I would just like to point out that this quote was part of a crowd-manipulating oration. Shakespeare intended it to be ironic, he didn’t believe it to be true.
Certainly, the opposite was true of Julius Caesar!
Not only that, but I find that "don't speak ill of the dead" is a tool frequently used by those who, innocently or not, wish to keep a silence over the questionable or harmful things the deceased did before their death. It is, of course, quite true that the dead can no longer "fight back," so to speak, and thus one should take extra care to be scrupulous. But if someone really did demonstrably do or say something particularly deserving of negative recognition, I'm going to take a pretty dim view of being told, "No, you aren't allowed to talk about that ever again."
There is a time and a place for respect for the dead. And there is a time and a place to call the dead to account--as an example to the living of what not to do. Blanket statements can't capture that kind of thing. Sometimes, it is in fact best to let questionable choices and deeds fade into the mist. Other times, that's precisely what you cannot do.
By 'equal at the table', what I meant to state was that the DM has an equal right to enjoyment at the table. If both the DM and the players have enjoyment from 'Well, they never check the floor for traps so I'll put pit traps in' 'Oh, now they're using ten foot poles to avoid those traps, so now I'll create ear worms for when they listen at doors' - as was the case in Gygax's table from their own stories - so be it. Gygax CLEARLY enjoyed running his table, and clearly his players enjoyed rising to the challenges. BUT, again if you read the 1e DMG when he's talking about campaign time tracking, he also clearly incentivized his players to play every single day and specifically cites times where a group couldn't get together so another group managed to clear out monsters before they could, thus getting material benefit in-game.
TLDR - I mean the DM to be equal in the sense that they should get as much back out of the game - through their creations - as the players get by interacting in that setting.
Though if we're going down that path, the sword cuts both ways, and it cuts the DM deeper...or, at least, it
should because the DM is the one claiming sweeping authority over others. I find, all too often, that there is a distinctive emphasis on DM "absolute power" (using quotes for a reason, multiple posters on this very forum have explicitly and repeatedly insisted upon it) and essentially zero emphasis on DM
responsibility.
And that, I feel, is where a lot of Gygax's DM instructions/advice/guidance goes wrong. He recommends taking on great power, and using it in deeply irresponsible, often actively detrimental ways. Turning players against one other. Punishing/rewarding out-of-game behaviors with in-game results, and in-game behaviors with out-of-game results. Actively overriding player interests and treating their input
at best as foolish flights of fancy, and at worst as nefarious, active meddling in the DM's world (because in the ultimate Gygaxian style, it
is the DM's world--you just happen to play in it...or more often, you just happen to be given the opportunity to
witness it.)
