The meaning of Fair in D&D -but more on topic this time

Alright

So we know how the last one went, but I do feel like this is an interesting question to answer. So here's my take:

"Fair" in D&D is something with many meanings, but I think it kinda boils down to "The DM is a "fair" DM if they effectively communicate with the players, and are adaptable enough to change parts of the campaign if it makes some of the players uncomfortable or otherwise unhappy. Because in the end, D&D is a partnership game- the DM agrees to provide a fun experience for everyone, and in turn, the players agree to cooperate with what the setting or campaign is and not be ridiculous about it.

TL:DR A fair DM is a DM who communicates with the players and can adapt the campaign to help everyone have fun and be comfortable.

Thoughts?

Well, the prior discussion heavily mixed 'fair' and 'good', and I think your choice does as well.

Fair does not have any particularly D&D specific meaning, so we can just use a dictionary definition of fair. Particularly appropriate definitions are

a(1) : marked by impartiality and honesty : free from self-interest, prejudice, or favoritism

b(1) : conforming with the established rules : allowed

I would say it's very hard to be a good DM without also being fair per a(1), but being fair per b(1) is optional.

I'd say fair as per b(1) works fine in, say, a board game, where the rules lay out a clearly defined full game, hundreds of contingencies, etc., but not so much in D&D, where the rules are more "Here's magic powers, here's how the system works, and here's how stuff you'll need works. Now go have fun!", and a DM can kinda just put a Tarrasque in front of a level one party for no reason. Is that fair by b(1)? Yes, because the rules say you can. Is that fair by... well, an emotional metric? absolutely not. Now, I am not emotionally intelligent enough to tell you WHY it's unfair, the best I could manage is "because it is not fun", which is faulty by many metrics, but I think we can all agree that it isn't fair. Now, this goes both ways, as for example Silvery Barbs is often rated by DMs as "unfair" and therefore banned because it can result in turning any fight into a cakewalk, which does not tend to come off as "fair".

But I agree, it's very hard, if not impossible, to be a good DM without being A(1) fair, and sometimes to be A(1) fair you have to house rule or homebrew, which breaks b(1)'s definition of Fair

Fair (a) is important, although it doesn't require treating everybody anything close to equally, since not everybody wants the same thing out of the game.

Fair (b) is about the rules of the social contract, not the game mechanics. (Although level of adherence to the mechanics is part of the social contract.) But a lot of the rules of the social contract are unwritten, and that's going to be true even of you have an explicit session zero. "The DM is not going to arbitrarily kill the PCs" is up there along with "the players are going to engage with the game the DM is running".

(And, (a) is really subsumed by the social contract as well.)

If we put aside "good", which to me involves a lot more ensuring all the players are having fun. IMO a fair DM has the following requirements:

1) Making consistent and predictable rulings. This might be consistent with the published rules, or with their homebrew system. 

2) Narrative events and NPC reactions should be consistent with the tone, setting, and themes of the game. A comical surrealist campaign might have the players suddenly fall through a puddle into a land of lollipops and chocolate fairiess, but not a gritty realistic campaign.

3) Not force the player characters into a situation where they will almost certainly die. There should always be a way out, or the players should have made a well informed choice to enter the situation. 

4) Not engineer every situation so that the player characters always win. - For a game to be fair there must be a possibility of failure.

 I think the players and the DM construct whatt fair means at their table. This can be done in an intentional way by starting with clearly communicated expectations and boundaries in session zero and continuing to communicate when things happen and those expectations and boundaries need to be revisited (or reminders need to be made). Or this can be done unintentionally by a group of players and a DM dealing with things in a straightforward, tactful manner as they come up. Both rely on communication, just one front-loads it and the other has it happen on the fly. Either way, it's the players and the DM participating in the social contract with each other and collaborating to build group cultural norms at their table. Consistently following the established norms is fair. Failing to do that is where people start feeling fairness isn't being respected.

I think @ApplePaladin nailed it here. It's very table specific. 

