Artist: Run The Jewels
Album: RTJ4
Date Released: June 3rd, 2020
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Artist Background
The duo consisting of Atlanta rapper Killer Mike, and legendary underground produceMC El-P, known together as Run The Jewels, originally came together as a result of Adult Swim executive Jason DeMarco who introduced the two in 2011. After his 2011 album PL3DGE peaked at #115 on the US charts, Killer Mike told Jason that he wanted to make his own AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted. Jason informed Mike, “If you want AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted modernized, the only producer I know who comes close to the Bomb Squad-level of production is El-P”. The duo’s chemistry was immediate, as El-P went on to produce all of Killer Mike’s 2012 last solo album R.A.P. Music, and Mike featured on El-P’s final solo album Cancer 4 Cure. Mike and El’s respective albums released within a week of each other in May 2012, and the two embarked on a twenty-city US tour in the following months. After returning from tour, the pair had found a friendship growing between themselves, and made the decision to put other projects on hold and focus on the chemistry that had been sparked. Recording at an upstate NY studio beginning in April 2013, the duo re-appropriated the phrase “Run The Jewels” from the LL Cool J track “Cheesy Rat Blues", and released their self-titled collaborative album, for free via digital download, only a mere 2 months later in June 2013.
36” Chain vs. Pistol & Fist
Run The Jewels discography currently exists in a distinct pairing. With Run The Jewels as their debut, this record set the group's tone as a light-hearted, braggadocious duo with as much confidence in their abilities as swag in their punchlines. Just over a year later, the sequel Run The Jewels 2 took the foundation set from their freshman effort and dialed the insanity up to 11. RTJ2 pushed the boundaries of their aggression and flows to new heights; with incredible energy in their verses, and absolutely impeccable beats, blending El-P’s signature industrial sound with sharp synth arpeggios, chopped Zach De La Rocha vocals, and absolutely bonkers Travis Barker drums.
It was then nearly 3 years before Jamie and Mike followed up their breakout RTJ2, with Run The Jewels 3 being released again ahead of its scheduled release date via free digital download, this time on Christmas Eve 2016. Instead of these two attempting to outdo the pure insanity and in-your-face attitude found in their predecessor, Mike and El decide to evolve themselves as a group. The duo had noticeably pulled back on the swag and dick jokes which made such a splash on RTJ2, instead choosing a more subdued, electronic approach to their beats, as well as a clearly stronger political approach in their lyrics. This change in sound and style is demonstrated in the album cover’s artwork. The first two records featured the distinctive RTJ “Pistol and Fist”, with the fist tightly gripping a chain. The chain, in my opinion, represents the swag and braggadocio that drove the aggressive nature of their first two albums. In RTJ3 the chain is removed, leaving only hands that have transformed from bleeding and bandaged, to a pristine gold.
This brings us to early 2020. It’s been nearly 4 years of living in a post-Trump America, and El-P announces that Run The Jewels fourth record has been completed. Mike and El live-stream the first single “yankee and the brave” on Instagram on March 22nd, 2020. Lyrically and sonically, RTJ4 exists as the successor to Run The Jewels 3, with Mike and El again taking the good from their previous effort and launching it into the creative stratosphere. El-P’s beats are again leaning towards the synthetic, electronic side, this time with the intensity dialed all the way up to 11. From a lyrical perspective, RTJ takes the politically-charged lyrics from their predecessor, and again, up the ante, laying down some of the hardest hitting and politically poignant bars either of these two have ever spit.
Album Review
2020 was a year that none of us will soon forget. An unprecedented global health crisis kept the majority of us inside for months at a time. RTJ4 was announced on May 12th, 2020, with a release date slated for June 5th, 2020. However, with 2020 as the gift that won’t stop giving, the end of May was highlighted by the unjust killing of George Floyd. The phrase heard around the world, “I can’t breathe” instantly became a rally-cry for the oppressed to finally take to the streets to demand systemic police reform, as Floyd’s death was not the first time this phrase was uttered in an unjust police killing. In fact, a 2020 study by the New York Times showed that at least 70 people have died in police custody after using the same phrase over the past decade. As millions of American’s began organizing protests and demonstrations in the wake of Floyd’s death, Run The Jewels made the decision to release their latest chapter two days ahead of the scheduled release. El-P tweeted, just minutes ahead of the drop, “Fuck it, why wait. The world is infested with bullshit, so here’s something raw to listen to while you deal with it all. We hope it brings you some joy. Stay safe and hopeful out there and thank you for giving 2 friends the chance to be heard and do what they love”. In line with all past Run The Jewels releases, the album was made available for free digital download, two days ahead of its scheduled release date, on June 3rd, 2020.
THE RETURN (we don’t mean no harm but we truly mean all the disrespect)
RTJ4 opens with the first single, “yankee and the brave (ep. 4)”. Using the team names from their respective hometown baseball teams, Mike and El use the opening track to prove that they’re not just a hip-hop duo, they’re brothers, for better or worse. El-P kicks this installment off with rapid-fire, machine-gun esque snares, matching Killer Mike’s aggressive flow and tightly packed rhymes, before El jumps in to trade some dense rhymes as well. Mike and El depict themselves as outlaws, with Mike surrounded by cops with only one bullet remaining. He contemplates suicide instead of allowing the police to take him alive, until El-P jumps back in, offering Mike a way out, with a getaway car waiting outside. This tense situation is depicted lightheartedly in this song’s music video, which was released via Adult Swim and features the duo animated.
The trade-off between Mike and El’s short verses are reminiscent of late-80’s EPMD flows, while the production sounds like boom-bap that’s been sent to us from the future. This distinctive blend of old-school rap roots and forward thinking production is what continues to separate Run The Jewels from absolutely all of their contemporaries. While so many artists are continually playing catch-up with the latest trends, RTJ are side-stepping the trendy and moving forward with the mind-bending.
FLEXIN’ (ayo one for mayhem, two for mischief)
The second single “ooh la la” samples a Gang Star track "DWYCK (feat. Nice & Smooth)" as the basis for the chorus. I say “samples” as that’s how it is credited in the album’s liner notes, however it’s truly an interpolation of Greg Nice’s bar, slowed down slightly, and sung by El-P and Greg Nice himself. El-P is a true old-head at heart, and it’s abundantly obvious in his work, even going as far as to recruit legendary producer DJ Premiere to handle the scratching on the back end of this banger.
Out of key piano chords are looped to quickly create an unsettling aura surrounding the track, before El-P’s voice cuts through the infectious piano like a whip. Pounding, up-tempo drums are introduced after the chorus’ first iteration, creating what is possibly El-P’s first danceable beat. Lyrically, Mike and El-P initially seem scattered on this track, however the music video quickly makes their point very obvious.

”we imagined the world on the day that the age old struggle of class was finally over. a day that humanity, empathy and community were victorious over the forces that would separate us based on arbitrary systems created by man.
this video is a fantasy of waking up on a day that there is no monetary system, no dividing line, no false construct to tell our fellow man that they are less or more than anyone else. not that people are without but that the whole meaning of money has vanished. that we have somehow solved our self created caste system and can now start fresh with love, hope and celebration. its a dream of humanity’s V-DAY… and the party we know would pop off.”

The video envisions a society celebrating the fact that the class system we currently exist within has finally imploded. Money is worthless, and we have rejected the desire to bind ourselves to the constraints of capitalism. All creeds and colors unite to burn the system that has so effectively controlled us for over a century. It’s a party, and if there was a song to celebrate the end of the world as it is currently known, “ooh la la” is that song.
Mike’s last verse features a few metaphors and comparisons celebrating the destruction of capitalism, saving the most poignant for last:

I used to love Bruce, but livin' my vida loca
Helped me understand I'm probably more of a Joker
When we usher in chaos, just know that we did it smiling
Cannibals on this island, inmates run the asylum

Premo’s expertly cut scratches lead us into the equally hard hitting sample flip of “Misdemeanor”, by Foster Stevens as the basis for the beat to “out of sight”. Lending yet another nod to the old-school greats that laid the foundation for RTJ, “out of sight” samples the same track as The D.O.C.’s “It’s Funky Enough”, only adding a bouncy, electronic synth atop the inverted chord hits, and uptempo, industrial drums, to create an absolutely infectious groove for Mike and El’s dynamic chemistry to shine, rapidly jumping between each other’s two line flows in the first verse.
“out of sight” shows each MC providing insight into how each of them earned a living and achieved their current status. Mike and El’s opening verse each details themselves robbing people in order to eat. El alludes to the fact that he crossed his accomplices in crime for the whole bag, while Mike details the fact his assailant tells him it’s an “honor” to be robbed by his mother’s only son.
While El-P’s production is the obvious stand out on first listen, Killer Mike comes through with one of the most sonically pleasing and technically proficient verses of 2020.

We the motivating, devastating, captivating
Ghost and Rae relating product of the fuckin' '80s
Coke dealin' babies, never regulating, bag accumulating
It would not be overstating to say they are underrating
The pride of Brooklyn and the Grady, baby
We don't need no compliments or confidence
Our attitude and latitude is "fuck you, pay me"

The dense, intricate rhyme schemes smack you in the face, almost distracting you from Mike’s delivery and blistering flow on the verse; flexing his legendary status while paying homage to his drug-dealing past. This absolutely stunning display of technical skill, story telling, and complex rhyming illustrates how RTJ seamlessly integrates the best of both old school and new school hip-hop.
“out of sight” also features a guest verse from 2 Chainz, and he continues to lay the braggadocio on thick. Considering Tity Boi’s dedication to trap stylings, his verse feels right at home on the flex track, despite it’s late 80’s tribute sample, a considerable departure from his usual sound palette.
Up until this point, I haven’t mentioned any of the El-P’s lyrics specifically. El-P is a great rapper, but Killer Mike… Well, Killer Mike is an incredible rapper. He’s the guy who draws you in. El-P is the one who lays the foundation for greatness and Mike is the show stopper, and that’s generally the case for most RTJ tracks. But on “holy calamafuck”, El-P seems determined to make people stop and ask, “Who the fuck is this?!”.
A sharp, yet nearly minimalistic drum kit backing a heavily distorted synthesizer melody lays beneath rhymically knocking cow-bells. This aggressively set stage allows Mike and El to flex as the dynamic duo they are, until the beat suddenly takes a turn for the chaotic. A gnarled, ultra-menacing synth overtakes everything while Mike screams into the abyss, until a distorted snare, enormous 808s, and skeletal hi-hats cut through and launch the beat switch into another dimension. The minimal, yet incredibly dark soundscape allows El-P to snap in a way I have never heard from him previously. His rhymes schemes are reminiscent of an old MF DOOM lyric notebook, while his topics flawlessly combine flexing, psychedelic use, and his well-cemented legacy in the hip-hop community. Cutting and pasting a few of his bars into this review could not convey a fraction of how stunning El-P’s performance on “holy calamafuck” is.
Slightly later in the track list, making liberal use of the Ether song “Gang of Four”, “the ground below” samples and loops the sharp guitar riff and adds aggressive, pounding drums as the basis for the beat; this is finally reminiscent of the forward-thinking, stridulous production El-P has built his reputation on. Capitalising on the classic RTJ moment, Mike and El both flex in their own unique ways. Mike compares himself to Godzilla taking on Tokyo, and El-P demands respect for his name as the legend he is, threatening to smack dying children for mispronouncing his name with his middle finger to the world; his complete disregard for human life and confidence in his abilities are summed up at the end of his verse.

You see a future where Run the Jewels ain’t the shit
Cancel my Hitler-killing trip
Turn the time machine back around a century

SO¢IAL JU$T-ICE (until my voice go from a shriek to whisper...)
While the first few tracks aren’t without their social and political themes, the back-end of RTJ4 is where Mike and El start to bust out the heavy topics. “goonies vs. E.T.”. starts off light, with El-P pointing to the irony of how once he finally started to make it “big” in the industry, the world began to descend into chaos due to climate changes, increasingly obvious social injustice, and political madness. He culminates his frustration with our disregard for the Earth with a fantastic quotable.

Fuck y’all got, another planet on stash?
Far from the fact of the flames and our trash
That is not snow, it is ash, and you gotta know
The past got a wrath, it’s a lover gone mad

Mike’s verse takes the light-hearted frustration expressed by El-P, and turns the aggression to the next level. Aiming his sights against the ruling class and their society that’s been designed to oppress people for profit, who have very meticulously painted themselves as celebrities and idols to the American public. Mike accepts that he will be villainized by these people for speaking against them, but he welcomes the nefarious role, knowing that the working class will eventually eat the rich, no matter how much they are stomped into the dirt.
And this is just the warmup.
If it’s possible for a song to represent a moment in time that captures the absolute shit storm that has been 2020, “walking in the snow” is that song. It’s release coincided perfectly with the protests for George Floyd which were sweeping the nation. Killer Mike’s verse directly references the phrase “I can’t breathe”, the last words of Eric Garner, which also happened to be the last words of Floyd as well. The fact that this verse was reportedly written in November 2019 perpetually underscores the importance of the content and perfectly represents how persistent this problem is. “walking in the snow” is a true encapsulation of both a defining moment in time and an ever-persisting issue.
But he doesn’t just stop at the racial injustice. Mike goes on an absolute rant about the American education system; how it’s not designed to teach people, but to discriminate against poor populations, limiting their legitimate opportunities, and therefore disproportionately leading them into a criminal lifestyle. He calls out the media as fear-mongers, and the apathy of the American public in the face of indecency. Fortunately for Mike, by the time we finally had the chance to hear this masterpiece, we were already on our feet, using this album as a war cry to mobilize against a tyrannical government that militarized against its own citizens simply for asking that we recognize systemic racism and demanding change. Killer Mike has the best verse of the year, no doubt in my mind.
The only drawback is that Mike’s verse is so fucking good that it completely overshadows El-P’s, which is also amazing. A menacing guitar riff and haunting synths kick the track off into a bouncy groove, where El-P unleashes a flurry of internal rhymes that does not relent for about half his verse. Even adding layers of social commentary within the densely packed bars, El refuses to quit and continues on his political tirade; criticizing ICE’s detainment center practices and the “pseudo-Christians” who support them, with a bar that now lives in my head:

Pseudo-Christians, y’all indifferent, kids in prison ain’t a sin? Shit
if even one scrap of what Jesus taught connected you’d feel different
what a disingenuous way to piss away existence, I don’t get it
I’d say you lost your goddamn minds if y’all possessed one to begin with

The combination of two of the best verses spit by any rapper(s) this year and production help from El-P and long time RTJ collaborator Little Shalimar, create a bouncy, aggressive, deeply truthful banger. “walking in the snow” not only encapsulates the crux of 2020 with lyrics that will become more powerful as they age, but will also forever be associated with the Black Lives Matter movement and the determination to expose continuing racial and societal injustices.
The sonic palette of RTJ4 holds an extremely unique place in El-P’s discography. Jamie is the definition of a self-made 90’s hip-hop legend. This is the dude who put New York underground hip-hop on the map with Company Flow, and he did it with his unique flavor of dark, noisy, dense, boom-bap. Whether he was doing it with the help of Rawkus, or completely independently during his Definitive Jux run, El-P has never made music with the intention of becoming famous. Funcrusher Plus, Fantastic Damage,I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead, and Cancer 4 Cure are all highly revered as industrial, technical, abrasive, and completely unsuitable for the radio or a party. The fact that three songs on RTJ4 could easily be heard on the radio, at a party, or in a TV series credits scene is frankly, astounding. In a 2002 interview/documentary on El-P’s budding record label Def Jux, he stated that his friend bet him $500 that he could not make a beat that was “happy”. At the time of the interview, El-P said that he had not won that bet yet. While I might not qualify the beats on RTJ4 as “happy”, if you showed El-P the beat for “JU$T” in 2002, I believe he might have won that bet.
Pharell opens “JU$T” with the pre-chorus, spitting varied examples of how we’re all slaves to our current system throughout the track, over echoing snares and bouncy 808s before bright synth chords and up-tempo hi-hats burst in while Killer Mike delivers the chorus, pointing to the fact that the majority of the people featured on American currency owned slaves at one point in their lives. Mike’s verse touches on the fact that he has committed crimes to get where they are today. Mike is publicly open about his past as a drug dealer. So why is he a criminal, but Benjamin Franklin isn’t? These are the people who built our country, and they built it on the backs of slaves. He illustrates this theme with a more recent examples:

