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

[niklinna]

I see a couple different things that fall under "authority".

• Control of character (and object) behavior in the game world
• Determination of character knowledge about the game world
• Determination of facts about one's character or the game world

All fall under a division of labor that varies from game to game, but is usually "players each control one character's behavior, GM controls everything else in the world". It's rare to see games where players control more than one character (pets/minions notwithstanding—and this stretching of the line is one reason pets are so contentious). Also see recent discussion on Ars Magica for a notable exception.

This division of labor exists for particular reasons, which do vary from game to game. The basic goal in roleplaying/storytelling (and most games) is to have fun, obviously, but there's tons of ways to have fun playing roles and developing stories, and many of them come down to who knows what, when. This includes global info about the game world, the past and present of particular characters and objects in the world, and what happens when one character swings a sword at another.

One way of having fun is for one person to be principal author, and the other players to discover the cool things that principal author has come up with through exploration, inquiry, and of course fighting. If that's fun for everybody, then great! Narrow player authority, broad GM authority, let's roll.

Another way is for everybody to build a world together, taking turns proposing things, negotiating what is accepted as fact, and so on. Think of Universalis, for example. And there are many points between and even to the side of the line spanning these two extremes.

In Spirit of the Century, it's explicitly in the rules that a player character can make an Academics, History, or Science skill check not only to learn facts about the world as established by the GM, but to declare facts (aspects) about the world as a player, with advice to the GM on setting difficulty for the check, up to and including veto. Looks like one hand giving and the other taking away, but still, SotC is up-front about encouraging players to contribute to the shape of the world (or at least the situation).

Apocalypse World and its many, many offspring take another tack entirely, with a sketched-out world, rules for action resolution that bind both players and GM in quite particular ways, and encouragement to play to find out what happens. Players still generally control one character (and notably do not have complete control over their minions), but are pressed by the resolution mechanics nearly as often as the GM to assert facts about the world, including NPCs.

As noted above, knowledge/control isn't just a matter of what, but also when. Character creation notably gives players a lot of authority to determine what their characters can do and what they know, as well as in some cases what is true of the world outside their characters—again, with agreement from the GM and/or everybody else at the table. But once the story begins, some games preserve that authority and some restrict it, to whatever degree. And then there's mechanisms like flashbacks in Blades in the Dark and such.

Regardless of all that, the main ruleunderlying asserting facts about the world—apart from "don't be a wangrod"—is generally, "don't contradict what's already been asserted", which of course has all sorts of edge cases and soap-opera-style confounds (like when Dustin Hoffman spun that wild tale before tearing off his wig in Tootsie), but that stuff has to be agreed upon, whether explicitly or implicitly, and when it isn't, somebody at the table ends up disgruntled. I have been that person, and sometimes I have felt comfortable bringing it up (in the moment or later), sometimes I have not. I'm confident most roleplayers and GMs have faced that as well.

I think all of these approaches are generally fine, so long as everybody at the table agrees on them. Making the terms of agreement explicit is the tricky part, and it's been interesting to me to see the discussions about that happening recently here on enworld. (I almost—almost—want to go back to The Forge and revisit how these topics were discussed back then. But not really. Although I did look up fortune/karma/drama for a sub-point I decided not to get into.)

 

[Oofta]

It is? Where? I haven't seen that said. Surely you aren't putting words in people's mouths, are you? That seems harassing to me.

When you say things like "the GM then negates this through other ways, like saying that this NPC wouldn't be fooled by such an illusion, then we're at the point that the GM is using Force -- they are forcing an outcome against established fictions. " you seem to be saying that all DMs are adversarial a-holes.

I disagree. Heck, even if they are being adversarial a-holes it's their right. The DM puts in a lot more work than any player and if I don't what a DM is doing I'll have a chat with them after the game and try to work it out like responsible adults. If we can't work it out then they aren't the DM for me. Someone has to make the final call on rules and the DM is in charge of the world, the NPCs and how they react. Even if I disagree.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Yes, it appears we have a different idea of what narrative control is. Let me try to reframe this.

When I take an opportunity attack, this is part of the normal play loop -- I have the authority to declare this action for my PC, the GM has the authority to determine it's likelihood of success, and the GM has the authority to narrate the outcome. I, as a player, do not get to say that my attack is successful or what the result is -- this is outside my authority. I will normally have more agency here, in 5e, because of how the combat rules codify how the GM is expected to determine success, but the resolution of the action -- does my attack kill or dissuade the enemy? -- is still the GM's purview.

