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

[Lyxen]

The module has two attacks by the Sea Maiden, an initial skirmish and then a final assault, but I decided that it would be better to combine these into one.

And after that, you will still pretend that there is no plot ? That there is no attack planned as part of it ? That it contradict your grandiose (but obviously untrue, from this example as it was the simplest one, but it's all over the summaries that you post) statement that "I don't have a plot that has to be roughly followed" ? This is railroading, you are a bad DM. If I was playing at your table, I would call on the other players to leave the table, slam the door, and use you for the next 30 years as an example of bad DMing all over the internet.

Seriously, guys, I really, really hope that all this blustering about the unforgivable crime that is railroading is just internet posturing to make a point and that you are not behaving that way at actual tables and with actual people, especially your friends, but also total strangers who only aspire to spend a good time with you sharing a lobby that you both love. If you are not ready to forgive small hiccups, if you are not ready to gloss them over in the name of fun and friendship, if you are not ready to discuss them as adults, or even to coach the other party so that he might do better in the future (without patronising, obviously), you know what, I certainly don't have any interest in discussing with you anymore.

I must add, in your particular case, that your attitude as a player (and again, assuming that it's not only just internet posturing) of "I want to inhabit my character, etc." is typical of the attitude described here by Matt Colville. D&D is a TTRPG, not the actor's studio. It's a collaborative game, and if you assume every DM to be a bad DM when he doesn't cater for your every whim and expectations as a character (for example, a kobold should be able to describe numbers and directions, whereas I have given you a clear example of a "published" kobold who, by design, is incapable of this because he is too stupid and too scared) and "co-creates" in the direction that you wish (notwithstanding what he has in mind and prepared), then you are certainly a player that I would not like to see anywhere near our tables. In a way, this is player railroading and leaning on / manipulating a DM (in particular through social pressure) and it's way worse than a bit of railroading.

 

[Lyxen]

This is a good example, because it is entirely within the DM authority to pull this move, but is not "good" DMing, in that it feels forced and does not lead to interesting or creative gameplay. Per the core loop of 5e, the DM described the situation, the players narrated their solutions to the situation, and the DM narrated the result, all a few times over. The players expect that their choices would be meaningful within the context of the situation, but the fact that it resulted in a fight made them seem not meaningful. You don't trust that the DM is not using their authority over the fiction ("DM narrates...") to force their encounter on to you no matter how you try to avoid it.

As an introduction, I'll point out that I'm not responding directly to you below, it's just that your post touches exactly the core of the problem for me, so don't take anything below as a reference to you specifically, actually I think I'm pretty much in line with you.

And here you come to the core problem, the lack of trust. And for me, once more, and as I've pointed out right at the beginning of this thread, the problem here is not even the railroading or the lack of if, it's just the fact that the player does not trust the DM to do the best he can for his players to have fun.

Because this is where the first breach of the social contract probably occurred, you know ? Lacking the trust that the DM will do his best...

I will insist on "the best he can" first, because it's almost a side note in all this, but it's easy for you guys to say, after the fact, but the "DM should have done this". I sure you are all fantastic DMs, and you never make mistakes (actually, one of @pemerton's redeeming features is that he actually admitted committing a mistake once, although as it was to show, just after, how nice he had been in correcting it and accepting the player's remark, it sort of diminishes the value the example, but still ), but DMs are human beings, you know, and those of us who actually DM (and not only hide behind the internet to spout theories, I'm not saying this for you @Malmuria) make mistakes sometimes, despite our best intentions, the brilliant solution does not appear to us during the game but only after... If there is no forgiveness and discussion, but just slamming doors, well, I find it really sad and inhuman in what is designed to be the most collaborative and friendly game of all.

But coming back to the trust, I find this example extremely symptomatic. Maybe the DM did a dubious move here, the scenario called for a fight, he needed time to see where the plot was going because he had not prepared enough, and what the players did surprised him, maybe he is not the best at improvising and he knows it, etc. Maybe it WAS forced, and not a shining example of DMing.

