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

[Lanefan]

But what campaigns fall on the spectrum? All the spectrum tells us is that if the GM exercises both backstory and situational authority (eg a "linear" adventure) then the players have less influence over the direction of the campaign than if the GM allows them some authority over situation in the way that a sandbox does. So why not just say that! I don't see that any work is being done by the detour via the concept of a spectrum.

My guess is that @Xetheral is trying to avoid the sense of it being or becoming an either-or choice by - quite rightly - saying there's a whole range of options rather than just two outer-end choices.

 

[prabe]

My guess is that @Xetheral is trying to avoid the sense of it being or becoming an either-or choice by - quite rightly - saying there's a whole range of options rather than just two outer-end choices.

I am reluctant to speak for @pemerton here, but I think the objection is less to the idea that one game might be more sandboxy than another, than to the idea that there is a single type of game that a completely not-sandboxy game must be. I think I understand that objection.

 

[Lanefan]

I am reluctant to speak for @pemerton here, but I think the objection is less to the idea that one game might be more sandboxy than another, than to the idea that there is a single type of game that a completely not-sandboxy game must be. I think I understand that objection.

OK, that makes sense. One can also argue that not all full-sandbox games are the same either, so maybe we're looking at a really complex Venn diagram instead.....?

 

[prabe]

OK, that makes sense. One can also argue that not all full-sandbox games are the same either, so maybe we're looking at a really complex Venn diagram instead.....?

I was thinking something more like multi-dimensional axes from zero to ... lots. Lots of axes. I guess that implies you could have a game at or near zero on all the axes, which would arguably not be anything.

Apparently I don't understand my own thinking here.

 

[overgeeked]

I think what happens is there is a bit of a confused framing around D&D and Goals/Win Cons “because campaign.”

Having a Deck Goal and achieving a Win Con in a singular game of MtG doesn’t preclude a player from (a) having another Deck Goal/Win Con in a subsequent game, (b) having another Deck Goal/Win Con the next game of a tourney, (c) or in the game after that, or (d) in the rest of their playing career.

This privileged status of “the campaign” as unique to D&D and therefore play is exempt from examination at the goal/conflict level doesn’t hold up because there are easy analogues in other forms of play and because plenty (perhaps most) of D&D is played cognitively at the micro-goal/win con level (like an athlete who quips “one play/game at a time” rather than zooming out to the entire season and getting overwhelmed).

I’m going to escape this pursuit, defeat this enemy, rescue this NPC, sabotage this fortified artillery position, convert this nonbeliever, get positive gold/xp return out of this delve, woo this Baron/ess, consecrate this site to my Patron, escort this vulnerable NPC on the perilous journey, rally the town to rise up against its oppressor etc etc etc.

These are common features of D&D; the goals > the conflicts > the Win Cons.

I think the wrongly privileged status of the campaign plus the unique role of GM Force (which subordinates the concept of Win Cons because achieving your goal and winning the conflict is conceptually an obfuscated game of Calvinball; when does the GM say “you win/lose” rather than “I’ve earned victory/defeat”) in some games of D&D is what should be in the crosshairs for dissection in these conversations.

It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what RPGs are. It’s mistaking RPGs for finite games (which have set win conditions), when RPGs are infinite games (where the goal is to continue playing). There is no win condition for an RPG. The goal and point of playing is to keep playing. The weird thing is that within an infinite game you can have finite games (such as a mission, quest, goal, etc). You can even view common mini-games as finite games (character creation, combat, exploration, etc) within the infinite game of an RPG. But it’s a mistake to confuse winning a finite game within an RPG as winning the unwinnable infinite game that is the RPG. More people into RPGs should read game theory.

 

[Xetheral]

But what campaigns fall on the spectrum?

Many editions of D&D are flexible enough to be run in a wide variety of styles. In several such styles commonly discussed on these forums, the only constraint on players' strategy-level choices is an expectation that at least some of those choices are made among the options the DM has presented. (This differs from, as you noted, campaigns run in styles common to AW and BW, where such choices have additional constraints and/or expectations.) Such D&D campaigns would fit on this spectrum, as would campaigns run in similar styles in other systems.

All the spectrum tells us is that if the GM exercises both backstory and situational authority (eg a "linear" adventure) then the players have less influence over the direction of the campaign than if the GM allows them some authority over situation in the way that a sandbox does. So why not just say that! I don't see that any work is being done by the detour via the concept of a spectrum.

Sure, that would be a valid way to translate the conclusion one can make from the level of sandboxiness of a campaign about the players' authority over the direction of that campaign into your preferred analytical framework for analyzing authority in RPGs.

But doesn't the fact that the same conclusion on player authority can be reached either by comparing levels of sandboxiness or by your preferred framework suggest that both are valid comparison tools, in contrast to your orginal claim that viewing sandboxiness as a spectrum "is an unhelpful and even misleading confusion"?