I for example do not allow D&D Beyond Drops at my in person tables. There are players who would immediately hear that and say I'm being unfair. Drops though don't have a physical book that I can pass around to my players and allow them all to benefit from the options within. It's 100% reliant both on D&D Beyond and a Subscription. I do recognise that this isn't a solution that would suit all tables. Incidentally, it's a hang-over from Pathfinder. If you don't have the book, or have the book but aren't willing to share with the table, then the options within are disallowed. Either everyone has access or no-one does.

Similarly, though if the party decide that they don't want to include Multiclassing in the adventure it's entirely fair to disallow those options. Unfair would be allowing one single player to benefit from multiclassing where the others cannot. Sadly, I'm a bit of a soft-touch as a DM and where campaigns have started with 'no multiclassing', they've often played out as 'if you find an NPC to train the character and we can RP that in downtime, you can multiclass'. I like my players to be able to have fun with their characters.

Fair to me means everyone playing by the same rules. Everything is consistent. Now that gets a little grey when talking about the DM of course, but the principle still applies. I'm not out to kill the player characters. I'm not out to create a puzzle that's impossible to solve. 

Every table is different however, and the specifics vary. I think then it comes down to the agreement that the group of players and DM have made before the commencement of the adventure.

Quote from martintheactor >>

Fair to me means everyone playing by the same rules.

Having lurked on that other thread before it got zapped. Honestly, I've always thought this is the best definition of fair in D&D.

I do think @ApplePaladin also really gets it right. It's really about your table. You want everyone to know what to expect, and you definitely want to feel like the DM is also playing by the rules everyone agreed on. Or at least that the DM isn't playing Calvinball. Our game is just among our friends, but even still I send out an e-mail whenever I want to change a rule between one session and the next. 

I mean, the DM can and sometimes should change the rules on the fly. You can certainly have a bad guy or an environment that's dangerous because it upends a table's expectations. But it definitely stops being fun when it feels like the DM is just arbitrarily changing the rules as they go along. Like, there's absolutely a difference between "You were ambushed and had to scramble. You only have 6 arrows in your quiver, that's all you had time to grab. Make them count." vs. "You shoot your arrow at the monster! You're now out of arrows, because I've decided it will make this fight harder to start counting ammunition."

Still... I think if I was really looking for an all-purpose, black and white rule on what is fair, this would be it. A DM might get the fun wrong, or misjudge an encounter or something. But I think it's safe to say that in all cases, what's not fair is if the DM changes the rules to treat some players differently from others. 

EDIT - I wish I could find it, but Matt Colville actually had a great video where he discusses the whole reason for food, water, light, ammunition, etc. It was something about running the dungeons. But basically, he talked about how in O-G Dungeons and Dragons, the game was a much more straightforward dungeon crawler. The whole campaign might take place in a single dungeon, and the players were far weaker than they are today. So keeping track of these things really mattered, because they fueled an entire game built around scarcity, survival and pushing your luck in an environment that was more survival horror than the heroic fantasies we play today. It's a terrific clip if anyone can find it.

The whole thing about DND is how adaptable it is. To be "fair" requires that all sides of something follows the same parameters and have the same constraints. That would  be fair. Everyone and everything has an equal opportunity. But the DM is allowed, if not encouraged, to change the rules and adapt the circumstances, not for being fair, but for having fun. Any number of board games could be considered fair, because every player has to follow the same rules, but the reason people play DnD is because it operates outside of those boundaries.

I think there's a strong argument that everyone being the treated the same doesn't necessarily work out to be fair in practice. I think people get accustomed to using that as a shorthand for fairness and lose sight of the complexities of real life and real people. I'll also say a DM can be adaptable and still be fair, as long as they aren't being arbitrary. 

Personally, I think there are four general categories of fairness a DM should have.  You do not necessarily have to excel in all of them to be “fair”, but utterly failing in any one category would likely land them in the unfair category in my book.

1. Fair in application of the rules. Notably, I do not think strict adherence to the rules is necessary here.  A rule of cool DM could, and often is, “fair” if their decisions feel reasonable and consistent with the table’s standard for the rule of cool.

