D&D 5E The Neutral Referee, Monty Haul, and the Killer DM: History of the GM and Application to 5e

[Mort]

4. Use random encounters. You need to get comfortable with random encounter tables, and your players need to understand how you are going to use them.

Use different tables for daytime and nighttime encounters, different tables for different terrain, different tables for different levels of the dungeon. It's perfectly acceptable to make random room contents too: "If the party enters this chamber, they automatically encounter one random monster from the Random Encounter table" or so forth.

And make sure your players know how often you will be checking for random encounters, the mechanics you will use (is it a flat % chance? a Survival check? a random roll?), and what they can do to improve their odds. If there are monsters on the random encounter table that are more than a match for the player characters, let them know beforehand. Some players fully expect to be able to win every encounter they stumble upon...if that's not going to be the case at your table, tell them! Otherwise it's just a TPK waiting to happen.

On this note, when using random encounters - make sure that, generally, there is an obvious method of escape or other non-combat resolution. 5e is REALLY bad about this. Both because it doesn't do a good job of letting players know sometimes they need to flee AND because the mechanisms/mechanics to do so are lacking.

While this seems pro player, IMO, it's just anti-random TPK. And actually leads to more neutral DMing (because the DM isn't as sorely tempted to put his thumb on the encounter scale).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Random generation of content. Or designing content generation neutrally. Ignore the PCs as much as possible.

For example. Go to a random map generator and generate a map. That’s neutral. Find all possible starting towns. Roll to determine which is the starting town. That’s neutral. Use terrain-based content generators. That’s neutral. Etc.

Does anyone actually do this? I assume you'd also have random charts to populate these places, including random charts for personalities and interpersonal relationships of the people. Also random charts to generate the history of the setting. Yeah, not seeing this actually happening.

That’s not really true. You absolutely can improv neutrally. Start from what makes the most sense to the fictional world.

This I think is the part where people are kidding themselves. Creating fiction that does "make sense to me" is not neutral. It is all made up, we could come up with countless different things that "make sense," at least to someone. I don't think it it is helpful to pretend that this is not a creative process shaped by the GMs whims and tastes.

 

[Charlaquin]

That’s not really true. You absolutely can improv neutrally. Start from what makes the most sense to the fictional world.

Well, see, herein lies the problem. “What makes the most sense in the fictional world” is inherently subjective, and therefore cannot be decided on impartially. Now, as established earlier, impartiality is more of an ideal to strive for than a goal that can be attained, so this isn’t necessarily a problem. But it does make improvisation a less neutral form of content than prepared content, which is why it is less favored in this style of play. Doesn’t mean it can’t be used, just that one has to be especially careful with it.

 

[Jack Daniel]

I think, and I'm just speaking for myself here, that the problem I have with the basic premise of a neutral DM is that it ignores the fact that D&D (and RPG's in general) are made up of a number of different games at different times. When the DM is creating an adventure, it's almost impossible to be actually neutral. Unless that adventure is 100% randomly generated, the DM will ALWAYS have a thumb on the scale. Has to. And, is advised to PUT a thumb on the scale during scenario creation - sure, randomly roll your treasure, but, if it is too much or too little, roll again goes the advice in the 1e DMG.

I just have serious doubts that the sort of play where the GM doesn't need to make decisions based on their whims is actually possible in practice. Who made the charts in the first place and how it is decided when the chart is used and which chart is used? How it is decided what sort of tactics the enemies use once the combat begins?

I don't know, it just feels to me like some sort of self deception to think such neutrality is truly possible, and thus disowning the actual responsibility of what's happening in the game. In D&D ultimately the GM is in charge, and I feel it is the best to recognise what it means.

There's a reason @Snarf Zagyg tried to head these kinds of arguments off at the pass. They're not interesting. We're all of us here, I think, familiar enough with postpositivist incredulity to be aware that certainty is a technical impossibility. But it's trivial — it doesn't lead to any useful insights here.

Yes, impartial refereeing is an ideal that DMs (of this particular inclination) strive for while running the game — while wearing the Referee's Hat.

It's also an ideal that DMs may take into account while wearing the Worldbuilder's Hat, fully aware that the Worldbuilder's Hat and the Game Designer's Hat often need to compromise (such as, for example, when deeper dungeon levels have scarier monsters guarding better treasures — this makes a certain sort of sense from a perspective of verisimilitude, but ultimately it's a concession to good game design, and any in-universe justifications for it, like the "mythic underworld" principle or simply an appeal to deeper dungeon levels being naturally more difficult to plunder, are pure post hoc reasoning).