But also maybe, just maybe, the Duke is really swamping the areas with his men, maybe he has the best tracking dogs in the region, maybe he has flying/sneaky scouts (that were not seen because they rolled well on stealth, and beat the PC's passive perception, at disadvantage because they were hurrying), maybe he or his advisors are geniuses and deduced where the players might be going next, maybe he has an incredible intelligence network, maybe he tortured one of the PCs friends in town, maybe he used magic (this is D&D, by the way, there are tons of magic, everything the DM can imagine, it does not have to be codified in the PH and approved by the players beforehand), there are millions of ways this can be explained from the DM's perspectives and things that the PCs should not know about, have absolutely no reason to know about, and where not clever enough to investigate about or deduce...

In which case, the lack of trust just destroyed the situation and the game.

You know what a really, really good player would have done ? He would not have stayed in his character as previously defined, he would not have felt "forced", he would have rebounded on the situation, still in character: "Gods, they found us ? How did they do that ? Did we miss something ? Does the Duke now have access to resources allowing him to track us despite our best efforts ? If so, our hideout is in danger, what about our comrades there, we must hurry ! But maybe it's dangerous, the Duke might track us there, maybe we need to find a messenger or another way to contact our friends ? And, gods, what about out host, what did they do to them ? I hope they did not come to any lasting harm ! But if they have, by all the gods, I shall avenge them upon the body of the Duke, in the meantime, let's' deal with this curs and send them yapping back to their master !"

That way, there is no trust lost (and for the DM's it a huge relief too, he knows he can trust you to move along towards a better adventure), you are fully in the game, you have seeded lots of things (as a DM I love it when players do things like this, because I can rebound on some of them, but obviously not necessarily all, and I'm lucky to have players do this very often - or is it luck ? ) that will enrich the game, you have really co-created a collaborative game and kept the ambiance rolling forward at a good pace.

Which does not prevent the really, really good player to go and see the DM at the end of the evening and ask him: "Are you OK, did we surprise you with the Folk Hero thing, it seemed a bit awkward and a good idea at the time but maybe it threw a span in your works ? How do we deal with this in the future ? Are you happy with the way you are running the campaign ? Are you happy with the way we play ? Do you need some help ?"

Because this is what a really really good player does. He is not an entitled little j...k only preoccupied with his sacrosanct "player agency", with his holy interpretation of his "role", with his demands to be entertained or engaged. He is not a guy that absolutely wants to twist the game HIS way, with HIS expectations overruling anyone else's expectations or work. He is a guy that really helps the game instead of being stuck up with his nasty attitude and theoretical principles that simply make people j..ks.

Contributing to the story in a collaborative mode is not forcing one's own stories and views down anyone's throat, and calling a DM a bad DM if he dares do the same to you. It actually starts with helping all the others have fun first and foremost, even when playing your character, and roleplaying him. And it starts with trusting the DM and the other players, trusting that they are here in the same spirit.

So try it sometimes, instead of roaring in flame when you think your DM is infringing on your sacrosanct player agency, try trusting him. Try to roll with it in the right spirit. And then come and tell us about your experience. Honestly, it has totally changed the way I play and DM since I realised that and stopped being an entitled little j...k as above.

Anyway, so did the player discuss it with the DM at the end of the game ? Did he know why the DM played it that way ? Did the lack of trust continue to exist, to again poison the relationship and the future games ? Or did the DM and the player discuss it openly, understand each other, forgive each other and hopefully reinforce their friendship and make for much better games in the future ? That is all that matters to me.

 

[pemerton]

My argument is not that players in dnd 5e lack agency. My argument is that player agency stems more from the dynamic among everyone at the table than from the rules specifically, and that a ruleset in an rpg cannot guarantee player agency without trusting that the dm is trying to ensure a fun game (unlike, for example, in a game of blackjack or chess, where your opponent is trying to win. DMs who set win conditions for themselves in dnd can deny player agency in all sorts of ways, some infamous). As I've said, they have plenty of agency--they control what their characters do (step 2). In response, the dm interprets and adjudicates, along the lines that you describe (step 3).

