D&D General When (or can) the fiction overrides the DM?

[Campbell]

The fiction is just the fictional situation, not story. The basic conceit is that the GM/DM should make decisions based on the situation guided by their curiosity for how it will turn out - not try to guide the outcome. That when you decide what a successful skill check means you do so only on the basis for what makes sense given the situation, not based on what you want to happen. That when you play an NPC you do so only with their objectives in mind, not to guide the narrative.

 

[payn]

I'm not sure I completely understand the question, but the GM can override whenever they want. Should they? I guess that depends on the context of the situation. Would breaking the rules of the setting or narration benefit the game? Then, its probably ok when used sparingly. Though, I do prefer when a GM sticks to the limits of the genre and setting if this is what is meant by fiction.

 

[Celebrim]

The fiction represents what is stated to be true about the situation the player characters are in.

In a sense, the GM is subject to the fiction as well, or to make the point more pointed, IMO the GM is subject to the fiction as well. There are different theories about how to GM that disagree on this point. In my opinion, if you have established that there are eight orcs, you shouldn't suddenly decide that four more orcs show up because the fight is going badly in some way. You should only have those four more orcs show up if you know from the fiction that they were already there, and those orcs in turn would now empty some other location you already knew of in the fiction.

Since the fiction is something I established, it's a bit weird to speak of it overriding me, but in the sense that once established I also have to treat the fiction as real and react to it and am limited by it, then yes I think the fiction is overriding me. I might not want the bad guy to die without providing dramatic resistance, but if the fiction is establishing that that is happening, I can't or at least shouldn't decide to override the fiction to get what I personally want. Afterall, I largely was responsible for establishing the fiction in the first place, presumably having decided that that is what I wanted. If I can mid-scene change the fiction because I have decided I'm not getting enough of what I want, then essentially I'm assuming sole authorship of the story.

This is my perspective at least. I know of quite a few GMs that publicly argue for a total illusionism stance where the GM at all times is overriding the fiction and even ignoring the rules for "the good of the game" while pretending to the players that there is some sort of process going on that isn't continual fiat. In this GMing stance, the GM owns the whole story and presents it to the players while giving the illusion that the players interaction is meaningful.

The really odd cases are well respected GMs that don't realize that they are running their own games from a total illusionism perspective, and have in fact tricked themselves into believing in the illusion and who think they are leaving the story up to the players despite hard obdurium walls and heavy use of fiat to steer scenarios to the desired result. For example I saw one GM describe what amounted to an unbeatable trap that the players were required to fall into, which he ran according to the super harsh rules he'd established and then, just as the situation would have resulted in a TPK he overrode the fiction to produce the result he wanted all along. This is a guy who writes up very elaborate rules and procedures to establish the fiction, rules that statistically guarantee the futility of whatever the players doing and then uses this as an excuse for hard fiat for the good of the game as the ultimate end of the scenario with no apparent self-awareness that the elaborate rules he set up more or less guaranteed either a TPK or else a GM fiat intervention while bragging about how crafty his scenario was.

 

[Blue]

The DM is the one presenting the fiction. It seems like if the DM wants something other than what the fiction demands, that's the DM putting their own wishes over running well.

To give an example, if it's been established that a particular crime boss comes down hard and heavy on those who poach in his city and then ejects them, and the players do so and are inept enough to leaves obvious clues who did it (or get captured), but the DM put time and effort into creating the city and doesn't want to eject them, he's going against the established fiction, tearing down what he's lead the players to expect as consequences of their action, in order so that he can keep using a location he prepared. Can it lead to a good story? Sure. Is it damaging what has already been done for a non in-world reason? Also yes.

Mind you, this is different from a bunch of level 5 characters going to talk to an ancient dragon. The dragon can absolutely kill them, but there's no fiction that says that they must. The dragon could talk to them, demand tribute for it's time, demand services for not eating them, could give them good advice that also helps the dragon on dragon-time-scales, could offer for them to become his agents. Or, you know, kill them. All that's fine, because there had not been established fiction that said what the dragon would do.