But ultimately, neutrality (in the sense that we mean here — impartiality with respect to PC and NPC, player and game-world; running the world as a kind of best-judgement-driven simulation) is something that happens at the game table. It's a principle that lives mostly in the Referee's Hat, and I don't think that we need overly concern ourselves with it to the same extent when worldbuilding or designing adventures.

I think establishing such things like blorb principles (where does this term come from?) can certainly be enormously beneficial for running the game in disciplined manner, but at the same time I feel it is important to recognise the limitations even the most strident prep and principles, and that the GM cannot, nor should not, disown their responsibility about decision making.

Ninja'd by @Charlaquin already, heh. Here's another blog post by a different author that gives a different perspective and summary of the notion. As one might expect, "blorb" comes out of (one small, idiosyncratic corner of) the theoretical/exegetical tradition of OSR blogging.

 

[Charlaquin]

Does anyone actually do this? I assume you'd also have random charts to populate these places, including random charts for personalities and interpersonal relationships of the people. Also random charts to generate the history of the setting. Yeah, not seeing this actually happening.

On the subject of randomly generated history for a setting, check out How to Host a Dungeon. It’s a solo game that generates a side view multi-level dungeon complete with several eras of history behind it. Absolutely fantastic prep tool for DMs who enjoy this type of play.

That said, at least in Snan’s description of blorb play, it seems to not be necessary to be neutral during prep. Snan writes (paraphrasing only slightly) that during prep the GM’s role is to create a game that will be awesome to play, whereas during play the GM’s role is to try to run that game fairly and consistently.

This I think is the part where people are kidding themselves. Creating fiction that does "make sense to me" is not neutral. It is all made up, we could come up with countless different things that "make sense," at least to someone. I don't think it it is helpful to pretend that this is not a creative process shaped by the GMs whims and tastes.

Yeah, there’s a quote from someone or other (I first heard it from Hank Green, but it’s possible he was quoting someone else) that “that makes sense” really just means “that fits with my biases.”

 

[overgeeked]

Does anyone actually do this? I assume you'd also have random charts to populate these places, including random charts for personalities and interpersonal relationships of the people. Also random charts to generate the history of the setting.

I do. That's literally how I created my last campaign.

Between Worlds Without Number, Stars Without Number, Azgaar's Maps, donjon, Hex Flower Cookbook, The Mother of All Encounter Tables, and decades of stockpiled resources, it's fairly easy to randomly generate content. You'd be amazed what you can do with Excel.

Yeah, not seeing this actually happening.

Thankfully, you "not seeing it" has no bearing on whether it actually happens or not.

This I think is the part where people are kidding themselves. Creating fiction that does "make sense to me" is not neutral. It is all made up, we could come up with countless different things that "make sense," at least to someone. I don't think it it is helpful to pretend that this is not a creative process shaped by the GMs whims and tastes.

Cool cool. So people have been doing it for decades (likely decades before you were born), but you disbelieve. Okay. Good for you. This is the bit where I also stop bothering responding to you.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

That said, at least in Snan’s description of blorb play, it seems to not be necessary to be neutral during prep. Snan writes (paraphrasing only slightly) that during prep the GM’s role is to create a game that will be awesome to play, whereas during play the GM’s role is to try to run that game fairly and consistently.

Yeah, that, at least in broad sense, seems pretty sensible. IIRC, it also is actually pretty close to what I said in my first post in this thread.

I don't think it is possible to complexly avoid wearing the creator hat during the play, but you can of course try to minimise how much you have to do it.

 

[overgeeked]

Well, see, herein lies the problem. “What makes the most sense in the fictional world” is inherently subjective, and therefore cannot be decided on impartially. Now, as established earlier, impartiality is more of an ideal to strive for than a goal that can be attained, so this isn’t necessarily a problem. But it does make improvisation a less neutral form of content than prepared content, which is why it is less favored in this style of play. Doesn’t mean it can’t be used, just that one has to be especially careful with it.

Hard disagree. But you do you.

Hey, @Snarf Zagyg, maybe next time make these [+] threads so it's not a constant argument.

 

[CleverNickName]

On this note, when using random encounters - make sure that, generally, there is an obvious method of escape or other non-combat resolution. 5e is REALLY bad about this. Both because it doesn't do a good job of letting players know sometimes they need to flee AND because the mechanisms/mechanics to do so are lacking.

I'd file this under 'improvising,' myself. These non-combat resolutions are more about me being able to build enough tension and improvise an exciting escape scene, or even a believable capture-and-rescue arc. Game mechanics aren't really needed. Unfortunately, convincing the players that they need to flee the battle in the first place--without "putting your thumb on the scales," so to speak--is the true difficulty.

 

[Charlaquin]

Hard disagree. But you do you.

With what part do you disagree? It is just a fact that what “makes sense” is subjective.