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

[Greg K]

Is this acceptable per the rules as written? Per the spirit of the rules? Per the social contract among the group? For the purposes of discussion, assume that we're a group who knows each other well, and has played together long enough that we're comfortable with each other. Also assume that the GM hasn't yet shared his reasoning behind the duke's men arriving.

I have an issue with many of the background features. In the case of the Folk Hero, it does not leave room for someone that might sell you out for a reward, a grudge, etc. Then again, I have a strong dislike for absolute abilities (including many class abilities).

 

[pemerton]

Typically, authority is in respect of something-or-other.

What does the D&D referee have authority over?

Not what time the game starts. That's an issue of social consensus.

Not over who joins the group. That's an issue of social consensus.

Not over which rules the group uses. That's an issue of social consensus - eg if the GM tries to apply a rule and others reject it, the dispute has to be resolved just like any other dispute among people playing a game together.

The GM does have authority over what is written in their notes. But until that somehow comes into play at the table, it is just solitary authorship of fiction.

The relevant authority, as best as I can tell, is authority over some parts of the shared fiction? Which parts of that fiction, in particular, is the key question. And that it be shared fictionis a key requirement: if the GM specifies something about the fiction, and the game breaks up over it, then I think it's fair to say that the contentious fact never became part of the shared fiction!

GM authority over most of the backstory is the norm for D&D. But that is completely different from authority over outcomes!

And this really depends on your players and their expectations. Once more, out of more 5000 usually experienced LARP players in our games (you usually don't get into a LARP with no roleplaying experience), 90% opt for an at least partially guided adventure, with only 10% opting for the "I'll try and make my own adventure".

If you want to build a collaborative world, I can see how it could be interesting. I get input from my players as well, I just have editorial and veto power.

Who has authority over setting and backstory? Who has authority over situation? (ie where are the PCs and what is going on that calls the players to declare action)

And who has authority over the outcomes of declared actions, and how do those outcomes feed into new situations?

A sandbox answers only the first of these questions. But most of the action in this thread is about the latter two - ie situations, and outcomes.

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.

Fully agreed. The D&D rulebooks are chockfull of action resolution mechanics.

There are RPGs in which the way of working out what happens next is that someone - perhaps the GM, perhaps the player sitting to the left of the one who made the declaration - decides what that is. But those RPGs don't need hundreds of pages of class build rules, spell descriptions, rules for setting DCs, etc!

There are dozens of ways within the rules of the game that permit the DM to do that. How does a fireball interact with a cone of cold? That's up to the DM. How about a counterspell? Pretty clear. How about heavy wind and rain or a control weather spell? Contorl Water? Tsunami? Gust of wind? Up to the DM. How does the fireball interact with the terrain? Up to the DM. The DM is also free to create monsters and NPCs and spells. Those monsters and NPCs and spells are not bound by the same rules as the PCs. So if a DM wants to drop an Avatar/Korra style firebender into the game, that's their prerogative.

I think it's helpful to read @hawkeyefan's post closely: I see that quote as limited to times when the rules are somehow unclear. You have nominated a variety of situations in which the rules are unclear or incomplete.

I think it's also helpful to think about principles. The GM is free, in a formal sense, to create a NPC who, like a variation on the Manchurian Candidate, will stonewall every attempt to interact or gain information unless the players declare that their PCs do some very specific thing. But is that really a good exercise of authority over backstory and situation? To me it looks like an attempt to control outcomes of action declaration, by declaring in advance that all but one of the salient declarations will fail.

Whether or not that falls within the bounds of the 5e rules in some literal sense, is it good GMing? Who would say so?

 

[Oofta]

I want to share an experience I had as a player in a fairly recent 5E game. I think it's relevant to some of the points in the discussion and may help by presenting a specific example rather than hypothetical.

My PC is a ranger with the folk hero background. He's a bit of a Robin Hood type. The other PCs are as well. We'd recently escaped capture by the archduke, who's kind of our Prince John; he's placed a bounty on our heads. This was as a result of the first few sessions of play; the PCs have effectively become outlaws, but the reigning government is at least corrupt, if not outright evil (there's some hint of possible black magic at play).

