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

[Ovinomancer]

Then as I said, you're picking a fight either deliberately or out of negligence.

No, you misunderstand. How someone feels about a thing doesn't change the thing. The play being described is not altered by what I call it or how someone feels about what I call it. I really only care about the play.

 

[Ovinomancer]

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.

Which rulebook is this in? The rules of the game(s) leave this at the meta level. That you've decided to nail it down doesn't, in any way, remove this argument. It says that you wrote additional rules for you're table. But, even there, what you have is completely arbitrary and rather goes towards my point rather than away from it.

 

[Ovinomancer]

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!

I find reading D&D in a "doesn't say I can't" mode leads very quickly to (rules) abusive situations and increasingly broken cases of play. On the other hand, a strict "doesn't say I can" reading has it's own weirdness. I had a situation once, where a good friend was a "doesn't say I can't" player. He was an outstanding example of a D&D GM, though, like really good at the trad core of play and excellent at necessary improv. But, as a player, his characters were almost always either right on the edge of abusive rules invocations or were over that line. And he wouldn't check, because those readings made sense to him, so why would he. When these came up in play, there was always dissonance, though, and if I ruled against him, he would become quite upset (not actively, but in a passive aggressive way) and mostly pout. Understandable, as I just made a ruling he disagreed with that nerfed his character concept in the middle of play. We never managed to see eye to eye on this, and it was one of my reasons for burnout in 3.x. 4e was a nice change, as it limited this greatly and I could run comfortably for him. We never got far enough in 5e to see many problems before the incident occurred (outside of game and not involving me) that ended the association (jail was involved).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And spell slots. And turning attempts, and any ability with uses per day/turn/arbitrary period. And - prior to 4E - character levels, xp, Constitution points; yadda yadda; blah blah.

The entire game in any iteration is predicated on numbers which we track. The numbers go up and down. Meanwhile we beat our heads trying to cram them into representing something they really don't and cannot - some kind of objective measure in the game world.

Some cows are sacred, but on inspection it transpires they are not flawless red heifers.

I really don't think most of these are metacurrencies. For example, I would assume that the caster is actually aware how many spells and how powerful they're able to cast and they're aware of the causal effects these spells have. This is not metacurrency. If the characters could more or less accurately discuss the thing in character (perhaps not using the exact mechanical terms) then it is not metacurrency. granted, some of these are weirder, like battlemaster manoeuvres. It would feel a bit weird that the character would know how many of these they could pull off. Though this is more to do with we having intuitive understanding that this is not how this would work in real world, whereas we have no such assumptions in magic.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

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.

I kinda do this, though only as rough approximation. But I take note about how much of a thing's AC comes from base AC+dex and how much from the armour. And attacks that wouldn't even hit the former are described as not connecting at all whilst those which are not hits due armour are described as being deflected by that. It's not exact as it really doesn't matter, but something I try to keep in mind a bit. It always bugs me when GM describes every miss as a literal miss, even when one might be attacking a slow, heavily armoured foe.

 

[Aldarc]

D&D is a democracy. An even democracies have presidents. The players elect the DM to run the game in a way where they all can have fun. If he’s not doing a good enough job they will either move to another table or elect a different DM.

Or they will stay and suffer through the experience because the DM and the rest of the group are close friends. Or no one else wants to run the game. Or there are no other DMs and this is the only D&D group they can find. Or maybe D&D is not a democracy at all and this is simply a poor analogy to make?

Well I'm in disbelief that you can't see that hit points are a form of metagame mechanic. And, given that they are a resource that gets spent and then replenished by various sorts of in-fiction and meta- moves, it seems reasonable enough to call them a currency.

Obviously a number of people go to great lengths to pretend that metacurrencies don't exist by attempting post hoc diagetic explanations for them with varying levels of success. Of course, if "metacurrency" or "metagame" or meta-anything, for that matter, weren't treated as taboo no-nos then they could be understood, analyzed, and utilized in ways that can better enhance their games.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I don’t think the rules support this happening, but I don’t think they specifically block it, either. Certainly the Find Familiar spell is worded in such a way that this kind of thing isn’t addressed at all. I think this is one of the reasons that it bothered me less. The situation with the fleeing hag undermined a few rules to some extent.

While I 100% understand your conclusion that the fleeing hag undermined some rules and I would have probably ruled it differently myself, I’m not sure it undermined any rules.

Sharpshooter allows you to ignore cover penalties (and range penalties): it doesn’t give you line of effect if you didn’t already have it. Likewise, Hunter’s Mark gives rangers a preternatural edge in tracking and detecting marked creatures, but again, does not grant line of effect if it does not otherwise exist.

