These characters are immortal, the DM will never allow them to fail. Failure is one of the most rewarding outcomes in roleplaying, it allows for character and player growth.
As a GM I have a house rule... Players determine when a character dies. Zero Health is a K.O. so you have to suffer some major debilitation or handicap, but players get full say on this too for character building and story struggle opportunity for the player to expand on.
These videos are a great presentation of disappointment as a vehicle for caring. Spot on as to why it's difficult to keep watching these liveplays past an episode or two.
Really loved this breakdown of problematic gaming habits! Your points about constant hypotheticals, info dumping, and spotlight hogging messing with gameplay are spot-on. After watching your MCDM critique where you expand on this, I can’t help but feel that framing these issues around *"being serious about the hobby"* actually undermines your message. The players you're critiquing clearly take their games seriously-they put in tons of time, prep, and effort. If they hear their habits (rightfully!) being called out but then feel like they’re being labeled as "unserious," they’re more likely to dismiss the critique rather than reflect on how to improve. The problems you highlight don’t come from people not taking the game seriously-they come from specific habits that, despite good intentions, make TTRPGs less engaging. And honestly, your advice about letting players *act* without pre-approval, keeping some mystery, and balancing the spotlight is super valuable on its own. These insights can help *anyone* have better games, no matter how they approach the hobby. Love these deep-dive videos-please keep them coming! Just think about dropping the "seriousness" angle-it might be turning off the very people who could benefit the most from your perspective.
@aaronabel4756 I'm glad to hear that Aaron! I hope others will find it useful. Perhaps there is an idea or two that could benefit your enjoyment of the hobby.
Great video. I enjoy Monty and Co, and have watched a lot of videos (50+ episodes). Your comments were very helpful to me and put a mirror to things I do as a GM. Suggestion: respect the people you are criticizing by writing down their names and character names. I think doing that one small act will make the criticism go down easier.
Thanks for watching! More of this sort of thing to come. Though I'll give Monty some time to internalize my free advice before I check in with him again.
I had to listen to this in small chunks over 4 non-concurrent days lol, it was that confronting listening to that play style. I was afraid of what a lot of mainstream dnd was like so I never really made it through listening to whole sessions.
I live how they went from hypotheticals to woooop they just did all the things they discussed in hypotheticals. The thing is once you started, it can feel cringe to start role playing out of nowhere. That's why you HAVE TO stay in character as much as possible
I love the long livestreams, but maybe if you want a shorter sharable format you could do some editing from the stream for a condensed version where you have the best examples of some mistake made by whomever youre talking about, or some serious point you want to hammer home, and then cut some of the reitorization and boring stuff. That would be great to post to a playlist and you could double-dip for the algo
@@Tablerunner It's not hard if all you're doing is cutting and pasting. There's some free versions of professional suites that will give lots of options. DaVinci Resolve is a fantastic option if you want to learn to actually edit. I think Adobe has one too but I don't know what that's called. There's also one that I've heard of called ShotCut that is supposed to be user-friendly but I have never used that.
From Monty's body language, it looks like he's tired of his players taking so long. He doesn't realize he's reinforcing that behavior! You're doing a great thing here, Crispy. Many will learn from this series.
I can feel what he's trying to do with the over-explanation of the monastery, I'd have to agree with you on this one. I don't think he planned this out much and now he feels like he needs to give an explanation. I try NOT to explain every detail, because if a player sees something in their heads, I'm usually quick to say "yes, exactly." Or yeah, there is a large window, because that makes sense, or the player wants there to be one. Everyone can picture certain places or things. If they can't, they'll ask a question and you can specifically elaborate on it.
Watching this was eye-opening. Having watched probably hundreds of episodes from the dungeon dudes on various topics, they obviously know the rules. Yet this entire session was filled with no substance at all. As an aside, what if someone actually does solicit your RPG advise? GM's across the internet would do well to listen.
Thanks for watching! I'm more than happy to speak to a player or GM who wants to try something different. Time permitting of course. My goal is to have people get more out of the hobby and I'm convinced that a focus on in-character play is a great way for that to happen.
