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

[Minigiant]

And the players who want to totally disregard what the DM prepares for us can also go and find themselves a new DM who agrees to cater for their specific tastes. It's exactly the same.

Agreed.

However the question is why the DM has accepted sessions and prepared for something the Players don't care about.

 

[Lyxen]

Not doing anything special about it? They created it with their choice in Waterdeep. At one point I thought it would be cool to give them a flying ship, so they found a wreck with a spelljamming helm in it. Had they decided to leave Toril and head into space, the campaign would have taken another drastic turn into something else. I react to their choices and actions, not the other way around.

Good for you if it's what your players want and are prepared to give to them. But once more it's not the standard way of playing, and just playing characters as you want with a total disregard about what other people at the table want, including the DM is acting like a wangrod.

Prove that removal of player agency and invalidation of their choices in order force them to do what I want is bad? Well, that kinda sorta speaks for itself.

Thanks for that immense strawmanning that just proves that you were wrong initially and hoe much you are lacking any sort of proof.

So, respect =/= accepting a railroad. Like at all. Not even a little bit. In fact, railroading is specifically disrespecting the players and is a DM violation of the social contract.

Prove it. Because the reverse is also true, players totally disregarding what the DM has prepared is disrespecting his work (which is much worse than disrespecting players' whims) and a much worse violation of the social contract.

This is wrong. The game doesn't crash. It simply shifts direction. The DM can get himself into a huff and crash the game, but if he just reacts to the player's desire for something different, no crash occurs and everyone has fun.

No, sorry, if it's not the type of game that the DM wants to run (because he wants a more epic story, for example), then no one will be having fun because the DM will not run a game for that group. Which does not make him a bad DM, just someone with different expectations. Are you badwrongfunning a DM who wants to run a story with an actual scenario ?

Note, this again assumes that the players didn't agree to play the linear adventure. If they did agree and try to leave, they are being tools. The solution, though, is not railroading. The solution is finding new players.

Exactly, see above.

I don't know that one. I stay away from pre-made adventures that aren't short like the modules of old.

Fine for you, but most of these modules of old are still based on some overall scenario. If the players totally go in the opposite direction, the scenario simply does not exist anymore.

 

[Lyxen]

However the question is why the DM has accepted sessions and prepared for something the Players don't care about.

This rarely happens, because it's usually the DM who comes up with a proposal for the players. So if the players agree with this suggestion, they are the one committing to the social contract proposed by the DM.

I don't think I've ever seen a group of players go to a DM and tell him "we want to be totally free to do what we want, just prepare something that we will like".

 

[Maxperson]

Good for you if it's what your players want and are prepared to give to them. But once more it's not the standard way of playing, and just playing characters as you want with a total disregard about what other people at the table want, including the DM is acting like a wangrod.

It's typical of virtually every game I've been in since the early 1990's and 2e. If you're going to claim it's atypical, you should be able to prove your claim.

Thanks for that immense strawmanning that just proves that you were wrong initially and hoe much you are lacking any sort of proof.

There is no Strawman there bud. In order to be a Strawman, I'd had to have attributed some sort of argument to you, which I didn't. My response was the definition of railroad and a statement that it spoke for itself. You should learn what the various fallacies are if you're going to accuse people of them. It will save you embarrassment like this.

Prove it. Because the reverse is also true, players totally disregarding what the DM has prepared is disrespecting his work (which is much worse than disrespecting players' whims) and a much worse violation of the social contract.

Not according to Tasha's. Nothing there says that.

No, sorry, if it's not the type of game that the DM wants to run (because he wants a more epic story, for example), then no one will be having fun because the DM will not run a game for that group. Which does not make him a bad DM, just someone with different expectations. Are you badwrongfunning a DM who wants to run a story with an actual scenario ?

You should avoid speaking for anyone but yourself. That way you won't be wrong like you are now. YOU will not run a game for that group. If you want to take your ball and go home because the players want to go in a different direction, that's on you.

 

[Minigiant]

This rarely happens, because it's usually the DM who comes up with a proposal for the players. So if the players agree with this suggestion, they are the one committing to the social contract proposed by the DM.

I think the bad DMing problem comes from DMs not clearly proposing or explaining their game ahead of time.

Usually the "grab some people and sit down for session 1" deal.

I don't think I've ever seen a group of players go to a DM and tell him "we want to be totally free to do what we want, just prepare something that we will like".

I don't think that happens either.

