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

[MGibster]

I think it's very misleading, even a little bit silly to see it as a case of "weak/strong". A DM who rarely/never compromises may well be doing so because he's a pig-headed idiot who is afraid of "looking weak" (I definitely met this guy as a teenager), for example, not because he's actually strong/confident as a DM, just stubborn and a unable to accept it when he's wrong (I would say anyone who never played with a DM like that is lucky - weirdly often the same people are fine as players). Equally a DM who compromises frequently, may seem to some casual observer with macho ideas to be "weak", but in actuality well may well be just extremely good at improvising and doing "Yes and...", and well end actually convincing the players that a lot of stuff is "their own ideas" when it's actually the DM.

I wasn't really thinking of strong/weak in terms of macho. And whenever I hear macho I immediately think of the most heterosexual video filmed for the most manly heterosexual song ever.

 

[Malmuria]

You remember the responses to your comments about improvisation?


Again, this is not what some people seem to think.

I think random encounter tables are a tool to spark creativity, especially when used in combination with each other. "You spot... (rolls) 2 ogres at a distance of... (rolls) 80 feet who are...(rolls) arguing over a piece of food." A simple encounter, but a surprise to the DM and now the players have several meaningful choices. This is a meaningfully different experience than the DM thinking up a scene of two ogres arguing over food ahead of time, and placing that in front of the players no matter what they do. (I would disagree, along those lines, that prep is the most important thing; it's prepping the right things).

 

[overgeeked]

I wasn't really thinking of strong/weak in terms of macho. And whenever I hear macho I immediately think of the most heterosexual video filmed for the most manly heterosexual song ever.

Or…

 

[tetrasodium]

Not only does this impose disadvantage on Perception checks, but it also lowers Passive Perception by 5. This can seriously matter if there are enemies attempting to sneak up on the party or simply hide from them. I watched this in action when I started to run 5e; previously, everyone had basically assumed this was darkvision that let you see in the dark, and my entire party was full of darkvision users who thought this would make them the ultimate sneaky party- if they don't need light, then enemies can't see them coming.

Never mind that almost every enemy you would encounter also has darkvision, I looked at the ability a little closer, did my due diligence, and applied the actual rules. Fortunately, the kobolds they were up against had set enough traps, that it only took about three of them before someone decided to cast dancing lights for the Rogue.

That's not a serious risk though. Players are almost guaranteed to roflstomp any encounter even going into double & triple lethal ones and even if it taxes them the long/short rest class split +near guaranteed eventual success of rests with almost zero possibility of interrupted rests resulting in meaningful backslide being spotted is not a serious problem until the DM throws an impossible rocks fall type combat situation at them. If theGM throws out rocks fall the threat is the GM choosing to kill the monsters party not any combat choices.

Yes being spotted & not noticing should matter but in actual play the system is setup with the assumption that the GM can't be trusted to have it matter because any result is trivially handled by the players

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Forcing story requires limiting player agency and railroading. Which are bad refereeing, though it's exactly what you have to do for the GM to be a storyteller.

I fundamentally disagree. All you have to do to avoid the pitfalls you talk about, and yet remain a storyteller, is to make sure that you tell stories about what the "monsters" are doing, and what's happening in the world, and let your players tell the stories of their characters interacting with it. You have to be a collaborative storyteller, is all.

It's not that hard if you're not control-obsessed.

 

[Maxperson]

Ah I think this is attractive but ultimately is modernist revisionism and thus inaccurate.

I think you're back-projecting a 2020s take on to something that's been around vastly longer

I think this because have very clear memories of discussing and witnessing Monty Haul playstyles from 1990 to about 2000. Monty Haul DMs did not, back then, in the 1980s and early 1990s, "want the players to be happy" in at all the same sense as "be a fan of the characters". This was trivially obvious if you met or talked to an actual Monty Haul DM. It was actually something much weirder, which was more like, he wants to cheat the system, and hand reward to his friends, which is not the same thing. You often saw this dynamic in Monty Haul groups. The DM was not a fan of the characters, but rather his friends and played favourites hugely. PCs in these sort of groups weren't invulnerable unless the DM was mates with that player right then. There was basically no such thing, back the '80s and early '90s, as a Monty Haul DM who just handed out loads of good loot to everyone (I mean, I'm sure at least one existed, but they were the exception, not the rule). Rather Monty Haul was about favouritism and sometimes an adversarial approach the rules (rather than the players) on the part of the DM.