You believe corporations runnin marijuana? Ooh (how that happen?)
and your country gettin ran by a casino owner (ooh)
pedophiles sponsor all these fuckin’ racist bastards (they do)

When corporations are able to sell cannabis legally, but the government continually incarcerates people who trap, our president is a notoriously fraudulent businessman, and the people who helped put him in power run a pedophile ring, yet none of them face consequences and are allowed to continue to profit and remain in power while people suffer; well, we might be closer to slaves than previously imagined.
Rage Against The Machine frontman Zach de la Rocha also makes his mandatory feature appearance at the end of “JU$T”. As the only artist to feature on three Run The Jewels albums, Zach is essentially an unofficial member of the group at this point. His fiery verse is spit with the same “Rage” energy that set him apart in the mid-90’s, ending the track questioning his place in a capitalist society as a recipe for his inevitable demise, since his “breath”, or art, as his weapon to express himself is still being exploited for other’s profit.
Continuing with RTJ4’s heavily synthetic sonic palette, “never look back” features wavering synth leads resting above the slow-jams snappy snares and thumping bass, while a haunting voice echoes in the background. This unsettling aura provides additional gravity for Jamie and Mike to continue self-reflecting on defining moments in their childhood, and as well as how far they’ve come from those moments. Mike and El are both self-made men, and while they have a certain fondness for those gritty moments that defined them, moving forward in life is undoubtedly more important.
Skeletal drums reminiscent of a slowly pounding heart opens “pulling the pin”, before rhythmic hi-hats and textured, watery synths fluttering in the upper register resting above a bouncy synth lead, and punchy 808s, burst in. The track digs itself into a slower, marching groove and shows the duo figuratively doing exactly what the title implies. Painting a portrait of a society that has turned on itself, Mike and El are ready to pull the pin and start over.
The duo both detail their despise for the ruling class, pointing out multiple examples of how the elite have designed our society to keep poor people in their class. Simultaneously recognizing their own hypocrisy for profiting in a system that inherently discriminates; Mike reflects on his own success, knowing that living the lifestyle he enjoys is one built on oppression, and expresses the guilt that has caused him. El-P opens with a brutal metaphor for police, implying that they’re the root cause of the “wretched state of danger” our society exists within, and that the only effective corrective action is to numb yourself with drugs. Despite his advice, Jamie knows this is not a permanent solution, but one that causes more self-inflicted wounds.
The final piece of the puzzle that is RTJ4, “a few words for the firing squad” begins to close the album with ever crescending strings, and loud, thunderous drums which never seem to resolve, continuing throughout their verses. While the drums that lead to nowhere can be sonically unpleasant, the unresolved melodies are intentionally representative of their current mindsets. Their verses are reflective and grim, but simultaneously optimistic and envisions a world where tragedy is a less common occurrence.
El is grateful for what he has now but recognizes his entire life has been skewed by traumas, so out of place feels normal for him. He reflects on his current success, noting that the worst people tend to end up with the most, which makes becoming “rich” something not as desirable as it once was.
Mike opens up about the death of his mother who died while he was on an airplane, admitting his struggles to not cope with his trauma with opioids. However, his wife provides him the most important reason to stay clean “but my queen/say she need a king/not another junkie rapper fiend” while a heartbreaking saxophone solo highlights the gravity of his lyrics.
The track ends with what sounds the like wrap-up voiceover to a TV show, a conceptually satisfying ending, as the opening track “yankee and brave (ep.4)” began with El-P stating:

”This week, on Yankee and The Brave”

This voiceover paints the duo as brothers on the run from the law and crooked cops, and while this does close this “episode” out as intended, the critic in me is bothered by the slightly kitschy outro to such a spectacular album. The voices singing over and over, “Brave, brave, braaaaaave, Yankee and the Brave” would be, simply put, better left on the cutting room floor. The ending of this track alone is what knocks my score of this album down a few points. Despite its stellar lyrical content, with drums that never seem to reach that “holy shit!” moment, and the easily skippable outro, it’s upsetting to me that an album this great ends on such a low note.
Overview
RTJ4 is by far my favorite album of the year. El-P’s cutting edge approach to their sound, blended with lyrical content that continues to be more relevant by the day, the duo have come together with what is objectively their most accessible album to date. RTJ4 is the natural evolution of sound and subject matter for the duo; taking the foundation set by Run The Jewels 3 and evolving it into a more concise, more accessible, and more conceptual album. While I still personally prefer the “fuck the world” intensity and experimental nature of Run The Jewels 2, RTJ4 opens themselves up to a whole new world of exposure, and when you’re as talented as these two, you know they’re going to capitalize on it. RTJ is currently at their apex, and they’ve created an album that will make many new life-long fans going forward.
9.2/10
Discussion Points

How does this compare to other RTJ releases? How about in comparison to the member’s solo works?
Does the overwhelmingly positive critical reception of this album surprise you?
How will this be looked back on in 5 years?
What are your favorite lyrics?

[Let's Build] Attractions in a demon pleasure palace that aren't sexual

My players are going to be visiting the palace of a demon lord of pleasure who's more CN than CE. I want to show that despite his title, he represents all forms of pleasure and good feelings, not just sex. Also space in his realm doesn't work the same way as it does in the mortal plane. He essentially has an infinite amount of space to work with and can customize it as he pleases, so there are no size constraints.

A casino to feel the thrill of gambling.
A dining hall with an endless buffet that visitors are allowed to eat as much as they wish.
An idyllic beach with perfectly white sand to relax or play on.
An arena where gladiators brawl it out against each other. The point of it isn't to kill each other as much as make the battles look stunning to the audience.
A hotel with the most comfortable beds possible. Here anyone with enough money can enjoy a good rest after all the excitement.
A beautiful and well tended garden filled with aromatic flowers and sweet fruits.
A vineyard where exquisitely-aged wine can be produced just by pressing the grapes. (u/_SovietMudkip_)
A petting zoo full of the babies of dangerous creatures. (u/_SovietMudkip_)
An opulent concert hall where the best musicians of the realms perform (u/_SovietMudkip_)
A small, cozy looking wooden library, with a cushioned bay window where rain gently scatters against the glass and a cup of some hot liquid gently rising with steam. (u/QuietOracle)
An owl-bear hugging zoo. Go to sleep in the embrace of their soft down. (u/QuietOracle)
The room of sensory experiences. The room itself is fairly plain, with the main feature being long tables running the length of the room. On closer inspection there are fist-sized carved holes, each one holding a small round crystal... (u/QuietOracle)
A room with dozens of sacks filled with beans, lentils and grains where visitors can put their hands in and let the contents run through their fingers. (u/_WhiteCubeCat_)
A hag (or any other long nailed creature) giving visitors a scalp massage. (u/_WhiteCubeCat_)
A museum of little-known or long-forgotten art pieces, sculptures, and history. (u/MoonlightMancer)
A festival full of colors, music, and drinks. Everyone seems to love you, and you can’t stop laughing. (u/MoonlightMancer)
A hallway of endless doors. In each room is someone you know, complimenting you endlessly, sharing every positive, even begrudgingly jealous thought they ever had about you. (u/MoonlightMancer)
A room full of bubble wrap. (u/EmmaDrake)
A hot spring/spa, with fluffy towels, those showers that are like rain with perfect water pressure, mud baths, and refreshing food and drink. (u/lionesslindsey)
A room full of people that constantly give you validation and laugh at all your jokes. (u/CountryJeff)
Never-ending line of gold chalices, crystal vases, silver artwork, and other valuables. (u/PutridMeatPuppet)
People who are “better” than you are marched in a stripped of their superior qualities. Beautiful people are disfigured and turned ugly. Wealthy powerful people are ruined and made to beg you for pennies. (u/PutridMeatPuppet)
Mass groups of people enter the room and tell you how they admire you and how wonderful you are. They stroke your ego and inflate your pride. (u/PutridMeatPuppet)
Servants do everything for you. Feed you, give you drinks, wash you, wipe your arse, etc. (u/PutridMeatPuppet)
You are given a wickedly barbed leather whip. A slave creature is bound to a post and you can whip this creature to inflict your wrath upon them as much as you desire. If the poor soul dies, another is brought in to replace them. (u/PutridMeatPuppet)
'Knight for a day'. The full experience; lance, shiny outfit, a squire, a trusty stead, a dragon and a princess/prince to rescue. (u/mr_earthman)
The magical equivalent of a holo deck (u/cyber-viper)
Wide, flat plain with the fastest vehicles in the multiverse (a good place to use the Avernus vehicles) (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
A selection of cities and villages for you to destroy with war machines or your own magic. (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
A collection of wand that allow you to test out powerful magic. (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
A magical version of a movie theatre, allowing you to watch all manner of stories, true and legendary. (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
A moderately large pool where small battleships with tiny animated crewmen can be deployed in teams to shell and board each other for the audience's amusement. Honored guests can put their strategic abilities to a test against other players by directly giving orders to their ships, and in certain hours guests may even swim in the pool to live out the power fantasy of being a sea monster. (u/VIixIXine)
A colorizer-device that transforms any clothes/armoweapons/other gear to any desired hue you wish (as long as it doesn’t affect the workings of the gear) (u/PaigeOrion)
A grand screen, showing a nearly infinite number of (screen)plays from all space and time, including the show with the disgraced human paladin delivering a green baby gnome back to his home land through incredible odds. (u/PaigeOrion)
A tiara that allows you to experience the sensory experience of a black cat as long as you wear it and close your eyes. (u/PaigeOrion)
A plethora of small, multicolored blocks that will magically interlock with one another to render almost any architectural structure imaginable. (But don’t step on them barefoot!) (u/PaigeOrion)
A band of musicians who are the perfect musical backup for any performances. Alone, they are more low key, but no less skilled, playing haunting melodies of unknown origin. (u/PaigeOrion)
A massive walk-in closet where you can try in any clothes in any fashion you like. (u/Tezla44)
A "schadenfreude" theatre, with shows that rely on slapstick and cringe comedy. (u/Martinus_XIV)
A REALLY good chocolate fountain (u/BrokenBanette)
A room designed to give you closure. When you enter this room, someone you loved and lost is there, sitting in a couch. The room feels vaguely familiar, but you can't place why. If Detect Magic is used, the room is full of magic (divination, transmutation, illusion) but the person seems like a normal person. You can chat with them for as long as you like. They behave just as you remember them, with the good and the bad. (u/ohsurenerd)
A theatre performing the most magnificent tragedies. When you watch the performance, you find yourself completely enraptured: you cheer when things go right, scream when something terrifying happens, and moan and weep at the inevitable horrible ending. When you leave, it feels like removing a backpack full of lead that you'd been carrying for so long you'd forgotten it was there. (u/ohsurenerd)
A room where there's a button, there's someone outside and it explains that if you enter there's a 50/50 chance of you dying or not, the room won't actually kill you and it's there just to make you feel the pleasure of near death experience. (u/SupremeGodDictator)
A massage parlor with the universes best staff pampering your every need as you receive the most relaxing massage of your life whether it be scalp, back, foot, full body, etc. Has the worlds fluffiest towels and robes to luxuriate in while you wait or if you simply want to sit in a comfy chair and enjoy your ache free muscles. (u/Blue_Mando)
An arena where you and your opponents heal near instantly, and you can fight endlessly (u/ellen-the-educator)
A reenactment of your greatest failures in life, but this time they turn into your greatest achievements. (u/CountryJeff)
A room with the world's finest works of art.... and a myriad of implements you can use to destroy them. (u/redrosebeetle)
A torture chamber with mages on hand to create illusions of the people you wish to torture. Or increasingly realistic versions of them, depending on the level of magic you wish to implement. (u/redrosebeetle)
A room full of gold and jewels you can roll around in, ala Scrooge McDuck. But woe betide anyone who tries to take a souvenir.... (u/redrosebeetle)
As you're walking through the gardens, a person comes up to you. They introduce themselves as an adventurer who's also here on a quest. They seem to be the same class as you, and they're incredibly attractive-- almost exactly your type. You immediately click and end up spending the day together, talking about everything and anything. You tell them things you've never told anyone else before. They understand everything you tell them, almost innately, but they're still impressed by your feats and your stories. The two of you find an empty bedroom and close the door behind you. It's perfect in its imperfections. In the morning they're gone. No matter where you look, you can't find them. (u/ohsurenerd)
A room lined with shelves and shelves of bottles and vials containing a crimson liquid flowing slowly (like a syrup), all with small labels on them. As you inspect the labels, you realize they've all got names on them: famous adventurers, kings and queens, great sages. If you drink one, you experience a selection of their memories as they experienced them: battles won, discoveries made, historical alliances and friendships being forged or broken... (u/ohsurenerd)
A room that turns anyone that enters it into a child. It is full of every toy imaginable (u/arual_x)
A tour of a chocolate factory. Kobolds work there, and the owner, who gives the tour, is a Metallic Dragon in Humanoid form. (u/arual_x)
A fortune teller who has a Deck of Many Things with only the good cards. If you in any way offend them, they will sleight of hand vs perception check slip you a bad card instead. (u/arual_x)
An island theme park of reanimated dinosaurs. The owner is a level 20 Necromancer called Hamm Johnand. (u/arual_x)
A Virtual Reality style game that allows you to battle horrible monsters over and over again without risk of injury physical. But still allows you to gain XP... (u/arual_x)
A perfect expanse of thick snowy ground. There is constantly a snowball fight going on. (u/arual_x)
A giant room full of mattresses where everyone immediately gets a wonderful massage. (u/Revanclaw-and-memes)
A room where you get to torture all of your worst enemies (u/Revanclaw-and-memes)
A room where people applaud you, give you a trophy, etc (u/Revanclaw-and-memes)
A room where you get something that was denied to you (u/Revanclaw-and-memes)
A room full of gold and exquisite things, from beautiful furniture to magic weapons (u/Revanclaw-and-memes)
A seemingly endless room where adventurers can drink a potion to grow wings and flit about to their hearts' delight (u/iriedashur)
An ordinary classroom containing the adventurer's childhood friends, enemies, and their most hated teacher. Upon entering the room, the adventurer discovers that they are invisible, and free to pull pranks as they wish (u/iriedashur)
A brightly colored room piled high with wrapped gifts, large and small, for the adventurers to open endlessly (u/iriedashur)
A purple and black dragon named Ace who cooks you garlic bread and cake. (u/sanorace)
A magic pair of goggles/glasses that simulate any “What if” question you pose to them. (u/lewiscann)
A magical weather room where you can ask for any weather for your pleasure (I love listening to rain) (u/lewiscann)
A room full of lounges with a floating slow burning piece of wood that warms the whole area, the piece of wood is so large you can see the flame spread through this piece of wood forever (u/lewiscann)
A room where you can bite your fingernails and they grow back instantly ( so you can bite them some more )(u/razenastie)
A room with incredibly weakened versions of powerful monsters. (u/Your_InsideMan)
A vast room on wooden sculptures, oil, and torches. (u/Your_InsideMan)
A zoo of sentient races (u/Paralytica)
A collection of legendary heroes magically transfixed in blocks of ice. (u/Paralytica)
Palanquin rentals (u/Paralytica)
A booth that will remake your face whilst in the palace (ostensibly to make you more beautiful but it could be used for anything) (u/Paralytica)
A magic chair that gives really good back massages (u/TenNinetythree)
A playground where the slides and carousels are for adults (u/TenNinetythree)
A room where you become a giant and can destroy cities and fortresses kaiju style. (u/Paralytica)
Drug Olympics. A room with every drug imaginable to try. Leaving the room cleanses you of their effects. (u/Skitsafrit)
No Pauses. A room that has the effect of making all conversations flow perfectly. No silence stretches too long, no one mishears you, and every topic segways perfectly into the next. (u/Skitsafrit)
Deprivation Room. The room is so absolutely featureless and quiet, that you can meditate magnitudes better here than anywhere else. (u/Skitsafrit)
A games room where you play against your perfect match (u/Nesurame)
Similar to the previous, a games room where you're matched against nothing but weaker opponents (u/Nesurame)
A smoky, dreamweed hookah lounge (u/reallyenjoyscarbs)
A heist simulator where you always get away with the big diamond, chest, etc (thrill of theft) (u/reallyenjoyscarbs)
A sauna room with a central pillar. Inside the pillar is a chamber containing a magic stone which can detect the exact temperature preferences of those inside, and making each person feel said preference. (u/TgagHammerstrike)
An oval-shaped room with countless glass lotion bottles, with each smelling better than the last. If you look for a specific scent (no matter how rare), you'll certainly find it with the help of a goblin near the back of the room. (u/TgagHammerstrike)
A room that consists of A bunch of mortals so utterly jaded from years of plesure seeking that they need the hardest of drugs and the wildest of sensations to feel anything,with lesser demons feeding on their pursuit of euphoria. Think the emperors children from warhammer 40k. (u/TgagHammerstrike)
A buffet of the lids of yogurt/pudding cups to lick. (u/Hunter37594)
An olfactory room that reads your memories and replicates smells that remind you of your most joyous moments. (u/lecorbusianus)
A wildlife reserve for Druids to find new and exotic wild shapes. (u/lecorbusianus)
A room with musical instruments that you're able to master immediately. (u/lecorbusianus)
Zero gravity obstacle course. (u/lecorbusianus)
A cooking class taught by a master chef that always seems to have enough time to guide you one-on-one. (u/lecorbusianus)
An enchanter who allows you to relieve the best moments of your life over and over again. (u/lecorbusianus)
An illusionary room that brings up past experiences and let’s you make different choices to fix mistakes or win arguments. (u/The_Rhibo)
A murder simulator to allow an individual to live out the fantasy of killing that special someone. (u/Brann_The_Kid)
A library full of blackmail and secret knowledge regarding historical and political figures. A conniving, plotting character’s dream! (u/MoonlightMancer)
A room where you can see colors that shouldn't exist. (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
A room with a creature in a dark robe sitting at a table covered in maps and dice. He helps you play a strange game where you and your party make up characters that go on adventures while the robed creature acts as all of the other characters and determines new events. (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
...