Recall, in the other thread someone quoted this exact gameplay loop at called it "zero agency." Their basis for saying this was that while the player could describe what action their character took, the dm could narrate any result. You seemed to agree. This surprised me, because while it might be formally true of the core gameplay loop as articulated in the 5e introduction, it doesn't correspond to what the dm actually does at any table worth playing at.

Nothing you are saying here distinguishes between 5e D&D and any other RPG. Do you agree with that?

Also, by pretty close parity of reasoning, nothing in a RPG ruleset can guarantee a GM has agency without trusting the players - eg if all the players just ignore the GM and go along with their own version of the shared fiction, what is the GM going to do? But one would hardly conclude from that that the GM has no authority except to make suggestions. Thus that conclusion in the case of players is likewise false.

The reason I think you are painting a zero-agency picture is because of how you paint Step 3. And I think your account of Step 3 is wrong. I think it's wrong for textual reasons, and on the basis of lived experience, and the basis of most of the actual play testimony I encounter. You are treating GM narrates in step 3 as if it meant GM narrates unconstrained by any rules. It doesn't literallly say that, and - given the vast quantity of rules clearly intended to shape and constrain the GM's narration - it is not to be read as implying that.

 

[pemerton]

Double post deleted.

 

[pemerton]

And after that, you will still pretend that there is no plot ? That there is no attack planned as part of it ?

I don't know what your framework for analysing RPG is. But if it can't distinguish between framing a scene, and narrating an outcome, it is underdeveloped. Here is the one I am using:

Content authority - over what we're calling back-story, e.g. whether Sam is a KGB mole, or which NPC is boinking whom

Plot authority - over crux-points in the knowledge base at the table - now is the time for a revelation! - typically, revealing content, although notice it can apply to player-characters' material as well as GM material - and look out, because within this authority lies the remarkable pitfall of wanting (for instances) revelations and reactions to apply precisely to players as they do to characters

Situational authority - over who's there, what's going on - scene framing would be the most relevant and obvious technique-example, or phrases like "That's when I show up!" from a player

Narrational authority - how it happens, what happens - I'm suggesting here that this is best understood as a feature of resolution (including the entirety of IIEE), and not to mistake it for describing what the castle looks like, for instance; I also suggest it's far more shared in application than most role-players realize

. . .

There is no overlap between those four types of authority. They are four distinct phenomena.

Do they have causal relationships among one another? Of course. The easiest version is top-down reductionist: because content is consulted, a plot authority decision is made, and then a situational authority decision/presentation must be made, and finally narrational authority must be exercised. I assume that for you, this is the most easy and familiar construction, and you're used to conducting them (or at least constructing them, idealistically speaking) as a single causal sequence in this order, with one person in charge - it's a "thing," perhaps the thing you call GMing.

As a side note, other causal relationships exist, putting the authorities into a different order (to preserve the top-to-bottom causation, for clarity). For example, you can reverse them entirely, and remarkably it is very easy, although it's harder to catch oneself doing it because memory typically rewrites the act into the more familiar sequence I described above. We'll have to work on this idea later, because, for instance, Kickers and Bangs in Sorcerer rearrange the sequence far more drastically, putting situational authority at the top/starting position. . . .

. . . in the Jasmine game, I scene-framed like a ******-******. That's the middle level: situational authority. That's my job as GM in playing The Pool. By the rules, players can narrate outcomes to conflict rolls, but they can't start new scenes. But I totally gave up authority over the "top" level, plot authority. I let that become an emergent property of the other two levels: again, me with full authority over situation (scene framing), and the players and I sharing authority over narrational authority, which provided me with cues, in the sense of no-nonsense instructions, regarding later scene framing.