 

[Campbell]

Here's my admittedly word salad take on this:

Generally the idea of a spectrum between railroading and sandbox play tends to come up whenever someone expresses a preference for nonlinear play, often with the basic conceit that the only viable alternative to linear play is heavy GM prep sandbox play. It's easy to see how that would be untenable for GMs that lack the time to run a game with a heavy amount of prep work. By basically throwing out forms of nonlinear play that do not require a heavy amount of prep work linear play is presented as the only viable way to play that does not require an inordinate amount of preparation.

I also find there's an implication involved that linear play is fundamentally a part of pretty much all roleplaying. Basically you are secretly doing the thing you do not want to do.

This defense and justification are both somewhat misguided and completely unnecessary. If you enjoy running and playing linear games embrace what you feel the storytelling involved brings to the table. It does not have to be the only tenable form of play to have value.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I can't judge the GM - not having been there and all that - but I do think it was bad GMing. Which I'm sure won't surprise you.

Nope, not at all. I didn’t like it myself.

But now I get to shock you by disagreeing a bit!

You’re dead to me!!!

I think it's more than just an upending of authority that is the problem. It's that the way D&D is presented doesn't really give the GM - or even the table as a whole - the conceptual resources to deal with these abilities.

Eg is the ranger's favoured terrain ability merely a shaper of colour - so the GM just narrates the party's successful travel through the favoured terrain, and then springs the ambush as soon as the PCs leave the (favoured) forest and enter the (disfavoured) mountains? Or is it a type of action resolution, which generates Let it Ride obligations? Or is it meant to be a trigger for the GM to provide backstory that otherwise wouldn't be (in virtue of the ranger both moving and being stealthy, and being able to read the tracks, etc).

Because the ability is presented only in terms of what it means in the fiction, but with no discussion of what it's impact on play is expected to be, I'm not surprised that disputes and confusion arise.

I don’t think it’s only described in the fictional aspect. There are rules interactions with the favored terrain…maintaining speed and the ability to be stealthy and things like that.

I think you have a point in that the edges are blurry enough so that it can be a bit tricky to apply…but welcome to 5e D&D.

To me, when the player selects his terrain and then the PC winds up in that terrain (largely as a result of my efforts as GM) I simply let the PC have their moment. Their skill in this area means that the environment is much less of a threat to the PCs.

Who wants to watch Aragorn get lost in the woods?

The Folk Hero ability is similar. Your GM has taken it as close to a shaper of colour as can be - it changes where the encounter takes place - but also you get the bonus rest. Whereas my response is based on understanding the ability more in Let it Ride terms and also as shaping in an important fashion the nature of your character and their relationships. I think the textual support for my reading is not nothing - it's a bit richer than the favoured terrain case, I think - but it's still pretty incomplete.

Yeah I think the Folk Hero and similar background features tend to be richer, as you say…there’s more there. I don’t know if incomplete is quite what I’d say. Imprecise? Inexact, maybe? Not sure if that’s a hair worth splitting, though.

I do think that evoking that feature should have gained my PC more than just a delay before the inevitable fight. I used that ability….to me, that’s me sending an invitation to the GM. Here’s a new situation. I think you and some other folks suggested ways this could have played out that (a) still posed challenges to the PCs and (b) didn’t negate the use of the Rustic Hospitality feature but rather used it as a springboard.

 

[Xetheral]

My guess is that @Xetheral is trying to avoid the sense of it being or becoming an either-or choice by - quite rightly - saying there's a whole range of options rather than just two outer-end choices.

That's a large part of it. More broadly I'm trying to point out that the degree to which a campaign supports open-ended strategic choices is a useful parameter to consider rather than useless and misleading, as pemerton contended. In this discussion it's useful specifically because degree of sandboxiness maps strongly to player authority over campaign direction, at least for those campaigns run in a style that fits on that spectrum.

 

[Xetheral]

I am reluctant to speak for @pemerton here, but I think the objection is less to the idea that one game might be more sandboxy than another, than to the idea that there is a single type of game that a completely not-sandboxy game must be. I think I understand that objection.

I've tried (evidently unsuccessfully) to avoid any such implication.

I specified the 0% sandbox end of the spectrum as campaigns where under the social contract players are expected to make strategy-level decisions exclusively from among the choices presented by the GM. This contrasted with the 100% sandbox end of the spectrum defined as campaigns where under the social contract all such decisions are expected to be open-ended.

A campaign run in a style where such decisions are expected to be something other than open-ended or constrained-to-GM-provided-options simply wouldn't fall on the spectrum. Thus, campaigns that aren't at all sandboxy could either fall at the 0% end of spectrum, or are not on the spectrum at all.

Even for games that do fall at the 0% end of the spectrum, I don't mean to imply that they're broadly sinilar. Instead I'm only saying that they all share the feature of not having open-ended strategic choices.