D&D 5E People don't read the 5E DMG for a reason

[John Lloyd1]

huh?

Why the 'huh'?

 

[tetrasodium]

Why the 'huh'?

There are things that you physically can not photocopy explained in the link, what is stopping you from photocopying those phb elements?

 

[John Lloyd1]

There are things that you physically can not photocopy explained in the link, what is stopping you from photocopying those phb elements?

Just the way they the sections start in the middle or end of a page for subclasses, etc. Definitely a first-world problem.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

The reason: It's the weakest of the core books.

It doesn't spend a lot of time teaching how to be a DM, but instead has a bunch of world-building advice.

It has a bunch of setting information (the most planar info we've gotten in 5E to date), while trying to be a tool for every table.

It has a bunch of magic items, although it's not terribly well organized (why are the weapons mixed in with everything else -- are there DMs who are equally likely, as a rule, to toss in a +1 longsword or jug of alchemy into a treasure?) but not enough information on how they can be made or sold. (I do like the double-page spread of ways to flavor magic items; I've used that a ton.)

Spell-creation advice essentially comes down to "you'll figure it out, champ," while the monster-building and player character species-building advice feels like it was created long before the math of 5E was finalized and isn't terribly helpful.

If 5E is supposed to be someone's first RPG, or even just their first game mastering experience, the DMG isn't the book for them to start with. (Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master is better, but even that is meant for an already experienced DM looking to detox a bit.) But it should be, since it's the resource new DMs are most likely to have.

The irony is that WotC's 4E DMGs were widely respected and looked back fondly upon. Surely some of that text could have been lifted wholesale, or made the model for what to put in the 5E DMG.

Here's hoping that the 1D&D DMG is recalibrated to be more than a resource for existing DMs (honestly, it reads like a bunch of Dragon articles, rather than a cohesive work, to me), but to actually be the textbook for new ones as well.

This is not exactly what you are saying but I can speak for my experience.

I like 5e…quite a lot really. But…

I found the organization to really throw me for a loop to include the players. In many spots a table would have helped me a great deal.

For the DMG, the layout just led to me hopping around and frankly missing some things. Maybe I am due for a read through, I don’t know at this point.

If I buy ANY 5.5 aside from modules, it will be the DMG! I just struggled with getting into it and what I found was a lot had to do with the layout. Where a section might lead me to think about another one they were not well connected.

It was “ok” and served its purpose otherwise. I could just have Anheuser’s disease though: I like beer but don’t think beer likes my brain cells…considering the PHB was also not good for me in terms of layout.

I like the game, play the game and will keep doing so…so no venom or whatever in my assessment…

 

[michaeljpastor]

The class in question was open fist monk. I had to draw a "chart" to help them run their character. They actually got competent at it, but they still almost never used the open hand subclass features (besides healing). (I can't seem to find said chart, a pity)

I'm happy to report that with D&D beyond they seem to be doing better now (playing a swarmskeeper ranger which suits them better).

But yeah, a lot of people just don't want to put in any "work". I have people casting spells without ever reading them.

My DM handed me a swashbuckler chart and now I will be unstoppable!

 

[michaeljpastor]

I'm a fan of 4E and a huge fan of the 4E DMG. But (and this is a big but) that doesn't mean people who prefer the 5E DMG are "wrong" in some way. If I'm honest, I am not a fan of the 5E DMG either, but that doesn't make me right. The most telling thing I can say about the 5E DMG is that it was singled out as a weak book by the designers themselves.

For the 4E DMG, there a only a few chapters that are really rules-centric and pertain to that edition. There is a ton of stuff that you could literally copy and paste into a new book. I suggest that people give it a look in that light. The biggest thing about it was that it had more space simply because magic items were in the PHB. So you had more room to discuss and talk about things with a new DM. There is a reason that the book is well-regarded years later even by people who never liked D&D. But is it "the holy grail" of DMGs? No.

For the 5E DMG, it was sort of a must-purchase book at the time because it had magic items in it. That's sort of the standard for every other DMG out there: you need it if you want the items. The thing that bothered me the most was that it talked about having rules modules in it that were one of the cornerstones of the game during the playtest for D&D Next. What we got really disappointed me in terms of content and effort.

The designers have talked about taking a different approach and making the new DMG more new DM friendly. For me, that's not a concern and it won't be a selling point, but I also get why it's important to do that. There are a ton of great books for running games, and people like Matt Colville have made hundreds of videos on the subject. Thinking of that, the DMG has a tough job to do.

I have many times from many sources that the 4e DMG was very good. Let's hope they take this opportunity to glean the best of all the editions for the next one.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If I buy ANY 5.5 aside from modules, it will be the DMG! I just struggled with getting into it and what I found was a lot had to do with the layout. Where a section might lead me to think about another one they were not well connected.

The 2024 DMG seems like WotC's biggest opportunity. There are a lot of good parts of the 2014 DMG, just organized poorly and missing a lot of other stuff that it should have, IMO, as stated in the first post. They don't have to do a lot to have it suddenly become a very strong book.

Lord knows, there's a large third party pool of books and blogs and YouTube channels of people who have a ton of good ideas. I have to imagine WotC has contacted some of those folks from the past 10 years and asked them if they want to take a crack at a chapter a portion of a chapter in the 2024 DMG.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Or, a slight step down from that, many PbtA games, and the family of OSR games that started with Beyond the Wall, reduce everything the player needs to know about to a playbook/character sheet that often fits on a two-sided piece of paper.

I suspect it'd be possible to get close with that in 5E (I've seen newbie-friendly sheets like that), other than all of the spells. But even there, a document that was just the spells the character had access to would make things a lot less intimidating. (I've done something similar for one of my players and it made a huge difference.)

You can print out Spell cards for just the spells the character casts.

Spell Cards List for D&D 5e

Print spells cards for D&D 5e for all classes; Wizards, warlocks, sorcerers, clerics, paladins, bards, rogues and more.

www.thievesguild.cc

They even have official sets you can buy!

 

[michaeljpastor]

The 2024 DMG seems like WotC's biggest opportunity. There are a lot of good parts of the 2014 DMG, just organized poorly and missing a lot of other stuff that it should have, IMO, as stated in the first post. They don't have to do a lot to have it suddenly become a very strong book.

Lord knows, there's a large third party pool of books and blogs and YouTube channels of people who have a ton of good ideas. I have to imagine WotC has contacted some of those folks from the past 10 years and asked them if they want to take a crack at a chapter a portion of a chapter in the 2024 DMG.

You would think they would, but they haven't PRed that fact, except for Matt and Deborah. So either everyone is being attentively NDA or they're missing a golden opportunity.

 

[Li Shenron]

They're insulting to you, but there's always someone out there for which it's their "first time." Besides, I'm sure everyone could use a refresher on the basics every once in a while. That's why I like reading things from the grognard segment - it reminds one of the roots of the game, and not all of this extra layering of improv acting of recent years.

Yes but they were insulting also to my 8yo kid (the sections on tracking monsters HP and making funny voices for NPCs). Having a book with both very trivial "first time" instructions mixed up in random places with otherwise much more complicated RAW instructions is disfunctional book design. At the very least, the book should separate the instructions for dummies from the instructions for the average reader, which is generally not a dummy if they decided to pick up the DMG.