Ok, so this was much less painful than the video on money matt’s games. Monty has 4 main problems here. 1 He’s too descriptive. He says things like “much like all chapels” etc instead of just being short and direct with his descriptions. He details out the purposes behind every room a player enters, most people understand what chapels are for; it doesn’t have to be explained. “This character seems to have been a fallen knight”. We don’t need to know that. It’s just too much. This leads to his descriptions not really matching the miniatures he’s brought out. He needs to learn not only keep his descriptions short and pithy to allow the players’ imaginations to take over; but also work on his sentence structure so he can more efficiently, accurately and forthrightly deliver that information to the players. 2: He tells the players what they can do but in a very vague way. Instead of letting them come up with a plan on their own. This means he gives them too much information, much of which is inconsequential to the action going on. This causes either the "mother may I" syndrome the players are suffering from; or the "analysis paralysis" syndrome we saw in the planning stage; where they were too afraid to come up with a plan and execute it until they had all the information Monty dumped on them. Either way, the result is players that refuse to take initiative and act without the Dm’s approval. 3: he takes over players actions, describing what they do when they finally get around to completing a simple task (such as the cat-girl’s breaking an entering) he instead steps in and tells them what they do instead of letting the players decide what to do and execute it. This absolutely robs the players of agency. We never learn the outcome of the card game with the monkey because it was ignored and Monty didn't bother telling us what happened. The player could have easily just told us the outcome of that game; but because Monty didn't get invoved in the player's effort to do something... anything... we will never know what happened with the card game. 4: he tends to give everything away. Which takes away ALL the surprises and all the stakes and all the tension out of the game session. Which ultimately robs the players of any sort of agency they have. They spend at least an hour doing ultimately nothing but wait for everything to be spoon fed to them by Monty. It also feels like the players shouldn’t bother rolling dice at all. They did virtually nothing till the end of the video and then they won and got everything they eventually set out to do without encountering anything that felt difficult. They might as well just play a game of 50 questions followed by a game of Yahtzee and then go home. Ultimately Monty’s “DM style” has caused his players to develop a mentality where they think they must either negotiate with the Dm to figure out if their idea is even plausible. OR straight up ask for permission to act from the DM. It's a horribly restrictive way to play, I would have checked out of the game entirely 3 sessions in.
Short recap of the session about 1h in: 20 minutes of infodump disguised after a perception and iinvestigation roll. Information the characters cannot know if they didn't get inside help (which i assume they didn't) 10 minutes of planning. Wouldn't be as bad if it wasn't 90% out of character fishing the DM for the answer on how the DM planned the characters to do this "the right way". Next up: 20 minutes of the DM playing cat ladies character. (I am going to climb on the wall (i think)! DM: Ok you do that and you look in the window and you knock out a panel and enter the room and ...). In the meantime, goggles and helmet are completely zoned out. During the full hour, i have only seen helmet play with the ipad and with the miniature that is placed before him. (And technically played cards with a monkey that magically disappeared) Terrible, even for a 2D game. These are the people making advise videos for new players and GMs. Infodumps, railroading, players scared to just make a choice without getting the DMs permission...
Some system has to use some meta mechanic of throwing stuff to see if a ranged effect hits or not. That 119 feet to meta game the 120 range is so stiff
I found it shocking and it prompted this video as a response. 11,000 views on that game session. I worry that people are copying games like this to the detriment of their experience in the hobby.
Shonner's looking down from heaven approvingly.
High praise indeed! No one will replace him, but we can still light the torch to find more roleplayers!
These characters are immortal, the DM will never allow them to fail. Failure is one of the most rewarding outcomes in roleplaying, it allows for character and player growth.
And he has fallen into the trap of letting players "test out" their turns beforehand. Very little risk involved.
As a GM I have a house rule... Players determine when a character dies. Zero Health is a K.O. so you have to suffer some major debilitation or handicap, but players get full say on this too for character building and story struggle opportunity for the player to expand on.
@@richardgrzela1381 The group in this video may have some agreement along those lines.
@@fullmetalstateKelly's character, goggles, actually did die in a non important fight that caused like a 15 session side quest to bring him back
These videos are a great presentation of disappointment as a vehicle for caring. Spot on as to why it's difficult to keep watching these liveplays past an episode or two.
Really loved this breakdown of problematic gaming habits! Your points about constant hypotheticals, info dumping, and spotlight hogging messing with gameplay are spot-on.
After watching your MCDM critique where you expand on this, I can’t help but feel that framing these issues around *"being serious about the hobby"* actually undermines your message. The players you're critiquing clearly take their games seriously-they put in tons of time, prep, and effort. If they hear their habits (rightfully!) being called out but then feel like they’re being labeled as "unserious," they’re more likely to dismiss the critique rather than reflect on how to improve.
