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Respect Mah Authoritah: Thoughts on DM and Player Authority in 5e
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<blockquote data-quote="Maxperson" data-source="post: 8431513" data-attributes="member: 23751"><p>Heh. I didn't take it personally or think you were talking about me. I just saw the comment and was curious as to the thought process. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>I don't view being responsive to player input as shared authority. To me it's exercising my authority in a responsible and respectful way. Shared authority would involve giving the player the ability to author things in the game.</p><p></p><p>About 4-5 years ago I was starting up a brand new 3e campaign after a discussion about player authoring. I decided to do a little experiment and involve a bit of of it in my game. I decided to depart from my typical campaign power level and have a grand epic where the fate of the world was on the line. Instead of my usual method of campaign selection as I described I think earlier in this thread(it might have been another thread), I asked the players to trust me and go with my super secret campaign idea. They agreed and were very intrigued. </p><p></p><p>I set up a situation where a powerful artifact built by an ancient magic using peoples to cut the gods off from the world was found and used. The gods could not see it or interact with it any longer, so divine magic ceased to be usable beyond any spells already granted. The PCs were different, however. Unknown to them, they were the children of mortals and a god, and through that blood link, their divine parent could make a connection to them and them alone. That way those that chose divine classes wouldn't lose their abilities and I could reveal to them in a dream that they were demigods in the 5e sense. </p><p></p><p>During the dream it was revealed to them that they had power that resided within them that related to who their randomly determined by me parent was. So one of them who was the child of Talos the Destroyer had the power of entropy and destruction. I let them know that they could try anything at all related to their parent's portfolio, even if it wasn't a standard spell or ability that they knew. In a campaign that went from level 3 to 20ish, I can count on one hand the number of times they stepped outside of the box and tried something that wasn't a spell. :sigh:</p><p></p><p>Now, years later I decided to try again with this new campaign that I started. I had them vote on around 23 new house rules during session 0, including the use of plot points, which they approved. I let them know that they would get 1 per level, but that they would not stack, so they were use it or lose it. The campaign started at 7th level and after 7 or so sessions they made 8th level without a single plot point being spent. Doh! </p><p></p><p>You might have seen me talk about this in other threads, but I also have a fate deck for when 1s and sometimes 20s are rolled. It's a magic the gathering deck with cards that have names that can be easily interpreted in D&D games for positive or negative effect. So if the player is trying to attack an enemy and pulls a shatter card, the enemies sword might shatter. If they are trying to kick down a door and roll a 1, that shatter might shatter the PCs foot or the door(it can go either way. Fate is fickle). </p><p></p><p>The players love the fate deck, so this campaign I also decided to hand out cards for them to use and interpret as inspiration, since inspiration is so bland on its own. So far they've all gotten inspiration once, and one guy has had it twice, meaning that one of them used one card. That card was the first one I handed out and when I explained how I interpret them, giving examples, that player said, "I'd like to use that last example you gave." <img class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" alt="🤦♂️" title="Man facepalming :man_facepalming:" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f926-2642.png" data-shortname=":man_facepalming:" /> </p><p></p><p>I'm hoping they start to use them more and maybe their plot points, but at this point I'm getting a bit discouraged.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Maxperson, post: 8431513, member: 23751"] Heh. I didn't take it personally or think you were talking about me. I just saw the comment and was curious as to the thought process. :) I don't view being responsive to player input as shared authority. To me it's exercising my authority in a responsible and respectful way. Shared authority would involve giving the player the ability to author things in the game. About 4-5 years ago I was starting up a brand new 3e campaign after a discussion about player authoring. I decided to do a little experiment and involve a bit of of it in my game. I decided to depart from my typical campaign power level and have a grand epic where the fate of the world was on the line. Instead of my usual method of campaign selection as I described I think earlier in this thread(it might have been another thread), I asked the players to trust me and go with my super secret campaign idea. They agreed and were very intrigued. I set up a situation where a powerful artifact built by an ancient magic using peoples to cut the gods off from the world was found and used. The gods could not see it or interact with it any longer, so divine magic ceased to be usable beyond any spells already granted. The PCs were different, however. Unknown to them, they were the children of mortals and a god, and through that blood link, their divine parent could make a connection to them and them alone. That way those that chose divine classes wouldn't lose their abilities and I could reveal to them in a dream that they were demigods in the 5e sense. During the dream it was revealed to them that they had power that resided within them that related to who their randomly determined by me parent was. So one of them who was the child of Talos the Destroyer had the power of entropy and destruction. I let them know that they could try anything at all related to their parent's portfolio, even if it wasn't a standard spell or ability that they knew. In a campaign that went from level 3 to 20ish, I can count on one hand the number of times they stepped outside of the box and tried something that wasn't a spell. :sigh: Now, years later I decided to try again with this new campaign that I started. I had them vote on around 23 new house rules during session 0, including the use of plot points, which they approved. I let them know that they would get 1 per level, but that they would not stack, so they were use it or lose it. The campaign started at 7th level and after 7 or so sessions they made 8th level without a single plot point being spent. Doh! You might have seen me talk about this in other threads, but I also have a fate deck for when 1s and sometimes 20s are rolled. It's a magic the gathering deck with cards that have names that can be easily interpreted in D&D games for positive or negative effect. So if the player is trying to attack an enemy and pulls a shatter card, the enemies sword might shatter. If they are trying to kick down a door and roll a 1, that shatter might shatter the PCs foot or the door(it can go either way. Fate is fickle). The players love the fate deck, so this campaign I also decided to hand out cards for them to use and interpret as inspiration, since inspiration is so bland on its own. So far they've all gotten inspiration once, and one guy has had it twice, meaning that one of them used one card. That card was the first one I handed out and when I explained how I interpret them, giving examples, that player said, "I'd like to use that last example you gave." 🤦♂️ I'm hoping they start to use them more and maybe their plot points, but at this point I'm getting a bit discouraged. [/QUOTE]
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