DMG & MM: Players Stay Out?

[Reynard]

"Back in the day" it was strongly suggested that the Dungeon Masters Guide and the Monster Manual were solely the province of the DM. Whether or not this was ever actually true or not is open to debate, but what is certain is that 3E and 3.5 completely tossed the idea out the window. The DMG included information important to the players -- prestige classes and Leadership and magic items/item creation rules -- and certain mechanics in the PHB (animal companions, druid wildshaping and summoning spells) made the MM an indespensible resource for half the classes in the PHB.

I say it is high time to go back to "restricting" the DMG and MM to the DM -- and by that, I mean put the information the players need in the PHB: stats for common animals and summonables, rules regarding feats like leadership and item creation, etc... A new edition -- especially one with so much change -- is the perfect time to get even grizzled veterans' "sense of wonder" back. Knowing all the secrets of the game and its meta-setting, though, don't allow that.

 

[Grymar]

Nice thought, but I don't know a single DM who doesn't play from time to time and only one player who doesn't occasionally put on the DM hat.

 

[Fifth Element]

Nice thought, but I don't know a single DM who doesn't play from time to time and only one player who doesn't occasionally put on the DM hat.

Exactly. I play in one campaign and DM another. Would I be allowed to read the DMG and MM or not?

They may be able to make a more logical split of the info, but the Gygaxian "players are forbidden to gaze upon these words" idea is simply not practical.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Well, there are two points about your argument regarding 3.X handling this "separation". First, if that information is important to the players, it's the DM's job to relay it to them. How he does it is his problem. Whether he reads them the information and asks them to write it down, or simply hands them the books and says "Go read up on it yourself" is up to him. Second, as Grymar already mentioned, there's quite a few players who also DM on occasion. In my gaming group, I have at least 2 players who are DMs themselves a lot of times. Can't forbid them to read the books they need to do their own DMing, after all.

Sometimes I simply wish I had more pure-players, though...DMing for other DMs can be a PITA sometimes.

 

[Grazzt]

Exactly. I play in one campaign and DM another. Would I be allowed to read the DMG and MM or not?

Not if you're wearing your 'player hat' no.

 

[Fenes]

And a bit of time spent on these or the WotC forums, or just reading some story hour, gives a lot of such "secret information".

 

[KrazyHades]

I'm the only full-time DM in my group. One of the players runs a narrative-style campaign once in a while that barely even uses dice. Another runs a real campaign, but only runs a game rarely. I think it would be great if the players were encouraged to avoid reading from books other than the PHB.

 

[Fifth Element]

Not if you're wearing your 'player hat' no.

I don't mean at the table. I meant in general. I'm not going to have some nebulous "sense of wonder" if I'm familiar with the material in the DMG and MM, regardless of whether or not I actually reference them during play.

 

[Grazzt]

I don't mean at the table. I meant in general. I'm not going to have some nebulous "sense of wonder" if I'm familiar with the material in the DMG and MM, regardless of whether or not I actually reference them during play.

Ah. In general...nah....read all ya want. Just no reference during play.

 

[shilsen]

I say it is high time to go back to "restricting" the DMG and MM to the DM -- and by that, I mean put the information the players need in the PHB: stats for common animals and summonables, rules regarding feats like leadership and item creation, etc... A new edition -- especially one with so much change -- is the perfect time to get even grizzled veterans' "sense of wonder" back. Knowing all the secrets of the game and its meta-setting, though, don't allow that.

I'm not seeing a necessary link between players being restricted to the PHB and having a sense of wonder in the game. I run games for a set of very experienced players, and I play in games where I certainly know the DMG and the MM much better than the DM, and in both cases there's a very strong sense of wonder running through the games. Inculcating a sense of wonder is primarily about presentation and much less about mechanics. And even memorizing both DMG and MM is not going to tell you all the "secrets of the game and its meta-setting", since a vast amount of those are (intentionally or not) modified and created anew whenever a DM starts running his game.