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

[Lanefan]

Now, is there a win condition for the game? Sure is, complete the module. We're playing this game for the module, with little expectation to continue to a longer campaign. The idea of the never ending game without a point is one I increasingly find odd.

There's the difference, perhaps: many games are played with an underlying - or outright declared - expectation that they will continue to a longer campaign; and that while the game always has a "point" it'll be set up such that when or before one "point" has been reached another one, further away, will present itself.

So, the campaign might start out with an underlying backstory where the ultimate goal of the PCs (a.k.a the current point of the game) - slowly discovered as play goes along - is to prevent the kingdom from being overthrown.

This is fine; and fifteen adventures in well look at that, you've prevented the overthrow and cast down the traitors. But in that time another goal has appeared: during your dealings with the traitors you stumbled on to a portal through which demons are set to invade, and now your goal is to sort that out. Great; and six adventures later the demonic invasion has been thwarted, only now you've learned that there's at least a dozen major demonic agents scattered around the [region/continent/world, whichever suits] causing unrest and trouble, and so off you go on another string of adventures to deal with them.....and so it goes.

All this assumes, of course, that the players/PCs remain engaged with these goals; for all anyone can predict they might decide at some point to chuck it in and do something quite different, leaving their original goals for others to sort out.

 

[Ovinomancer]

There's the difference, perhaps: many games are played with an underlying - or outright declared - expectation that they will continue to a longer campaign; and that while the game always has a "point" it'll be set up such that when or before one "point" has been reached another one, further away, will present itself.

So, the campaign might start out with an underlying backstory where the ultimate goal of the PCs (a.k.a the current point of the game) - slowly discovered as play goes along - is to prevent the kingdom from being overthrown.

This is fine; and fifteen adventures in well look at that, you've prevented the overthrow and cast down the traitors. But in that time another goal has appeared: during your dealings with the traitors you stumbled on to a portal through which demons are set to invade, and now your goal is to sort that out. Great; and six adventures later the demonic invasion has been thwarted, only now you've learned that there's at least a dozen major demonic agents scattered around the [region/continent/world, whichever suits] causing unrest and trouble, and so off you go on another string of adventures to deal with them.....and so it goes.

All this assumes, of course, that the players/PCs remain engaged with these goals; for all anyone can predict they might decide at some point to chuck it in and do something quite different, leaving their original goals for others to sort out.

At some point, your game ends. Bleak, but there's no such thing as an infinitely running game -- all games are finite. What you're saying here is that once you meet a certain set of win conditions, you just iterate out some more. In reality, it's more like you have overlapping sets of win conditions and are just rotating through them -- probably with many falling by the wayside. The game will end when an agreed set of win conditions is met for a satisfactory conclusion, or they are abandoned and left unresolved. No game is infinite in duration.

 

[Lanefan]

Well sure, I guess. It's a hypothetical since you don't actually play 5E. But still, you'd expect that the players' input would likely matter here. That a reduction of a PC ability based on your desire for realism would likely need to, if not cleared by them, then at least explained to them.

What if a player felt differently than you do? You explain the situation, and they say something like "This is likely to come up maybe 4 or 5 times over the course of the campaign. I find it far more unrealistic for a trained outdoorsman to get lost in his chosen terrain 20 to 25% of the time. I don't like this change."

What do you do at that point?

First off, it probably wouldn't get to this point because I'd have already dialled back most/all these sort of abilities to be highly effective instead of perfect, and made that clear in the houserules (of which there'd be a boatload!).

But if it got this far there'd be a discussion and maybe a compromise, if we could agree on what makes sense.

Okay. I'll admit I'm generally not a fan of keeping things from the players like this. There may be reasons to do so at times, and of course it's subjective and I expect our thresholds are pretty different, but do you have an example in mind?

Let's use the Folk Hero example from upthread.