How do you want to do this? A Discussion on Selective Rule Enforcement and the application of the "Rule of Cool"

Hello folks,
For my research analysis and writing class my professor let me pick any topic I want. (her mistake) So for my final term paper I chose to come up with a method of determining a guide to the use of the "rule of cool." I got a A on the paper so I figured I'd share it with you fine folks as well. It is rather lengthy so I've included the abstract first. The 8 tips for dungeon masters is near the end (third session), the first and second parts deal more with the philosophical and ethics of games. So, if situational ethics and a discussion on the Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics of Play are of use for you, be my guess.
I am a relatively new DM so I spent a long time researching and trying to absorb what would make me a "good DM". With that cavate please keep in mind I know next to nothing compared to a vast majority of the DMs here. I can think of no place better to have this paper peer-reviewed, picked apart and "rebutalled" to death than here. If you feel offended, challenged, or angry reading this... Please understand I am a moron borrowing the works and words of far smarter people. If you feel that "this is the WAY" again... I am a moron... so ... with out further ado.

Abstract:

The choice to be a stringent rule-follower without leniency using fanatical legalism in a game can be a source of contention between someone acting as a referee and/or “Game Master” and players of a game. Likewise, to approach games with a sense of fanatical antinomianism, or to completely ignore the rules and simply let players do whatever they want, tends to offer no challenge, and or reason to play that specific game. Using ethical theory frameworks such as situational ethics, natural law, and utilitarianism this paper seeks find the philosophical principles of what moments are acceptable and actually beneficial to bend the rules of a game. As such, it is important to define games, briefly discuss why games are played, and roles rules have on games. The game Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition will be used as the principal example. With “rule for rules” established, seven tips on how to implement it this rule using advice and guidance from some of the most well known “Dungeon Masters” in the modern era will be provided.
Much of this paper relies on the works of Joseph Fletcher, Sheila Murphy; Benard Suits, Robin Hunicke, Marc LeBlanc, and Robert Zubek for the ethical and philosophical discussions around games. For the practical advice, it relies primarily on the works of Matthew Mercer, Brennan Lee Mulligan, Benjamin Scott, Patrick Tracy, Kelly Mclaughlin and Monty Martin.
Players are your friends, or at the very least your fellow human beings. As such, seek out what is best for them. Games are about many things but principally about enjoyment. It’s okay if the player does not get exactly what they want, so long as they still had enjoyment. How it happens is up to the players, the one running the game, and whether the rules were used to enhance the experience or not. It’s possible to find that balance by asking these questions in order: “How will this decision affect: the final enjoyment of all at the table? the narrative? the rules in the future?”

**“Once upon a time, around a table…”

A man behind a cardboard screen sits across from a woman wearing a funny hat. He is frantically reading through the pages of the various books at his disposal. He finds the reference he is looking for, but it is not clear. “It is technically against the rules, it is barely within the realm of possibility, but the idea is so creative…” the man murmurs to himself. Exasperated, the man smiles a crooked grin and explains, “Well you can certainly try… give me an acrobatics check.” The woman throws a piece of plastic resin on to the table. The dice reads, “18.” The man sighs and then laments, “fine… how do you want to do this?” The table erupts in cheers, as high-fives are given from the others around the table. The woman adjusts her hat, as she gleefully explains how her character will use the momentum of several falling barrels to move across the map in a single turn without having to use all her character’s movement.
As a “Dungeon Master” (DM) for the tabletop role playing game, Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), I can say without a doubt that many DMs have encountered extremely similar events as the one described above. The choice to be a stringent rule-follower without leniency can be a source of much resentment between the DM and the players around the table. Likewise, to completely ignore the rules and simply let players do whatever they want offers no challenge, no reason to play. In terms of D&D rule enforcement, as is with many events in life, the choice of always being either a “Harsh Disciplinarian” or the lenient, “Laissez Faire Guide” is a false dichotomy. Instead, seeking balance between the two choices based first on the overall needs of the players, second on the needs of the story, and third on requirements and rules of the game should be the norm.

Session 1: What is the Relationship between, Players, Games and Rules?

The 19th century philosopher and founder of modern cultural history, John Hughes once wrote, “Play is older than culture, for culture, however inadvertently defined, always presupposes human society and animals have not waited for man to teach them their playing.” ¹ Why do humans play? Is it instinctual? Bernard Suits was a Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Philosophy for the University of Waterloo and his essays are in part responsible for the field of philosophy of games in the late 20th century. In his book, “The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia,” Suits’ book uses Aesop’s fable about the grasshopper to argue that play is what we would do in a perfect civilization. He believed that in a world devoid of work, humans would still seek out challenges through play, suggesting that it is human nature to challenge ourselves.² But is that the only reason someone plays a game?
One YouTuber opined that “In a practical sense, games facilitate systemic thinking by getting us to view abstractions, but also engender creativity by getting us to play.”³ If true, these are essential tools for humanity to function as an intelligent race. This makes sense from an evolutionary level as to why humanity would develop play, but is there more to it than “games encourage outside the box thinking?”
The landmark paper titled, “MDA: A formal approach to game design and game research” is one of the earliest attempts to formalize the field of video game design theory and it is fundamental to how modern game designers look at these systems. It serves to define the importance of mechanic, dynamics, and aesthetics of play and is instrumental to helping understand what players will expect out of a game. We will discuss more about dynamics and mechanics later, but first let us focus on aesthetics.
Aesthetics of Play Defined

Term	Definition	Examples
Sense Pleasure	Enjoyment derived from how it stimulates the senses	The visuals of a game, sound, and music, feel of the dice, etc.
Fantasy	Enjoyment derived from the ability to step into a role that cannot be experienced in real life	Playing a game as a magic wielding sorcerer or rocks in the far flung reaches of outer space
Narrative	Enjoyment derived from game as drama, it is about the stories and experience gained	Heavily story driven games such as Last of Us, Dungeons and Dragons, Final Fantasy
Challenge	Enjoyment derived from overcoming an arbitrary obstacle	Platformers like Mario, or even drinking games like beer pong, or corn hole; social games like charades, etc.
Fellowship	Enjoyment from working cooperatively as a group to accomplish a goal	Team based or social games such as Among Us, the card game Spades; save the world mode on Fortnite
Competition	Enjoyment from showing dominance	Chess or Go, Battle royal games such as Fortnite or PubG or Call of Duty; Fallguys; darts Poker; Uno, Killer bunnies or Magic the Gathering;
Discovery	Enjoyment from uncovering the new or discovering news ways to play a game.	These can range from searching to find things to choose your own adventure Minecraft; Zelda Breath of the Wild; simple matching games; the board game Betrayal at the House on the Hill; or games like Fable; Dragon Age Inquisition; or Mass effect
Expression	Enjoyment from showing an aspect of one’s self; or games that allow full customization of characters	Creation games like Minecraft; role play games like fallout 4; world of warcraft or Fortnite
Submission (aka Abnegation)	Enjoyment from being able to “turn of the brain; and tune out the world” or what is also known as zone out factor.	Bejeweled; candy crush; the lever-pull games at casinos, solitaire, etc.
	(Source: Portnow & Floyd, October 2012)⁵

Aesthetics are things like sense pleasure, fantasy, the narrative of the story, challenge, fellowship, discovery, expression, and something called submission.⁴ There is an additional aesthetic that most game designers also consider when designing games termed as “competition”.⁵ These are all reasons people play games and it is important to keep all these in mind when acting as a DM.
The table above works to define these terms more appropriately and makes it easier to reference later. The reasons a player may want to play a game vary and change over time. If a DM can understand their players’ goals (i.e., what the player hopes to get out of the game) the DM will be able to understand why someone might want to perform a certain action, play a game, or want to ignore a certain rule in the first place.
On that note, what are rules in games? Think about it… Games are weird… well I should say the act of playing a game… is weird. Suits once wrote in his article, for the “Philosophy of Science Association Journal,” "To play a game is to engage in activity directed towards bringing about a specific state of affairs, using only means permitted by rules, where the rules prohibit more efficient [means] in favor of less efficient means, and where such rules are accepted just because they make possible such activity."⁶ In other words, to play a game we create rules that prevent us from achieving a goal through the easiest means available. Instead, we make something more difficult and we play a game. For instance, in basketball, it would be far easier to simply carry the ball all the way to the basket instead of dribbling it.
In D&D, there is a similar activity to dribbling. It is called a “dice roll.” It is something that players must make to see if they succeed or fail at a task. The player rolls a 20-sided die and tries to get above a certain score to succeed. Players can roll normal, with advantage, or with disadvantage. Rolling with advantage allows the player to roll the D-20 (the 20-sided die) twice and use the higher number. Rolling with disadvantage also has the player roll the D-20 twice, but they must take the lower number rolled instead. It introduces a chance of randomness, and players will find any excuse they can to avoid having to make a roll with "disadvantage." In his book, The Grasshopper, Suits argues that we do this because it is the act of overcoming that limitation that we find enjoyment. By taking on these restrictions and accepting these limitations, we take on what he coins as a "lusory attitude" which allows us to play the game as it is meant to be played.
Suits would argue that by not playing the game according to the rules as written, the player would have only achieved a “quasi-victory” not really worthy of achievement. He also goes on to say that even the act of “failing to win the game by virtue of losing it implies an achievement, in the sense that the activity in question -- playing the game -- has been successfully, even though not victoriously, complete.”⁷ So, according to Suits, it’s better to follow the rules of the game and loose than to not follow the rules and win. It’s important to point out that the aesthetics of play had not yet been defined and Suits’ work mainly focused on the “challenge” aspect of play. This is where many sports and game philosophers begin to find fault with Suits. In the “Journal of Philosophy of Sport,” a rebuttal of Suits’ work by David Myers asks, “What if the goal of the player isn't to follow the rules or even play the game?”⁸ For instance, what happens if the player is motivated by competition and doesn’t care about rules so long as “they win?” While an extreme example, this paradox isn’t out of the realm of possibility. Therefore, focusing on just the challenge aesthetic of game play and simply playing the game “rules as written” can lead to a disconnect between what the player desires and the game itself.
Jesper Juul, an Associate Professor in the School of Design at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, wrote in his textbook on video game design, “Rules specify limitations and affordances. They prohibit players from performing actions such as making jewelry out of dice, but they also add meaning to the allowed actions, and this affords players meaningful actions that were not otherwise available; rules give games structure”⁹ Basically, without rules we cannot even have play. However, if the player ignores the rules that player won’t be able to enjoy the full experience of the game, because the rules both afford the opportunity to enjoy the game and provide the obstacles in the first place.
How the rules affect actual game play is where Mechanics and Dynamics come into play. (See, I told you we would get back to it eventually.) Mechanics are the rules and systems that govern chance to create the game we experience. Dynamics are how those rules come together to govern the strategies of that game. In D&D, an example of mechanics is how a player would have to roll a 20-sided dice to see if an action would succeed. Dynamics are the actions the player takes to manipulate the situation and give themselves advantage in the roll. Some examples of this are using a spell caster’s familiar, flanking an enemy in combat, using the bend luck trait, or lucky feat. This is akin to how the rules of poker dictate that bluffing is allowed (mechanics); but how the bluffing player conceals their tells and bets is entirely up to that player (dynamics).
What happens when the player’s desired aesthetics and the mechanics don’t allow for the dynamics the player wants to use? This is where it falls on the DM to determine if the game can handle a little rule bending. In the Dungeon Master Guide’s introduction, it states “The D&D rules help you and the other players have a good time, but the rules aren’t in charge. You’re the DM, and you are in charge of the game…” However! It goes on to say, “The success of a D&D game hinges on your ability to entertain the other players at the game table.” What is a good way to approach this? Is it THE DM IS ALWAYS RIGHT, able to enforce their will on the players whenever it suits their need? Should the DM strictly enforce the rules and narrative of their planned story without the need to appease the players’ wants and desires?... well… The DM COULD do it, but it won’t be long before their players stop showing to game sessions. Just like the rules, without players, there is no game. Or as one notable professional DM and YouTuber once put it:

“The game you weave belongs to the players as much as yourself… so make sure to humor them every once in awhile by giving them a chance to be extraordinary" - Patrick "the Goddam DM" Tracy ¹⁰