On a featureless plain, you are absolutely correct that you have both the range and the line of effect to shoot the hag. In a swamp, with trees everywhere, boggy marshes and overgrowths, and with the hag already at 160’ it is not unreasonable that you would not have a shot.

Since you did have Hunter’s Mark on her, I would have probably allowed a hard Survival check: you aren’t tracking her, you are trying to triangulate her position so you can anticipate a break in the swamp where she will have to cross your field of view so you can shoot her. If you succeed, you position yourself to take a shot (this has no incidence on your ability to use Hunter’s mark to track her to her lair).

My only point here is to ask you to consider that maybe the DM wasn’t mistaken, he simply had a different conception of the combat area and failed to adequately communicate it to you.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Why I 100% understand your conclusion that the fleeing hag undermined some rules and I would have probably ruled it differently myself, I’m not sure it undermined any rules.

Sharpshooter allows you to ignore cover penalties (and range penalties): it does give you line of effect if you didn’t already have it. Likewise, Hunter’s Mark gives rangers a preternatural edge in tracking and detecting marked creatures, but again, does not grant line of effect if it does not otherwise exist.

On a featureless plain, you are absolutely correct that you have both the range and the line of effect to shoot the hag. In a swamp, with trees everywhere, boggy marshes and overgrowths, and with the hag already at 160’ it is not unreasonable that you would not have a shot.

Since you did have Hunter’s Mark on her, I would have probably allowed a hard Survival check: you aren’t tracking her, you are trying to triangulate her position so you can anticipate a break in the swamp where she will have to cross your field of view so you can shoot her. If you succeed, you position yourself to take a shot (this has no incidence on your ability to use Hunter’s mark to track her to her lair).

My only point here is to ask you to consider that maybe the DM wasn’t mistaken, he simply had a different conception of the combat area and failed to adequately communicate it to you.

Yeah. Now that we know there is no map, this sounds even more possible. If the hag dived in the water and it is swamp presumably with all sort of bushes etc, it seems quite possible that there would be no line of fire. If the character is rather far away, the river bank would be likely to block the line of fire, even if the character could see through the water. It just sounds a bit dodgy as at first the issue is range, but then it is something else. But it kinda depends, perhaps the GM was just going through all the aspects of the shooting procedure.

 

[pemerton]

On a featureless plain, you are absolutely correct that you have both the range and the line of effect to shoot the hag. In a swamp, with trees everywhere, boggy marshes and overgrowths, and with the hag already at 160’ it is not unreasonable that you would not have a shot.

Since you did have Hunter’s Mark on her, I would have probably allowed a hard Survival check: you aren’t tracking her, you are trying to triangulate her position so you can anticipate a break in the swamp where she will have to cross your field of view so you can shoot her. If you succeed, you position yourself to take a shot (this has no incidence on your ability to use Hunter’s mark to track her to her lair).

My only point here is to ask you to consider that maybe the DM wasn’t mistaken, he simply had a different conception of the combat area and failed to adequately communicate it to you.

Yeah. Now that we know there is no map, this sounds even more possible. If the hag dived in the water and it is swamp presumably with all sort of bushes etc, it seems quite possible that there would be no line of fire. If the character is rather far away, the river bank would be likely to block the line of fire, even if the character could see through the water.

In reading @hawkeyefan's account of the unshootable hag, I don't get any sense that there was an established fiction about the hag's cover, from which it followed that she couldn't be shot. It sounds much more like the GM had decided that the hag was going to escape, and then authored backstory and tried to disapply rules in order to justify that result.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Well that's the thing about words...they have connotations and associations that exceed their literal meanings. And yes, generally, "active" has more positive connotations than "passive."

Relatedly, it's not the best word to actually describe what you are trying to describe. The 5e play loop does not situate the player in an inherently passive position. Passive players are those that are not engaged or have no reaction to the world as presented. I would say that 5e players are reactive: the DM initiates the play loop, the player responds, and then the DM responds in turn. The GM has more work to do in their steps, but that does not mean that all the puzzle-solving and tactical combat-having is passive (let alone the character-building and backstory-creating, which may as well be a pillar of play).

It is and it isn't. The part that isn't is that the GM doesn't have to honor the reaction by the players. And this is discounting bad faith or poor play -- if the players' reactions are not aligned with the GM's conception of the fiction, then they aren't honored. Effectively, in the usual mode of play for 5e, the GM is tightly constraining the players' options for their PCs with their situation. The players collectively learn and engage the fiction the GM presents within their limited channels. I mean, there's already quite a side discussion about what counts as engaging metachannels in play and what's allowable for action declarations by the players.