2. Fair in their treatment of each player.  Notably, this is not “equitable” in treatment - a nuanced, but key distinction.  At some tables, treating everyone equal might be fair; at others it might not be. Speaking for my own table, I have players who both enjoy high risk of death and who would be devastated by their character dying.  Treating them all equitably would be unfair - neither side could get the experience they want - so the fair option is to do things like target those who want to be targeted more.  More generally, things like Fighters are more loot dependent at high levels to break through martial and caster differences, so being more generous with loot to some classes might result in more fair treatment. Taking into account each players personal red flags and hang ups also falls in to this category. 

3.  Fair in design of encounter. Encounters should be designed to match the understanding of the game.  For me, that means my encounters are extremely dangerous, but can generally be won (though there’s a reason folks carry lots of diamonds in my group) - or if they cannot likely be won, it is because the party ignored lots of warning signs and proceeded regardless or because there is another exit ramp available.  This balance will be different for each group.

4. Fair in arbitration between players.  Conflicts arise in D&D both at and above table and the DM is often the one to resolve these matters at the person with typically the most authority over a game.   A DM should be able to resolve these conflicts without favoritism or bias, which can be difficult given many D&D groups also have preexisting friend, romantic, or familial relationships. While similar to point 2, this point is really more about dealing with acting fairly between players in a dispute at the table level, instead of fairly acting within the game at the character level.

One can of course break our infinite striations with more specifics, but I think fairness in rules, fairness in design, and fairness both at and above table make a good baseline under which everything else can generally fall.

Fair, for me, is that the players have the opportunity to work things out and make informed decisions about them.

Unfair: "You finally corner the runaway prince, when he twists and grows - he's actually Tiamat! Roll for initiative!"

Fair: foreshadowing. Adding the cult of Tiamat to the world, adding books thereof to the princes room, adding signs like the house crest being a five-headed serpent, having the trail to the prince show strange signs of elemental damage without traces of evocation magic - but, strangely, with traces of transmutation magic. The snow outside the destroyed tower has footprints - too indistinct to identify, but they shrink down to the footprints of a man. Then, when they catch the prince and he transforms, they'll go "Oh, that all makes sense!" and at least one will say "I Knew it!".

Quote from ApplePaladin >>

I think there's a strong argument that everyone being the treated the same doesn't necessarily work out to be fair in practice. I think people get accustomed to using that as a shorthand for fairness and lose sight of the complexities of real life and real people. I'll also say a DM can be adaptable and still be fair, as long as they aren't being arbitrary. 

 
While this is true in society at large, it holds less true for gaming in play. D&D isn't a building that has been constructed without step-free access, braille signage, and other accessibility measures. Of course we should accommodate people's protected characteristics at the table and not brook discrimination. Good lord I wish that didn't need to be stated, but with the state of things... well...

Beyond that however, D&D is primarily a game played in the mind. Every player having the same player options I would argue is vastly different than allowing a player with Dyscalculia to use their phone or tablet to run digital dice rolling.

If the rule of the table is, for example, no multiclassing then unfair would be bending or breaking that rule for a single individual. Allowing a single player access to options that the rest of the table do not have access to isn't fair by any reasonable measure. It is providing preferential treatment to a single individual. Fair play is everyone abiding by, and having access to the same ruleset as everyone else (with perhaps the exception of the DM who by design of the game needs access to information temporarily withheld from the others to ensure smooth running of the game). For my tables I always attempt to make clear when a player has come asking for an exception to the rules we're playing by and get the table's agreement. To extend the example of multiclassing, I'll ask my players are they willing to make the concession under the agreement that it would become the new table rule. Players would then become free to respec their characters should they choose to do so. In most cases tables tend toward choosing not to allow the concession, and usually the player in question who'd asked to multiclass realises just why what they're asking is unreasonable.

Similarly, I'll always try to ensure there are in game facilities for every player character in the game. I personally detest the Artificer class. However in a current campaign which is build around the excavation and exploration of an ancient ruined magical city, I've included a tinkerer and artificer location just as I would provide other class specific points of interest which could be visited by the party. 

