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

[pemerton]

The latter two characters had no obvious motivation for entering the dungeon, but we didn't dwell too much on these petty details!

I'll take note of the clerics backstory because it comes up later. The last line here is interesting because while you call the backstory details petty they do seem to drive your improvisation later.

You've misread. The petty details on which we didn't dwell were the lack of obvious motivation for the monk and warrior-mage to enter the dragon.

1. I notice you have no explanation of who made this decision, DM, players, or if it was a table negotiated decision.
2. If the decision was made by the DM were the players aware of why they were starting at level 2?

I imagine I suggested it. I doubt it was very controversial - three of the four players are old hands (for the fourth this was his first time playing non-4e D&D) and know the difference that dloubling from 1 to 2 HD makes to survivability in classic D&D.

3. Was this decision made before or after the dungeon and it's inhabitants were created?

The title of the thread is "Played AD&D yesterday (using Appendix A for a random dungeon)". The very next line after the one you quote about not wanting a TPK is "I rolled the dungeon using Appendix A: Random Dungeon Generation, and Appendix C for wandering monsters and room inhabitants". The dungeon was created during play.

1. Dungeon was procedurally created by DM and Appendix A+C. I'm curious if parts of it were created during play or all before (no specification).
2. Only the DM knows how the Dungeon was created - meaning a player telling of this adventure couldn't provide this integral detail.

The players could absolutely provide this detail! I told them something to the effect of I'll roll up a random dungeon and they could see me rolling my dice and looking at my Appendix A charts and drawing my map as we went along.

Only the DM would know this information.

How do you know? For all you know, I expressed a complaint to the players about not going near my ear seekers! It's certainly the sort of thing I would do, either once the moment had passed or at the end of the session.

You've listed no explanation on how the check to determine success or failure worked, nor if the players would have known how such a check worked.

I'm assuming that the reader has some basic familiarity with AD&D. The rules for bend bars/lift gates checks are stated in the PHB, p 9:

The attempt may be made but once, and if the score required is not made, the character will never succeed in the task. ]There follows an example of rolling percentile dice against a 10% chance, which makes it clear that bending is a different task from lifting.​

The players rolled their dice, as they would for any declared action that doesn't expressly dictate the GM make the roll.

The PCs then found an octagonal room, which was inscribed with strange runes and sigils (an ad lib by me, not coming from the random tables). The cleric cast Know History, and learned that the sigils were sigils of Chaos, and that the octagon (and other figures featuring the number 8, like 8 crossed arrows) was a sign of Chaos. The chaotic origins of the dungeon also explained its weird architecture, and suggested that the scrolls of Law that the cleric was looking for must have been taken here as loot or for destruction by the chaotics.

Here we see the information the PC learns ties directly into his backstory. There's a clear indication that you moved away from the procedures you were relying on for the rest of the dungeon. You've given no explanation for why. You didn't explain when you determined the sigils were sigils of chaos.

l did say when it happened - I ad libbed it! As to why, the post does explain that:

I think if I was going to try AD&D again I would really need to put the effort in to designing a more interesting dungeon - the number of empty rooms was a real issue. On the other hand, a greater density of inhabitants increases the proportion of combat to exploration and the likelihood of a TPK, so I'm not sure that that is a straightforward solution. And increasing the "story" elements (eg chaotic sigils and ancient scrolls) tends to push things in a direction that other systems are probably better at. So, in the end, I'm not sure that this sort of classic D&D is the best fit for our group.

That is, having rolled an octagonal room I adlibbed the chaos symbols because they fit with both the octagonality and the PC backstory. I think it's in the Elric/Stormbringer stories that eight crossed arrows are the sign of Chaos. (And a quick Google just confirmed this.)

And more importantly, would the players have known about any of the behind the scenes decision making processes you were using?

I don't know if they could tell what I was or wasn't taking off the random tables, but I'm pretty sure that they would be able to guess that the tables don't have a chaos sigil entry. I may even have said as much at the time!

But as you can see so far, the excerpt you've provided leaves alot of key analysis and play experience questions unanswered. And if you weren't the DM there would be so little mechanical information that such an excerpt would look mostly like just the fiction - something I've been criticized of focusing on.

It seems that you have missed that this was a real-time random dungeon generation.

I also get the impression that your norms for communication between the GM and the players are very different from mine. Most of the stuff that you think players wouldn't know, I'm pretty sure would have been obvious to my players.