And similarly, like situational authority, content authority was left entirely to my seat at the table. There was no way for a player's narration to clash with the back-story. All of the player narrations concerned plot authority, like the guy's mask coming off in my hypothetical example above, or in the case of the Jasmine game, the one suitor becoming a popular rather than sinister guy through his actions.

This is key. Functional role-playing requires that everyone knows who has what authority in all four kinds, and whether it switches around from person to person for any one (or more) of the kinds, and if it does, when and how.
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In Burning Wheel, the GM exercises situational authority by default. Players have some ability to exercise it instead (eg Circles - as you can see in my Sea Maiden thread, this is how the PCs met an Elven sailor when they were lost at sea following the Maiden bearing the Albers down to Hell.)

If you read my Sea Maiden posts, you'll be able to see some of this (not all of it, as I didn't describe every moment of play in mechanical terms given I was more interested in talking about experiences of the module than experiences of playing Burning Wheel).

That it contradict your grandiose (but obviously untrue, from this example as it was the simplest one, but it's all over the summaries that you post) statement that "I don't have a plot that has to be roughly followed" ? This is railroading, you are a bad DM. If I was playing at your table, I would call on the other players to leave the table, slam the door, and use you for the next 30 years as an example of bad DMing all over the internet.

What railroading took place. What outcomes were dictated ("roughly, or otherwise")?

You'll note that the module did specify one outcome - ie the survival of the Sea Maiden first time round, so that it can attack again - and I didn't follow it in that respect.

 

[Lyxen]

[a lot of things that have nothing to do with the question asked.]

The module has a plot. You modified that plot, but there was still a plot (the proof is right there in the fact that there were two attacks planned and decided to have only one). So, how do you reconciliate this with your grandiose statements that "I don't have a plot that has to be roughly followed".

And this is just focussing on one point of the plot, again, looking at your summaries, they follow the structure of the module which I published, so there was a plot, and you used it. True or false ?

Just answer this please, without spouting pages of nonsense about your theories, I don't care about those, seeing that despite your theories, your summaries of games are actually vast fights where you ignore most of the rules for the rule of cool. That in itself is not a problem at all, but it goes to show that all your theories stay totally theoretical, and that, in practice, and all your pretense about "I don't have a plot that has to be roughly followed" is just hot wind. So can you please come down your pedestal of self-righteousness ?

 

[Mannahnin]

The module has a plot. You modified that plot, but there was still a plot (the proof is right there in the fact that there were two attacks planned and decided to have only one). So, how do you reconciliate this with your grandiose statements that "I don't have a plot that has to be roughly followed".

This is wrong. You are misunderstanding what Pemerton is writing. If you have any intent to converse with him in good faith, you should probably read his posts again, figure out what the difference is between a plot and a situation, and go into it with an attitude more like "Hmm, this doesn't make a lot of sense to me, and our games are evidently different, but I should presume he's being truthful."

Just answer this please, without spouting pages of nonsense about your theories, I don't care about those, seeing that despite your theories, your summaries of games are actually vast fights where you ignore most of the rules for the rule of cool. That in itself is not a problem at all, but it goes to show that all your theories stay totally theoretical, and that, in practice, and all your pretense about "I don't have a plot that has to be roughly followed" is just hot wind. So can you please come down your pedestal of self-righteousness ?

Although this sort of thing makes me really doubtful that you are interested in a good faith discussion. Physician, heal thyself.

 

[Mannahnin]

What happens to Huxley? Selene? The other sailors? The PCs? What happens to the ships - the Sea Maiden, or the Albers?

None of these things is determined by the scenario. As I posted, the scenario is analogous to a threat clock in Apocalypse World. It doens't pressupose a plot.

Here is a post of mine from earlier this year, that closely reads two Prince Valiant episodes to make a similar point about the difference between a pre-scripted plot/railroad, and a complexly framed situation:

Maiden Voyage is not identical in its structure to The Crimson Bull - it relies more heavily on the fact that the PCs are on a ship to facilitate framing; and as a result it places a bit more weight on the lead-up events (the captain's death, in particular) in setting up the ultimate situation, which is the encounter with the ghost ship. (Rereading my old thread, I saw this: The module has two attacks by the Sea Maiden, an initial skirmish and then a final assault, but I decided that it would be better to combine these into one. That's an example of removing elements of plot in order to focus on situation.)