Session 2: The Ethics of a Dungeon Master

So how does someone seek a balance between the rules and the players? Enter situational ethics. Situational ethics, first proposed by philosopher and first professor of ethics at Harvard Medical School, Joseph Fletcher,** is an attempt to seek a middle ground between two ethical schools of thought: Legalism and Antinomianism. In legalism, morality must come from a strict set of rules that must be obeyed at all times and cannot be deviated from or broken for any reason. Antinomianism, on the other hand, is the idea that there should be no rules, you should be able to do what you want, whenever you want (lawless society). ¹¹
In D&D terms, "Fanatical Legalism" would be similar to what many DMs would characterize as "Lawful Stupid," where a certain player's character enforces harsh judgement without ever showing mercy to those who would break the law regardless of the circumstances… even to the detriment of the party… or that small band of orphans who were stealing food out of desperation…
Likewise, in D&D terms, "Fanatical Antinomianism" would be similar to what DMs would characterize as "Chaotic Stupid," where a player's character completely ignores consequences an action would bring and simply act according to their whims… even when it's an obvious trap… that has a 100 percent chance to damage not only your character, but the other players as well.
Fletcher's work states that the morally right thing to do depends on the situation and can change throughout the situation, but at the same time, there is a universal “moral law” on which to base our actions that he called "Agape" love. Derived from the Greek word of similar pronunciation, Fletcher sought to define Agape as a means to show love for your fellow human. In his book titled “Situational Ethics,” Fletcher states, "All laws, rules, principles, ideals and norms, are only contingent, only valid if they happen to serve love."¹² Or to put it a different way, a desire to see your fellow human be happy is and should be the goal. It is not really a feeling, but an attitude to do what is best for others.
In terms of the D&D alignment chart, this would be easiest to define as whether someone is "Good" or "Evil." Whereas a “good character” is someone who acts for the betterment of others regardless of personal motivations, conversely an “evil character” acts out of their own self-interests regardless of how this action would affect others. Those that follow the concept of Agape would be “good characters.” Those that do not, would be evil.
This is where the so-called “Rule of Cool” comes into play. Mathew Mercer, an extremely acclaimed DM, comedian, and writer of D&D’s “Explorer’s Guide to Wild Mount,” and host of the show “Critical Roll,” defines the Rule of Cool as a trope in the D&D community that is “the willing suspension of disbelief for the sake of a cool moment.”¹³ It’s used in moments where the use of an certain object or action would be nearly impossible according to the mechanics of the game, but because it is a “cool dynamic,” the DM allows it. But what is “cool?” Is it a player that is normally too nervous to speak up being able to do something unique on time despite it being against the rules? Is it a player that has spent considerable time perfecting a skill and being able to perform a truly “epic task” (such as the jumping across barrels to effectively triple their movement distance)? Is it succeeding in persuading the main villain to befriend the party through a series of increasingly complex but successful rolls?
In all these situations listed above, there is a common theme that ties all the principles of what this paper is trying to address together in a simple phrase. As a DM, before making a ruling ask, "How will this decision affect the final enjoyment of all at the table?" Now a DM cannot give the players everything they want. Doing so cheapens the truly extraordinary moments. Finding the right balance can be difficult. That is why the flow chart above is suggested when trying to figure out whether it is a good time to “Remember the Rule of Cool.”
https://i.redd.it/f362ghdjlqf61.png

Session 3: “Well… You can Certainly Try”- Some Famous DM

Finally, we can discuss how the desire to make the most enjoyable experience for everyone at the table plays out using real-world examples and advice from some of the most well-known DMs in the business. Using the concept of Situational Ethics’ Agape, we can see how to work in the rule of cool using eight tips for Dungeon Masters.
Tip 1: It is advised to know your audience.
Not everything is as it seems, so be sure to pay attention to your players and look at them when you are describing the situation. Make note of how they react when tones or themes change. Remember those reasons people play games mentioned earlier? This is where those come into play. Additionally, while not something outright suggested, it is nevertheless important to take team dynamics into account.
The book “Four lenses unfolded” describes how various personality types can interact and work to solve problems. In it, the book describes four primary temperaments: Green (analytical), Blue (empathetic), Orange (adventurous), and Gold (goal oriented). Unlike most other personality tests, four lenses theory suggests that while we have a dominant personality at any given moment, other aspects of these personalities can manifest as well. Being able to draw on these aspects at will is the mark of a “mature” individual.¹⁴ As a DM/referee, coach, or manager, being able to do this and adapt to the needs of the players will take player engagement to the next level.
Tip 2: Establishing and Managing Expectations Early and Often, Works to Prevent Disappointment and Confusions
Mercer once put it this way, “Establish early on in your campaign how much of a level of crazy you're willing to allow. This allows for players to better understand what to try for and what not to try for.”¹⁵ Whether you are a teacher, referee, coach, parent, supervisor, or mentor, establishing expectations with those involved mitigates problems before they arise.
One of the main tools DM’s have for this is that is recommended by Mercer, as well as nearly every DM in existence on the internet, is the “Session Zero.” Session Zero is a term used to describe a session where no play occurs but instead rules that will be used and rules that will be ignored or bent is established. It also serves to establish a theme the players can expect from any campaign. Using the first chapter of the DMs guide will help considerably in establishing this. Additionally, one of the best guides for this is laid out by the DM YouTubers known as “the Dungeon Dudes” in their video titled, “How to Run a Session Zero for Dungeons and Dragons 5e.”¹⁶ But always keep Agape in mind throughout this process. In this step, it means actively listening to the players. The DM may want a gritty, tough, realistic, and challenging campaign. But if the players want a high fantasy power trip, some adjustments are going to need to be made to the campaign. Listening to players and changing the plans accordingly is not easy. It requires A LOT of humility and ego suppression. Especially when the DM has already designed how the game is going to go… which leads us to the next tip.
Tip 3: It is important to develop a healthy relationship with failure.
Celebrated author Orson Wells once wrote; “If you want a happy ending, that of course, is dependent of where you stop your story.”¹⁷ This applies to both the players and DM. There will be times when the DM is tempted to ignore the rules because the consequences seem dire. The player fails an athletics check trying to use a dynamic that had a high-risk, high-reward moment. Now the player’s character is doomed to fall several hundred feet down a ravine to what is likely certain doom in lava. But this isn’t the end. That player’s character is most likely dead, but their death could result in a moment of drama and tension for the players. It’s the very real chance of failure that encourages players to think critically about a situation and experience excitement and tension. Brennon Lee Mulligan, the DM of the D&D streaming show, “Dimension 20,” put it this way… “if you are not allowing for failure, you are essentially just telling a story,” and thus never actually playing a game (make-believe as Suits would put it). ¹⁸
Another thing to consider is that through failure, we can often find comedy as well as ways to encourage players to think critically and find new escapes, ¹⁹ at least according to the mind behind the “Replaying the Curse of Strahd” videos, Benjamin (Puffin Forest) Scott. Lastly, Mercer strongly advises that if a DM allows too many “rule of cool moments” to happen in succession, the weight of the moments and consistency of the game will be lost. ²⁰
Players that are afraid to fail will not try. Mercer explains that “Most role play games are designed to forge a heroic story (showing feats of legend) so let the players try! Let them fail, and occasionally succeed!” This is where his catch phrase “you can certainly try” comes from. ²¹
Tip 4: Whenever Possible, Avoid Taking Things Personally
In his lecture on not talking things personally, soccer referee and public speaker, Frederik Imbo, explained there are two sides of a coin to keep in mind when trying not to take things personally: “It is not about you,” and “it is about you.” ²² Look at the other person’s intentions not just yours. With that in mind, it is okay to give yourself empathy and speak up. When someone seems upset with you, ask what are they hoping to get out of this releasing of emotions? Additionally, ensure that your pride isn’t preventing you from making the correct call. Yes I am talking about Ego again; it is that important! It is the DM’s world, but it is the players’ game. Without both, the world and the game, you do not have D&D.
D&D has a weird paradox of being both a story and a game. It has both a narrative as its core premise, but it is, in fact, also a multi-player game. Without at least two people you cannot really have much fun. DMs should make sure that everyone at the table enjoys themselves.
Tip 5: Mechanics are important precisely because they are a means of delivering impactful story moments.
Remember that rule of cool concept? Extraordinary moments don’t happen often, and this is by design of the mechanics of the game. Humans remember the novel and unique way more often than the mundane. Mundane things tend to blend into the background. It’s the unexpected moments that highlight the more impactful story moments, especially if that moment is tied to strong emotions.²³
With that in mind, Mulligan suggests looking at where the players are putting their resources before deciding how to rule on a situation. Have they invested experience points/levels into a specific skill that is relevant to this situation instead of just something they can use in combat? If so, reward them for wanting to do something that is a part of the world you are creating together. ²⁴
Tip 6: Discourage metagaming but allow it whenever possible.
Look for any and every excuse you can to give advantage on an arcana check by setting the DC low (10 or higher). If the player succeeds, they can use what they know… they are going to anyway, but at least then they can talk about it with the other players.
According to the DM guide Chapter 8, metagame thinking means “thinking about the game as a game,” Examples would be thinking “the DM wouldn’t throw such a powerful monster at us so early in the game, so we will surely be saved and not have to take this fight seriously,” or “the DM spent A LOT of time describing that door… maybe we should search it again!” ²⁵
The problem with metagaming isn’t really about what advantage the players are getting in the game. The problem is that manipulation of the dynamics, when used to extremes, can spoil the plot line of the cumulative story being told. This can lessen the drama and tension elements resulting in decreased enjoyment of those involved. Additionally, it can create a dynamic where the DM is constantly having to escalate encounters to challenge the player, encouraging a potentially toxic “DM vs player” mentality.
For instance, how would a street orphan barbarian with no formal education and a wisdom of …let’s say very low…be able to know that liches phylactery is the source of their power. The solution here depends on why the players are playing this specific game. Is it the narrative of the story? Is it discovery? If these aren’t anywhere close to the reasons these players came to the game table in the first place, the narrative is not going to take as much of a factor into decisions. Metagaming in this instance isn’t going to be much of a problem.
Tip 7: Keep in mind, the ending is “A” destination, but the story is about how you get there.
A DM may hold off the extra cool moments for the final parts of the game, keeping their players in complete darkness and grit the entire way. However, without at least some levity along the way, some “water for the weary travelers,” as Mercer put it, they may not make it to the end.²⁶ So, do not be afraid to relax the rules from time to time to give them those cool moments, but do so sparingly lest the destination lose its luster as well. Always keep in mind it’s about the enjoyment of crafting and playing in the world together that makes this, or really any game, fun.
Tip 8: When all else fails… take a break and have the Tarrasque attack the party.
When all else fails, roll two D-20s out of players’ views… fake a worried expression… role a D-100 (also out of player’s view) look over the score concerned as you pour through your notes… then explain sorrowfully… “I’m sorry… The Tarrasque has risen and has attacked the party. Everyone roll initiative.” This is actual advice from the DM manual. It is right under “faking illness and running away.”²⁷ The point is this: never be afraid to pause or call a game when it’s over or needed.
Maybe something incredibly uncomfortable for a player has happened. Maybe the DM has reached the end of what they were able to prepare for that session. Perhaps everyone is hungry or needs a bathroom break. Maybe the entire table has gotten to a point where no one can agree on anything and team dynamics are breaking down. That game world will always be there… but your friends won’t. Cherish that moment and make as many good moments as possible. Additionally, taking breaks both in-game and in the real world allow for quiet moments. These allow for the greater moments to shine through and the players will enjoy their experience more.
https://i.redd.it/1ncu361zlqf61.png
The graphic above serves to summarize the eight tips above and show their relationship with the narrative, enjoyment, and the rules when put in the context of situational ethics. From this graph, the relationship between the eight tips and how they play into the narrative, enjoyment, and rules of the game can be seen. Each of the tips can influence many parts of the game but they are intended to primarily influence the aspect of the game they are adjacent to. “Knowing the players” should influence the narrative and what kind of enjoyment the players receive. What mechanics are used to enable the game is causally related to how the rules are used and so on. Please note that Agape is at the center as, with every decision a DM makes, considering what is best for the players should be central to the experience of any game.
The Epic Conclusion
Through crafting a game-world together with your players, a DM has the potential to tap into one of the greatest traditions humanity has: camaraderie with friends. At the end of the day, these players are your friends, or at the very least your fellow human beings. As such, you should want what is best for them. Through trials, hardships, and drama, we get to put the punctuation on the moments of excitement, joy, happiness, and bliss. It is okay if the player does not get exactly what they want, so long as they still had enjoyment. This is because getting everything we expect is sometimes boring. However, always keep in mind that at the end of the day, games are about having fun. How that happens is up to the players, the DM, and whether the rules were used to enhance the experience or not. It’s possible to find that balance by asking these questions in order: “How will this decision affect: the final enjoyment of all at the table? the narrative? the rules in the future?”
1 Huizinga, Johan . "Homo Ludens". Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. (1980), pp. 1., accessed January 19, 2021. http://art.yale.edu/file_columns/0000/1474/ homoludens_johan_huizinga_routledge_1949.pdf
2 Suits, Bernard, “The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia,” Broadview Press. Ed. 3. (November 29, 2005): 54–55. Accessed December 31, 2020. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/803547.The_Grasshopper
3 The Game Overanalyzer, The Aesthetics of Play | Why We Play Games, and the Search for Truth and Beauty in Game Design. The Game Overanalyzer. (January 11, 2020), accessed 6 January 2021. Video 18:44. https://youtu.be/lONsZwjVDzg
4 Hunicke, Robin, Marc LeBlanc, and Robert Zubek. "MDA: A formal approach to game design and game research." Proceedings of the AAAI Workshop on Challenges in Game AI, vol. 4, no. 1, p. 1722. (2004). Accessed January 11, 2020 https://www.aaai.org/Papers/Workshops/2004/WS-04-04/WS04-04-001.pdf
5 Portnow, James; Floyd, Daniel; Aesthetics of Play- Redefining Genres in Gaming. Extra Credits; (October 17, 2012), Video 9:13. Accessed December 30, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uepAJ-rqJKA&list=PL3N9QD4_yI-BlnwWUL8hhjpKgqRul3xAa&index=11
6 Suits, Bernard. “Discussion: Games and Paradox.” Chicago University Press. Philosophy of Science Association Journal, Vol 36, no. 3 (September 1, 1969). pg 316–.321. Accessed December 30, 2020. https://www.jstor.org/stable/186226
7 Suits, Bernard. “Discussion: Games and Paradox (1969)
8 Myers, David. “Game as Paradox: A Rebuttal of Suits.” Journal of the philosophy of Sport 39, no. 1 (May 1, 2012). Accessed December 30, 2020. https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy2.apus.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip&db=s3h&AN=87342252&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
9 Juul, Jesper. "Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds", MIT Press, (Aug 19, 2011) pp.57-59
10 Tracy, Patrick. DM Tips: The Rule of Cool. Fantasy Bango. (October 20, 2017). Accessed December 30, 2020. Video 2:23 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8aAIFalx6s
11 Fletcher, Joseph F. Situation Ethics: The New Morality. Westminster John Knox Press, (1997). Page 17-26 (accessed January 20, 2021) http://bit.ly/Googlescholar_SItuational_Ethics
**Please note that just because Fletcher’s Situational Ethics is used prominently, this is not an endorsement of all his views. Fletcher’s work has been used to justify terrible atrocities, such as eugenics, this should serve to point out that any philosophy taken to extremes can lead to terrible outcomes
12 Fletcher, Joseph F. Situation Ethics: The New Morality. (1997)
13 Mercer, Matthew. The Rule of Cool! (Game Master Tips). Geek & Sundry. (February 16, 2016). Accessed December 30, 2020. Video. 5:52 https://youtu.be/fWZDuFIYkf0
14 Bryce, Nathan K., “Four Lenses Unfolded: A Deeper Understanding of Temperament Values,” Insight; (January 29, 2002,).
15 Mercer, Matthew. The Rule of Cool! (Game Master Tips). (2016).
16 McLaughlin, Kelly; Martin, Monty. "How to Run a Session Zero for Dungeons and Dragons 5e". Dungeon Dudes. (September 3, 2020), Accessed 12 30, 2020. Video. https://youtu.be/2MA-z5Ai-bQ
17 Wells, Orson, "The Big Brass Ring." Santa Teresa Press (1987, January 1) 1-148
18 Mulligan, Brennan; Scott, Benjamin. “Animating Your Table (with Benjamin Scott) | Adventuring Academy Season 2 | Ep. 16 |” Adventuring Academy. Dimension (2020, December 28). Accessed December 30, 2020. Video 1:24:18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IbVxEKpipo
19 Mulligan, Brennan; Scott, Benjamin. “Animating Your Table (with Benjamin Scott) (2020)
20 Mercer, Matthew. The Rule of Cool! (Game Master Tips). (2016)..
21 Mercer, Matthew. The Rule of Cool! (Game Master Tips). (2016)
22 Imbo, Frederik, "How not to take things personally? | Frederik Imbo | TEDxMechelen" TEDx Talks; (March 4, 2020) accessed 10 Jan 2021, video 17:36 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnJwH_PZXnM&t=381s
23 Kensinger, Elizabeth. Remembering the Details: Effects of Emotion. US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health. (May 4, 2009) Accessed 2021, January 30 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2676782/
24 Mulligan, Brennan; Scott, Benjamin. “Animating Your Table (with Benjamin Scott) (2020)
25 Mearls, Mike, and Jeremy Crawford. "Dungeons Master's guide". Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast. (2014) accessed 29 January 2021 https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dmg/running-the-game#MetagameThinking
26 Mulligan, Brennan; Mercer, Matthew. Building Your Own Campaign Setting (with Matthew Mercer) | Adventuring Academy. Dimension 20. (2019, April 3) Accessed December 30, 2020. Video 57:01 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sig8X_kojco&t=2867s
27 Mearls, Mike, and Jeremy Crawford. "Dungeons Master's guide". Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast. (2014)-accessed 20 January 2021. https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dmg

