Monty Haul

Basic Information

Named after the legendary game show host, Monty Hall, the Monty Haul campaign is one where a generous GM awards his players with huge amounts of treasure. This can become a problem if the players come to expect bigger and bigger treasures with each quest.

Sources

Bibliography

1. 3 Types of Campaigns at frontiernet.net

2. TV Tropes: Monty Haul

3. So Your Players Have Gotten Too Rich: Dealing with a Monty Haul Campaign at Dice of Doom

Game and Story Use

• It's a fine line to walk between letting your players have too much treasure and too little. The players need to feel rewarded for their heroics. On the other hand, if amassing treasure becomes too easy, then dragon's hoards become commonplace and they are no longer special.
• Some mean GMs deal with the problem by finding arbitrary ways to take the treasure away from their players; such as taxes, cost of replacing supplies and physical obstacles that prevent them from carrying the whole stash; ("The bridge is starting to give under your weight! You need to lighten your load somehow. How much gold is in your backpack again…?" )
  • This should be used sparingly because the players are sure to resent it.
  • Or worse yet, they will take it as a challenge and come up with clever ideas to circumvent the ways you devise: ("If the bridge is collapsing, I'll cast Teleport to the other side.")
    • Which is only a problem if you let yourself get sucked into an escalating game of move and counter-move.
      • "Whoops! There's a teleportation-proof dome around you. Just popped up. Whaddeya know."
  • The cost of replacing supplies is actually pretty legitimate - if the PCs start pumping lots of money into the local economy they will generate massive inflation and cause the money they are spending to lose value. Arguably this phenomenon is already baked into many fRPG settings as reflected in the very low value of gold relative to goods.
• A better solution would be to find ways other than huge amounts of gold and magic items to reward your players.
  • Like receiving a title from a grateful noble.
  • Or getting a favor from the local temple.
  • Or any of the other things listed under the treasure article that may be an adventure in themselves to get full value out of.