So we had to flee the town we had been in, and we arrived in another nearby town. We crossed a dangerous stretch of river in order to throw off any pursuers. So we arrived in the other town with some sense of safety; we'd evaded the law for now, but night was coming, and there was a storm forming. So our rogue scouted the town out a bit, and discovered that the Inn was overrun with the archduke's troops. The last thing we wanted to do was to wind up in another showdown with the duke's men, so we needed to avoid the inn.

I decided to use my Folk Hero Background Feature: Rustic Hospitality. It says:
Since you come from the ranks of the common folk, you fit in among them with ease. You can find a place to hide, rest, or recuperate among other commoners, unless you have shown yourself to be a danger to them. They will shield you from the law or anyone else searching for you, though they will not risk their lives for you.

We went up to a farmhouse on the outskirts of town, and I asked the farmer and his wife if we could take shelter in their barn. We mentioned that the inn was filled with the duke's men, which wasn't exactly safe for us. The farmer took our meaning, and recognized my character, and granted us shelter.

The characters woke in the morning to find the barn surrounded. The duke's men had "discovered" they were in the barn. There was no sign of the farmer or his wife. The GM had essentially overrode my use of my PC ability in order to ensure that there was a fight with the duke's men.

Is this acceptable per the rules as written? Per the spirit of the rules? Per the social contract among the group? For the purposes of discussion, assume that we're a group who knows each other well, and has played together long enough that we're comfortable with each other. Also assume that the GM hasn't yet shared his reasoning behind the duke's men arriving.

What do you all think? How would you have handled it?

I would say I don't know what the DM was thinking or what the situation is. I don't think I'd have had this happen, but I can't read the DM's mind. Maybe there's a chance that these commoners are particularly loyal to the duke because the information will pay off their debt - say a 10% chance. Maybe there were some secret rolls the DM did that you got spotted heading out there. Maybe they just forgot or didn't know (not sure if you reminded them). Maybe they decided it only applied to your PC but not the rest of the party.

It probably wouldn't happen that way in my game because my games are very adaptable to this kind of thing, but not everyone is good at adjusting on the fly. Last but not least backgrounds are not supernatural abilities. If it didn't work in my game there would have been a reason.

 

[pemerton]

several posts talk about players controlling fiction and deciding how the rules work, not just having input.

At the core of RPGing is collectively creating a shared fiction. As a player, I expect to able to create some of that shared fiction. The standard medium for doing so is declaring actions for my PC. These are then resolved by using the relevant system. If that system is nothing beyond the GM decides what happens, then what am I there for? I'm nothing but a suggestion-giver to the GM.

 

[pemerton]

If these adjectives simply mean that the 5e DM’s authority is over rulings and rules interpretations, the setting, and the thoughts, speech, and attempted actions of the NPCs, well then I’d say this is a good approach.

If I, as a player, cannot sometimes - via the action resolution process - influence the shared fiction vis-a-vis what a NPC thinks, says or does then what is the point of the CHA score, social skills, Charm spells, etc?

 

[pemerton]

For me, the more we start to lean on the GM as " the creative source" of the game rather than "a creative source" the more problematic the game becomes, and the more we lose of the things I think make RPGs great.

Absolutely this!

 

[Umbran]

I decided to use my Folk Hero Background Feature: Rustic Hospitality. It says:
Since you come from the ranks of the common folk, you fit in among them with ease. You can find a place to hide, rest, or recuperate among other commoners, unless you have shown yourself to be a danger to them. They will shield you from the law or anyone else searching for you, though they will not risk their lives for you.

It seems to me that the ability assures that a place can be found, but it does not guarantee that every place among the commoners would be safe hiding. I would generally expect players to at least make a token effort at trying to establish who is sympathetic, rather than assume the first farmhouse they found was going to be a safe haven.

And, as stipulated, the ability does not hold up against threat of death. As a GM, I'd not use that unless the lord's men had some reason to expect you were in the area, and the lord really didn't give a white what the peasants thought of him. Threatening to kill to find you shouldn't be the first go-to most of the time, but it could happen.