The problems you highlight don’t come from people not taking the game seriously-they come from specific habits that, despite good intentions, make TTRPGs less engaging. And honestly, your advice about letting players *act* without pre-approval, keeping some mystery, and balancing the spotlight is super valuable on its own. These insights can help *anyone* have better games, no matter how they approach the hobby.
Love these deep-dive videos-please keep them coming! Just think about dropping the "seriousness" angle-it might be turning off the very people who could benefit the most from your perspective.
That's a fair critique. Thanks for the comment.
My favorite phrase as a DM: "Try it and find out." Stops the hypotheticals right away.
This has been missing. Thank you so much for bringing it back, it is desperately needed.
I agree. Hopefully I'm up to the task.
@@Tablerunner Finished watching, your critiques were solid. Hope to see more of these! They are really helpful.
@aaronabel4756 I'm glad to hear that Aaron! I hope others will find it useful. Perhaps there is an idea or two that could benefit your enjoyment of the hobby.
I really liked this breakdown. It reminded me of Shonner's "looking for roleplay" videos.
That's definitely the inspiration behind this format.
Great video. I enjoy Monty and Co, and have watched a lot of videos (50+ episodes).
Your comments were very helpful to me and put a mirror to things I do as a GM.
Suggestion: respect the people you are criticizing by writing down their names and character names. I think doing that one small act will make the criticism go down easier.
Good idea. I will do that for future videos.
This was a long one. Well informed and fair feedback Crispy.
I'm here for the people! (With advice that no one asked me to give.)
OMG! you sound like me! I thought i was a DM of age gone by... earned my subscription!
Welcome and thanks!
Great video response brother. What a slog it was to watch them.
Thanks for watching! More of this sort of thing to come. Though I'll give Monty some time to internalize my free advice before I check in with him again.
I had to listen to this in small chunks over 4 non-concurrent days lol, it was that confronting listening to that play style. I was afraid of what a lot of mainstream dnd was like so I never really made it through listening to whole sessions.
In your defense, it was a really long stream. Most recent one is much shorter.
I live how they went from hypotheticals to woooop they just did all the things they discussed in hypotheticals.
The thing is once you started, it can feel cringe to start role playing out of nowhere. That's why you HAVE TO stay in character as much as possible
I love the long livestreams, but maybe if you want a shorter sharable format you could do some editing from the stream for a condensed version where you have the best examples of some mistake made by whomever youre talking about, or some serious point you want to hammer home, and then cut some of the reitorization and boring stuff. That would be great to post to a playlist and you could double-dip for the algo
Good idea. One of these days I'm going to have to learn some video editing!
@@Tablerunner It's not hard if all you're doing is cutting and pasting. There's some free versions of professional suites that will give lots of options. DaVinci Resolve is a fantastic option if you want to learn to actually edit. I think Adobe has one too but I don't know what that's called. There's also one that I've heard of called ShotCut that is supposed to be user-friendly but I have never used that.
Helmet did risk something Crispy. He risked his hard-earned coin in his poker game with his pet ape! XD
I still want to know what happened in that card game, but not enough to watch the next episode.
From Monty's body language, it looks like he's tired of his players taking so long. He doesn't realize he's reinforcing that behavior!
You're doing a great thing here, Crispy. Many will learn from this series.
Thanks for the encouragement! It certainly is my hope that something I say will help my fellow hobbyists to get more out of their games.
Yes watching this I feel frustrated & constrained. Just watching...
I can feel what he's trying to do with the over-explanation of the monastery, I'd have to agree with you on this one. I don't think he planned this out much and now he feels like he needs to give an explanation. I try NOT to explain every detail, because if a player sees something in their heads, I'm usually quick to say "yes, exactly." Or yeah, there is a large window, because that makes sense, or the player wants there to be one. Everyone can picture certain places or things. If they can't, they'll ask a question and you can specifically elaborate on it.
I watched episode one of the Dungeon Dudes show, I don't know what kind of machocist would watch another one.
Crispy is right!
Thanks for watching pal! And yes, I'm right.
Great video! RPGers really need these recaps if they are to improve their games. As to this session, boy, this is really super lazy gaming.
Thanks Sean! Appreciate you watching this video.
You might as well have a dmpc guide the team to what they need to do.
Thanks Crispy!
My pleasure sir!
I can't believe that guy wore that stupid helmet the entire time.