How do you want to do this? A Discussion on Selective Rule Enforcement

Abstract:

**“Once upon a time, around a table…”

Session 1: What is the Relationship between, Players, Games and Rules?

Term	Definition	Examples
Sense Pleasure	Enjoyment derived from how it stimulates the senses	The visuals of a game, sound, and music, feel of the dice, etc.
Fantasy	Enjoyment derived from the ability to step into a role that cannot be experienced in real life	Playing a game as a magic wielding sorcerer or rocks in the far flung reaches of outer space
Narrative	Enjoyment derived from game as drama, it is about the stories and experience gained	Heavily story driven games such as Last of Us, Dungeons and Dragons, Final Fantasy
Challenge	Enjoyment derived from overcoming an arbitrary obstacle	Platformers like Mario, or even drinking games like beer pong, or corn hole; social games like charades, etc.
Fellowship	Enjoyment from working cooperatively as a group to accomplish a goal	Team based or social games such as Among Us, the card game Spades; save the world mode on Fortnite
Competition	Enjoyment from showing dominance	Chess or Go, Battle royal games such as Fortnite or PubG or Call of Duty; Fallguys; darts Poker; Uno, Killer bunnies or Magic the Gathering;
Discovery	Enjoyment from uncovering the new or discovering news ways to play a game.	These can range from searching to find things to choose your own adventure Minecraft; Zelda Breath of the Wild; simple matching games; the board game Betrayal at the House on the Hill; or games like Fable; Dragon Age Inquisition; or Mass effect
Expression	Enjoyment from showing an aspect of one’s self; or games that allow full customization of characters	Creation games like Minecraft; role play games like fallout 4; world of warcraft or Fortnite
Submission (aka Abnegation)	Enjoyment from being able to “turn of the brain; and tune out the world” or what is also known as zone out factor.	Bejeweled; candy crush; the lever-pull games at casinos, solitaire, etc.
	(Source: Portnow & Floyd, October 2012)⁵

“The game you weave belongs to the players as much as yourself… so make sure to humor them every once in awhile by giving them a chance to be extraordinary" - Patrick "the Goddam DM" Tracy ¹⁰

Session 2: The Ethics of a Dungeon Master

Session 3: “Well… You can Certainly Try”- Some Famous DM

Finally, we can discuss how the desire to make the most enjoyable experience for everyone at the table plays out using real-world examples and advice from some of the most well-known DMs in the business. Using the concept of Situational Ethics’ Agape, we can see how to work in the rule of cool using eight tips for Dungeon Masters.
Tip 1: It is advised to know your audience.
Not everything is as it seems, so be sure to pay attention to your players and look at them when you are describing the situation. Make note of how they react when tones or themes change. Remember those reasons people play games mentioned earlier? This is where those come into play. Additionally, while not something outright suggested, it is nevertheless important to take team dynamics into account.
The book “Four lenses unfolded” describes how various personality types can interact and work to solve problems. In it, the book describes four primary temperaments: Green (analytical), Blue (empathetic), Orange (adventurous), and Gold (goal oriented). Unlike most other personality tests, four lenses theory suggests that while we have a dominant personality at any given moment, other aspects of these personalities can manifest as well. Being able to draw on these aspects at will is the mark of a “mature” individual.¹⁴ As a DM/referee, coach, or manager, being able to do this and adapt to the needs of the players will take player engagement to the next level.
Tip 2: Establishing and Managing Expectations Early and Often, Works to Prevent Disappointment and Confusions
Mercer once put it this way, “Establish early on in your campaign how much of a level of crazy you're willing to allow. This allows for players to better understand what to try for and what not to try for.”¹⁵ Whether you are a teacher, referee, coach, parent, supervisor, or mentor, establishing expectations with those involved mitigates problems before they arise.
One of the main tools DM’s have for this is that is recommended by Mercer, as well as nearly every DM in existence on the internet, is the “Session Zero.” Session Zero is a term used to describe a session where no play occurs but instead rules that will be used and rules that will be ignored or bent is established. It also serves to establish a theme the players can expect from any campaign. Using the first chapter of the DMs guide will help considerably in establishing this. Additionally, one of the best guides for this is laid out by the DM YouTubers known as “the Dungeon Dudes” in their video titled, “How to Run a Session Zero for Dungeons and Dragons 5e.”¹⁶ But always keep Agape in mind throughout this process. In this step, it means actively listening to the players. The DM may want a gritty, tough, realistic, and challenging campaign. But if the players want a high fantasy power trip, some adjustments are going to need to be made to the campaign. Listening to players and changing the plans accordingly is not easy. It requires A LOT of humility and ego suppression. Especially when the DM has already designed how the game is going to go… which leads us to the next tip.
Tip 3: It is important to develop a healthy relationship with failure.
Celebrated author Orson Wells once wrote; “If you want a happy ending, that of course, is dependent of where you stop your story.”¹⁷ This applies to both the players and DM. There will be times when the DM is tempted to ignore the rules because the consequences seem dire. The player fails an athletics check trying to use a dynamic that had a high-risk, high-reward moment. Now the player’s character is doomed to fall several hundred feet down a ravine to what is likely certain doom in lava. But this isn’t the end. That player’s character is most likely dead, but their death could result in a moment of drama and tension for the players. It’s the very real chance of failure that encourages players to think critically about a situation and experience excitement and tension. Brennon Lee Mulligan, the DM of the D&D streaming show, “Dimension 20,” put it this way… “if you are not allowing for failure, you are essentially just telling a story,” and thus never actually playing a game (make-believe as Suits would put it). ¹⁸
Another thing to consider is that through failure, we can often find comedy as well as ways to encourage players to think critically and find new escapes, ¹⁹ at least according to the mind behind the “Replaying the Curse of Strahd” videos, Benjamin (Puffin Forest) Scott. Lastly, Mercer strongly advises that if a DM allows too many “rule of cool moments” to happen in succession, the weight of the moments and consistency of the game will be lost. ²⁰
Players that are afraid to fail will not try. Mercer explains that “Most role play games are designed to forge a heroic story (showing feats of legend) so let the players try! Let them fail, and occasionally succeed!” This is where his catch phrase “you can certainly try” comes from. ²¹
Tip 4: Whenever Possible, Avoid Taking Things Personally
In his lecture on not talking things personally, soccer referee and public speaker, Frederik Imbo, explained there are two sides of a coin to keep in mind when trying not to take things personally: “It is not about you,” and “it is about you.” ²² Look at the other person’s intentions not just yours. With that in mind, it is okay to give yourself empathy and speak up. When someone seems upset with you, ask what are they hoping to get out of this releasing of emotions? Additionally, ensure that your pride isn’t preventing you from making the correct call. Yes I am talking about Ego again; it is that important! It is the DM’s world, but it is the players’ game. Without both, the world and the game, you do not have D&D.
D&D has a weird paradox of being both a story and a game. It has both a narrative as its core premise, but it is, in fact, also a multi-player game. Without at least two people you cannot really have much fun. DMs should make sure that everyone at the table enjoys themselves. Tip 5: Mechanics are important precisely because they are a means of delivering impactful story moments.
Remember that rule of cool concept? Extraordinary moments don’t happen often, and this is by design of the mechanics of the game. Humans remember the novel and unique way more often than the mundane. Mundane things tend to blend into the background. It’s the unexpected moments that highlight the more impactful story moments, especially if that moment is tied to strong emotions.²³
With that in mind, Mulligan suggests looking at where the players are putting their resources before deciding how to rule on a situation. Have they invested experience points/levels into a specific skill that is relevant to this situation instead of just something they can use in combat? If so, reward them for wanting to do something that is a part of the world you are creating together. ²⁴
Tip 6: Discourage metagaming but allow it whenever possible.
Look for any and every excuse you can to give advantage on an arcana check by setting the DC low (10 or higher). If the player succeeds, they can use what they know… they are going to anyway, but at least then they can talk about it with the other players.
According to the DM guide Chapter 8, metagame thinking means “thinking about the game as a game,” Examples would be thinking “the DM wouldn’t throw such a powerful monster at us so early in the game, so we will surely be saved and not have to take this fight seriously,” or “the DM spent A LOT of time describing that door… maybe we should search it again!” ²⁵
The problem with metagaming isn’t really about what advantage the players are getting in the game. The problem is that manipulation of the dynamics, when used to extremes, can spoil the plot line of the cumulative story being told. This can lessen the drama and tension elements resulting in decreased enjoyment of those involved. Additionally, it can create a dynamic where the DM is constantly having to escalate encounters to challenge the player, encouraging a potentially toxic “DM vs player” mentality.
For instance, how would a street orphan barbarian with no formal education and a wisdom of …let’s say very low…be able to know that liches phylactery is the source of their power. The solution here depends on why the players are playing this specific game. Is it the narrative of the story? Is it discovery? If these aren’t anywhere close to the reasons these players came to the game table in the first place, the narrative is not going to take as much of a factor into decisions. Metagaming in this instance isn’t going to be much of a problem.
Tip 7: Keep in mind, the ending is “A” destination, but the story is about how you get there.
A DM may hold off the extra cool moments for the final parts of the game, keeping their players in complete darkness and grit the entire way. However, without at least some levity along the way, some “water for the weary travelers,” as Mercer put it, they may not make it to the end.²⁶ So, do not be afraid to relax the rules from time to time to give them those cool moments, but do so sparingly lest the destination lose its luster as well. Always keep in mind it’s about the enjoyment of crafting and playing in the world together that makes this, or really any game, fun.
*Tip 8: When all else fails… take a break and have the Tarrasque attack the party. *
When all else fails, roll two D-20s out of players’ views… fake a worried expression… role a D-100 (also out of player’s view) look over the score concerned as you pour through your notes… then explain sorrowfully… “I’m sorry… The Tarrasque has risen and has attacked the party. Everyone roll initiative.” This is actual advice from the DM manual. It is right under “faking illness and running away.”²⁷ The point is this: never be afraid to pause or call a game when it’s over or needed.
Maybe something incredibly uncomfortable for a player has happened. Maybe the DM has reached the end of what they were able to prepare for that session. Perhaps everyone is hungry or needs a bathroom break. Maybe the entire table has gotten to a point where no one can agree on anything and team dynamics are breaking down. That game world will always be there… but your friends won’t. Cherish that moment and make as many good moments as possible. Additionally, taking breaks both in-game and in the real world allow for quiet moments. These allow for the greater moments to shine through and the players will enjoy their experience more.
https://i.redd.it/1ncu361zlqf61.png
The graphic above serves to summarize the eight tips above and show their relationship with the narrative, enjoyment, and the rules when put in the context of situational ethics. From this graph, the relationship between the eight tips and how they play into the narrative, enjoyment, and rules of the game can be seen. Each of the tips can influence many parts of the game but they are intended to primarily influence the aspect of the game they are adjacent to. “Knowing the players” should influence the narrative and what kind of enjoyment the players receive. What mechanics are used to enable the game is causally related to how the rules are used and so on. Please note that Agape is at the center as, with every decision a DM makes, considering what is best for the players should be central to the experience of any game.
The Epic Conclusion
Through crafting a game-world together with your players, a DM has the potential to tap into one of the greatest traditions humanity has: camaraderie with friends. At the end of the day, these players are your friends, or at the very least your fellow human beings. As such, you should want what is best for them. Through trials, hardships, and drama, we get to put the punctuation on the moments of excitement, joy, happiness, and bliss. It is okay if the player does not get exactly what they want, so long as they still had enjoyment. This is because getting everything we expect is sometimes boring. However, always keep in mind that at the end of the day, games are about having fun. How that happens is up to the players, the DM, and whether the rules were used to enhance the experience or not. It’s possible to find that balance by asking these questions in order: “How will this decision affect: the final enjoyment of all at the table? the narrative? the rules in the future?”
1 Huizinga, Johan . "Homo Ludens". Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. (1980), pp. 1., accessed January 19, 2021. http://art.yale.edu/file_columns/0000/1474/ homoludens_johan_huizinga_routledge_1949.pdf
2 Suits, Bernard, “The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia,” Broadview Press. Ed. 3. (November 29, 2005): 54–55. Accessed December 31, 2020. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/803547.The_Grasshopper
3 The Game Overanalyzer, The Aesthetics of Play | Why We Play Games, and the Search for Truth and Beauty in Game Design. The Game Overanalyzer. (January 11, 2020), accessed 6 January 2021. Video 18:44. https://youtu.be/lONsZwjVDzg
4 Hunicke, Robin, Marc LeBlanc, and Robert Zubek. "MDA: A formal approach to game design and game research." Proceedings of the AAAI Workshop on Challenges in Game AI, vol. 4, no. 1, p. 1722. (2004). Accessed January 11, 2020 https://www.aaai.org/Papers/Workshops/2004/WS-04-04/WS04-04-001.pdf
5 Portnow, James; Floyd, Daniel; Aesthetics of Play- Redefining Genres in Gaming. Extra Credits; (October 17, 2012), Video 9:13. Accessed December 30, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uepAJ-rqJKA&list=PL3N9QD4_yI-BlnwWUL8hhjpKgqRul3xAa&index=11
6 Suits, Bernard. “Discussion: Games and Paradox.” Chicago University Press. Philosophy of Science Association Journal, Vol 36, no. 3 (September 1, 1969). pg 316–.321. Accessed December 30, 2020. https://www.jstor.org/stable/186226
7 Suits, Bernard. “Discussion: Games and Paradox (1969)
8 Myers, David. “Game as Paradox: A Rebuttal of Suits.” Journal of the philosophy of Sport 39, no. 1 (May 1, 2012). Accessed December 30, 2020. https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy2.apus.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip&db=s3h&AN=87342252&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
9 Juul, Jesper. "Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds", MIT Press, (Aug 19, 2011) pp.57-59
10 Tracy, Patrick. DM Tips: The Rule of Cool. Fantasy Bango. (October 20, 2017). Accessed December 30, 2020. Video 2:23 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8aAIFalx6s
11 Fletcher, Joseph F. Situation Ethics: The New Morality. Westminster John Knox Press, (1997). Page 17-26 (accessed January 20, 2021) http://bit.ly/Googlescholar_SItuational_Ethics
**Please note that just because Fletcher’s Situational Ethics is used prominently, this is not an endorsement of all his views. Fletcher’s work has been used to justify terrible atrocities, such as eugenics, this should serve to point out that any philosophy taken to extremes can lead to terrible outcomes
12 Fletcher, Joseph F. Situation Ethics: The New Morality. (1997)
13 Mercer, Matthew. The Rule of Cool! (Game Master Tips). Geek & Sundry. (February 16, 2016). Accessed December 30, 2020. Video. 5:52 https://youtu.be/fWZDuFIYkf0
14 Bryce, Nathan K., “Four Lenses Unfolded: A Deeper Understanding of Temperament Values,” Insight; (January 29, 2002,).
15 Mercer, Matthew. The Rule of Cool! (Game Master Tips). (2016).
16 McLaughlin, Kelly; Martin, Monty. "How to Run a Session Zero for Dungeons and Dragons 5e". Dungeon Dudes. (September 3, 2020), Accessed 12 30, 2020. Video. https://youtu.be/2MA-z5Ai-bQ
17 Wells, Orson, "The Big Brass Ring." Santa Teresa Press (1987, January 1) 1-148
18 Mulligan, Brennan; Scott, Benjamin. “Animating Your Table (with Benjamin Scott) | Adventuring Academy Season 2 | Ep. 16 |” Adventuring Academy. Dimension (2020, December 28). Accessed December 30, 2020. Video 1:24:18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IbVxEKpipo
19 Mulligan, Brennan; Scott, Benjamin. “Animating Your Table (with Benjamin Scott) (2020)
20 Mercer, Matthew. The Rule of Cool! (Game Master Tips). (2016)..
21 Mercer, Matthew. The Rule of Cool! (Game Master Tips). (2016)
22 Imbo, Frederik, "How not to take things personally? | Frederik Imbo | TEDxMechelen" TEDx Talks; (March 4, 2020) accessed 10 Jan 2021, video 17:36 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnJwH_PZXnM&t=381s
23 Kensinger, Elizabeth. Remembering the Details: Effects of Emotion. US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health. (May 4, 2009) Accessed 2021, January 30 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2676782/
24 Mulligan, Brennan; Scott, Benjamin. “Animating Your Table (with Benjamin Scott) (2020)
25 Mearls, Mike, and Jeremy Crawford. "Dungeons Master's guide". Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast. (2014) accessed 29 January 2021 https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dmg/running-the-game#MetagameThinking
26 Mulligan, Brennan; Mercer, Matthew. Building Your Own Campaign Setting (with Matthew Mercer) | Adventuring Academy. Dimension 20. (2019, April 3) Accessed December 30, 2020. Video 57:01 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sig8X_kojco&t=2867s
27 Mearls, Mike, and Jeremy Crawford. "Dungeons Master's guide". Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast. (2014)-accessed 20 January 2021. https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dmg

