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The Neutral Referee, Monty Haul, and the Killer DM: History of the GM and Application to 5e
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<blockquote data-quote="el-remmen" data-source="post: 8706714" data-attributes="member: 11"><p>Is it possible to be a "neutral DM" who roots for the players <em>and</em> the monsters? Because if so, that's me. Kinda.</p><p></p><p>I think I have told this story before, if so, bear with me:</p><p>Back in the early-mid-oughts I was running a 3E game that was a mix of new and old folks. One of the players, who was new to my game once expressed a little consternation at my glee when monsters and other opponents did huge amounts of damage, rolled crits, or pulled off something that put a crimp in the PCs plans. But then one day, one of the other players were not present and I was running them as an NPC and when I rolled a crit for them, I cheered. It was then that the player started to notice something about my style of DMing. I was happy when anyone rolled well and any exciting thing happened. They were so focused on how I acted when their character took a crippling hit, they didn't notice how I acted when the PCs did the same against opponents - which was also with excitement.</p><p></p><p>I let the dice fall where they fall and I am usually gonna cheer when they fall in a way that makes something dramatic happen.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="el-remmen, post: 8706714, member: 11"] Is it possible to be a "neutral DM" who roots for the players [I]and[/I] the monsters? Because if so, that's me. Kinda. I think I have told this story before, if so, bear with me: Back in the early-mid-oughts I was running a 3E game that was a mix of new and old folks. One of the players, who was new to my game once expressed a little consternation at my glee when monsters and other opponents did huge amounts of damage, rolled crits, or pulled off something that put a crimp in the PCs plans. But then one day, one of the other players were not present and I was running them as an NPC and when I rolled a crit for them, I cheered. It was then that the player started to notice something about my style of DMing. I was happy when anyone rolled well and any exciting thing happened. They were so focused on how I acted when their character took a crippling hit, they didn't notice how I acted when the PCs did the same against opponents - which was also with excitement. I let the dice fall where they fall and I am usually gonna cheer when they fall in a way that makes something dramatic happen. [/QUOTE]
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The Neutral Referee, Monty Haul, and the Killer DM: History of the GM and Application to 5e
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