Here's how I'm seeing it: (assuming I'm a wizard with the spell prepped yadda yadda) When I cast Wall of Stone, I have the authority to to declare this action for my pc, the GM has the authority to determine it's likelihood of success (although the rules generally dictate how this should be handled via pre-established saving throw mods and DCs, whereas with an attack it would be through pre-established attack mods and ACs), and the GM has the authority to narrate the outcome.

Now look at Wall of Stone. Here the spell says what it does. The only way the GM can gainsay this is to break the expectation of the game and introduce some arbitrary reason the spell doesn't function. So, the spell functions and the result is what I, the player, say it is with the scope of the spell. The GM is pretty hamstrung in determining this.

I don't see that as true - the gm has just as much authority to ignore the rules for the spell as they do to ignore the rules for attacks - ie technically rule 0 says whatever they want, in practice it means they should only do so for a good reason. It's no more or less possible for a dm to decide that an attack shouldn't use the attack roll mechanism than it is for them to declare a spell just doesn't work - they can, although very few dm's wouldn't use this authority sparingly.

A better example would be something similar -- let's look at a declared action to befriend an NPC vs Charm Person. The former is entirely up to the GM in all ways -- I have no ability to control the outcome here as a player, I have zero authority. But, if I cast Charm Person, suddenly the GM is faced with having to come up with a reason that it can't work if they want to stop it (assuming we haven't hit any of the issues described in the spell (or other spells)). They have to go to the saving throw, and abide by this. On a success, I have the authority to say that that NPC is now friendly with my PC.

There are guidelines on how to handle persuasion beyond "lol make something up." You have a pre-defined bonus to the ability check, and the DC are set by fiat with some guidance. Charm person just gives me a way to spend a resource for advantage - as does the Help action, for what it's worth. (and the rolls are based on a pre-defined save dc and a bonus either form a stat block or set by DM fiat based on guidance)

There is no GM authority to narrate a different outcome.

There is such authority, with the same caveats about not ignoring the rules without cause.

I fail to see a distinction between "using the rules to adjudicate spells" and "using the rules to adjudicate non-spells."

 

[niklinna]

This is the bits where we get into GM Force, though. If the illusion is clearly what the player intends, and within the scope of their declaration, but the GM then negates this through other ways, like saying that this NPC wouldn't be fooled by such an illusion, then we're at the point that the GM is using Force -- they are forcing an outcome against established fictions. Do they have this authority? Questionable. I do not think that rule 0 is there to support this, and I don't think rulings not rules means that the GM should be subverting a rule used because they'd rather have it elsewise. And then there the bits where this kind of thing goes directly to the "trust" issues with regard to the GM.

My first 5e character was an illusionist (don't ask ), and on several occasions I had to point out Minor Illusion's explicit language stating that a creature had to use their action to suss it out as such, or the GM would have had creatures disbelieving it just because.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Wow. The level of "DMs who believe they have final authority to make rulings are all dictatorial a**holes" is a bit extreme here.

Are there bad DMs? Sure. But when I sit down at someone's table to play, I'm agreeing to the fact that they make the calls. If my PC puts up an illusionary wall but the guards know it's fake because they just walked down this corridor 15 minutes ago and the wall wasn't there, then they know it's fake. I'm not going to second guess or challenge it.

It's one thing to ask for clarification or mention something if I think the DM just forgot something, but in the middle of a game the DM making a call is just common courtesy. We can always discuss after the game. Even then the DM makes the final call, even if I disagree with it.

I think most people have a similar understanding, even if we word it different:

A dm can technically do whatever they want, because rule 0.

But only a terrible dm invokes this outside of rare, special cases. Generally they foloow the rules of the table as best they can.

But the dm is assumed to be the final arbiter of the rules of the table - if you wish to appeal a dm's ruling, you can only appeal to the dm. They have the last word.

But most dms know that this is not because they know better, but because someone has to be the last word and the dm knows the most about what's going on, so it's them. Only really bad dm's don't take this responsibility seriously.

 

[niklinna]

Except that just rolling completely skips over the roleplaying. A lengthy description of you poking at prodding at places and things in a space is roleplaying...you're inhabiting your character and through that character interacting with the fictional world. Roleplaying. "I search the room. I got a 27." Not roleplaying.

That is absolutely roleplaying. It's just at a different level of detail.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I think we actually agree about how 5e works in practice. In practice, anything from the rulebooks that is player facing are things that the players can expect to work as written. If they have misty step, a spot they can see within 30 feet, they should be able to get there, and would rightfully be annoyed if a DM seemed to invent a reason for it not to work. But the interpretation of the natural language of the rules, the presentation of the situation they are playing in (the dm determines what the character is able to see to begin with), and the adjudication of everything not specified in the rules is up to the DM.

