D&D 5E The Mystery of the 5E Dungeon Master's Guide

Yora · May 23, 2014

Lanefan said:
Remains to be seen whether it'll make me happy or not, but I'll be *very* interested to see what they do with this.

Lanefan

My interest gauge just went from 0 to 1. Now I feel like I might at least take a look at it.

jbear · May 23, 2014

"Sidebars in the new DMG help DMs to customize the game to match past editions of D&D."

So these sidebars give sub-systems that allow the DM to adjust the game to include elements of their preferred earlier edition.

As the book is non-essential to play given they are releasing the PHB by itself and expecting people to be able to play I am almost imagining it being like an 'Unearthed Arcana' tome but with more official standing as it is named the DMG.

So if this is true I would expect the DMG to give me the tools to run a game much more similar to 4e e.g. fully tactical combat rules for use of minis and grids. I would expect it to allow others to include features that give a more 3e experience or 1e experience.

I will be interested to see to what extent this book actually allows the DM to customise the game to fit their desired play style.

Ruin Explorer · May 23, 2014

DMZ2112 said:
Let's say my toilet has a leak (true story, actually). The DIY guide gives me step-by-step instructions on removing the tank and replacing the gaskets, and gives me some advice regarding water conservation upgrades I might want to make while I have the toilet disassembled.

The self-help manual tells me to take a deep breath and remember to be grateful that I have a toilet at all.

I don't mean to be flip -- I suffer from an anxiety disorder, and I have derived great personal peace from books that have told me to take a deep breath and be grateful (maybe not in so few words). But all the inner peace in the world isn't going to stop my toilet dripping like a torture chamber of politely indeterminate Asian origin.

By the same token, all the well-intentioned advice in the world isn't going to help me when I need to quickly generate dungeon dressing for a room off the beaten path that my PCs have decided to search top-to-bottom, or when I need to know what the development team has playtested with regard to Constitution saving throw DCs versus poisons of various lethality, or when I need a guideline for an appropriate end-of-quest treasure reward to a party of seven 4th-level PCs.

A campaign is no less complicated a thing than a character, so why should the tools available to me for its construction be any less load-bearing than those provided to players? We don't load the PHB down with roleplaying advice until /after/ all the races, classes, ability scores, feats, skills, equipment, and spells are properly tabulated and organized. All I ask is the same consideration.

Very well explained, but I think you need some stuff that fits in-between those extremes in a "proper" DMG, because D&D is a social game played with humans, not a purely mechanical system. Indeed, the most important parts of D&D, in many ways, aren't mechanical at all. It does need some good mechanical stuff, though.

That said, the most irritating AND the best DM/Storyteller guides I've ever seen have all been closer to self-help than DIY, by your explanations (including Robin Laws' immortal guide, I forget it's name).

My main fear with the DMG is that it will be basically 30% optional "modular" rules, 30% magic items, 20% optional races/classes/etc., and 20% hard mechanical details with no proper explanation of how to use them in a game! Hopefully that isn't the case. Even DIY stuff usually tells you when X tool is appropriate and not Y and so on.

howandwhy99 · May 23, 2014

Henry said:
Well, that explains the price increase, then! Price of wood has increased, plus the extra expense of the sanding, lacquering, and the engraving of "Noob Knocker" on the flats costs extra these days.

Plus, just imagine the look on a mugger's face when he tries to rob that dorky person carrying their silly little DMG...

So this is the mysterious step between Starter Sets and DMG buyers?

View attachment 61791

Now that I think back that does have a familiar sting to it... They really are going for that old school feel.

Mercurius · May 23, 2014

DMZ2112 said:
I'm not going to get this completely right, so anyone with more publishing experience than I have should step in and correct me.

That said, this is something I don't think a lot of people know, but there's a reason why numbers like 320 and 224 and 192 show up a lot in publishing, and it's because of the way books like this are bound. All of these numbers are divisible by 32, which is the size of a bound section of pages in the book. If a page count goes to, say, 193, and can't be reduced, a new section of pages has to be added and suddenly the designers have 31 more pages to fill.

So while 320 pages might be a placeholder, it's pretty likely that it is accurate, because it can't end up at 315, or 325, or even 321. It will either be 320, 288, or 352.

Did I explain that without making a total ass of myself?

That's about right, but in actuality if they had 193 pages they wouldn't create 31 more, they'd either cut something or format it slightly differently (e.g. take out one picture, reduce font size) to get it to 192 - or add a blank page or two.