So, personally I would struggle to see how within the context of the gameplay all characters being treated the same would be unfair. Again to be clear I am all for and will always to my best to make my tables accessible to folks. Even to the extent of moving to a new game shop because the venue's accessible entryway wasn't accessible...it was a ramp which a shop assistant needed to move into place (for the uninitiated, accessibility requires in theory that no external assistance should be required. If a moveable ramp which is kept under lock and key is your idea of an adaptation it's not accessible). So I'd be curious if you disagree and if so on which particular point. If there's something I can do to improve accessibility and equality at my tables I'm keen to learn it genuinely.

So, personally I would struggle to see how within the context of the gameplay all characters being treated the same would be unfair.

For me this is more to do with experience than ability. Newer players I might allow to undo their turn and do something else when they realize a spell doesn't work as they thought, whereas I might be less lenient on more experienced players. Similarly I might give a player with a highly optimized character less powerful or less numerous magic items than a player who built a barely functional but thematically interesting character.

Quote from martintheactor >>

So, personally I would struggle to see how within the context of the gameplay all characters being treated the same would be unfair.

Mostly because what players want from a game varies, and there's flexibility in what the rules are. Simply choosing to use a rule one player likes and another doesn't is unfair (though you can balance it out with compromises in other areas).

Quote from Agilemind >>

 

For me this is more to do with experience than ability. Newer players I might allow to undo their turn and do something else when they realize a spell doesn't work as they thought, whereas I might be less lenient on more experienced players. Similarly I might give a player with a highly optimized character less powerful or less numerous magic items than a player who built a barely functional but thematically interesting character.

 
This makes a world of sense to me, and is something I frequently do for new players. I disagree about putting thumbs on the scales for optimised characters. Though personally my advice to players is always to build something they think will be fun and ignore the mechanics. Due to the relative rarity of multiclassing at my tables, I see fewer OP character builds than others might. I also tend to apply standard array across the board so that it's less likely we'll encounter a character that is built in these highly specific ways. 

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

Quote from martintheactor >>

So, personally I would struggle to see how within the context of the gameplay all characters being treated the same would be unfair.

Mostly because what players want from a game varies, and there's flexibility in what the rules are. Simply choosing to use a rule one player likes and another doesn't is unfair (though you can balance it out with compromises in other areas).

 
The options and rules available are a majority rules type of thing at my tables unless it's a one-shot. If it's a one-shot the rules and build instructions are advertised ahead of time. If it's a full adventure, then all the options are laid out in session zero and the group decides. If a player doesn't like the options the group chose, they're free to find another table. I won't make an exception for one player to have say feats in 5e if none of the other players want to activate that optional rule (obviously in 5.5e they're not optional so that would never be a choice to make). 

Part and parcel of what a party is going to have to do even when thinking about the characters is to go along with the choice they prefer the party didn't select. If the adventure has three options: imprison the henchman, kill the henchman, release the henchman; then sometimes the party will come to a disagreement. Majority rules but everyone gets a chance for their say and their vote. The same applies to rules options. 

And to be frank if a player isn't happy with the idea that the group all votes and majority rules, then they're likely not a good fit for my tables. To me, and it is just my perspective here, having a player from whom an exception like encumbrance being ignored is made is preferential treatment. I feel that such treatment is unfair when that player has the option to find a new table. 

Quote from martintheactor >>

Quote from ApplePaladin >>

I think there's a strong argument that everyone being the treated the same doesn't necessarily work out to be fair in practice. I think people get accustomed to using that as a shorthand for fairness and lose sight of the complexities of real life and real people. I'll also say a DM can be adaptable and still be fair, as long as they aren't being arbitrary. 

 
While this is true in society at large, it holds less true for gaming in play. D&D isn't a building that has been constructed without step-free access, braille signage, and other accessibility measures. Of course we should accommodate people's protected characteristics at the table and not brook discrimination. Good lord I wish that didn't need to be stated, but with the state of things... well...

Beyond that however, D&D is primarily a game played in the mind. Every player having the same player options I would argue is vastly different than allowing a player with Dyscalculia to use their phone or tablet to run digital dice rolling.

