D&D 5E Regarding DMG, Starter Set and Essentials kit: Are they good for the starting DMs?

[FrogReaver]

Alright. You want an example? I'll quote an example. This is something I'm pretty reluctant to do, because while rules text is unambiguously something you can clearly share, developer commentary is...a lot more questionable. But you've been so strident in your requests, and made rather a lot of silence or refusal to provide such things. So here you go.

First example is rules text, so I can post that without much difficulty. These come from 13th Age, a game which I think has an excellent core book. It's for the Linguist feat. Though the whole feat is good, the relevant part is underlined (which is not in the original; all other emphasis is.)


Second example: the developer commentary about the One Unique Thing feature. TL;DR: Every character gets some thing which makes them unique in all the world. It can't have combat applications, but it can be whatever the DM and player agree on.


Finally, a bit simply from Rob Heinsoo, discussing why they went with average damage for monster attacks.


Each of these demonstrates an actual delving into the how and why, a discussion of the interaction between players and DM, ideas on the act and process of running. It's conversational, which might not necessarily be the right tone for every part of the DMG, but it helps make it feel like amiable instruction from a person. I find it extremely helpful for thinking about how I could run the game, and in helping me make my own decisions about how I will run my game.

Thank you. I’ll give my thoughts later.

 

[Umbran]

Mod Note:
Folks,

Taking your vehemence out on each other is not going to be constructive, and will likely come to more pointed red text and people being removed from the discussion.

There's some folks who are busy declaring what is and isn't there, and it sure looks like you are reading to respond, and prove the other person wrongity-wrong with wrong sauce, rather than to understand the other person's point of view.

You may find it much more useful to accept that getting others to accede that you are correct is not going to happen. What, then, do you want to do with your next post in the thread? Think on that before you click "Post reply."

 

[hawkeyefan]

Let me just say this... any time we've reached the point where actual design notes are being cited as the "guidance" needed to be provided for absolute beginners to start running a ttrpg... I just... yeah I don't even know what to say to that.

I think that explaining design decisions is useful to all levels of experience of DMs.

That's honestly something I'd like to see more of. It's kind of a request for "show, don't tell". I think the DMG tells a lot more than it shows.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Let me just say this... any time we've reached the point where actual design notes are being cited as the "guidance" needed to be provided for absolute beginners to start running a ttrpg... I just... yeah I don't even know what to say to that.

Have you had math or science classes, where you were just given some random formula to plug-n-chug, without any explanation as to where it came from or why it mattered?

I've dealt with classes like that. Thankfully, I avoided most of them, but there were a couple I simply couldn't avoid. Those classes are often worse than useless for actually getting students to learn, as opposed to briefly memorizing something solely to complete tests.

Now, I grant that some of the time, an actual, full-throated, rigorous explanation of why a particular thing is the way it is could go over someone's head, or require things they don't know yet. One of my go-to examples is the logistic function (the "sigmoid" curve, which we have all become so frustratingly acquainted with as a result of the pandemic.) That's the one that looks like a squashed S, and represents a population growing from an initial state up to a maximum carrying capacity. To truly understand why that function exists--and why it must be what it is, and that no other thing would do--you have to take differential equations. That is what I would call "designer's notes."

But you don't need to take four years of calculus in order to get the fundamental idea of why it works the way it does. You can, instead, give practical and physically-rooted explanations. You can have students work through in an investigative kind of way, and then show them in practical terms how this function does the job.(Briefly, it grows both based on how many things there are, and how much more "space" there is for more things to grow. If there are few things, it grows slow; if there is almost no "space" left for new things, it grows slow. It only grows fast when there are lots of things and lots of space left for new things.)

That's how I see Heinsoo's and Tweet's commentaries here, as well as their "Game Master" asides and such. Particularly the third example. They aren't teaching game design. But they are giving people a reason for why this specific design was chosen, as opposed to some other design. That reason is given with practical grounding, so that the GM can understand what effects it had.

 

[Oofta]

I think that explaining design decisions is useful to all levels of experience of DMs.

That's honestly something I'd like to see more of. It's kind of a request for "show, don't tell". I think the DMG tells a lot more than it shows.

There are videos that go over some of the design decisions and why they made them if you care. You just have to look for them.