So, in the end, that result is plausible.

 

[Maxperson]

I want to share an experience I had as a player in a fairly recent 5E game. I think it's relevant to some of the points in the discussion and may help by presenting a specific example rather than hypothetical.

My PC is a ranger with the folk hero background. He's a bit of a Robin Hood type. The other PCs are as well. We'd recently escaped capture by the archduke, who's kind of our Prince John; he's placed a bounty on our heads. This was as a result of the first few sessions of play; the PCs have effectively become outlaws, but the reigning government is at least corrupt, if not outright evil (there's some hint of possible black magic at play).

So we had to flee the town we had been in, and we arrived in another nearby town. We crossed a dangerous stretch of river in order to throw off any pursuers. So we arrived in the other town with some sense of safety; we'd evaded the law for now, but night was coming, and there was a storm forming. So our rogue scouted the town out a bit, and discovered that the Inn was overrun with the archduke's troops. The last thing we wanted to do was to wind up in another showdown with the duke's men, so we needed to avoid the inn.

I decided to use my Folk Hero Background Feature: Rustic Hospitality. It says:
Since you come from the ranks of the common folk, you fit in among them with ease. You can find a place to hide, rest, or recuperate among other commoners, unless you have shown yourself to be a danger to them. They will shield you from the law or anyone else searching for you, though they will not risk their lives for you.

We went up to a farmhouse on the outskirts of town, and I asked the farmer and his wife if we could take shelter in their barn. We mentioned that the inn was filled with the duke's men, which wasn't exactly safe for us. The farmer took our meaning, and recognized my character, and granted us shelter.

The characters woke in the morning to find the barn surrounded. The duke's men had "discovered" they were in the barn. There was no sign of the farmer or his wife. The GM had essentially overrode my use of my PC ability in order to ensure that there was a fight with the duke's men.

Is this acceptable per the rules as written? Per the spirit of the rules? Per the social contract among the group? For the purposes of discussion, assume that we're a group who knows each other well, and has played together long enough that we're comfortable with each other. Also assume that the GM hasn't yet shared his reasoning behind the duke's men arriving.

What do you all think? How would you have handled it?

It depends on the how the Duke's men treat people who shelter wanted men. The commoners will hide from from the law or searchers, but not at the risk their lives. If the Duke's men will kill the farmer and his wife if they are found to be hiding you, that is risking their lives. If the Duke's men will just fine or maybe jail them for a bit, it's not risking their lives.

 

[Maxperson]

Totally acceptable. Roll for initiative.

You used your background ability. Great. It didn't work out the way you expected. Too bad- that's life.

The farmer and his wife may be loyalists. There may be other factors at play of which you are unaware- maybe some of that black magic in the form of enemy scrying. Or there may have been a 'Bill Ferny' type that followed you into town and beat your passive perception checks. The point is, you don't know. It is possible the DM is railroading you into a fight? Maybe, but you don't know and you shouldn't jump to the conclusion that the DM is just being a dick. Don't get petulant just because things didn't go exactly the way you wanted.

As for the DM sharing his reasoning for the encounter- he is under no obligation to do so, especially if it gives up something you aren't supposed to know yet. Don't metagame it- just deal with the situation as it is presented. You'll probably find out how it happened later, or maybe you won't. Roll with it. Pun intended.

Good point. There might also have been other legitimate factors that you don't know about that changed things.

 

[Maxperson]

Without knowing more I'm not a big fan of that sort of move. You leveraged fictional positioning to the best of your ability and had a relevant ability that was not broken in any way by the details of the fiction. That feels like punishing good play to me.

If I were the GM in that circumstance I would have made a much softer move. Maybe the farmers wake you up and say they were looking for you last night and they can't hide you any longer. At least something that did not result in immediate danger. You scouted the inn. You utilized strong fictional positioning. You made good moves.

There could be more to the situation, but I do not like making such an immediate and final move in the fiction after what seems like good decision making to me.

Yeah. If the risk of death was present, I'd have had the farmer turn them away regretfully. I wouldn't have had them betray the party unless there were other factors such as knowing that the farmer was a loyalist or spy for the Duke.