D&D (2024) What do you want in the revised DMG?

[Mordhau]

Put the magic items in the monster book and then there's no need for the DMG.

 

[Malmuria]

Put the magic items in the monster book and then there's no need for the DMG.

I was just looking this up for the other thread, but the 5e SRD is pretty extensive in terms of game master rules. And the various online versions of it are much easier to reference for a dm than the book. Generally I'm in favor of physical books over digital tools, especially at the table, but the dmg might actually be a place where a digital tool is superior (and more cost effective).

 

[jdrakeh]

A more robust chase system, probably lifted largely from Spycraft 2.0 (I'm not a fan of Spycraft overall, but those chase mechanics are awesome).

 

[ART!]

Adventure creation could be largely covered off by including a short (but well-designed!!!) adventure as an appendix with lots and lots of short to-the-point side notes saying "Here's why [this element] exists in this adventure, this is why it's where/what it is, and here's a few other options for it." along with a design-details summary at the end.

13th Age's core rulebook is one of the few rpg rulebooks I've read cover-to-cover. The reason that's the case is how accessible it's written, and a major part of that accessibility is the regular sidebars that explain why one of the rules on that page is the way it is, and what other solutions they considered for addressing the issue that rule covers. Understanding the why's makes the rules much easier to understand and to remember.

 

[Mordhau]

13th Age's core rulebook is one of the few rpg rulebooks I've read cover-to-cover. The reason that's the case is how accessible it's written, and a major part of that accessibility is the regular sidebars that explain why one of the rules on that page is the way it is, and what other solutions they considered for addressing the issue that rule covers. Understanding the why's makes the rules much easier to understand and to remember.

Yeah I remember reading 5e a lot of times and thinking "just tell us what you intend here"*. A lot of forum arguments about stealth might have been avoided if they'd just had a 13th Age style sidebar which told us something like "this is how we intend to use stealth, or perhaps more importantly, this is how difficult we intend it to be to get Sneak Attack, so in the case of the Rogue and hiding err on the side of being permissive".

*I appreciate that Mike Mearls use to do that sometimes on twitter but it would have been better in the book. In contrast Jeremy Crawford's often legalistic parsing of the rules seems a completely dysfunctional approach.

 

[MNblockhead]

I'm starting to think that if we included everything people want (including me) the book might start to look like this:
View attachment 149038

<Look over at the massive Frog God Games tomes bending the bookshelf>

One can dream.

 

[MNblockhead]

I mainly would like it to be organized in a way that makes it easier to look things up. Even for sections I'm familiar with, even in D&D Beyond with its search capabilities it takes me much more effort to jump to a section I want to get to. The current organization just doesn't work well for me. More obvious cross-references would also help.

 

[Parmandur]

I mainly would like it to be organized in a way that makes it easier to look things up. Even for sections I'm familiar with, even in D&D Beyond with its search capabilities it takes me much more effort to jump to a section I want to get to. The current organization just doesn't work well for me. More obvious cross-references would also help.

Yeah, the content is solid, but the organization is bonkers.

 

[Raduin711]

I hope they don't take out too much. The DMG is a pretty solid book as it is. While there is room for improvement, I would rather not lose any optional rules or things like that.

 

[Rogerd1]

We need to get rid of spells per day, and instead have a magic points that the player can spend as needed.

Have skill programs, in addition to basic skills, to allow complete bespoking of characters, e.g. Intelligence or Espionage programs to allow full on spy characters.

We need a full on points buy, for stats, skills, and powers.

Powers need splitting up into the following-

Martial abilities - these are similar to the old RQ Legendary abilities, and also feats as they currently exist, and those seen in Gurps Martial arts.

Gifted - abilities granted by gods to Paladins etc.

Cantrips - these have a points cost and players can pick anything they want.

Magic User types - whereas now we have Sorcerers, Warlocks etc, just enable the points system to allow players to pick whether their magic is innate, or drawn from some entity.

Then each of the above powers needs splitting into how much they would cost to purchase, in the aforementioned point buy system.

And also different cosmology types that could be used for the game, and how to incorporate with particular settings. Include in this different types of beings that could be incorporated.