If the rule of the table is, for example, no multiclassing then unfair would be bending or breaking that rule for a single individual. Allowing a single player access to options that the rest of the table do not have access to isn't fair by any reasonable measure. It is providing preferential treatment to a single individual. Fair play is everyone abiding by, and having access to the same ruleset as everyone else (with perhaps the exception of the DM who by design of the game needs access to information temporarily withheld from the others to ensure smooth running of the game). For my tables I always attempt to make clear when a player has come asking for an exception to the rules we're playing by and get the table's agreement. To extend the example of multiclassing, I'll ask my players are they willing to make the concession under the agreement that it would become the new table rule. Players would then become free to respec their characters should they choose to do so. In most cases tables tend toward choosing not to allow the concession, and usually the player in question who'd asked to multiclass realises just why what they're asking is unreasonable.

Similarly, I'll always try to ensure there are in game facilities for every player character in the game. I personally detest the Artificer class. However in a current campaign which is build around the excavation and exploration of an ancient ruined magical city, I've included a tinkerer and artificer location just as I would provide other class specific points of interest which could be visited by the party. 

So, personally I would struggle to see how within the context of the gameplay all characters being treated the same would be unfair. Again to be clear I am all for and will always to my best to make my tables accessible to folks. Even to the extent of moving to a new game shop because the venue's accessible entryway wasn't accessible...it was a ramp which a shop assistant needed to move into place (for the uninitiated, accessibility requires in theory that no external assistance should be required. If a moveable ramp which is kept under lock and key is your idea of an adaptation it's not accessible). So I'd be curious if you disagree and if so on which particular point. If there's something I can do to improve accessibility and equality at my tables I'm keen to learn it genuinely.

 I think you identified an important part and didn't realize it. Yes, D&D is a game of the mind. And folks' minds are what we have to take into account when we're thinking about fairness. Preferences, likes, dislikes, phobias, discomforts, etc. Caerwyn had a great example with knowing that some players at their table are super okay with their character being at risk of in-game death, while other players at the same table aren't at that comfort level. Some players won't be comfortable with certain topics, or they might be comfortable if something is part of someone else's backstory or ongoing story but not theirs. Some players are going to have an unfun time if there are giant spiders in the mix, and "hey, everybody has to fight the giant spiders, that's fair" isn't going to fly. Using lines and veils and other safety tools helps a lot with identifying those opportunities for mindfulness as a DM. And as I'll happily keep repeating, this is all great session zero material.

Quote from ApplePaladin >>

 I think you identified an important part and didn't realize it. Yes, D&D is a game of the mind. And folks' minds are what we have to take into account when we're thinking about fairness. Preferences, likes, dislikes, phobias, discomforts, etc. Caerwyn had a great example with knowing that some players at their table are super okay with their character being at risk of in-game death, while other players at the same table aren't at that comfort level. Some players won't be comfortable with certain topics, or they might be comfortable if something is part of someone else's backstory or ongoing story but not theirs. Some players are going to have an unfun time if there are giant spiders in the mix, and "hey, everybody has to fight the giant spiders, that's fair" isn't going to fly. Using lines and veils and other safety tools helps a lot with identifying those opportunities for mindfulness as a DM. And as I'll happily keep repeating, this is all great session zero material.

 
I'd say that this is a DM style thing though. If I've got a player who's got arachnophobia, there won't be spiders in the adventure. Again this comes a little back to the step free access thing right. If you design a building that everyone is able to use; that appears fair. However, when building, the architect was terrible at their job and decided that the slope leading up to the main level of the building would look better as stairs. This inherently prevents access to a lot of people with mobility issues. It's far more fair the build the structure with a ramp or just plain street level access in the first place. 

You're spot on that it's session zero stuff, and I agree there. As I say though, if there is something that is a known issue then the thing will simply be omitted from the adventure in its entirety. There's no need to have some of the party fight spiders if I can substitute them in for say giant rats. It changes nothing much mechanically I'll just skin the webs as trash and detritus of the rat nest which makes the field difficult terrain. Otherwise use the same 'to hit' and damage bonuses and boom you've made your adventure accessible with little issue. 

