D&D 5E Regarding DMG, Starter Set and Essentials kit: Are they good for the starting DMs?

[Malmuria]

This is a useful but problematic analogy. If you do language immersion, you are learning the language as it is spoken by a community of speakers. Generally, the worst thing that can happen is that you learn an unfashionable dialect and people make fun of you.

If you learn to DM by doing, the 'community of speakers' is your own table. We see this problem all the time, including in threads like these: everyone is speaking 'D&D', but no-one can understand each other. We're all mostly speaking gibberish and reinventing the wheel. This problem is probably insoluble, but a responsible approach to teaching would try and establish some kind of baseline.

One interesting point in which the analogy works is that, in my experience and many other people's, immersion learning tends to plateau after a while. Those much-maligned grammars and dictionaries are important learning tools that remain useful to advanced speakers.

Well no analogy is perfect. But I think where we really reinvent the wheel is not applying what we know about how people learn to ttrpgs. If we look just at written texts, those that are designed to be learning tools are completely different from those that are designed to be reference tools. For dnd, a starter set that has an included adventure (i.e. a place to practice what you learn) is probably a better place to design a teaching/learning tool than a core book that will be referenced 5 years later by the same player. That being said, it would be possible to do both if they are just intentional about how they organize and present the information in the dmg.

 

[Stormonu]

I muddled through DMing when I was new to the hobby. I do not dispute the value of experience but I think it'd be a good thing if the books didn't make muddling through mandatory.

If there is any TRPG someone is going to purchase with no prior history with or knowledge of the category it's D&D. I think it'd be a good thing if the books were helpful to such a someone.

Having cut my teeth on first encountering the D&D game with the Holmes rulebook, I think the current D&D essentials is pretty much as perfect as you're going to get for the game. I'll stick with my guns that anyone with no prior game experience picking up the DMG to start learning D&D is just asking for headaches and heartaches.

 

[darjr]

The new starter set is fundamentally different than the first one. It is a tutorial adventure for anew dm before it’s anything else.

But it’s also a fun adventure too.

 

[pemerton]

I doubt that I'm the only person who had never played D&D or any other RPG in the early 80s, and who learned from the Moldvay rulebook. What distinguishes Moldvay is clear processes for the GM to follow: processes for designing adventure; for running adventures, including both exploration and combat; for adjudicating actions; for awarding XP.

The biggest criticism to be made of Moldvay's processes is that there is no attempt to reconcile thief skills with general exploration abilities with the advice on ad hoc adjudication in Chapter 8. Modern RPG design should be able to achieve that reconciliation while otherwise preserving the clarity of instruction and explanation.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The DMG is definitely not a good book for starting players. It's useful once you have some experience and want some help customising stuff.

The old starter set contents is available free, including LMoP, and is fine for starting players. The Essentials kit is equally fine, but costs money. The new starter set, I haven't read.

The thing about D&D is that it is EASY AND INSTINCTIVE TO PLAY. Pretty much every child is born knowing how to play "let's pretend", and adding a few rules to that is something they do as they get older. D&D is just an extrapolation of that.

It is possible to make D&D difficult to learn - you do it by throwing too much stuff at new players. Keep it to a minimum and let players get on with it and they will learn just fine.

Of course, playing D&D is not the same as enjoying D&D. I can play Monopoly, but I definitely don't enjoy it.

 

[Oofta]

The new starter set is fundamentally different than the first one. It is a tutorial adventure for anew dm before it’s anything else.

But it’s also a fun adventure too.

LMoP probably had a different target audience since it was published 7/15/2014 before any of the core books, with the PHB published 8/19/2014. It was likely targeted more to people who had previous experience with the previous editions of D&D, PF or who had been involved in the playtests. Still a decent start for newbies but not exclusively targeted to them.

 

[pointofyou]

Having cut my teeth on first encountering the D&D game with the Holmes rulebook, I think the current D&D essentials is pretty much as perfect as you're going to get for the game. I'll stick with my guns that anyone with no prior game experience picking up the DMG to start learning D&D is just asking for headaches and heartaches.

I muddled my way through learning to play from AD&D 1e. For new players I'd like to cut down on the muddling-through time and increase the enjoying-the-game time.

My point throughout has been that there's no reason the DMG can't be written in a way that works better for new DMs and that it should be written thus. The typical buyer of the game has changed and the game books should be rewritten to reflect this.

 

[J.Quondam]

The new starter set is fundamentally different than the first one. It is a tutorial adventure for anew dm before it’s anything else.

But it’s also a fun adventure too.

I'm familiar with the first two box sets, but not Stormwreck Isle. In what sense is it a "tutorial" as opposed to the other starter kits? How is its presentation different?

 

[pointofyou]

I'm familiar with the first two box sets, but not Stormwreck Isle. In what sense is it a "tutorial" as opposed to the other starter kits? How is its presentation different?

Inquiring minds want to know!

 

[Composer99]

To my mind, even if you don't structure the DMG to cater to new DMs, it at least ought to be structured such that the content you engage with the most in the game is up front - adjudicating ability checks and running encounters, for instance - and with content that is less and less used increasingly in the back.

So, basically the opposite of its current structure.

In a previous thread on this topic, I noted that parts 2 and 3 of the PHB actually do follow this structure, with the most foundational material - using ability scores - first, and the most advanced and optional material - a reference of spells - last. So it's not as if WotC couldn't manage to restructure the DMG to be more functional.