D&D 5E In Search Of: The 5e Dungeon Master's Guide

[AnotherGuy]

I took an instant like to Matt Colville. I do not watch him religiously at all but he is by far my preferred advice dude on youtube. Could also be the hair, could be the beard. Who knows with these things

 

[Aldarc]

I think an adjustment in tone would fo a lot of good to encourage people to give this DM thing a shot. Matt Colville's excellent video series doesn't emphasize the weight of the role. Instead there's a real you got this vibe that I think is really important in establishing the confidence people need to give this whole thing a shot. Some of the video Chris Perkins used to do have a similar vibe. I really hope that's the vibe we see moving forward.

The vibe of the 5e DMG feels to me more akin to "You're God Almighty, Master of the Universe! Do whatever you want!"

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think that there were a lot of random rolling tables added to 5e as a way to court OSR's love of random tables.

Do you think so? I feel like they're going to lean away from OSR syle play in favor of Critical Role style play.

I mean, I expect that there will still be tables because DMG, but I don't know if we'll see more, and I'm curious to see what kind there will be.

The vibe of the 5e DMG feels to me more akin to "You're God Almighty, Master of the Universe! Do whatever you want!"

They definitely take the top down approach. Very opposite of the 4e version (which I did not play long enough to really recall clearly, but the order of chapters you listed seemed far more intuitive an approach to me). It's like when you hear people give GMing advice and they begin with "Okay, well first you make a whole world!"

 

[Aldarc]

Do you think so? I feel like they're going to lean away from OSR syle play in favor of Critical Role style play.

Were. Not necessarily will be. I do think, however, that One D&D will likely steer the D&D ship even further into 2e/Critical Role style play. It's not my preferred playstyle, but it's not as if there is a shortage of OSR or other Indie Games that veer closer to my various preferences.

They definitely take the top down approach. Very opposite of the 4e version (which I did not play long enough to really recall clearly, but the order of chapters you listed seemed far more intuitive an approach to me). It's like when you hear people give GMing advice and they begin with "Okay, well first you make a whole world!"

Maybe the new DMG will just begin with "Okay, well first you have to become friends with a bunch of famous voice actors."

 

[hawkeyefan]

Were. Not necessarily will be. I do think, however, that One D&D will likely steer the D&D ship even further into 2e/Critical Role style play. It's not my preferred playstyle, but it's not as if there is a shortage of OSR or other Indie Games that veer closer to my various preferences.

Ah, I misread... thought you meant that the new one will have more OSR type tables. I agree with your take.... it seems unlikely.

Maybe the new DMG will just begin with "Okay, well first you have to become friends with a bunch of famous voice actors."

It seems only slightly more difficult than building an entire world before beginning play!

 

[Micah Sweet]

I will be extremely surprised if the new core rulebooks have less art - I would strongly expect the opposite (and a larger font size, a $70 price tag, and no more pages).

Consequently, I really don't expect to see more text in the new books than the current ones - I'd instead be looking to see what can be dropped just to make room.

I am sure you're right about that. Another reason for me not to buy the book.

 

[Aldarc]

It seems only slightly more difficult than building an entire world before beginning play!

That's why I buy my world-building supplies at IKEA. Much easier that way.

 

[MGibster]

You can sit at the table and play the game, but the table will do something or interpret a rule differently than you thought was correct.

I could go to a convention, sit down with six other strangers, and play 5th edition D&D with very little difficulty. There might be some minor differences in how some rules are interpreted, but, for the most part, it's not going to be difficult to play the game. I'm sure there are plenty of folks here who can go into great detail about the various house rules they use that make the game radically different from what's written, but I think it's likely they represent a distinct minority.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I could go to a convention, sit down with six other strangers, and play 5th edition D&D with very little difficulty. There might be some minor differences in how some rules are interpreted, but, for the most part, it's not going to be difficult to play the game. I'm sure there are plenty of folks here who can go into great detail about the various house rules they use that make the game radically different from what's written, but I think it's likely they represent a distinct minority.

I am not saying it will be difficult. And it has been years since I played at a con. For that matter the corner cases where different rules interpretations come up are rare enough. But this forum alone can have quite a wide variance in what a rule means before you ever get into the weeds of houserules.

I am not saying it will happen every time or even often but do not be surprised when it does happen.

 

[pointofyou]

I think an adjustment in tone would fo a lot of good to encourage people to give this DM thing a shot. Matt Colville's excellent video series doesn't emphasize the weight of the role. Instead there's a real you got this vibe that I think is really important in establishing the confidence people need to give this whole thing a shot. Some of the video Chris Perkins used to do have a similar vibe. I really hope that's the vibe we see moving forward.

But if we actually encourage people to become DMs the people who already are DMs will lose their mystique and their aura and that is an unacceptable outcome.