It is and it isn't, in practice. This is the problem with trying to argue that the GM authority requires that players must trust the GM. It doesn't, in practice, require any such thing. There's no real "GM as final authority" thing in practice. The table is the final authority. I wish more people would acknowledge this rather than continue with the arguments that treat the GM as if they are specially gifted and should be deferred to because of a game rule that doesn't require any such thing.

So to that extent, Misty Step and other spells/abilities give players authority over the fiction. That authority exists within the basic loop that @Snarf Zagyg described in the OP

No, because these pretty much skip steps 2 and 3. The Player declares, the player narrates. If my PC casts Misty Step, and teleports 30' over there, I don't require the GM to evaluate and narrate this. This is what happens. It is not subject to GM authority over narration because, even if you want to claim that it doesn't really happen until the GM narrates it, what the GM has to narrate is that my PC has teleported 30' over there. Or the GM has to employ Force or leverage secret notes that, if known, would have been obvious to cause a different effect.

And even though it's a trash book, I hunted around for some relevant paragraphs from the dmg

Calling the 5e DMG a trash book seems very odd. I've been GMing D&D since 1e (late 1e, but 1e). I've player Mentzer Basic (my introduction to the hobby). I've run every edition of D&D since. The 5e DMG is a solidly okay book. It's not trash.

But, both of those quotes go to exactly what I'm saying. The GM's authority to change rules is based on making the game more fun, and the GM isn't specially situated to have the only viewpoint on this. Thus, as admonished, you have to make your changes to keep the table engaged and happy. This is not carte blanche to enact whatever you want to do. It's limited. The second quote is even more excellently expanded on in the three paths discussed in the role of the dice section. These are valid approaches, all, and very clearly enunciate this concept that the dice aren't always in charge, they should be used as a tool when appropriate. Rolling to see if you walk across the room is, technically, within the GM's purview with regards to the playloop, but you really should not be doing this.

 

[Oofta]

I think most people have a similar understanding, even if we word it different:

A dm can technically do whatever they want, because rule 0.

But only a terrible dm invokes this outside of rare, special cases. Generally they foloow the rules of the table as best they can.

But the dm is assumed to be the final arbiter of the rules of the table - if you wish to appeal a dm's ruling, you can only appeal to the dm. They have the last word.

But most dms know that this is not because they know better, but because someone has to be the last word and the dm knows the most about what's going on, so it's them. Only really bad dm's don't take this responsibility seriously.

Absolutely. Not even necessarily a terrible DM though, sometimes people are just doing the best they can and either make mistakes or just make rulings I disagree with.

 

[Ovinomancer]

First, why are you assuming the worst of every DM? Good grief.

Second, Charm Person does not make someone else the caster's mental slave. All it does is "The charmed creature regards you as a friendly acquaintance. " So there's still quite a bit of leeway there. A friendly acquaintance is someone I work with that I have a decent relationship with. I may or may not tell them something I know or agree to assist. That's all. It's not the Dominate Person spell.

I've already posted to ask you to stop putting words in my mouth. I was half-joking about harassment there. Continue to do this, though, and it is harassment. Either engage my words as they are or don't engage at all. Stop inventing strawmen. Your characterization of what I said about Charm Person is 100% false.

 

[Oofta]

I think we actually agree about how 5e works in practice. In practice, anything from the rulebooks that is player facing are things that the players can expect to work as written. If they have misty step, a spot they can see within 30 feet, they should be able to get there, and would rightfully be annoyed if a DM seemed to invent a reason for it not to work. But the interpretation of the natural language of the rules, the presentation of the situation they are playing in (the dm determines what the character is able to see to begin with), and the adjudication of everything not specified in the rules is up to the DM.

So to that extent, Misty Step and other spells/abilities give players authority over the fiction. That authority exists within the basic loop that @Snarf Zagyg described in the OP

Kind of a side topic, but there are times when the DM will tell you that Misty Step doesn't work. They don't necessarily tell you why, or explain that there's another spell that stops teleportation in the area, the question I have is how do you respond? You try to Misty Step, they say it doesn't work, if you ask why they just respond "You don't know".

Or just take a more extreme example. Let's say you're invading the castle of an evil genius. While I, as DM may or may not be evil, I'm probably not a genius. You go to Misty Step and I think "Gee Professor SmartyPants" should have thought of stopping that. I'll just say it doesn't work and figure it out later.

Now obviously, this can be abused and there's all sorts of related railroad DM badness that can be associated to it. A question is though, given that the DM is in charge of the campaign world, when do they have to justify what they do?