D&D General 5E Retrospective: Dissecting the MM and the DMG

[Clint_L]

The DMG has never been a particularly useful book. My favourite was 1e but that's mostly for nostalgia reasons, as I basically memorized it back in the day. However, D&D has always had a weird kind of internal struggle over whether and how much information to share with players, so instead of being a useful "guide," the DMG is mostly a repository for esoteric optional rules and, of course, magic items. Which should be in the PHB with all the other equipment.

I really hope the 2024 version of the DMG is an actually worthwhile book.

The MM, on the other hand is my favourite book for 5e. But it's been my favourite book of every edition (I suspect I am not alone in this - what's cooler than a big, illustrated book of weird monsters?). I hear the organization argument but...eh. I have a vast miniatures collection, and I have tried so many times to organize them into the way that makes the most sense, so that I can always intuitively find what I am looking for. And I can't do it. And I'm an audience of one, organizing for myself. So I am convinced that there is no perfect way to organize the MM, and the version we have works better than some and as well as most. It could be improved, I suppose, but I would do it on a case by case basis. Mostly, I like that singular or highly notable creatures are organized by name, and then there are collective entries for things like demons. The one change I would make is to sort it into broad subsections by creature type (e.g. fiends, undead, monstrosities, etc.), but maybe that's just me. That how I currently sort my miniatures. More or less.

Other than that, I would do away with setting specific information from the creature descriptions, and just focus on what the creature is and what it can do. But overall, I still think the 5eMM is aces.

 

[the Jester]

I prefer monsters grouped by some types rather than full alphabetical but think some monster types (like undead) are too varied to be listed all together. Others, while varied, I find too weirdly and non-intuitively named to be easily found if not grouped together. I am never gonna remember glabrezu, but I am gonna remember "I want a kind of demon, let me look through the demons."

My solution to this is to have an entry for "Demons" that gives the basic information and lore about them and gives a list of the types of demons while putting their actual stat blocks under the appropriate letter.

 

[the Jester]

...the DMG is mostly a repository for esoteric optional rules and, of course, magic items. Which should be in the PHB with all the other equipment.

I strongly disagree with this. Magic items should be in the DMG because the DM is, and should be, in charge of how many magic items are in the campaign and when they arrive. There's nothing wrong with a DM choosing to allow players to buy or choose their magic items, but if they're in the PH, players will take that as the norm. It might be in some campaigns, but clearly isn't in all, and trying to force it to be does a disservice to many groups' playstyles.

 

[MockingBird]

I strongly disagree with this. Magic items should be in the DMG because the DM is, and should be, in charge of how many magic items are in the campaign and when they arrive. There's nothing wrong with a DM choosing to allow players to buy or choose their magic items, but if they're in the PH, players will take that as the norm. It might be in some campaigns, but clearly isn't in all, and trying to force it to be does a disservice to many groups' playstyles.

I agree with this as well. I definitely prefer magic items to be in the DMG.

 

[Clint_L]

I strongly disagree with this. Magic items should be in the DMG because the DM is, and should be, in charge of how many magic items are in the campaign and when they arrive. There's nothing wrong with a DM choosing to allow players to buy or choose their magic items, but if they're in the PH, players will take that as the norm. It might be in some campaigns, but clearly isn't in all, and trying to force it to be does a disservice to many groups' playstyles.

My counter to that argument is that other systems do not cordon off some of the equipment in that way, and it's not an issue. So in reality, players and DMs do not have a problem understanding that some equipment is not freely available. If you are worried about it, the PHB could just add a sentence noting that magic items are typically not readily available and must be discovered and earned in the course of the campaign. Including the information in the PHB does not "force" anything.

It's not like putting it in a separate book hides the information from players. It never did, but in the age of the Internet it's nonsensical.

The original DMG did this because D&D has always had a weirdly proprietary notion about restricting some knowledge to DMs.

 

[el-remmen]

weirdly

I don't think it is that weird. Makes sense to me. Also I don't know about everybody else's players but none of mine own the DMG, nor are they the types to google for stuff like that - but they are likely to read stuff in the PHB.

 

[el-remmen]

My solution to this is to have an entry for "Demons" that gives the basic information and lore about them and gives a list of the types of demons while putting their actual stat blocks under the appropriate letter.

This feels like the worst of two worlds for me. Two places to look in the same book for a monster's info.

 

[the Jester]

This feels like the worst of two worlds for me. Two places to look in the same book for a monster's info.

Well, you put all the relevant info for the glabrezu under G. The Demon entry is an overview of demons without getting into the glabrezu's specifics; you don't actually need that entry at all to use that glabrezu. I get what you're saying, but no matter what, you're not going to please everyone.

 

[the Jester]

My counter to that argument is that other systems do not cordon off some of the equipment in that way, and it's not an issue. So in reality, players and DMs do not have a problem understanding that some equipment is not freely available. If you are worried about it, the PHB could just add a sentence noting that magic items are typically not readily available and must be discovered and earned in the course of the campaign. Including the information in the PHB does not "force" anything.

4e had magic items in the PH and had much more player entitlement regarding magic items than any other edition.

Another thing is that if you put 100 pages of magic items in the PH, what are you taking out?