If the Folk Hero ability means the NPC farmers etc. are guaranteed to protect/hide the PCs, then the very fact of the Duke's troops showing up is a red flag in the metagame that there's more going on than meets the eye: the Duke has a special ability, or someone put a trace on one of the PCs, or whatever. Note that I'm assuming here that while the player knows the ability works perfectly the PC in the fiction does not, and takes each instance as it comes.

But if it's not guaranteed then it's possible the Duke's troops showed up there by sheer random chance - good luck for them, bad luck for the PCs - and while there still might be a red flag it won't be nearly as meta-based.

Flip side, as it works both ways: if nobody in the party had the Folk Hero ability there's still a chance the farmers would hide them anyway, or that the Duke's troops would happen to look elsewhere.

Like, any example I'm thinking of in relation to the Folk Hero ability would seem to have some indicator that I could use in the fiction to communicate the idea to the characters. I'm sure I'm not considering all possibilities, though.

I guess I don't like random chance being taken out of the equation when it makes realistic sense to leave it in, even if the odds are highly skewed.

 

[chaochou]

Oh look, all kinds of random tables on pages 73-81 of the 5e DMG... hmm I wonder what those might say in this game of no win conditions...

Oh, what's that - helpful tables for generating win conditions for each 'adventure'

• Clear a ruin so it can be rebuilt and reoccupied?
• Find an NPC who disappeared in the area?
• Stop monsters from raiding caravans and farms?
• Hunt a specific monster?
• Salvage an object or goods from a lost vessel?
• A portal opens to another plane of existence, and monsters spill out, forcing the adventurers to close the portal and deal with the villain at the same time?
• Secure aid from a ruler or council?
• Move through an area without making enemies aware of their presence?
• Stop a ritual?

Jeez, I'm really, really struggling to find these win conditions in 5e. I mean, they are so well hidden.

 

[Mannahnin]

Jeez, I'm really, really struggling to find these win conditions in 5e. I mean, they are so well hidden.

Are they described using the word "win", or some other word, like "goal"?

 

[Lanefan]

At some point, your game ends. Bleak, but there's no such thing as an infinitely running game -- all games are finite.

Well, yes; sooner or later all the players and the DM are bound to die of old age. For these purposes, however, I'm defining infinity to mean the rest of my life; and though I've yet to succeed*, every campaign I've ever started has been done on the basis of "I intend to run this for the rest of my life provided people - including me - are interested in playing in it".

* - ongoing campaign is, obviously, still ongoing; so success/fail state remains TBD.

What you're saying here is that once you meet a certain set of win conditions, you just iterate out some more. In reality, it's more like you have overlapping sets of win conditions and are just rotating through them -- probably with many falling by the wayside. The game will end when an agreed set of win conditions is met for a satisfactory conclusion, or they are abandoned and left unresolved. No game is infinite in duration.

@billd91 beat me to the punch with the analogy of a sports team, or league. Players come and go, individual games are won and lost as are season championships and so forth, but the intent of all involved is that the team (and-or league) will go on forever.

Not all teams and-or leagues succeed in that intent, of course; but nobody ever starts a team or league with the intent of only operating for a fixed number of years.

 

[overgeeked]

This is exactly the con I highlighted. You're hiding behind the abstract while claiming its the concrete.

No, it's you misunderstanding game theory. Within the abstract infinite game there are smaller finite games. You keep pointing to the finite games within the infinite and are claiming there are win conditions to the infinite game. This is wrong. You absolutely can win a combat, a quest, or a mission. You cannot win "a game of D&D". There is no end to "a game of D&D" unless the players and DM decide to stop playing. There's always another quest, another mission, another fight, another monster, another prisoner to rescue. There's no time limit. A single session of D&D might only take a few minutes or a few hours, sure. But that's not codified in the rules. There's no set win conditions in the core three books. Because D&D isn't a finite game, it's an infinite game.

Are you sure about that? I suspect that if we crack open a DMG we might see both text about D&D having no set defined end and about winning by having fun and/or by achieving character-defined or campaign-established goals. I'm not remembering a specific passage, but I have a sneaking suspicion.