As a player in this game, I would be able to report the process of PC gen, and also that the GM rolled a random starting point for the dungeon, and then used the Appendix A tables to generate encounters. I would probably be able to tell that monsters in the corridors, or that turn up in rooms after a time, were wanderers. I would know how the bend bars rolls were resolved, and how the combats were resolved, and that a reaction check was called for. I would know or at least be able to have a good guess that flavouring the octagonal room as a chaos room is not something found on the Appendix A tables. Not very much would be opaque - or, better, not very much was opaque.

 

[Lanefan]

It seems fairly straightforward: the rod leads the adventurer to the gorge, wherein sits a tower occupied by a chamberlain. Does this show that there is no difference between backstory first and situation first?

All I know is that while he was waiting for the PCs to find the tower and get past the chamberlain so they could kick his door in the Orc got bored, ate the pie, and went home.

This backstory situation is not first, but neither is it last. It arrives exactly when it means to.

 

[Lanefan]

ETA: What does AC represent? Let's say I have an 18 AC. What's going on there? If an opponent misses my AC, did I dodge? Did I direct the blow to the strongest part of my armor? Did I parry? I mean, what's up here? It's whatever's convenient.

One can, if one really wants to be so precise, break down how the AC number is arrived at and then narrate the result based on what the roll came to vs. the various AC factors. Example:

Let's say someone's in leather (AC 12) with a shield (so now AC 14) but the shield is +1 (so now AC 15) and has pretty good Dex (so now AC 18). This gives us four "miss" gradations tied to the modified to-hit roll:

To hit --- narration
1 - 9 - Complete miss (or parried by weapon, optional)
10-12 - Attack blocked by the armour
13-14 - Attack blocked by the shield (user)
15 - Attack blocked by the shield (due to its enchantment)
16-18 - Attack dodged due to superior dexterity
19+ - Hit. Roll yer damage.

Now as you say, for convenience these are often all mushed together into whatever narration happens to leap to mind at the time. But it is possible to do it this longer-handed way, and doing so is perhaps more reflective of what's actually happening in the fiction.

edit: changed numbers above to their correct versions; I had them all one too low.

 

[pemerton]

perhaps the potential pre-planned adventure is better framed as giving the player an opportunity to choose to go on a particular adventure that aligns with his characters priorities. Heck one could even present 2 competing adventures based on 2 different character priorities to make the player have to choose what's more important so everyone learns more about his character. To me this kind of stuff seems very similar to story now in many important ways and I think it's important to note how other playstyles achieve similar results in this arena because often this gets referred to as something that only story now does when it isn't.

I don't know what the similarity is that you're envisaging to "story now".

For instance, the following looks like it might be two competing adventures based on two different character priorities:

* Character priority 1: Find my brother's killer.
* Character priority 2: Be appointed to a magistracy.

*Adventure 1: Faction A offers information about the brother's killer in exchange for raiding an outpost of Faction B.
*Adventure 2: Faction B offers to put in a good word for the character with the governor, in exchange for infiltrating the HQ of Faction A and stealing a MacGuffin.​

But that does not look very much like "story now" play to me: the two factions seem like they could be arbitrary relative to the player priorities; likewise the outpost, and the MacGuffin.

The more the authority lies squarely with the GM, the more the play experience will depend on how the GM decides to exercise it. How the GM takes on board and runs with player cues. Or doesn't. Etc.

Agreed. But this is also the same if the authority is the players. Or a hybrid of GM/Player authority. Or if there's a mechanic that determines who gets the authority, etc. It always depends on how whoever has authority decides to exercise it.

<snip>

I think it matters who has the authority in those situations and what the resulting fiction is much more than it matters what mechanics they engage with that authority to determine the resulting fiction.

In making my point that I've requoted here, I was assuming that if the players have authority then there is no real need for mediation in having the exercise of that authority reflect their priorities.

As far as mechanics are concerned, I still think that Vincent Baker said it best:

Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. In order for any thing to be true in game, all the participants in the game (players and GMs, if you've even got such things) have to understand and assent to it. When you're roleplaying, what you're doing is a) suggesting things that might be true in the game and then b) negotiating with the other participants to determine whether they're actually true or not. . . .

Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.​

In other words, there is not a contrast between mechanical processes and authority. The former are part of how the latter is (i) allocated and (ii) constrained.

For instance, it's fundamental to the experience of BW play that a player can call for a Circles check whenever his/her PC looks around hoping to encounter a helpful NPC, and that if the check succeeds then that is indeed what happens; whereas if the check fails, then the GM has licence to introduce an antagonistic NPC, or one who is a hindrance rather than a help. The GM's authority can't be described without reference to the mechanic.