By combining the average scores from IMDb, Letterboxd, Rotten Tomatoes & Metacritic, and then fine-tuning the results with data from Letterboxd, iCheckMovies, TSPDT?, TMDb and IMDb, I was able to come up with the 1001 'GREATEST' MOVIES OF ALL TIME.

In 2015, I created a list titled, “Top10ner’s 1001 'Greatest' Movies of All Time” and many of you seemed to enjoy it and still use it today so I thought it was about time that I updated it..
The original 2015 thread can be found here as well as the initial update for those curious about the algorithm.
Basically I started off by gathering ratings from IMDB (UseCritic Average), Rotten Tomatoes (Tomatometer, Critic Average) & (Audience Score, User Average), Metacritic (Critic Average, User Average) and Letterboxd (User Average). Each site’s average rating was then weighted so that no site’s ratings were favoured above the rest. The next step was to make sure that each film was treated equally. Rather than eliminating films that had little votes, I opted to alter these films score by carefully deducting points depending on how many people have seen it, and therefore voted on it.
I then finally put the list through a final adjustment, where I applied aspects such as critical reception (# of official lists movie is in), audience reception and overall likability/popularity. These figures were determined using sources such as iCheckmovies, Letterboxd and TSPDT?.
I've created the following lists for both Letterboxd and iCheckMovies, as well as a Google spreadsheet where you can check out the full list and search for particular films easier.
Letterboxd - 2020 Edition: Top10ner’s 1001 ‘Greatest’ Movies of All Time
IMDb - 2020 Edition: Top10ner’s 1001 ‘Greatest’ Movies of All Time
iCheckMovies - 2020 Edition: Top10ner’s 1001 ‘Greatest’ Movies of All Time
Google Spreadsheet - 2020 Edition: Top10ner’s 1001 ‘Greatest’ Movies of All Time
ANYWAY, here is the 1001 ‘Greatest’ Movies of All Time. Enjoy! (NOTE: Could only include the first 750 movies due character limit)