What usually happens is "Your plot skews far from normal fantasy elements or plots and doesn't have the motivations or logic for our characters to stick with it at all"

It's no surprise most "DM horror stories" have weird settings and plots that deviate from the common or slightly uncommon tropes.

 

[overgeeked]

Oh my god, so he railroaded you a bit and for that he is a "bad" DM ?

Yes. As established in the thread and in the books, the DM has absolute control over literally everything in the game except the players'/characters' choices. If the only way a DM can make a game work is to remove or negate the one and only thing the players get to do in the game...then yes, that makes them a bad DM.

 

[Maxperson]

What usually happens is "Your plot skews far from normal fantasy elements or plots and doesn't have the motivations or logic for our characters to stick with it at all"

It's no surprise most "DM horror stories" have weird settings and plots that deviate from the common or slightly uncommon tropes.

Yeah. Even that one campaign I spoke about above came about because the players didn't know what they wanted me to do for them. As a result, what I came up with wasn't it and they became pirates.

The typical way we figure out a campaign is that I have everyone players all put in 4 campaign ideas. So now we have 16 possible campaigns. Then all 5 of us get to eliminate 1 idea that we really don't like, which drops us down to 11. Then everyone rates the remainder from 1-11 and the 3 highest point totals get voted on rated from 1-3. The winner is what I prepare. That way everyone has a lot of buy-in on whatever the campaign is going to be. Very rarely one of the top 3 will be a campaign idea that I don't think I can do justice to and will let them know that. If that happens we remove it and the 4th spot moves up.

 

[overgeeked]

Yeah. Even that one campaign I spoke about above came about because the players didn't know what they wanted me to do for them. As a result, what I came up with wasn't it and they became pirates.

The typical way we figure out a campaign is that I have everyone players all put in 4 campaign ideas. So now we have 16 possible campaigns. Then all 5 of us get to eliminate 1 idea that we really don't like, which drops us down to 11. Then everyone rates the remainder from 1-11 and the 3 highest point totals get voted on rated from 1-3. The winner is what I prepare. That way everyone has a lot of buy-in on whatever the campaign is going to be. Very rarely one of the top 3 will be a campaign idea that I don't think I can do justice to and will let them know that. If that happens we remove it and the 4th spot moves up.

Or don't run themed campaigns and do something more like a West Marches game or how things were run back in the day. The DM preps a world or a region and drops the players into it. The players are then free to do whatever they want. There might be a broader world around it or it might just be this region. It might expand later or it might stay a limited sandbox. Just let the players know up front so they don't run off the edge of the world. "Hey, for now I only have this area prepped, so don't go outside the valley, but as long as you stay in this region, you can do whatever you want."

Point being there are quite a lot of ways to run a game successfully that don't involve negating/removing player choice. And just in case, no...having a limited sandbox isn't negating or removing player choices.

 

[Minigiant]

Yeah. Even that one campaign I spoke about above came about because the players didn't know what they wanted me to do for them. As a result, what I came up with wasn't it and they became pirates.

The typical way we figure out a campaign is that I have everyone players all put in 4 campaign ideas. So now we have 16 possible campaigns. Then all 5 of us get to eliminate 1 idea that we really don't like, which drops us down to 11. Then everyone rates the remainder from 1-11 and the 3 highest point totals get voted on rated from 1-3. The winner is what I prepare. That way everyone has a lot of buy-in on whatever the campaign is going to be. Very rarely one of the top 3 will be a campaign idea that I don't think I can do justice to and will let them know that. If that happens we remove it and the 4th spot moves up.

I do something similar.
I usually come up with 4-6 brief ideas and give everyone a +2, +1, and -1 to distribute. And the one with the most -1s always gets tossed.

 

[hawkeyefan]

It is absolutely in agreement with the standard way of playing 5e (which this threat is about), which states that all the rules are within the scope of the DM anyway: "A Dungeon Master adjudicates the game and determines whether to use an official ruling in play. The DM always has the final say on rules questions."

I know this comes up a lit, but looking at that quote now, I think it gets used to promote a far broader idea of DM authority than intended.

Is the DM free to tell me that the fireball I just cast doesn’t work per the range and area of effect rules? Or that I can’t increase the damage by using a higher level slot?

Are there really any questions about how fireball works? I see that quote as limited to times when the rules are somehow unclear, not about all rules all the time.

I don’t think that proceeding with play under the impression that the DM has total authority is all that productive an approach.