D&D (2024) Take A Closer Look At The 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide

Wizards of the Coast has just shared a video delving into the upcoming One D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide, due for release in 2024.

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Scroll down to post #4, below, for a more detailed text summary!

• Chapter 1 -- basic concepts
• Chapter 2 -- Advice, common issues
• Chapter 3 -- Rules cyclopedia
• Chapter 4 -- Adventure building
• Chapter 5 -- Campaign building
• Chapter 6 -- Cosmology
• Chapter 7 -- Magic items
• Chapter 8 -- 'A surprise'
• Appendices -- maps, lore glossary

 

[mamba]

In the older editions up till 3.x at least players made PCs who faced a much higher bar of lethality with less easy recovery*. The GM could do things like providing cheap potions & wands of CLW or regularly handwave rest times. This alone provided mechanical pressure & a fast learning curve on the kinds of things players in the group should talk about during chargen to avoid another trainwreck like that. Even though "Session Zero" as a term & codified thing is a much more recently elevated thing it was extremely common for players to engage in it or similar well before it went from "meet up & make characters" to "Session Zero." Resting & recovery are so utterly trivialized in 5e while monsters are defanged from providing that pressure due to various bonkers baseline expectations (no magic item expectations no feat expectations, wackamole healing, etc). All of that combined means that the player facing chargen text can't just let that section on chargenride as it's always been.

one could make the case that this makes coordinating who plays what unnecessary rather than something that desperately needs to be added....

 

[Hussar]

one could make the case that this makes coordinating who plays what unnecessary rather than something that desperately needs to be added....

4e very much leaned into this where it was entirely possible to play nearly any combination of classes and the game functioned fine.

 

[Scott Christian]

The game, as is, functions just fine no matter class combinations. It is a moot point to try and persuade or coerce any group to be "well rounded." Because there is no such thing in 5e or OneD&D. It is easily fixed by any DM who even remotely considers the PCs and their abilities at the table.

 

[tetrasodium]

Who are these players who create characters for the game without reading the introduction, without watching a How to Play video, without watching an actual play, without listening to any podcast and without reading a website about D&D being a cooperative game?

Plenty of people don't read the introduction or they read it at some point prior to starting to make their character during session zero. Can you point out what page of the PHB contains how to play video "actual play" "podcast" & so on? are you confusing session zero with...

Spoiler: this

I've never encountered someone with the headjack that seems to be required for that.

None of what you address here is in any way relevant to your chief complaint (session zero should be addressed in player-facing material). It is instead a complaint that you can't beat your players into submission by witholding healing or magic and then pitching them into meatgrinders until they acknowledge the supremacy of the DM's playstyle. The D&D equivlaent to Stockholm Syndrome. It is Dominance/submission from a different kind of Dungeon Master. It's a playstyle D&D needs not nor should ever have perpetuated and I do not find its loss in any way lamentable.

And people said my description of players was too extreme. That is so incorrect & hostile it's a rather offensive inversion of what I said in how it tries to villainize me & other GMs. The level of risk I noted & pressure to collaborate was one of the factors present in the old editions where similar chargen text was sufficient. It was sufficient in those editions because of that factor pressuring players to proactively engage in some aspects of session zero type collaboration. Without that risk to apply pressure a better chargen section is needed. I even explained that along with other factors in the rest of the post you are quoting.

one could make the case that this makes coordinating who plays what unnecessary rather than something that desperately needs to be added....

We were talking about session zero. Are you trying to say that session zero is unnecessary?

 

[Zaukrie]

I miss Torog.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

God I hope dragons are made more interesting this time around...

It’s be nice if all monsters got interesting enough to be worth running as written, frankly.

I mean, beasts are terrible, the owlbear is just a bear, etc

 

[bedir than]

I've never encountered someone with the headjack that seems to be required for that.

You see Al Gore invented the internet in the 90s

Dungeons & Dragons | The World's Greatest Roleplaying Game

The official home and digital toolset for Dungeons & Dragons. Dive into D&D books, create a character, and more!

www.dndbeyond.com

So not only does the PHB say that D&D is a team game, it's also on the places where new players would go to learn about the game.

 

[mamba]

We were talking about session zero. Are you trying to say that session zero is unnecessary?

session zero is about more than what player plays what class. You are the one making it about group composition

In the older editions up till 3.x at least players made PCs who faced a much higher bar of lethality with less easy recovery*. The GM could do things like providing cheap potions & wands of CLW or regularly handwave rest times. This alone provided mechanical pressure & a fast learning curve on the kinds of things players in the group should talk about during chargen to avoid another trainwreck like that.

 

[doctorhook]

Legendary Resistance is meant to run out. It's not designed to make powerful creatures immune to crowd control, it's meant to make them resilient to it. I still think 13th Age's solution is better: put hp caps on crowd control spells, as that means you need to rough the targets up first before pressing the iWin button.

FWIW, the Monster Vault dragons weren’t immune to crowd control, they just shook any lockdown conditions automatically at the end of their turn, whereas 5E’s legendary resistance had them succeed automatically on saves before the effect even applied to them.

 

[Zaukrie]

It’s be nice if all monsters got interesting enough to be worth running as written, frankly.

I mean, beasts are terrible, the owlbear is just a bear, etc

Right.