 

[iserith]

The fictional situation is a constraint on everyone to the extent it feels weird to purposefully do or establish something that doesn't fit. This is not to say it can't be done, but it just tends to looks odd when it happens.

 

[Charlaquin]

On occasion, we bring up the topic of the "fiction" of the game. On how it should be what drives the game. If the fiction is the greatest driver of the game, does that mean it should overrides the DM. Have you ever wanted to do something as the DM but stopped yourself because of the fiction? But wouldn't you consider that the DM is the highest level source of fiction? I'm not sure what the answer is; what do you all think???

I think when the fiction overrides the DM, especially when it’s a direct result of the player’s actions, is peak D&D. It can be a bit frustrating as a DM, if you have something prepared and the fiction demands it be missed, but the ability for such moments to occur is exactly what makes D&D so great. It’s the ultimate expression of the players’ agency when they are able to steer the story in a way the DM didn’t anticipate, to the point that it completely overwrites what they had planned for.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

By my way of thinking, gaming is collaborative storytelling. I'll take the fiction to be the story that the group is telling. Because of that, the DM cannot be overridden, because they are not the only one creating the fiction. It's all part of the harmony of the song. If I have an idea and the players have another, and the dice have another, it all becomes one story. And we all have to make space for each other in our stories, so that we all have agency.

Now, if we're talking about the story or fiction overriding the mechanics of the game, I think that gets back to the DM as an arbitrator of fairness. And in my opinion, fairness always has to take precedence. Because it is a game, the rules have to be enforced in an even fashion.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm struggling to understand exactly what you mean by fiction. The DM creates the world and the players write the story "fiction" through their actions. It's a process that unfolds and changes naturally.

By saying the DM wouldn't let you do something sounds like he unexpectedly changed RAW that resulted in you not being able to do something that you thought you could. Or maybe changed the laws of physics in the world.

A specific example would be helpful.

I’m not sure if this is what the OP meant, but what it makes me think of is the finale to the Wonderland arc of The Adventure Zone: Balance. At the end of a long and pretty downer adventure, one of the two villains of the arc manages to steal one of the PCs’ bodies, and the PC’s soul is shunted to the ethereal plane. There, he sees a super ominous portal thing full of evil black goo, and one of the party’s NPC allies being swallowed up by it. It’s very clear that some serious poo is going down, and the DM later confirmed in a postmortem of the campaign that he’d had this epic setpiece encounter planned where the party is split and fighting two different bosses on two different planes at once. But, as mentioned, it’s been a long and pretty downer adventure, and having one of the party’s body stolen must have been one unfortunate turn too many for the players and they were not having any of it. One of the other PCs casts magic jar so he can send his own soul to the ethereal plane and drag his friend back, which… isn’t really how magic jar works, but the TAZ cast had always been pretty fast and lose with the rules, and it was very, very narratively appropriate. The DM gives one final telegraph to the players that something big is going down in the ethereal plane, but it’s clear that the direction the players want to steer the story in is way more important than his plans, so he allows the spell to work (even though, again, it doesn’t actually work that way) and the body-snatched PC’s soul animates a mannequin (the room they were in was full of mannequins for reasons that make sense in context) and they fight the one boss as a full group to take back control of the PC’s body. It’s one of the most tense and exciting moments in the whole campaign, and everyone is left wondering what was going on in the ethereal that they turned away from. And that decision did have repercussions later in the campaign, but in the moment it was this very powerful thing where the players made a huge decision that changed the story in a way that I think could reasonably be described as “overturning the DM.”

 

[beancounter]

And that decision did have repercussions later in the campaign, but in the moment it was this very powerful thing where the players made a huge decision that changed the story in a way that I think could reasonably be described as “overturning the DM.”

Players do unpredictable things, if the DM can't handle that, then perhaps they should be writing a novel, not running a D&D game.

 

[Charlaquin]

Players do unpredictable things, if the DM can't handle that, then perhaps they should be writing a novel, not running a D&D game.

Right, so the premise of the thread is moments when you’ve had to deal with those unpredictable things in a way that overturned your own plans and/or rulings.