RANK	TITLE	YEAR	DIRECTOR
1	The Godfather	1972	Francis Ford Coppola
2	The Godfather: Part II	1974	Francis Ford Coppola
3	Seven Samurai	1954	Akira Kurosawa
4	Pulp Fiction	1994	Quentin Tarantino
5	12 Angry Men	1957	Sidney Lumet
6	Spirited Away	2001	Hayao Miyazaki
7	Schindler's List	1993	Steven Spielberg
8	Casablanca	1942	Michael Curtiz
9	Psycho	1960	Alfred Hitchcock
10	Goodfellas	1990	Martin Scorsese
11	Lawrence of Arabia	1962	David Lean
12	The Good, the Bad and the Ugly	1966	Sergio Leone
13	Singin' in the Rain	1952	Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly
14	City Lights	1931	Charlie Chaplin
15	Sunset Boulevard	1950	Billy Wilder
16	Apocalypse Now	1979	Francis Ford Coppola
17	The Shawshank Redemption	1994	Frank Darabont
18	Rear Window	1954	Alfred Hitchcock
19	Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back	1980	Irvin Kershner
20	2001: A Space Odyssey	1968	Stanley Kubrick
21	Citizen Kane	1941	Orson Welles
22	M	1931	Fritz Lang
23	One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest	1975	Miloš Forman
24	Vertigo	1958	Alfred Hitchcock
25	The Dark Knight	2008	Christopher Nolan
26	The Silence of the Lambs	1991	Jonathan Demme
27	Modern Times	1936	Charles Chaplin
28	Star Wars - A New Hope	1977	George Lucas
29	Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb	1964	Stanley Kubrick
30	Come and See	1985	Elem Klimov
31	Bicycle Thieves	1948	Vittorio De Sica
32	Tokyo Story	1953	Yasujirō Ozu
33	It's a Wonderful Life	1946	Frank Capra
34	Rashomon	1950	Akira Kurosawa
35	Once Upon a Time in the West	1968	Sergio Leone
36	Taxi Driver	1976	Martin Scorsese
37	Ikiru	1952	Akira Kurosawa
38	Metropolis	1927	Fritz Lang
39	The Passion of Joan of Arc	1928	Carl Theodor Dreyer
40	Alien	1979	Ridley Scott
41	The Third Man	1949	Carol Reed
42	All About Eve	1950	Joseph L. Mankiewicz
43	Fanny and Alexander	1982	Ingmar Bergman
44	Chinatown	1974	Roman Polanski
45	City of God	2002	Fernando Meirelles & Kátia Lund
46	Double Indemnity	1944	Billy Wilder
47	Paths of Glory	1957	Stanley Kubrick
48	Raiders of the Lost Ark	1981	Steven Spielberg
49	Andrei Rublev	1966	Andrei Tarkovsky
50	The Apartment	1960	Billy Wilder
51	Harakiri	1962	Masaki Kobayashi
52	Parasite	2019	Bong Joon-ho
53	The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring	2001	Peter Jackson
54	The 400 Blows	1959	François Truffaut
55	Stalker	1979	Andrei Tarkovsky
56	Some Like It Hot	1959	Billy Wilder
57	Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans	1927	F.W. Murnau
58	Pan's Labyrinth	2006	Guillermo del Toro
59	Ran	1985	Akira Kurosawa
60	Sherlock, Jr.	1924	Buster Keaton
61	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King	2003	Peter Jackson
62	The Night of the Hunter	1955	Charles Laughton
63	A Separation	2011	Asghar Farhadi
64	Grave of the Fireflies	1988	Isao Takahata
65	North by Northwest	1959	Alfred Hitchcock
66	Persona	1966	Ingmar Bergman
67	Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind	2004	Michel Gondry
68	Back to the Future	1985	Robert Zemeckis
69	The Battle of Algiers	1966	Gillo Pontecorvo
70	Toy Story	1995	John Lasseter
71	Raging Bull	1980	Martin Scorsese
72	8½ (Eight and a Half)	1963	Federico Fellini
73	Saving Private Ryan	1998	Steven Spielberg
74	On the Waterfront	1954	Elia Kazan
75	The Shining	1980	Stanley Kubrick
76	Three Colors: Red	1994	Krzysztof Kieślowski
77	The Great Dictator	1940	Charles Chaplin
78	The Wizard of Oz	1939	Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Mervyn…
79	The Wages of Fear	1953	Henri-Georges Clouzot
80	In the Mood for Love	2000	Wong Kar-wai
81	Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse	2018	Rodney Rothman, Peter Ramsey…
82	The Treasure of the Sierra Madre	1948	John Huston
83	The Seventh Seal	1957	Ingmar Bergman
84	The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers	2002	Peter Jackson
85	The Red Shoes	1948	Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
86	The General	1926	Clyde Bruckman & Buster Keaton
87	The Gold Rush	1925	Charles Chaplin
88	Touch of Evil	1958	Orson Welles
89	WALL-E	2008	Andrew Stanton
90	Aliens	1986	James Cameron
91	Wild Strawberries	1957	Ingmar Bergman
92	Paris Texas	1984	Wim Wenders
93	A Clockwork Orange	1971	Stanley Kubrick
94	La Grande Illusion	1937	Jean Renoir
95	There Will Be Blood	2007	Paul Thomas Anderson
96	Amadeus	1984	Miloš Forman
97	Annie Hall	1977	Woody Allen
98	Whiplash	2014	Damien Chazelle
99	Pather Panchali	1955	Satyajit Ray
100	Cinema Paradiso	1988	Giuseppe Tornatore
101	It Happened One Night	1934	Frank Capra
102	The Bridge on the River Kwai	1957	David Lean
103	The Lives of Others	2006	Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
104	Terminator 2: Judgment Day	1991	James Cameron
105	Blade Runner	1982	Ridley Scott
106	Yojimbo	1961	Akira Kurosawa
107	Ugetsu	1953	Kenji Mizoguchi
108	Reservoir Dogs	1992	Quentin Tarantino
109	Memento	2000	Christopher Nolan
110	Princess Mononoke	1997	Hayao Miyazaki
111	Mad Max: Fury Road	2015	George Miller
112	The Pianist	2002	Roman Polanski
113	Wings of Desire	1987	Wim Wenders
114	The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari	1920	Robert Wiene
115	The Best Years of Our Lives	1946	William Wyler
116	Inception	2010	Christopher Nolan
117	Monty Python and the Holy Grail	1975	Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones
118	Fargo	1996	Joel & Ethan Coen
119	La Dolce Vita	1960	Federico Fellini
120	Oldboy	2003	Chan-wook Park
121	Nights of Cabiria	1957	Federico Fellini
122	Toy Story 3	2010	Lee Unkrich
123	Children of Paradise	1945	Marcel Carné
124	Gone with the Wind	1939	Victor Fleming,George Cukor...
125	Jaws	1975	Steven Spielberg
126	Das Boot	1981	Wolfgang Petersen
127	High and Low	1963	Akira Kurosawa
128	The Mirror	1975	Andrei Tarkovsky
129	L.A. Confidential	1997	Curtis Hanson
130	Unforgiven	1992	Clint Eastwood
131	Amelie	2001	Jean-Pierre Jeunet
132	My Neighbor Totoro	1988	Hayao Miyazaki
133	Barry Lyndon	1975	Stanley Kubrick
134	Le Samouraï	1967	Jean-Pierre Melville
135	Ordet	1955	Carl Theodor Dreyer
136	To Be or Not to Be	1942	Ernst Lubitsch
137	No Country for Old Men	2007	Joel & Ethan Coen
138	Solaris	1972	Andrei Tarkovsky
139	Coco	2017	Lee Unkrich
140	Your Name.	2016	Makoto Shinkai
141	Fight Club	1999	David Fincher
142	The Maltese Falcon	1941	John Huston
143	The Kid	1921	Charles Chaplin
144	Woman in the Dunes	1964	Hiroshi Teshigahara
145	Se7en	1995	David Fincher
146	Do the Right Thing	1989	Spike Lee
147	The Rules of the Game	1939	Jean Renoir
148	Aguirre: The Wrath of God	1972	Werner Herzog
149	The Grapes of Wrath	1940	John Ford
150	La Haine	1995	Mathieu Kassovitz
151	Once Upon a Time in America	1984	Sergio Leone
152	Throne of Blood	1957	Akira Kurosawa
153	Notorious	1946	Alfred Hitchcock
154	Badlands	1973	Terrence Malick
155	A Man Escaped	1956	Robert Bresson
156	Cool Hand Luke	1967	Stuart Rosenberg
157	Rosemary's Baby	1968	Roman Polanski
158	Before Sunrise	1995	Richard Linklater
159	The Lion King	1994	Roger Allers & Rob Minkoff
160	Before Sunset	2004	Richard Linklater
161	Rebecca	1940	Alfred Hitchcock
162	La strada	1954	Federico Fellini
163	Duck Soup	1933	Leo McCarey
164	The Deer Hunter	1978	Michael Cimino
165	Sansho the Bailiff	1954	Kenji Mizoguchi
166	The Philadelphia Story	1940	George Cukor
167	The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance	1962	John Ford
168	Die Hard	1988	John McTiernan
169	Brazil	1985	Terry Gilliam
170	Sweet Smell of Success	1957	Alexander Mackendrick
171	The Departed	2006	Martin Scorsese
172	Three Colors: Blue	1993	Krzysztof Kieślowski
173	The Last Picture Show	1971	Peter Bogdanovich
174	Rome, Open City	1945	Roberto Rossellini
175	Up	2009	Pete Docter & Bob Peterson
176	The Princess Bride	1987	Rob Reiner
177	Breathless	1960	Jean-Luc Godard
178	Dog Day Afternoon	1975	Sidney Lumet
179	Kind Hearts and Coronets	1949	Robert Hamer
180	To Kill a Mockingbird	1962	Robert Mulligan
181	Chungking Express	1994	Wong Kar-wai
182	The Conversation	1974	Francis Ford Coppola
183	Rio Bravo	1959	Howard Hawks
184	Full Metal Jacket	1987	Stanley Kubrick
185	The Handmaiden	2016	Chan-wook Park
186	A Matter of Life and Death	1946	Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
187	A Woman Under the Influence	1974	John Cassavetes
188	All the President's Men	1976	Alan J. Pakula
189	Portrait of a Lady on Fire	2019	Céline Sciamma
190	The Matrix	1999	Lilly & Lana Wachowski
191	12 Years a Slave	2013	Steve McQueen
192	Brief Encounter	1945	David Lean
193	Shoplifters	2018	Hirokazu Kore-eda
194	American Beauty	1999	Sam Mendes
195	His Girl Friday	1940	Howard Hawks
196	The Usual Suspects	1995	Bryan Singer
197	The Graduate	1967	Mike Nichols
198	Jurassic Park	1993	Steven Spielberg
199	Memories of Murder	2003	Bong Joon-ho
200	King Kong	1933	Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack
201	Inside Out	2015	Pete Docter
202	Yi yi	2000	Edward Yang
203	Raise the Red Lantern	1991	Zhang Yimou
204	Rififi	1955	Jules Dassin
205	Blue Velvet	1986	David Lynch
206	Army of Shadows	1969	Jean-Pierre Melville
207	This Is Spinal Tap	1984	Rob Reiner
208	The Wild Bunch	1969	Sam Peckinpah
209	Witness for the Prosecution	1957	Billy Wilder
210	Battleship Potemkin	1925	Sergei M. Eisenstein
211	Strangers on a Train	1951	Alfred Hitchcock
212	The Searchers	1956	John Ford
213	The Big Lebowski	1998	Joel & Ethan Coen
214	Nosferatu	1922	F.W. Murnau
215	Network	1976	Sidney Lumet
216	The Hustler	1961	Robert Rossen
217	The Exterminating Angel	1962	Luis Buñuel
218	Days of Heaven	1978	Terrence Malick
219	Finding Nemo	2003	Andrew Stanton & Lee Unkrich
220	Heat	1995	Michael Mann
221	The Great Escape	1963	John Sturges
222	A Streetcar Named Desire	1951	Elia Kazan
223	Diabolique	1955	Henri-Georges Clouzot
224	The Sting	1973	George Roy Hill
225	Night of the Living Dead	1968	George A. Romero
226	The Thing	1982	John Carpenter
227	Mulholland Drive	2001	David Lynch
228	The Conformist	1970	Bernardo Bertolucci
229	The Grand Budapest Hotel	2014	Wes Anderson
230	A Brighter Summer Day	1991	Edward Yang
231	Monty Python's Life of Brian	1979	Terry Jones
232	Umberto D.	1952	Vittorio De Sica
233	Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?	1966	Mike Nichols
234	Stagecoach	1939	John Ford
235	Beauty and the Beast	1991	Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise
236	The Big Sleep	1946	Howard Hawks
237	Inglourious Basterds	2009	Quentin Tarantino
238	Viridiana	1961	Luis Buñuel
239	Incendies	2010	Denis Villeneuve
240	The Terminator	1984	James Cameron
241	Bride of Frankenstein	1935	James Whale
242	Sullivan's Travels	1941	Preston Sturges
243	Playtime	1967	Jacques Tati
244	Ivan's Childhood	1962	Andrei Tarkovsky
245	Life Is Beautiful	1997	Roberto Benigni
246	Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid	1969	George Roy Hill
247	Manhattan	1979	Woody Allen
248	Trainspotting	1996	Danny Boyle
249	All Quiet on the Western Front	1930	Lewis Milestone
250	The Young and the Damned	1950	Luis Buñuel
251	The Elephant Man	1980	David Lynch
252	All About My Mother	1999	Pedro Almodóvar
253	Le Trou	1960	Jacques Becker
254	The Leopard	1963	Luchino Visconti
255	Laura	1944	Otto Preminger
256	Shadow of a Doubt	1943	Alfred Hitchcock
257	Mr. Smith Goes to Washington	1939	Frank Capra
258	Hiroshima Mon Amour	1959	Alain Resnais
259	Bringing Up Baby	1938	Howard Hawks
260	Out of the Past	1947	Jacques Tourneur
261	Anatomy of a Murder	1959	Otto Preminger
262	Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon	2000	Ang Lee
263	L'avventura	1960	Michelangelo Antonioni
264	Beauty and the Beast	1946	Jean Cocteau
265	The Hunt	2012	Thomas Vinterberg
266	Forrest Gump	1994	Robert Zemeckis
267	Ace in the Hole	1951	Billy Wilder
268	Late Spring	1949	Yasujirō Ozu
269	The Celebration	1998	Thomas Vinterberg
270	Au Revoir Les Enfants	1987	Louis Malle
271	Spotlight	2015	Tom McCarthy
272	Roman Holiday	1953	William Wyler
273	Amour	2012	Michael Haneke
274	Ali: Fear Eats the Soul	1974	Rainer Werner Fassbinder
275	Paddington 2	2017	Paul King
276	The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp	1943	Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
277	The French Connection	1971	William Friedkin
278	The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie	1972	Luis Buñuel
279	High Noon	1952	Fred Zinnemann
280	Akira	1988	Katsuhiro Otomo
281	4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days	2007	Cristian Mungiu
282	Ben-Hur	1959	William Wyler
283	Let the Right One In	2008	Tomas Alfredson
284	Nashville	1975	Robert Altman
285	Room	2015	Lenny Abrahamson
286	The Adventures of Robin Hood	1938	Michael Curtiz & William Keighley
287	Jules and Jim	1962	François Truffaut
288	Good Will Hunting	1997	Gus Van Sant
289	Young Frankenstein	1974	Mel Brooks
290	White Heat	1949	Raoul Walsh
291	Short Term 12	2013	Destin Cretton
292	The Killing	1956	Stanley Kubrick
293	In a Lonely Place	1950	Nicholas Ray
294	Frankenstein	1931	James Whale
295	Secrets & Lies	1996	Mike Leigh
296	Django Unchained	2012	Quentin Tarantino
297	Call Me by Your Name	2017	Luca Guadagnino
298	Magnolia	1999	Paul Thomas Anderson
299	Being There	1979	Hal Ashby
300	The Manchurian Candidate	1962	John Frankenheimer
301	Paper Moon	1973	Peter Bogdanovich
302	The Shop Around the Corner	1940	Ernst Lubitsch
303	Halloween	1978	John Carpenter
304	The World of Apu	1959	Satyajit Ray
305	Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring	2003	Kim Ki-duk
306	L'Atalante	1934	Jean Vigo
307	The Iron Giant	1999	Brad Bird
308	The Exorcist	1973	William Friedkin
309	Amores Perros	2000	Alejandro González Iñárritu
310	Central Station	1998	Walter Salles
311	Bonnie and Clyde	1967	Arthur Penn
312	Persepolis	2007	Vincent Paronnaud & Marjane Satrapi
313	The Best of Youth	2003	Marco Tullio Giordana
314	The Spirit of the Beehive	1973	Víctor Erice
315	Z	1969	Costa-Gavras
316	Underground	1995	Emir Kusturica
317	The Killer	1989	John Woo
318	Kes	1969	Ken Loach
319	Moonlight	2016	Barry Jenkins
320	Howl's Moving Castle	2004	Hayao Miyazaki
321	Her	2013	Spike Jonze
322	Requiem for a Dream	2000	Darren Aronofsky
323	The Truman Show	1998	Peter Weir
324	The Incredibles	2004	Brad Bird
325	Cries and Whispers	1972	Ingmar Bergman
326	Stand by Me	1986	Rob Reiner
327	Before Midnight	2013	Richard Linklater
328	Groundhog Day	1993	Harold Ramis
329	Little Women	2019	Greta Gerwig
330	The Social Network	2010	David Fincher
331	The Right Stuff	1983	Philip Kaufman
332	Get Out	2017	Jordan Peele
333	It's Such a Beautiful Day	2012	Don Hertzfeldt
334	Boogie Nights	1997	Paul Thomas Anderson
335	Fantasia	1940	Samuel Armstrong, James Algar...
336	Black Narcissus	1947	Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
337	Midnight Cowboy	1969	John Schlesinger
338	Children of Men	2006	Alfonso Cuarón
339	E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial	1982	Steven Spielberg
340	Toy Story 2	1999	John Lasseter
341	Leon: The Professional	1994	Luc Besson
342	Cabaret	1972	Bob Fosse
343	The Diving Bell and the Butterfly	2007	Julian Schnabel
344	Ratatouille	2007	Brad Bird
345	The Cranes Are Flying	1957	Mikhail Kalatozov
346	Day for Night	1973	François Truffaut
347	Withnail & I	1987	Bruce Robinson
348	Safety Last!	1923	Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor
349	The Umbrellas of Cherbourg	1964	Jacques Demy
350	Shaun of the Dead	2004	Edgar Wright
351	Song of the Sea	2014	Tomm Moore
352	Scarface	1983	Brian De Palma
353	Harold and Maude	1971	Hal Ashby
354	Platoon	1986	Oliver Stone
355	The Nightmare Before Christmas	1993	Henry Selick
356	Close Encounters of the Third Kind	1977	Steven Spielberg
357	Talk to Her	2002	Pedro Almodóvar
358	Wild Tales	2014	Damián Szifrón
359	Close-Up	1990	Abbas Kiarostami
360	Time of the Gypsies	1988	Emir Kusturica
361	Mary and Max	2009	Adam Elliot
362	The Return	2003	Andrey Zvyagintsev
363	Logan	2017	James Mangold
364	For a Few Dollars More	1965	Sergio Leone
365	A Prophet	2009	Jacques Audiard
366	La La Land	2016	Damien Chazelle
367	The Sound of Music	1965	Robert Wise
368	The King of Comedy	1982	Martin Scorsese
369	The Big Heat	1953	Fritz Lang
370	In the Heat of the Night	1967	Norman Jewison
371	Amarcord	1973	Federico Fellini
372	A Night at the Opera	1935	Sam Wood
373	Repulsion	1965	Roman Polanski
374	Freaks	1932	Tod Browning
375	Au Hasard Balthazar	1966	Robert Bresson
376	Downfall	2004	Oliver Hirschbiegel
377	Lost in Translation	2003	Sofia Coppola
378	Belle de Jour	1967	Luis Buñuel
379	What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?	1962	Robert Aldrich
380	The Circus	1928	Charles Chaplin