I found them interesting but not particularly useful as far as running or playing the game.

 

[hawkeyefan]

There are videos that go over some of the design decisions and why they made them if you care. You just have to look for them.

I found them interesting but not particularly useful as far as running or playing the game.

Right. There are videos for everything if you look. I don't think that the existence of videos on a topic precludes it from being included in the DMG.

Why do you think you didn't find them very useful? Do you think that is generally the case, or more a product of the fact that you've been DMing for many years? Something else?

Generally, I think the more they talk about the nuts and bolts of design... because being a DM involves a good amount of design... the better. I don't want them to present it like some kind of magical process. There are skills involved that can be taught, they can be honed and improved. There are mistakes that have already been made, and can be avoided by new folks, if they're given warning about them.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Only a bard would purchase such a book. Your a bardocrite!

A true birder would get Olsen's Standard Book of British Birds.

But the one without the gannet. The Expurgated version.

The Expurgated Version of Olsen's Standard Book of British Birds.

 

[Oofta]

Right. There are videos for everything if you look. I don't think that the existence of videos on a topic precludes it from being included in the DMG.

Why do you think you didn't find them very useful? Do you think that is generally the case, or more a product of the fact that you've been DMing for many years? Something else?

Generally, I think the more they talk about the nuts and bolts of design... because being a DM involves a good amount of design... the better. I don't want them to present it like some kind of magical process. There are skills involved that can be taught, they can be honed and improved. There are mistakes that have already been made, and can be avoided by new folks, if they're given warning about them.

I found them interesting from a "how do you design a game" point of view but it didn't have any real impact on how I ran the game. I can't divorce myself from experience of course, but I don't think I would have found them useful even if I had never played the game.

The only way to figure out what works for me and my group is to actually try things out. As an example I thought inspiration was a cool idea. But when it came to actual play it's slowly faded away and I rarely, if ever use it because it didn't add to the game enough for me. No amount of the developers talking about why they included it (and continue to push it with the UA articles) is going to change that. Experience is the best teacher.

 

[Oofta]

Only a bard would purchase such a book. Your a bardocrite!

Wait, bards can read?

 

[Imaro]

Have you had math or science classes, where you were just given some random formula to plug-n-chug, without any explanation as to where it came from or why it mattered?

I've dealt with classes like that. Thankfully, I avoided most of them, but there were a couple I simply couldn't avoid. Those classes are often worse than useless for actually getting students to learn, as opposed to briefly memorizing something solely to complete tests.

Now, I grant that some of the time, an actual, full-throated, rigorous explanation of why a particular thing is the way it is could go over someone's head, or require things they don't know yet. One of my go-to examples is the logistic function (the "sigmoid" curve, which we have all become so frustratingly acquainted with as a result of the pandemic.) That's the one that looks like a squashed S, and represents a population growing from an initial state up to a maximum carrying capacity. To truly understand why that function exists--and why it must be what it is, and that no other thing would do--you have to take differential equations. That is what I would call "designer's notes."

But you don't need to take four years of calculus in order to get the fundamental idea of why it works the way it does. You can, instead, give practical and physically-rooted explanations. You can have students work through in an investigative kind of way, and then show them in practical terms how this function does the job.(Briefly, it grows both based on how many things there are, and how much more "space" there is for more things to grow. If there are few things, it grows slow; if there is almost no "space" left for new things, it grows slow. It only grows fast when there are lots of things and lots of space left for new things.)

That's how I see Heinsoo's and Tweet's commentaries here, as well as their "Game Master" asides and such. Particularly the third example. They aren't teaching game design. But they are giving people a reason for why this specific design was chosen, as opposed to some other design. That reason is given with practical grounding, so that the GM can understand what effects it had.

My point is I'm not saying they are a bad thing, I enjoyed them when I read them but I was an experienced GM/DM at that point (With the experience to actually put their design choices into some context). However if our goal is to provide what a brand new DM needs without scaring them off with bloat, and unnecessary increases in pagecount... I'm not seeing this as essential or really all that practical to include at all.

Do we explain the history and construction of addition to children when they are first learning it? Or do we provide the practical know how along with examples they have the context to understand and relate to?