GX.Sigma said:
Mike said on Twitter a while ago that the DMG won't have much DM advice, since it'll be aimed at people who are already expert DMs. New DMs are the target audience for the starter set (and I guess some mysterious in-between step).

Now this gets me excited and harkens back to the Greatest RPG Product of All Time, the 1st edition DMG.

DMZ2112 said:
Game stores everywhere will be littered with the smoldering bodies of the failed. It will be glorious.

To become a dungeon master is to be forged in a white-hot crucible. One does not forge steel over a candle.

What are you, the screenwriter of Conan the Barbarian?

Ruin Explorer · May 23, 2014

Mercurius said:
What are you, the screenwriter of Conan the Barbarian?

It certainly seems like a quote that could be backed by the Conan soundtrack (best soundtrack ever btw), but I doubt that he is either John Milius or Oliver Stone, and our forums are poorer for it!

DMZ2112 · May 23, 2014

Ruin Explorer said:
Very well explained, but I think you need some stuff that fits in-between those extremes in a "proper" DMG, because D&D is a social game played with humans, not a purely mechanical system.

What do you mean?

...Oh, you're talking about players! Now that you mention it, I suppose they are human, yes. Physiologically.

My main fear with the DMG is that it will be basically 30% optional "modular" rules, 30% magic items, 20% optional races/classes/etc., and 20% hard mechanical details with no proper explanation of how to use them in a game! Hopefully that isn't the case. Even DIY stuff usually tells you when X tool is appropriate and not Y and so on.

Mercurius said:
Now this gets me excited and harkens back to the Greatest RPG Product of All Time, the 1st edition DMG.

I share Ruin Explorer's careful optimism. If you follow [MENTION=697]mearls[/MENTION] ' Twitter feed, right now it reads like a (short) laundry list of optional rules systems that are getting DMG coverage. I'm sure he has not mentioned them all. I am excited about optional rules, but only to a point. I will probably find myself in a situation sometime during the life of D&D5 in which I want to use the tactical combat module. I will likely never use the spell point casting system. It would be so easy to completely overload the DMG with optional modules and forget that it has a core system to support.

I mean, incredibly easy, as in I could see myself doing exactly that if I were in charge. I hope the developers are more temperate.

What are you, the screenwriter of Conan the Barbarian?

*sniff* That... that might be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me on an internet forum. *sniff*

Ruin Explorer said:
It certainly seems like a quote that could be backed by the Conan soundtrack (best soundtrack ever btw), but I doubt that he is either John Milius or Oliver Stone, and our forums are poorer for it!

Maybe someday.

Li Shenron · May 23, 2014

Mercurius said:
My little joke aside, what more do we know? Does that last sentence ("Inside you'll find...") tell us everything we need to know, making this thread another exercise in speculative futility? Or have their been hints along the way of something else?

Remember, this is 320 pages - a meaty tome for the DMG. Magic items are back, which accounts for a lot, and presumably there will be some modular options ("optional game rules"), but I suppose I'm wondering about the first couple parts - world building, adventure design, etc. And will there be setting info and/or example adventures?

What say you?

I am not counting much on world building and adventure design guidelines, because they can take a lot of space but be so generic that there's a risk they make for a good read once.

The optional rules and modules are the biggest deal about the 5e DMG. It all matters which ones will make it to the DMG, among the many modules that were either shown in the playtests or announced in L&L: will battlesystem, inspiration rules, tactical combat system, downtime system be in the DMG or will they be delayed to later products? Personally I think yes but I can't be sure.

Also, don't known if this is mentioned already, but chase rules will be there too.

TarionzCousin · May 23, 2014

howandwhy99 said:
So this is the mysterious step between Starter Sets and DMG buyers?

View attachment 61791

Now that I think back that does have a familiar sting to it... They really are going for that old school feel.

I can't view the attachment. Is it just me?

Thaumaturge · May 23, 2014

TarionzCousin said:
I can't view the attachment. Is it just me?

It is not.

Thaumaturge.

D&D 5E The Mystery of the 5E Dungeon Master's Guide

Yora

Legend

jbear

First Post

Ruin Explorer

Legend

howandwhy99

Adventurer

Mercurius

Legend

Ruin Explorer

Legend

DMZ2112

Chaotic Looseleaf

Li Shenron

Legend

TarionzCousin

Second Most Angelic Devil Ever

Thaumaturge

Wandering. Not lost. (He/they)

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