Monty Haul games...a virus that players seem to catch

[Gundark]

A while a go there was a gaming group that I played with, I was one of the DMs and another member of the group was the other DM. We had 2 games going on and would alternate games when our gaming night came along. Well while I tried to keep the treasure and the money levels in check the other DM would give these incredible rewards ( at second level we were able to purchase a deck of many things for 1000 gp...with no bad cards). Also we were allowed to have these outrageous statsThere was no "story reason for this...just giving out loot was his thing. I got to the point whereI hated playing, it was boring. Every challenge we walked though, even higher CR games were no contest. Well this was his game so no problem right? Well soon the players (with a few exceptions) started demanding the same amount of loot in my game...(the other DM seemed to go instigate this I think there was a jealously thing with him). Anyhow it ended up my game ended (this and other reasons). Anyhow I game with a few of the ones that didn't mind my treasure method now. So why are monty haul games so addicting to players...sure it maybe fun at the start...but it gets boring. Have you found this in your groups? Or did I just get a bad group?

 

[Crothian]

mounty haul games for me, can be great fun but not becasue they are mounty Haul. I feel the players break or make a group no matter what the style is. I've had great mounty haul games with fun players that really enjoyed it. But I've never seen players that got "addicted" to it. When we were ready to move on and try something else, no one complained and it went smoothly.

 

[Andre]

Have you found this in your groups? Or did I just get a bad group?

Every group I've played with for more than a one-shot has gone through its Monty Haul phase. We usually reached the same point you have, and things tightened up over time. But in the meantime, there can be pressure to conform, as you've experienced.

That said, Monty Haul games can be a lot of fun and still be challenging. The idea is that the party should still face opponents who can defeat them, problems that require thought and roleplaying to overcome, and interesting characters and situations. A good GM with good players can have fun with either style of play.

 

[Arrgh! Mark!]

My first campaign, they all found three of the swords of alignment. Finding myself in an untenable situation (They found everything too easy) I tried to take them away, or neuter them through games with political intrigue. God, I sucked.

When my friend DM'd, he loved rolling treasure tables. So he did. And kept rolling. We ended up with stuff so stupidly powerful it wasn't funny. I got to 15th level in about a month.




We don't do that anymore. I suppose when it's out of your system it's out of your system and you don't need to go around having huge power trips.

 

[Jolly Giant]

Happily, my group has never acted anything like what you desribe. Sure, they enjoy getting cool stuff, but they care a lot more about their characters' than about their loot. They'll give away their most powerful items to NPCs without hesitation, if it makes sense for the characterto do so.

 

[Bront]

It all depends on your style. I know in 3.0, we had a monty haul campaign with no way to ever get many of the items fully identified (3.0 identify sucked, and we were on a fairly strict time limit), so we had piles of cool treasure and never had a chance to use at least half of it.

 

[DaveMage]

My groups have gone through it to...and had fun.

However, I don't like to get so much that the treasure outshines the character.

Of course, any Monty Haul character is usually one Mordenkainen's Disjunction away from being very disappointed...

 

[Poster Bard]

Adventures - Monty Haul games...a virus that players seem to catch

Anything like Find-a-Feat Fever, the Levelup-phoma, or the Min-Max-Mumps?

 

[IronWolf]

Ah, the Monty Haul games of my early days! Vorpal swords aplenty, great magic armor... I was young and foolish, what can I say...

 

[scourger]

D&D is an arms race waged in several battles of attrition in pursuit of the war of character development. The current rules even presume that a certain level of stuff is had by each character. Sometimes, what a character has defines the character more than what the character does (or can do). I've played in recent games with veteran gamers who suffer the loss of a character's possesions worse than the death of the character. I find it a real downer.