So, while there is a reactive element to play, it is still constrained and that constraint is largely the GM and how they allow for the fiction they've created and presented to be interacted with. Play isn't really just reaction/counter reaction, but rather hunting for the allowable reactions.

My prior example of how, in Rime, there is a fictional puzzle that can only be solved with one answer and that answer is not obvious (dispel magic is the only solution, but it's not clear that this is so) is a prime example of the kinds of constraints placed on the players by the GM's fiction, and how "react" isn't quite the right word. I mean, I did a lot of reacting to this puzzle, where I tried to destroy it physically (no roll allowed, action failed), to trying to smother the fire with snow and a wet cloak (no roll allowed, action failed), to attempting to use arcana to solve the problem via trying to figure out how to disrupt the magic (roll allowed, but meaningless, as the roll was to determine if I was allowed to know why the action failed).

So, yeah, here was a lot of reacting (and this is from a published adventure) that didn't matter at all, because I had to find the one allowed pathway and follow that. If this is the case, that's pretty passive as far as what play is allowed -- follow the path or the answer is no.

Perhaps more importantly, "passive" may or may not be how players describe their own experience with a system. For example, Call of Cthulhu scenarios are fairly linear, and a lot of what the keeper does is literally hand the players sheets with pre-made backstory. Yet from experience I've had, players find that experience to be engaging and dialogic, involving both their imagination and problem-solving skills. When considered in the whole range of ttrpgs, it's easy to forget that even traditional games and linear scenarios feel very "active" for a lot of people, new and continuing players. That feeling of engagement is what draws people to 5e as well.

Play here is pretty much the same as in 5e. It's just as passive. I've noted previously that I still find it fun, and that it can be very entertaining. This seems to be trying to talk up the play here, but I'm assuming that engaging in dialog with each other and using your imagination is a baseline for play of an RPG, so saying you meet baseline doesn't do much for advancing the claim that play isn't otherwise fairly passive.

To be clear, when we talk about playing an RPG, passive is referring to that play. If you imagine that passive is saying non-participatory, or that appeals to engaging in dialog or imagination defeat the claim, then you're missing the context of the claim. These are baseline to play of an RPG, and I'm not discussing degenerate play. So, with participation being baseline, what constitutes passive play? I've been clear on this.

Unlike me, you seem very confident that you can look at other people's games, and overwrite their own experiences.

Nope.

That if someone (and actually lots of people) say that they play 5e modules more or less by the book, and they find the time they spend with their characters to be active, collaborative, and engaging, you'll be able to step in with your "unromantic" analysis (with its already-set categories) and say, "nope, 5e is passive." That's what I mean when I say you are articulating a prescriptive, axiomatic perspective in these posts.

This isn't overwriting their experience. It's disagreeing with their characterization. It's like saying, "I went down the bunny slope at the ski lodge, and it is the most challenging and rewarding experience you can have on skis!" If I'm a skier, I'm going to look askance at this statement, even while I'll allow that that person felt challenged and rewarded. Disputing the qualitative claims made in general is not at all disputing the experience of the player. As I've said, I enjoy 5e as a player. My play is passive when compared to the possible scopes of play in RPGs. I'm okay with this. The experience can still be fun and rewarding. This doesn't change that there is little that the game expects of me.

Here's a reasonable test: if you run the same game for different players/characters, will the results be similar? In many 5e games, the answer to this is yes. Certainly for any of the published adventures. The same things will occur, the same general results obtained. Differences will be in details. Players that complete Storm King's Thunder will all have rather similar stories about the events of the game. This is an indicator of that passive play. Even in a sandbox, if the GM is instantiating the same set of factions and goals, and not creating brand new prep differently for a separate playthrough, many things will be similar. You can see this for a small sandbox very clearly, like Isle of Dread. Stories of this game all have very many points of similarity.

This isn't a bad thing. Comparable results lead to increases in shared experiences which are what can create a sense of community within a hobby. I've enjoyed trading war stories. I ran three separate groups through Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, and was engaged with the small differences -- some groups made choices that resulted in encountering fiction other groups didn't, and vice versa. But, overall, the stories told with these different players and different characters (especially characters) are not at all different in any substantial way. They all went through the moathouse, they all went to the crater, they all dealt with the temples, etc, etc. At a certain distance, the play is indistinguishable, and that distance isn't terribly far -- at the level of a moderately detailed synopsis. If this is the case, if who the players are and who the characters are do not really move the needle much, then I'm okay saying that play is passive here -- the goal is to uncover the fiction the GM has prepared. This was successfully done. Also, as a note, this adventure has some strong sandbox elements to it, so it's not a linear railroad.