381	How to Train Your Dragon	2010	Chris Sanders & Dean DeBlois
382	Crimes and Misdemeanors	1989	Woody Allen
383	Breaking the Waves	1996	Lars von Trier
384	Brokeback Mountain	2005	Ang Lee
385	Steamboat Bill, Jr.	1928	Buster Keaton & Charles Reisner
386	Werckmeister Harmonies	2000	Béla Tarr & Ágnes Hranitzky
387	Greed	1924	Erich von Stroheim
388	Roma	2018	Alfonso Cuarón
389	Make Way for Tomorrow	1937	Leo McCarey
390	The Lady Eve	1941	Preston Sturges
391	The Straight Story	1999	David Lynch
392	Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion	1997	Kazuya Tsurumaki & Hideaki Anno
393	Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade	1989	Steven Spielberg
394	Peeping Tom	1960	Michael Powell
395	The Secret in Their Eyes	2009	Juan José Campanella
396	Cleo from 5 to 7	1962	Agnès Varda
397	Aladdin	1992	Ron Clements & John Musker
398	Rocco and His Brothers	1960	Luchino Visconti
399	Hannah and Her Sisters	1986	Woody Allen
400	My Darling Clementine	1946	John Ford
401	Avengers: Endgame	2019	Joe & Anthony Russo
402	Infernal Affairs	2002	Alan Mak & Andrew Lau
403	Patton	1970	Franklin J. Schaffner
404	Mary Poppins	1964	Robert Stevenson
405	Monsters, Inc.	2001	Pete Docter
406	Hunt for the Wilderpeople	2016	Taika Waititi
407	Children of Heaven	1997	Majid Majidi
408	Last Year at Marienbad	1961	Alain Resnais
409	Sanjuro	1962	Akira Kurosawa
410	1917	2019	Sam Mendes
411	Avengers: Infinity War	2018	Joe & Anthony Russo
412	The Tale of the Princess Kaguya	2013	Isao Takahata
413	Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri	2017	Martin McDonagh
414	Through a Glass Darkly	1961	Ingmar Bergman
415	The Thin Man	1934	W.S. Van Dyke
416	American History X	1998	Tony Kaye
417	Knives Out	2019	Rian Johnson
418	Orpheus	1950	Jean Cocteau
419	Evil Dead II	1987	Sam Raimi
420	Airplane!	1980	Jim Abrahams, Jerry & David Zucker
421	Red River	1948	Howard Hawks & Arthur Rosson
422	Rope	1948	Alfred Hitchcock
423	Y tu mamá también	2001	Alfonso Cuarón
424	Million Dollar Baby	2004	Clint Eastwood
425	Pickpocket	1959	Robert Bresson
426	Being John Malkovich	1999	Spike Jonze
427	The Cameraman	1928	Buster Keaton & Edward Sedgwick
428	Satantango	1994	Béla Tarr
429	Hard Boiled	1992	John Woo
430	Naked	1993	Mike Leigh
431	The Double Life of Veronique	1991	Krzysztof Kieślowski
432	Arrival	2016	Denis Villeneuve
433	Rushmore	1998	Wes Anderson
434	Sing Street	2016	John Carney
435	Rebel Without a Cause	1955	Nicholas Ray
436	The Lady Vanishes	1938	Alfred Hitchcock
437	The Last Laugh	1924	F.W. Murnau
438	The Green Mile	1999	Frank Darabont
439	Vivre Sa Vie	1962	Jean-Luc Godard
440	Spartacus	1960	Stanley Kubrick
441	A Hard Day's Night	1964	Richard Lester
442	Autumn Sonata	1978	Ingmar Bergman
443	Ghostbusters	1984	Ivan Reitman
444	The Hidden Fortress	1958	Akira Kurosawa
445	Capernaum	2018	Nadine Labaki
446	Mommy	2014	Xavier Dolan
447	Le Cercle Rouge	1970	Jean-Pierre Melville
448	Down by Law	1986	Jim Jarmusch
449	Stalag 17	1953	Billy Wilder
450	Boyhood	2014	Richard Linklater
451	Trouble in Paradise	1932	Ernst Lubitsch
452	Judgment at Nuremberg	1961	Stanley Kramer
453	Casino	1995	Martin Scorsese
454	McCabe & Mrs. Miller	1971	Robert Altman
455	The Prestige	2006	Christopher Nolan
456	The Irishman	2019	Martin Scorsese
457	Blade Runner 2049	2017	Denis Villeneuve
458	Faust	1926	F.W. Murnau
459	Marriage Story	2019	Noah Baumbach
460	Fireworks	1997	Takeshi Kitano
461	Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi	1983	Richard Marquand
462	Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind	1984	Hayao Miyazaki
463	Goldfinger	1964	Guy Hamilton
464	Gangs of Wasseypur	2012	Anurag Kashyap
465	Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs	1937	David Hand
466	Invasion of the Body Snatchers	1956	Don Siegel
467	Top Hat	1935	Mark Sandrich
468	The King's Speech	2010	Tom Hooper
469	Farewell My Concubine	1993	Chen Kaige
470	The Breakfast Club	1985	John Hughes
471	Wolf Children	2012	Mamoru Hosoda
472	The Sixth Sense	1999	M. Night Shyamalan
473	Boyz n the Hood	1991	John Singleton
474	In the Name of the Father	1993	Jim Sheridan
475	Gladiator	2000	Ridley Scott
476	The Phantom Carriage	1921	Victor Sjöström
477	Dead Poets Society	1989	Peter Weir
478	What We Do in the Shadows	2014	Jemaine Clement & Taika Waititi
479	The Birds	1963	Alfred Hitchcock
480	Moonrise Kingdom	2012	Wes Anderson
481	A Fistful of Dollars	1964	Sergio Leone
482	Kill Bill: Vol. 1	2003	Quentin Tarantino
483	Manchester by the Sea	2016	Kenneth Lonergan
484	Who Framed Roger Rabbit	1988	Robert Zemeckis
485	Almost Famous	2000	Cameron Crowe
486	Lady Bird	2017	Greta Gerwig
487	To Have and Have Not	1944	Howard Hawks
488	Kiki's Delivery Service	1989	Hayao Miyazaki
489	Kill Bill: Vol. 2	2004	Quentin Tarantino
490	Eyes Without a Face	1960	Georges Franju
491	Blazing Saddles	1974	Mel Brooks
492	The Sacrifice	1986	Andrei Tarkovsky
493	The 39 Steps	1935	Alfred Hitchcock
494	Donnie Darko	2001	Richard Kelly
495	Gone Girl	2014	David Fincher
496	Eraserhead	1977	David Lynch
497	Hero	2002	Zhang Yimou
498	Ghost in the Shell	1995	Mamoru Oshii
499	Miller's Crossing	1990	Joel & Ethan Coen
500	Meet Me in St. Louis	1944	Vincente Minnelli
501	Great Expectations	1946	David Lean
502	Contempt	1963	Jean-Luc Godard
503	Scarface	1932	Howard Hawks
504	Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles	1975	Chantal Akerman
505	My Left Foot	1989	Jim Sheridan
506	The Long Goodbye	1973	Robert Altman
507	Zootopia	2016	Byron Howard
508	Catch Me If You Can	2002	Steven Spielberg
509	Fitzcarraldo	1982	Werner Herzog
510	West Side Story	1961	Jerome Robbins & Robert Wise
511	All That Jazz	1979	Bob Fosse
512	Castle in the Sky	1986	Hayao Miyazaki
513	Kagemusha	1980	Akira Kurosawa
514	The Wolf of Wall Street	2013	Martin Scorsese
515	My Fair Lady	1964	George Cukor
516	Dunkirk	2017	Christopher Nolan
517	Guardians of the Galaxy	2014	James Gunn
518	The Lost Weekend	1945	Billy Wilder
519	The Intouchables	2011	Eric Toledano & Olivier Nakache
520	Nightcrawler	2014	Dan Gilroy
521	Short Cuts	1993	Robert Altman
522	A Silent Voice	2016	Naoko Yamada
523	The Innocents	1961	Jack Clayton
524	Nostalgia	1983	Andrei Tarkovsky
525	Mean Streets	1973	Martin Scorsese
526	Rocky	1976	John G. Avildsen
527	I Am Cuba	1964	Mikhail Kalatozov
528	3-Iron	2004	Kim Ki-duk
529	Dirty Harry	1971	Don Siegel
530	Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior	1981	George Miller
531	The Crowd	1928	King Vidor
532	The Triplets of Belleville	2003	Sylvain Chomet
533	Black Swan	2010	Darren Aronofsky
534	Mon Oncle	1958	Jacques Tati
535	The Piano	1993	Jane Campion
536	Ed Wood	1994	Tim Burton
537	Head-On	2004	Fatih Akin
538	Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban	2004	Alfonso Cuarón
539	The Insider	1999	Michael Mann
540	Forbidden Games	1952	René Clément
541	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2	2011	David Yates
542	When Harry Met Sally...	1989	Rob Reiner
543	The Wrestler	2008	Darren Aronofsky
544	The Player	1992	Robert Altman
545	Inside Llewyn Davis	2013	Joel & Ethan Coen
546	Blow-Up	1966	Michelangelo Antonioni
547	The Remains of the Day	1993	James Ivory
548	The Man Who Would Be King	1975	John Huston
549	The Florida Project	2017	Sean Baker
550	Napoleon	1927	Abel Gance
551	Suspiria	1977	Dario Argento
552	Drive	2011	Nicolas Winding Refn
553	The Producers	1967	Mel Brooks
554	That Obscure Object of Desire	1977	Luis Buñuel
555	The Outlaw Josey Wales	1976	Clint Eastwood
556	Klaus	2019	Sergio Pablos
557	The African Queen	1951	John Huston
558	Ninotchka	1939	Ernst Lubitsch
559	Slumdog Millionaire	2008	Danny Boyle
560	My Man Godfrey	1936	Gregory La Cava
561	Dangal	2016	Nitesh Tiwari
562	Blood Simple.	1984	Joel & Ethan Coen
563	Interstellar	2014	Christopher Nolan
564	About Elly	2009	Asghar Farhadi
565	Hot Fuzz	2007	Edgar Wright
566	Johnny Guitar	1954	Nicholas Ray
567	Planet of the Apes	1968	Franklin J. Schaffner
568	The Quiet Man	1952	John Ford
569	Fantastic Mr. Fox	2009	Wes Anderson
570	Casino Royale	2006	Martin Campbell
571	Monsieur Hulot's Holiday	1953	Jacques Tati
572	Adaptation.	2002	Spike Jonze
573	American Graffiti	1973	George Lucas
574	Barton Fink	1991	Joel & Ethan Coen
575	Tampopo	1985	Juzo Itami
576	Little Miss Sunshine	2006	Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris
577	Edward Scissorhands	1990	Tim Burton
578	The Earrings of Madame de…	1953	Max Ophüls
579	Arsenic and Old Lace	1944	Frank Capra
580	Doctor Zhivago	1965	David Lean
581	The Virgin Spring	1960	Ingmar Bergman
582	Jean de Florette	1986	Claude Berri
583	Zodiac	2007	David Fincher
584	Aparajito	1956	Satyajit Ray
585	The Asphalt Jungle	1950	John Huston
586	Ex Machina	2014	Alex Garland
587	The Favourite	2018	Yorgos Lanthimos
588	The Royal Tenenbaums	2001	Wes Anderson
589	The Twilight Samurai	2002	Yôji Yamada
590	Pierrot le Fou	1965	Jean-Luc Godard
591	The Day the Earth Stood Still	1951	Robert Wise
592	Enter the Dragon	1973	Robert Clouse
593	Batman Begins	2005	Christopher Nolan
594	Hell or High Water	2016	David Mackenzie
595	Dersu Uzala	1975	Akira Kurosawa
596	Letter from an Unknown Woman	1948	Max Ophüls
597	Sleuth	1972	Joseph L. Mankiewicz
598	Whisper of the Heart	1995	Yoshifumi Kondô
599	Nobody Knows	2004	Hirokazu Koreeda
600	Glengarry Glen Ross	1992	James Foley
601	Dogville	2003	Lars von Trier
602	Nine Queens	2000	Fabián Bielinsky
603	The Sweet Hereafter	1997	Atom Egoyan
604	Dazed and Confused	1993	Richard Linklater
605	True Romance	1993	Tony Scott
606	The Great Beauty	2013	Paolo Sorrentino
607	Band of Outsiders	1964	Jean-Luc Godard
608	Eighth Grade	2018	Bo Burnham
609	The Killing Fields	1984	Roland Joffé
610	Once	2007	John Carney
611	The Artist	2011	Michel Hazanavicius
612	Sling Blade	1996	Billy Bob Thornton
613	Ferris Bueller's Day Off	1986	John Hughes
614	Dial M for Murder	1954	Alfred Hitchcock
615	The Farewell	2019	Lulu Wang
616	Limelight	1952	Charles Chaplin
617	Charade	1963	Stanley Donen
618	Prisoners	2013	Denis Villeneuve
619	Mildred Pierce	1945	Michael Curtiz
620	Kubo and the Two Strings	2016	Travis Knight
621	Winter Sleep	2014	Nuri Bilge Ceylan
622	Hedwig and the Angry Inch	2001	John Cameron Mitchell
623	Kiss Me Deadly	1955	Robert Aldrich
624	Pride	2014	Matthew Warchus
625	After Hours	1985	Martin Scorsese
626	East of Eden	1955	Elia Kazan
627	Mission: Impossible - Fallout	2018	Christopher McQuarrie
628	The Mother and the Whore	1973	Jean Eustache
629	Perfect Blue	1997	Satoshi Kon
630	The Blues Brothers	1980	John Landis
631	Elevator to the Gallows	1958	Louis Malle
632	Pain and Glory	2019	Pedro Almodóvar
633	The Fugitive	1993	Andrew Davis
634	The Vanishing	1988	George Sluizer
635	Hidden Figures	2016	Theodore Melfi
636	JFK	1991	Oliver Stone
637	Dancer in the Dark	2000	Lars von Trier
638	Don't Look Now	1973	Nicolas Roeg
639	Dallas Buyers Club	2013	Jean-Marc Vallée
640	Hotel Rwanda	2004	Terry George
641	Sense and Sensibility	1995	Ang Lee
642	The Avengers	2012	Joss Whedon
643	Vampyr	1932	Carl Theodor Dreyer
644	Twelve Monkeys	1995	Terry Gilliam
645	Rain Man	1988	Barry Levinson
646	Pinocchio	1940	Hamilton Luske & Ben Sharpsteen
647	The White Ribbon	2009	Michael Haneke
648	Zelig	1983	Woody Allen
649	The Magnificent Ambersons	1942	Orson Welles & Fred Fleck
650	Stranger Than Paradise	1984	Jim Jarmusch
651	Picnic at Hanging Rock	1975	Peter Weir
652	3 Idiots	2009	Rajkumar Hirani
653	Phantom Thread	2017	Paul Thomas Anderson
654	The Last Emperor	1987	Bernardo Bertolucci
655	Birdman	2014	Alejandro González Iñárritu
656	Day of Wrath	1943	Carl Theodor Dreyer
657	The Texas Chain Saw Massacre	1974	Tobe Hooper
658	Deliverance	1972	John Boorman
659	Gandhi	1982	Richard Attenborough
660	Warrior	2011	Gavin O'Connor
661	In Bruges	2008	Martin McDonagh
662	C.R.A.Z.Y.	2005	Jean-Marc Vallée
663	To Live	1994	Zhang Yimou
664	The Fly	1986	David Cronenberg
665	The Lego Movie	2014	Phil Lord & Christopher Miller
666	Volver	2006	Pedro Almodóvar
667	The Thin Red Line	1998	Terrence Malick
668	Our Hospitality	1923	John G. Blystone & Buster Keaton
669	La Notte	1961	Michelangelo Antonioni
670	The Holy Mountain	1973	Alejandro Jodorowsky
671	Malcolm X	1992	Spike Lee
672	The Dark Knight Rises	2012	Christopher Nolan
673	The Purple Rose of Cairo	1985	Woody Allen
674	Isle of Dogs	2018	Wes Anderson
675	The Lion in Winter	1968	Anthony Harvey
676	A Short Film About Killing	1988	Krzysztof Kieślowski
677	Black Cat, White Cat	1998	Emir Kusturica
678	Mother	2009	Bong Joon-ho
679	Snatch.	2000	Guy Ritchie
680	If....	1968	Lindsay Anderson
681	Toy Story 4	2019	John Lasseter
682	Godzilla	1954	Ishirô Honda
683	A Short Film About Love	1988	Krzysztof Kieślowski
684	Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages	1916	D.W. Griffith
685	Carol	2015	Todd Haynes
686	Letters from Iwo Jima	2006	Clint Eastwood
687	Fiddler on the Roof	1971	Norman Jewison
688	Moon	2009	Duncan Jones
689	L'Eclisse	1962	Michelangelo Antonioni
690	Serpico	1973	Sidney Lumet
691	Porco Rosso	1992	Hayao Miyazaki
692	The Heiress	1949	William Wyler
693	Winter Light	1963	Ingmar Bergman
694	Cat on a Hot Tin Roof	1958	Richard Brooks
695	Elite Squad: The Enemy Within	2010	José Padilha
696	Deep Red	1975	Dario Argento
697	The Ox-Bow Incident	1942	William A. Wellman
698	Pride & Prejudice	2005	Joe Wright
699	The Blue Angel	1930	Josef von Sternberg
700	Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown	1988	Pedro Almodóvar
701	Three Colors: White	1994	Krzysztof Kieślowski
702	The Ladykillers	1955	Alexander Mackendrick
703	Breakfast at Tiffany's	1961	Blake Edwards
704	Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India	2001	Ashutosh Gowariker
705	Baby Driver	2017	Edgar Wright
706	Iron Man	2008	Jon Favreau
707	Kramer vs. Kramer	1979	Robert Benton
708	The Martian	2015	Ridley Scott
709	The Bourne Ultimatum	2007	Paul Greengrass
710	Thor: Ragnarok	2017	Taika Waititi
711	Burning	2018	Lee Chang-dong
712	The Wind Rises	2013	Hayao Miyazaki
713	Jojo Rabbit	2019	Taika Waititi
714	Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2	2013	Jay Oliva
715	Cache (Hidden)	2005	Michael Haneke
716	Delicatessen	1991	Jean-Pierre Jeunet & Marc Caro
717	Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory	1971	Mel Stuart
718	Shrek	2001	Andrew Adamson & Vicky Jenson
719	A Christmas Story	1983	Bob Clark
720	The Life of Oharu	1952	Kenji Mizoguchi
721	Pandora's Box	1929	G.W. Pabst
722	Five Easy Pieces	1970	Bob Rafelson
723	Thelma & Louise	1991	Ridley Scott
724	Andhadhun	2018	Sriram Raghavan
725	The Big Sick	2017	Michael Showalter
726	Gilda	1946	Charles Vidor
727	Creed	2015	Ryan Coogler
728	Blue Is the Warmest Color	2013	Abdellatif Kechiche
729	RoboCop	1987	Paul Verhoeven
730	Shane	1953	George Stevens
731	A Face in the Crowd	1957	Elia Kazan
732	Moana	2016	Ron Clements & John Musker
733	Argo	2012	Ben Affleck
734	Gravity	2013	Alfonso Cuarón
735	BlacKkKlansman	2018	Spike Lee
736	I Am a Fugitive from the Chain Gang	1932	Mervyn LeRoy
737	The Magnificent Seven	1960	John Sturges
738	Run Lola Run	1998	Tom Tykwer
739	A Star Is Born	1954	George Cukor
740	Mystic River	2003	Clint Eastwood
741	Brooklyn	2015	John Crowley
742	The Ten Commandments	1956	Cecil B. DeMille
743	Miracle on 34th Street	1947	George Seaton
744	Into the Wild	2007	Sean Penn
745	This Is England	2006	Shane Meadows
746	Love and Death	1975	Woody Allen
747	Mustang	2015	Deniz Gamze Ergüven
748	Departures	2008	Yojiro Takita
749	Star Trek	2009	J.J. Abrams
750	Selma	2014	Ava DuVernay

Please let me know if there are any glaring omissions, mistakes, or possible bias, as well as any other feedback that you have that could improve the list. Thank you.
Extra Lists:
500 ‘Greatest’ Movies of the 21st Century
CRITIC EDITION: Top10ner’s 1000 ‘Greatest’ Films of All Time
AUDIENCE EDITION: Top10ner’s 1000 ‘Greatest’ Movies of All Time

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[Let's Build] Attractions in a demon pleasure palace that aren't sexual

How do you want to do this? A Discussion on Selective Rule Enforcement and the application of the "Rule of Cool"

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**“Once upon a time, around a table…”

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How do you want to do this? A Discussion on Selective Rule Enforcement

Abstract:

**“Once upon a time, around a table…”

Session 1: What is the Relationship between, Players, Games and Rules?

Session 2: The Ethics of a Dungeon Master

Session 3: “Well… You can Certainly Try”- Some Famous DM

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