Watching this was eye-opening. Having watched probably hundreds of episodes from the dungeon dudes on various topics, they obviously know the rules. Yet this entire session was filled with no substance at all. As an aside, what if someone actually does solicit your RPG advise? GM's across the internet would do well to listen.
Thanks for watching! I'm more than happy to speak to a player or GM who wants to try something different. Time permitting of course. My goal is to have people get more out of the hobby and I'm convinced that a focus on in-character play is a great way for that to happen.
Ok, so this was much less painful than the video on money matt’s games.
Monty has 4 main problems here.
1 He’s too descriptive. He says things like “much like all chapels” etc instead of just being short and direct with his descriptions. He details out the purposes behind every room a player enters, most people understand what chapels are for; it doesn’t have to be explained. “This character seems to have been a fallen knight”. We don’t need to know that. It’s just too much. This leads to his descriptions not really matching the miniatures he’s brought out. He needs to learn not only keep his descriptions short and pithy to allow the players’ imaginations to take over; but also work on his sentence structure so he can more efficiently, accurately and forthrightly deliver that information to the players.
2: He tells the players what they can do but in a very vague way. Instead of letting them come up with a plan on their own. This means he gives them too much information, much of which is inconsequential to the action going on. This causes either the "mother may I" syndrome the players are suffering from; or the "analysis paralysis" syndrome we saw in the planning stage; where they were too afraid to come up with a plan and execute it until they had all the information Monty dumped on them. Either way, the result is players that refuse to take initiative and act without the Dm’s approval.
3: he takes over players actions, describing what they do when they finally get around to completing a simple task (such as the cat-girl’s breaking an entering) he instead steps in and tells them what they do instead of letting the players decide what to do and execute it. This absolutely robs the players of agency. We never learn the outcome of the card game with the monkey because it was ignored and Monty didn't bother telling us what happened. The player could have easily just told us the outcome of that game; but because Monty didn't get invoved in the player's effort to do something... anything... we will never know what happened with the card game.
4: he tends to give everything away. Which takes away ALL the surprises and all the stakes and all the tension out of the game session. Which ultimately robs the players of any sort of agency they have. They spend at least an hour doing ultimately nothing but wait for everything to be spoon fed to them by Monty. It also feels like the players shouldn’t bother rolling dice at all. They did virtually nothing till the end of the video and then they won and got everything they eventually set out to do without encountering anything that felt difficult. They might as well just play a game of 50 questions followed by a game of Yahtzee and then go home.
Ultimately Monty’s “DM style” has caused his players to develop a mentality where they think they must either negotiate with the Dm to figure out if their idea is even plausible. OR straight up ask for permission to act from the DM. It's a horribly restrictive way to play, I would have checked out of the game entirely 3 sessions in.
Short recap of the session about 1h in: 20 minutes of infodump disguised after a perception and iinvestigation roll. Information the characters cannot know if they didn't get inside help (which i assume they didn't)
10 minutes of planning. Wouldn't be as bad if it wasn't 90% out of character fishing the DM for the answer on how the DM planned the characters to do this "the right way".
Next up: 20 minutes of the DM playing cat ladies character. (I am going to climb on the wall (i think)! DM: Ok you do that and you look in the window and you knock out a panel and enter the room and ...). In the meantime, goggles and helmet are completely zoned out. During the full hour, i have only seen helmet play with the ipad and with the miniature that is placed before him. (And technically played cards with a monkey that magically disappeared)
Terrible, even for a 2D game. These are the people making advise videos for new players and GMs. Infodumps, railroading, players scared to just make a choice without getting the DMs permission...
I think the ape just started playing solitaire during the rest of the session.
They are 95% story building and only 5% role playing
Accurate assessment.
Some system has to use some meta mechanic of throwing stuff to see if a ranged effect hits or not. That 119 feet to meta game the 120 range is so stiff
Interesting.
Imagine being a proffesional 5e guy and ai can run more interesting adventures than you,
The telepathy is a standard spell. Not a bad thing to do. It's an advantage of higher level play.
While you try to play in the 4D this game seems to play in the soy-D. To each their own but not at my table.
I found it shocking and it prompted this video as a response. 11,000 views on that game session. I worry that people are copying games like this to the detriment of their experience in the hobby.
Legendary comment.
Goddamn the dress up kills me. It’s so, so dumb.
Agreed.
True, but on the other hand they tried ^^'