Or if there is no mechanic of any sort - so the GM is free to stipulate whatever takes their fancy about which NPCs are encountered when and where, and what sorts of moods they are in - then that is also pretty relevant to getting a sense of what the play experience will be like. For instance, there will almost certainly be fewer chance encounters with helpful NPCs than occur in BW play!

 

[pemerton]

This seems fundamentally off in that virtually all metagame currencies or metagame narrative controls can be viewed in some sense as corresponding to the fiction of which they allow or attempt to allow the player to 'alter'.

What's different about that kind of fictional correspondence and what @Thomas Shey is getting at is how closely the metacurrency or metagame control is limited to corresponding to just the character and their very immediate situation. This is why a metacurrency that a battlemaster fighter can spend to knock a creature prone (representing his skilled swordsmanship to some degree) is acceptable to such players

<snip>

The further away something drifts from that specific character and that immediate situation the more issues you will find these players have with it.

For some reason you seem to be presenting your agreement with my point as if it is a disagreement.

a metacurrency or metagame control that allows a character to specify 'this is the location of evards tower' is not acceptable. One is limited to the corresponding character and some particular contest they are in and the other is related to the character and establishing fiction outside a particular contest the character is in.

The right-hand side of your "and"-clause seems like a slightly more opaque way of making my point: my PC's success in remembering the location of a wizard's tower also establishes some backstory that is not "local" to my PC in the way that (eg) my PC's parents' names would be.

For instance, I don't think a contest has anything to do with it. Suppose the GM of a D&D game is planning a leprechaun encounter. And in the lead-up to that encounter, they casually (so as not to tip their hand too badly) ask the players about their PCs belt buckles, cloak clasps, etc. That would not be a contest; but I think at most D&D tables it would be assumed that the player can establish what sort of buckle their PC's belt has (provided the player nominates something reasonable eg no bejewelled clasps for 1st level money-hungry PCs).

Conversely, we could imagine the Evard's tower question arising out of a PC's battle of knowledge against a NPC loremaster.

The determining factor, it seems to me, is proximity of the backstory detail to the PC together with its relative irrelevance to the "bigger picture" of the campaign (and wizards' towers would normally be seen as quite relevant to the bigger picture).

Again, Vincent Baker describes this well:

What has to happen before the group agrees [to some proposed bit of fiction] . . . Sometimes, not much at all. The right participant said it, at an appropriate moment, and everybody else just incorporates it smoothly into their imaginary picture of the situation. . . . This is how it usually is for participants with high ownership of whatever they're talking about: GMs describing the weather or the noncombat actions of NPCs, players saying what their characters are wearing or thinking.​

In "traditional" RPGs, the GM is seen as having a lot of ownership - maybe sole proprietorship - over NPCs' dwellings, and especially when those dwellings are wizards' towers.

 

[Lanefan]

In Gygax's DMG, I think this sort of issue arises in his discussion of "living"/"reactive" dungeons (pp 104-5). If a GM really takes that advice to heart, then the player advice in the PHB (about scouting and planning an objective for the dungeon mission: pp 107. 109) becomes less useful and even unhelpful, because the knowledge obtained in today's mission will be rendered outdated and perhaps even irrelevant by the changes the GM makes between incursions.

Well, yes, oftentimes the place you're raiding isn't necessarily going to remain static while you take two weeks to travel to town, recover, and head back out; and that's the point Gygax is trying to make.

A solution, of course, can be to leave one or two stealthy PCs on site (or at least able to see the entrance) to keep an eye on things such that when the bulk of the party gets back they can be provided an updated report. I've known parties to do this now and then, and it's usually been useful* when they did.

And you'll still have gained some knowledge during the first incursion in any case; for example unless the dungeon denizens are really fast miners the party's map of what they explored should still be accurate.

* - on one memorable occasion a party left a high-ish level Cleric-Thief behind to keep an eye on a half-explored dungeon's entrance while the rest went back to town for supplies and, I think, a few Raise Deads. During the fisrt few days the party were gone the enemy - now thoroughly paranoid - put up numerous until-triggered defensive spells around the entrance; the C-T watched this from hiding, and by the time the party got back she'd managed to dispel every one of them and thus save her crew a world o' headaches.

 

[Lanefan]

Also, it gives at least weak precedent for the Wizard to use their familiar to store/hide items in the pocket dimension, or even creatures touching/grappling the familiar. There are GMs I would absolutely explore this revelation with...and others I would know better than to bother.

