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

[Maxperson]

So I think there’s something interesting in here other than the semantic debate about winning RPGs.

So during play, as players are trying to achieve the goals of their characters (however those may have been determined), what do you guys think about rules/resources players can use to essentially declare success at a stated task?

How do you feel about abilities that let the player essentially say “I succeed” rather than just giving like higher chances or a bonus or something?

I prefer to let the DM decide when something auto succeeds or fails. If a player ability can do that, I prefer it to be rare and/or a very high level ability.

 

[pemerton]

are we talking about enjoying the time with friends or the gameplay itself? (or both?)

It can be either or both.

If I'm play MtG with good players and losing, but the play is interesting, I can enjoy the play. If they're friends, I also enjoy the company. I have played with children where (because they were inexperienced children) the play wasn't very interesting, but it was fun to hang out with my cousins.

I regard someone who can't enjoy the game play unless they're winning as a bit of a bad sport.

 

[prabe]

So during play, as players are trying to achieve the goals of their characters (however those may have been determined), what do you guys think about rules/resources players can use to essentially declare success at a stated task?

It depends, of course.

For me, it depends some on the mechanics, and some on whether there's any sort of cost to it. Either in-the-moment or longer-term/broader, like some sort of build or other opportunity cost.

It also matters what we mean by task. Are we talking about like one check or for a scene or something, or are we talking like ... You automatically kill the man with six fingers on his left hand who killed your father? The former is probably OK; the latter is ... probably not.

How do you feel about abilities that let the player essentially say “I succeed” rather than just giving like higher chances or a bonus or something?

Either can be OK. Either can be a problem.

 

[Malmuria]

That's pretty unambiguous. And these are undoubtedly paradigms of D&D modules!

IMO, the language of "wins" should be avoided in rpgs, especially with new players, because it generally connotes a zero-sum situation (and thus can produce adversarial play) and suggests that the game ends once the "win condition" is met.

Or to put it another way, via a made up example: I might decide that my character is looking for his long lost sibling. I would describe that sort of thing as a hook: a potential plot hook for the gm, and something to anchor my character in the world and give them a reason to get messed up with the other characters. Since you are collaborating with the gm and other players on a story, it's good to throw these things out there and be open to some of them getting taken up, and others being left aside. What are the stakes of calling this sort of thing a "win condition"? What does it add to our understanding of the game, or how it's played out?

It makes sense that modules, especially tournament modules, have fairly concrete goals. I'm not denying the existence of these plainly stated goals, I'm just confused as to why referring to them as "win conditions," with all the zero-sum, I win you lose baggage that phrase has, actually helps us understand how to better play or run games.

For example, last year I was a player where the dm was using the module "The House on Gryphon Hill," updated for 5e and with hombrew touches. I read the module later. The opening page reads:

The objective of the game is to find and destroy the vampire Strahd and to rescue those who have fallen under the control of evil. Whenever, if ever, this happens, go immediately to the Epilogue. It is your responsibility as the DM of this game to use every power available to Strahd to stop the player characters be- fore this happens.

It's pretty easy to telegraph that goal--big bad evil is doing evil-y things--even to the couple of players who were new and thus had never heard of Strahd. But, for various reasons, none of us ever grew particularly attached to that goal, and took up smaller goals. In our final confrontation we negotiated finding a way out of Barovia. The DM was running this adventure for another group, and they were reportedly even less focused, spending most of their time talking about food in the game, stealing random things, then skipping town.

I feel this kind of thing is fairly normal? I mean, I must be misunderstanding what you all are saying. So there's a benefit, in dnd at least, to thinking in terms of your character who has goals, which may or may not align with the stated objective of the module, as communicated by this or that npc. I don't see the benefit of thinking of the module's stated objective as a "win condition."

 

[prabe]

I regard someone who can't enjoy the game play unless they're winning as a bit of a bad sport.

Well, then ... You plausibly regard me as a bit of a bad sport, then, at least most of the time.

In my defense, I make an effort to win and (more frequently) lose with grace, and not to stomp on the fun of anyone else playing.

 

[Campbell]

In general I prefer games that have a high degree of uncertainty/tension for most things although I also prefer that there are reliable ways to get information because I hate low information environments as both a player and a GM. I vastly prefer being able to make informed decisions as a player. As a GM I also prefer when players understand what's at stake in addition to finding keeping track of what players should and should not know somewhat exhausting.

Even for things that shift the odds I tend to have a very strong preference for before the roll modification over after the roll. Tension. Tension. Tension.

Consistency here is more important to me though. I dislike when some characters have access to reliable resources, but others do not.

 

[Ovinomancer]

One thing that always comes up are mechanics for social encounters. You have the typical session spent in a city shopping. Maybe the characters have concrete goals--things they want to buy and haggle for, or steal--but maybe for the players there is a certain pleasure in just hanging out in character. In dnd this is kind of a blank space, but I don't think that means that something about dnd doesn't afford this type of session.

(Separately, when explaining a game, or even in design, I think the connotations around particular words matter. So using a term like "win" already constrains how you are conceiving of what's happening in play)

Yeah, it does. It tells me play is about forming, knowing, and working through the win conditions, or goals if you prefer. That these exist, at multiple levels, and varying densities means that my play and my running is focused on the ones my table cares about. Since I think this way, I engage the game this way, and I engage what my table wants this way. If my table wants gimmicky gotcha traps that require slow, painstakingly detailed action declarations as they creep down a featureless hallway, well they need to find a different game I ain't doing that. But, if they want something else, like a game that revolves around their character's wants, then I can tailor to that, and engage that, and deal with multiple challenges and obstacles to that, so that the game is about what they want and what their chosen win conditions are. Or goals, if you prefer.