I don't think it's revisionism or inaccurate at all. What I think is that we all saw Monty Haul games for a variety of reasons and perhaps didn't see all of them.

I personally saw games like @Snarf Zagyg mentioned in his OP, and I heard about games like you describe in this post, but didn't personally encounter those. However, I also know of two more types.

First, I played a lot with one of those killer DMs. He delighted in save or die traps and monsters with save or die abilities. He put monsters that were very hard to defeat and you died if you didn't, but he also gave them powerful magic items including powerful artifacts of his own making or god weapons from the deities and demigods, so we got Monty Haul treasure to use for as long as it took until we eventually TPKd. At one point I had a +6 spear that did 6-60 damage from some god or another.

Second, there was a period of time in the '80's where I was Monty Haul. Not because I was a fan of the players, or because I was playing favorites, or even because I was the killer DM who thought killer encounters should have powerful rewards. I was Monty Haul because I thought it was boring for encounters to just have some gold and gems, or maybe some potions and scrolls. It was more fun to roll up real magic items. So I dutifully prepared everything in advance, randomly rolled dungeon levels, dressing, encounters, etc., but put in a ton of real magic items to make things more interesting. It didn't take all that long for me to realize that too many magic items made the game too easy and I stopped being Monty Haul, but I was yet another type that existed in the '80s.

 

[Mannahnin]

Second, there was a period of time in the '80's where I was Monty Haul. Not because I was a fan of the players, or because I was playing favorites, or even because I was the killer DM who thought killer encounters should have powerful rewards. I was Monty Haul because I thought it was boring for encounters to just have some gold and gems, or maybe some potions and scrolls. It was more fun to roll up real magic items. So I dutifully prepared everything in advance, randomly rolled dungeon levels, dressing, encounters, etc., but put in a ton of real magic items to make things more interesting. It didn't take all that long for me to realize that too many magic items made the game too easy and I stopped being Monty Haul, but I was yet another type that existed in the '80s.

Indeed. My (limited) experience of Monty Haul was much as you describe it, and as Jim Ward described it in his story of Gary coining the term. DMs who enjoyed magic items and liked seeing the players win and use powerful toys.

DM favoritism was a separate issue, though certainly some such bad DMs expressed favoritism by excessive generosity only to their favorites.

IME, though, by the time I was getting seriously into AD&D in the late 80s, Monty Haul games seemed to be pretty infrequently encountered, as Gary's inveighing against them in the 1E DMG had been taken to heart by a lot of gamers. Perhaps this is why Ruin Explorer's recollection is so different? That he's remembering a later period when the only excessive generosity from DMs in his circles was by DMs playing favorites?

I remember attending an epic double session high level game at Dragonflight (a convention at University of Washington, in Seattle) in '91 or '92, which IIRC was for characters of levels 15 and up. Neither my brother or I had a character that high level, so we created them for the occasion. The DM remarked on how little magic and equipment they had, because we really didn't know what was appropriate, and erred on the side of caution.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I have always seen my role as the one presenting the game and adjucating action with the help of the rules. Always trying to be as neutral as possible, always happy when the players win by beating my challenge. Probably I am leaning toward neutral good as referee...

 

[James Gasik]

I never understood why D&D always warned you about giving out magic items, then printed books, and books, and books, and books full of the darned things. Some, like Ed Greenwood's, were very specialized, with often odd abilities (like the shield that turns into a bridge, or the utilitarian (and sometimes odd) ones in the Tome of Magic (like liquid road), presumably to have more conservative options, but then they were tossed in with everything else with no real guidance on how/when/why to add them to your campaign.

Then 3e and 4e gave you that guidance, but DM's balked at players being entitled to the darned things, and now we have a system where magic items are not only optional, but the optional rule to use them has limitations on top of it (attunements), yet they still keep printing new items...

 

[Charlaquin]

I never understood why D&D always warned you about giving out magic items, then printed books, and books, and books, and books full of the darned things. Some, like Ed Greenwood's, were very specialized, with often odd abilities (like the shield that turns into a bridge, or the utilitarian (and sometimes odd) ones in the Tome of Magic (like liquid road), presumably to have more conservative options, but then they were tossed in with everything else with no real guidance on how/when/why to add them to your campaign.

Then 3e and 4e gave you that guidance, but DM's balked at players being entitled to the darned things, and now we have a system where magic items are not only optional, but the optional rule to use them has limitations on top of it (attunements), yet they still keep printing new items...

Simple. Magic items sell books.