But as I've already posted upthread, we can't talk sensibly about authority over the fiction, in a RPG, without distinguishing setting (there's a ghost ship in these parts) and backstory (the captain was killed by a ghost; the crew are superstitious of having a woman on board), from situation (you find the captain's dead body; you come across an abandoned ship - there are dead bodies trapped below its deck!), from outcomes (Huxley is saved from being hanged; the morale of the crew sinks ever-lower).

Lyxen, I would strongly appreciate it if, before castigating Pemerton again, you compare what you know about the Sea Maiden scenario to what Pemerton has written above about The Crimson Bull, and see if you can perceive any meaningful difference between how these two scenarios work.

Pemerton has offered one as an example which has events on a timeline, to which the PCs can respond in many different ways and come to different outcomes, and the other as an example which has events in a sequence, which will happen no matter what and the GM is specifically instructed to figure out how to have happen no matter what choices the PCs make.

Are these different, at all, to you? Or only trivially?

 

[Oofta]

So does that mean that the action resolution rules - everything from class features like Cunning Action and Second Wind, to spells, to the combat mechanics, to the system of ability checks - are all just suggestions to 5e D&D GMs as to how they might choose to exercise their authority?

Personally I would find that strange, indeed strained, reading.

Ah the power mad chaotic DM, Doc Hyperbole, raises his strawman head once again.

Good grief. While I do believe the DM is in charge of the rules, a DM that runs bizarro D&D probably isn't going to have players for long. I do it once in a great while based on the setting and the scene. Examples:

• A Halloween episode where darkvision didn't work (everyone had it either via race or magic) so that I could create an atmosphere and have things in the dark without resorting to the ubiquitous fog.
• There's a region in my world where magic is unstable; sometimes magic doesn't work, sometimes it's more effective, sometimes we roll on the wild magic chart.
• I once told the fighter type that they didn't swing their sword, that something stopped them mid swing; it was because of a suppressed memory and they were about to kill someone they loved.

So yes, crazy world where rules don't exist! Woo-hoo! Everyone jump on the DM's power fantasy! Or not. There are many ways to play D&D, I usually follow the rules pretty closely except for established house rules. When I don't follow the letter of the rules, I bend them in favor of the PCs as often as not and to make the scene more interesting. Based on some other threads, other DMs do this kind of thing far more often than I do.

But Doc Hyperbole? If they're out there I suspect they're pretty lonely, gloating about how amazing they are to an empty room.

 

[Manbearcat]

@Lyxen

Just to make sure everyone is clear, there is enormous difference between:

(1) a GM framing provocative situations, letting players and system have their say in what comes out of that, and then letting that emergent outcome dictate the trajectory of play (from the next immediate situation on down to 20 to 30 situations from now)

and

(2) a (no matter how rough) through line of preconceived, seminal situations that are more or less prescriptive such that “the (preconceived) story” stays online.

There is no value judgement here (by me) between the two, but they’re quite different beasts. The latter features a metaplot which play is anchored to and orbits around. In the former, “whatever the hell happens between situation 1 and situation 20/30" becomes "the plot" after we reflect and play is anchored to and orbits around the marriage of the game's premise (*) + player evinced interests (through the intersection of PC build flags, system widgets, and the back-and-forth of conversation during play.

* Here is The Between's premise (which has no metaplot, no through line of preconceived, seminal situation...just premise and provocation to action):

The Most Important Thing (p 6)

The hunters are intentionally occluded; the game is called The Between because we find these characters caught between a very dark, mysterious past and an equally dark, possibly tragic, future. We aim to explore these dark pasts, but only at the right time—dramatically-speaking—and only when the game’s rules tell us to.