How many points is fun worth and how many fun-points do we have to accumulate before the game is over? How do we determine which player won and which player lost? Do we compare their fun-points?

Of course the moment we look at specific instances of play, the idea of 'no win conditions' is revealed as patently untrue.

Here, just as a simple example, is the Curse of Strahd.

The adventure ends when either Strahd von Zarovich or the characters are defeated.

No win conditions, remember?

Again, mistaking the finite game for the infinite game. Curse of Strahd is a module. It's a pre-packaged finite game you can play within the infinite game of D&D. You can play D&D with the same characters you use in CoS before that module and after that module, as long as they survive. You can lose CoS by dying or failing to defeat Strahd. Because it's a finite game nested in the infinite game of D&D. There are no win conditions listed in the core three.

Think of it like this. The rules of hockey tell me how long the game lasts and how each player and team scores points and provides rules on how points are tallied, how ties are handled, and who wins at the end of the game. So "hockey" is an abstract, sure. But the abstract rules of the game define what it is to play and how it is you win. That the rules define the time limits and win conditions is what makes it a finite game. But then look at the game rules for D&D. Not a module. The core three. Now, point out where those books list how you win the game. You can't. The best you can come up with will be something vague about having fun and being entertained. Because there are no win conditions for playing D&D. Your character within the game succeeds at a task or a fight or a quest. But you the player don't win or lose. You just play. The point of finite games is to win. The point of infinite games is to continue playing.

 

[overgeeked]

Oh look, all kinds of random tables on pages 73-81 of the 5e DMG... hmm I wonder what those might say in this game of no win conditions...

Oh, what's that - helpful tables for generating win conditions for each 'adventure'

• Clear a ruin so it can be rebuilt and reoccupied?
• Find an NPC who disappeared in the area?
• Stop monsters from raiding caravans and farms?
• Hunt a specific monster?
• Salvage an object or goods from a lost vessel?
• A portal opens to another plane of existence, and monsters spill out, forcing the adventurers to close the portal and deal with the villain at the same time?
• Secure aid from a ruler or council?
• Move through an area without making enemies aware of their presence?
• Stop a ritual?

Jeez, I'm really, really struggling to find these win conditions in 5e. I mean, they are so well hidden.

Cool. And what do you do after that? You keep playing the game. The adventure is the nested finite game within the infinite game of D&D. I'm not saying you can't win a fight or win an encounter or successfully complete an adventure. I'm saying there's no end to the game because you just keep playing. The game doesn't end when your character rescues the prince or clears the dungeon. You, the player, keep on playing.

 

[overgeeked]

It's almost like the writers of the book knew the difference...

"The game has no real end; when one story or quest wraps up, another one can begin, creating an ongoing story called a campaign. Many people who play the game keep their campaigns going for months or years, meeting with their friends every week or so to pick up the story where they left off."

"There's no winning and losing in the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game-at least, not the way those terms are usually understood. Together, the DM and the players create an exciting story of bold adventurers who confront deadly perils. Sometimes an adventurer might come to a grisly end, torn apart by ferocious monsters or done in by a nefarious villain. Even so, the other adventurers can search for powerful magic to revive their fallen comrade, or the player might choose to create a new character to carry on. The group might fail to complete an adventure successfully, but if everyone had a good time and created a memorable story, they all win."

 

[chaochou]

Cool. And what do you do after that? You keep playing the game. The adventure is the nested finite game within the infinite game of D&D. I'm not saying you can't win a fight or win an encounter or successfully complete an adventure. I'm saying there's no end to the game because you just keep playing. The game doesn't end when your character rescues the prince or clears the dungeon. You, the player, keep on playing.

This is the same garbage as football having no win conditions within the infinite game of football. You can't win football because there's always the next match. You keep on playing.

Same nonsense, conflating the concept of D&D with actual play of games.