D&D 5E (2014) In Search Of: The 5e Dungeon Master's Guide

[FrogReaver]

I do not think it is the people who want the Dungeon Master's Guide to provide actual guidance who are committing the category error here.

Do you really believe the DMG doesn’t provide guidance?

 

[Azzy]

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!"

It's also the opposite of BECMI's approach.

 

[pointofyou]

Do you really believe the DMG doesn’t provide guidance?

How can it provide guidance if no one reads it?

 

[Azzy]

Do you really believe the DMG doesn’t provide guidance?

Not enough for new DMs.

 

[pointofyou]

How can it provide guidance if no one reads it?

I apologize. That was unwarranted.

There is very little I would call "guidance" in the 5e DMG. What there is is a lot of optional rules and approaches with nothing to help a DM understand why to use them.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

How is saying the DMG shouldn't be a guide or at least include guidance for new DMs not prescriptive? It seems reasonable for someone to look at the word "guide" in the title and at least expect some guidance. It also seems silly to expect someone to learn to DM by DMing the Starter Set which after all has next to nothing in it about how to actually DM.

I do not think it is the people who want the Dungeon Master's Guide to provide actual guidance who are committing the category error here.

In a world where there wasn't already a product (multiple product, but let's concentrate on the Starter Set) ... this would be fine.

But why is there an insistence on putting this in the book ... when there is already an entire product devoted to this?

Have you looked at the links I provided? Have you seen a new group running a starter set?

When you keep demanding that the DMG includes "how to DM," be specific- what is it that you want?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

There is very little I would call "guidance" in the 5e DMG. What there is is a lot of optional rules and approaches with nothing to help a DM understand why to use them.

This is also untrue. There is a large amount of text devoted to different approaches, and the disadvantages and advantages to those approaches.

In fact, a lot of people complain that the DMG does too much "hedging" which is why these posts were written. The DMG is not prescriptive, but descriptive- providing various approaches, and giving the advantages and disadvantages of each.

 

[pointofyou]

I can quote myself too.

There are a few specific things I want.

I want the book to be laid out and organized so actual people can actually read and use it. An actual functional index would be revelatory.

I want a basic explanation of what people usually expect from the game as players. This might need some granularity and some acknowledgment that people sometimes want and expect different things. It should probably include some specific advice for meeting those expectations.

I want some specific commentary on why a DM would run one way as opposed to another. This doesn't need to be judgmental but rather than just telling the new DM they can run in these ways it seems useful to explain at least some of why people run those ways.

I want the effects of and reasoning behind optional rules explained. I'd strongly prefer for those optional rules to have actual thought put into them and I'd strongly prefer for the explanations I want to actually reflect the effects of the optional rules on play.

I want instruction on worldbuilding to focus on getting the most play out of the least work and getting quickly to play. It's fine to work out complicated geography and functional calendars but I do not believe those things are exactly necessary to start play. Telling new DMs to figure out some broad strokes of the setting then some specifics of where play starts then fill things in as needed would be nice. An example of doing so with thought processes explained would be superb.

 

[pointofyou]

This is also untrue. There is a large amount of text devoted to different approaches, and the disadvantages and advantages to those approaches.

In fact, a lot of people complain that the DMG does too much "hedging" which is why these posts were written. The DMG is not prescriptive, but descriptive- providing various approaches, and giving the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Cool. I must have missed the part in the DMG where it gives actual guidance about deciding how much to rely on the dice while running a game. How would someone new to DMing figure that out from reading the the putative guide?

 

[hawkeyefan]

And like I said, I'm experiencing it right now... Getting players who have only played adventures where the story or plot is the driving factor (or where this is their expectation) takes effort to get them to switch over.

I mean you can think what you want but I'm experiencing it right now. My veteran players are pretty good at differentiating it (but it could be because I usually run this type of game)... my beginning players not so much. Just getting them to decide on a goal for their character necessitated alot of back and forth, explanation and suggestions...

I'm not thinking what I want, I'm only able to respond to what you share. I don't know anything about your game beyond what you tell me, and your previous post listed a few things very generally, and none of them sounded all that challenging to me.

You got a bit more specific with this response, so I have a clearer idea.

Then we moved into the... "well what do I do phase" AKA... the phase where I noticed the veteran players were advancing their goals while the beginning players weren't really doing anything except helping them... again discussion with new players so that they understood better that they needed to seek out information to achieve their goals and some ways they could go about that, a discussion with the veteran players to get them more onboard with helping the beginning players achieve their goals as opposed to only driving towards their own, and finally reminding all of them that exploration in and of itself (outside of immediate goals) could lead to new goals. And I honestly still feel like the new players are unsure at times about how to proceed but they are getting better.

So you have two groups of players with different levels of experience with your chosen style of game. Do you think that's more the issue than the lack of proactivity on the part of the newer group? Is it a case of them not being as interested in being proactive? Is that kind of self directed play with their own goals more your expectation for them or theirs?

I mean, whatever the situation, it sounds like the game is functional, and that everyone is involved, though perhaps in different ways.... so I'm not sure what the problem is.

Is the game not working due to this issue? Are you or other participants frustrated in some way?

I mean maybe this seems easy to you but I honestly think it would have been much easier if I had run a linear adventure where the overarching story gave them all a singular motivation, driver and reason to work together while limiting exploration opportunities out of the box.
EDIT: Yeah I'm having a hard time as I actually think about this and write this stuff categorizing the play of our game now as the same as when we played through the adventure in the starter set as an introduction... but I guess that's just me.

I actually find running the prewritten adventures to be tougher than my own stuff. Others likely would say I'm nuts... but I find it much easier to just make up stuff than to try to stick to something someone else already made up. I know that even when I'm using premade material, I'm free to go "off script", but just the existence of that premade stuff makes me second guess myself.