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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8347097" data-attributes="member: 18">Seems to me that claiming to be a "referee" when you're writing and running the adventure is a bit silly. It'd be like some mad scientist putting you up against a team of his creations to play the mad scientist's version of soccer, with his own rules, on the pitch he created, claiming he was an "impartial referee". Fat chance. Even if he genuinely believes he is, that's probably self-deception (which used to be a hilariously common trait in both DMs and players, when I was younger).That's not to say you couldn't have a referee in D&D, but you'd probably need a tripartite system - the players, the referee, and the dungeon master. The players would be as normal, the DM would design the adventure, and run the monsters, but would not have the final ruling/say on what players could do, or how things were going to work, rules-wise. That'd be on the referee, who would be beholden to neither.Good luck getting someone to do that of course, it's not a fun job to start with, you wouldn't get to play, and you'd get frowned at (at a minimum) by both the players and the DM!</blockquote>