn about my characters and be surprised by that learning, to learn about the setting and surprise the GM with that learning along with myself. It's not the point. The whole combat minigame exists to add some bits of control and engagement, but it's extremely shallow on the fiction front while very heavy on the manipulation of the fiction pieces the GM provides front.

All in all, the experience of playing D&D is pretty passive. I mean, there's a whole branch of approach called "beer and pretzels." The primary goal of D&D is not uncommonly referred to as "kill things and take their stuff." These aren't derogatory statements, they're fans talking about a game they love! But they certainly are showcasing a pretty passive approach to play, given the entirety of ways to play.

 

[Ovinomancer]

And I don't think that's how a lot of people see it, nor want to be told that's what they're doing. You're not required to agree with them, but unless you're simply interested in picking a fight (and to be blunt, from my observation of your posts since I've been on this board, I'm not convinced that not what you're trying to do--if not, I don't think you understand at all how your tone comes across quite frequently) it still pays pay attention to how a piece of phrasing is being received.

Put another way, people who wave their hands at the semantic effect of word choices either don't understand or don't care about those effects, and when trying to keep a discussion fruitful, they should.

Sure, if we're agreed it's describing the same thing, we can use your term. What was it, again?