I find it strange that there's an argument that saying D&D has win conditions means that you're somehow aberrant in approach or play because you've chosen the wrong wording, but if you say that D&D has goals in play everything's hunky-dory.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I think if we want to talk about how play actually works we need to either be extremely precise that we are talking about the game's objectives or goals or use language which cannot be easily used to elide the real world causes for the fictional things.

What I like about win condition is that there is zero doubt we are talking about the player trying to achieve the game's objectives. I'm not entirely happy with it, but not sure what I would use in its place.

Aside : It would bring me immense pleasure if instead of PC people would start using player's character when they are talking about the character and player when talking about the player. This is another case where eliding happens for the purpose of getting players in the right mindset for play, but fails to do a good job of communicating what is actually going on when we sit down to play a roleplaying game.

Interesting. I use PC to mean player's character exclusively. Player to mean player. I mess up sometimes, usually because I type as I think, so sometimes I change direction mid-sentence and don't always catch it, but PC for me is just shorter to type than player's character. I never confuse these. I don't think I noticed anyone else doing it, but perhaps. I agree there's a very important distinction here and it shouldn't be elided, even though I am occasionally guilty of it.

 

[FrogReaver]

As I've said, I don't regard this as a merely pedantic point because it occurs in nearly all discussions of the distribution of authority and is used as a premise in arguments that reach false conclusions, such as that the best or indeed only way to reduce GM authority over outcomes is to move to a sandbox: without considering that authority over outcomes is related to (i) authority over backstory and (ii) the role of backstory in adjudication and in framing, in ways that are different in various sorts of non-railroaded play - with a sandbox only being one of those ways.

Seems to me that there's an underlying and unstated requirement for why other modes than sandboxes are often outright rejected. When we are talking D&D-like RPG's there's a particular tenet that the players control their character and they the GM controls the world. If that premise is accepted as a requirement for the desired style of game then there's not much (any?) room left for anything other than linear or sandbox style play. Thus, the thrust of D&D-like discussions to be based on the linear-sandbox spectrum and not move anywhere outside of that.

Now, maybe people are wrong and that tenet of player control over character and GM control over world allows for more than linear/sandbox style games, but I've seen no argument asserting that to be the case. Usually what's said is that there are games where the player controls some of the world and the GM might control a characters reaction to some particular fail result. There certainly are such games but bringing them up in a discussion with an implicit premise that excludes them and saying 'see - there's more than this linear/sandbox spectrum'.... that seems really strange. IMO.

 

[pemerton]

It makes sense that modules, especially tournament modules, have fairly concrete goals. I'm not denying the existence of these plainly stated goals, I'm just confused as to why referring to them as "win conditions," with all the zero-sum, I win you lose baggage that phrase has, actually helps us understand how to better play or run games.

Well, first, "win conditions" doesn't imply zero-sum.

As I've been going on my lock-down walks with my partner, I've been practising jumping up steps, onto ledges at the edges of blocks that have been terraced into slopes, etc. @Manbearcat would not be impressed by my prowess, but I have gradually increased (a little bit) the height I can jump on to. This is not zero-sum, and the only "loser" can be me (if I fall or miss and hurt msyelf). But when I try and jump, there is a clear "win condition" - make the jump! Someone who saw that activity through the same lens as my idle stroll with my partner would not understand what is going on - that the jump is an interlude in the stroll where I've set myself a deliberate physical challenge, with a clear success condition.

How does thinking about win conditions help run better games? Well, if your goal is to run Cthulhu Dark it may not. But if your goal is to run White Plume Mountain (which is not a tournament module) then it's pretty important! It helps understand what counts as a fair or unfair GM-side move; when it's appropriate to 'say 'yes'" and when it's appropriate to hold the players' feet to the fire; etc.

last year I was a player where the dm was using the module "The House on Gryphon Hill," updated for 5e and with hombrew touches. I read the module later. The opening page reads:

<snip module text>

It's pretty easy to telegraph that goal--big bad evil is doing evil-y things--even to the couple of players who were new and thus had never heard of Strahd. But, for various reasons, none of us ever grew particularly attached to that goal, and took up smaller goals. In our final confrontation we negotiated finding a way out of Barovia. The DM was running this adventure for another group, and they were reportedly even less focused, spending most of their time talking about food in the game, stealing random things, then skipping town.

I feel this kind of thing is fairly normal?

I don't know - maybe? For all I know, what you describe has even happened in White Plume Mountain although I think it's crystal clear it's not what the module author had in mind.

But the fact that some groups don't play with win conditions, or treat every module they encounter in the spirit of a 2nd ed Planescape-y one, doesn't show that D&D play never has win conditions.

I also know from experience - the experience of failure - that adapting a module written to be beaten, for the purposes of that more Planescape-y approach, is not always trivial. A lot of the stuff in White Plume Mountain is interesting from the point of view of trying to beat it, but not very interesting if a player's goal is just to learn what's going on in the fiction and engage with it.