Explore this revelation, or exploit it?

A fine example of how seemingly simple spells can be wrecked by incomplete write-ups (here the write-up in the PH should clearly state what if anything can go with the familiar) and cause headaches for DMs as soon as the players start looking for loopholes.

 

[Campbell]

Offering the player character information about their brother if they perform some other mission is the opposite of Story Now! It's using the player character's dramatic need to bribe the player to participate in an unrelated scenario if they want to eventually pursue their character specific narrative. You could not be less like Story Now play if you tried. Scenarios in Story Now play should directly address the underlying dramatic needs of the player characters at all times, not be used as leverage to bring in stuff the GM wants to bring in (which could be good stuff - not knocking it). There's nothing wrong with that sort of play, but it's like the literal opposite of what Story Now play is about.

 

[niklinna]

Explore this revelation, or exploit it?

A fine example of how seemingly simple spells can be wrecked by incomplete write-ups (here the write-up in the PH should clearly state what if anything can go with the familiar) and cause headaches for DMs as soon as the players start looking for loopholes.

It was the DM who introduced the loophole—and exploit—in this example. But I agree with you that the writeup is incomplete, As a player I generally avoid looking for loopholes, because that can move from gameplay to discussion about who can get away with what, at the very least adding a runtime burden the DM may not be prepared to think through thoroughly, and is likely to lead to resentment by other players.

I've been on that other side of this myself, playing a wizard with a familiar in a game with another player who played a forest gnome, and took the bit about "keep squirrels, badgers, etc." to mean they got a pet, which of course should be able to scout and steal things and fight, and the DM allowed that. Good thing we didn't have a beast master ranger at the table!

 

[Ovinomancer]

Well there were fey involved, and the familiar is a fey creature. So it kind of makes sense that when the familiar was dismissed to the pocket dimension, the redcaps may have been able to go along with it, and then when it was resummoned to the PC, they’d come along then, too.

When I say “makes sense” I mean it seems suitably backed by the made up elements



Well I won’t say you’re wrong. One of our group kind of balked at the idea. And I get it. I just don’t see any rules being overruled by the GM here.

This was not the PC’s initial casting of Find Familiar…it was already on scene and he sent it out to scout, and the redcaps jumped it. The PC was unaware at that point because it was more than 100 feet away. He dismissed it to a pocket dimension per the spell, and then brought it back within 30 feet (this allows you to dismiss and bring back your familiar multiple times with a single casting of the spell). The redcaps came along for the ride.

Again, it’s not in the rules in any way….but it’s less clearly overriding the rules. At least, that’s how it seemed to me.

I have a slightly different take -- neither of your examples are about overriding rules. Making a ruling you can't shoot arrows into water to successfully hit an underwater target isn't an override of rules. To me, the difference here is that in the first example, the GM had an outcome in mind -- the hag escapes -- and had described the hag as swimming away underwater. Then there was a negotiation between you and the GM as to why your declared action to shoot the hag failed. This went through a few iterations, with the GM putting their best reason according to the situation to show why it failed. First was distance, but you had an answer to that. Second was inability to see, which you had an answer to. Third was the fact that even if the first two failed, you still can't shoot a target underwater, and that's where it ended. This outcome was always there, it just took the GM walking through what they thought were simpler answers to get there. As far as I can see, the GM was not retconning the situation to achieve their goal.

So, on second take, this first example of the escaping hag wasn't Force (although it might have gone there), but rather just poor communication and the GM having enough fictional reasons to deny the action but needing to find the one the player didn't have resources to marshal against. We do not know if the GM would have allowed the shot if the player had a resource that said they can shoot into water with no penalties, so benefit of the doubt is needed.

The second example, though, seems like the GM wanted to ambush the party with redcaps, felt that the familiar would have spoiled that, and so did some quick thinking to line up some bits of fiction to make it happen. This is Force, though, because the GM is ignoring the intent of the player's actions and then deciding what the outcome was without regard to system (ie, no tests made). This actually feels quantum ogre to me.

To sum up, the first seems clumsy, but on second look I don't see Force clearly (it could be lurking). The second is still clearly Force, but well integrated into the fiction. To me, though, it opens up quite a number of questions that seem like it could abuse the familiar in the future. To me, there's some intent in the familiar rules that doesn't suggest the familiar is a key to a pocket dimension that allows for sneak attacks and time-delayed teleportation effects. I mean, I could, using this, get a squad of friendly attack fey, have them go with the familiar to the pocket dimension, and then summon them in for surprise and mayhem later.