As someone with PTSD I'd add here that many of us don't always understand or know what can trigger those who live with trauma. For this reason, I'd actively recommend that even if people do go with lines/veils or suchlike that they still run an X-Card. For one player I had at a table it was a piece of music they hadn't heard in years and they were back experiencing the incident. Full on PTSD trigger. They weren't aware of the trigger and that's often how it plays out. There is a massive difference between plain discomfort and triggers which gets missed in this kind of discourse. To be abundantly clear, I'm not advocating that we stop factoring in people's discomforts I just want to be clear that when I use the term trigger I use it in it's actual sense rather than the colloquial. So for that reason X-Card as a safety net can be more valuable than lines/veils. 

I'm not sure that this falls under the umbrella of 'fair' though. This is accessibility. As DMs we want people to be able to access our games so we make reasonable adjustments to our games to ensure players can have fun. That's not fair, it's basic human decency. 

[Side note here for anyone interested in accessibility, here might be an appropriate place to plug Evil Hat's Accessibility Toolkit. Designed for the FATE RPG system, the toolkit contains a lot of stuff useable at all TTRPG tables and frankly every GM should read it.]

That said, it does have me examining my own beliefs on this. Character death is a fact of the game, just like it might be in Ironman modes of different computer games. As a result I'll frequently advise those who dislike character death to seek a different table. Through this lens my tables are inaccessible to those people uncomfortable with PC or NPC deaths. My initial assumption is that there are games in which combat and death do not factor in, Stewpot and Riverbank leap to mind. Even FATE does not have death as such a core mechanic of the combat system. So my brain runs the thought - why choose D&D if you don't want character death when other game systems do things differently and are better developed? Things I'll need to think on...

Quote from martintheactor >>

Quote from ApplePaladin >>

 That said, it does have me examining my own beliefs on this. Character death is a fact of the game, just like it might be in Ironman modes of different computer games. As a result I'll frequently advise those who dislike character death to seek a different table. Through this lens my tables are inaccessible to those people uncomfortable with PC or NPC deaths.

 I am glad you raised character death, because I think it provides a perfect example to help you explain how treating players the same could be unfair.  I think your post on the subject also exposes that some of your confusion comes from your own experiences and only viewing the question through that experience.

Your splution mat be fair for your type of group -  you set expectations at the beginning of the game and then let the player decide if they want to play in that game.

However, that is not a universal option.  For many players - and likely most - their D&D group is not a pick-and-choose system.  They are a bunch of friends who get together and play the game.  Telling one of the members of the group “oh, you don’t like lethity of the game I plan on running?  Sorry, you’re excluded from the social circle.”  In such a situation, your option might be equal to each player, but it is hardly fair.

Which then puts you in a situation where players might have different views on character death.  Speaking for my own group - and an experience I know lots of other DMs have - I want to play with my group.  But some of them want to feel they’re likely to die, some of them want to be a bit more insulated from death, and I want my players to be very aware death is a very real possibility.  In groups like this, the “fair” thing to do is adjust circumstances to deliver the kind of gameplay experience that works for everyone - the people who are fine with death still very well might die, those deaths cause some trepidation for the entire table, and the less comfortable players might be a bit more insulated through tiny, subtle decisions by the DM.

It might not be equal - but it is fair.  Everyone gets to hang out with their friend group and everyone gets an experience tailored to their enjoyment.  Perfect example of how, in a social game with numerous ways one can manipulate targeting and such, one can be un-equal while still being fair.

 I am glad you raised character death, because I think it provides a perfect example to help you explain how treating players the same could be unfair.  I think your post on the subject also exposes that some of your confusion comes from your own experiences and only viewing the question through that experience.

This is kind of a semantic / pedantic argument, but IMO treating all players equally is fair, and not treating them equally is unfair. But being unfair does not mean you are a bad DM. There are many times when being unfair makes you a better DM than someone who is entirely fair. Same goes with my example of players with different levels of experience. Being more lax and permissive for new players who don't know the rules as well is absolutely being unfair but it also makes you a good DM. Whereas a DM who holds all players to the same expectation of knowing the rules is being fair, but is also not being a good DM. There are many many times both in D&D and IRL where being fair is not the same as being good, and it is not bad to be unfair. Though that does come back to what does it mean to be fair? Is it fair to treat players differently based on their ability, age, experience, or even personality / desires or it that being unfair and the only way to be fair is for all players to be playing by the same rules with the same opportunities and expectations regardless?