D&D (2024) D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide (2024)

[tetrasodium]

IMO, the point about whether WotC is making the game easier or harder for DMs to run the game and challenge players is going to be less dependent on the DMG, and more dependent on the Monster Manual. Generally when I’ve seen people say WotC is “hostile” to DMs, they’re usually referring to this point: how much effort does the DM have to put into making an encounter that will challenge players across the various tiers of play?

It always seems to come down to the monsters. How much damage can they do? Do they have enough HP or are they going to eat it in a single round? Are they going to be stunlocked or banished immediately even though they’re your BBEG? Yes, there’s ways to mitigate that but that’s where the increased effort comes in…the amount of work that the DM has to do to make it challenging. It’s why some of the best 3rd party products have been monster accessories as of late.

I think the important part of the GM needing to work around the system's design to amp up encounters in ways that are interesting without getting framed as some kind of adversarial hostile no good cheating despot of a gm is the fact that it leads to adversarial CharOp aimed at thwarting the once neat tricks that are suddenly rendered toothless. After that unreasonable design expectation the GM needed to fill gets stomped enough times it eventually starts to sour the play & damages player trust in their GM.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I wish magic items weren't in here, but I suppose asking them to change this many editions in is silly of me....

I mean, magic items were in the 4e PHB, rather than the DMG.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think the important part of the GM needing to work around the system's design to amp up encounters in ways that are interesting without getting framed as some kind of adversarial hostile no good cheating despot of a gm is the fact that it leads to adversarial CharOp aimed at thwarting the once neat tricks that are suddenly rendered toothless. After that unreasonable design expectation the GM needed to fill gets stomped enough times it eventually starts to sour the play & damages player trust in their GM.

It's almost like, when you have actual rules that both sides genuinely stick to and only break with group consent, they help engender mutual trust and respect When both sides feel they are getting a fair shot and can know that they should make use of the tools available to them to the best of their ability, players are more likely to feel, and become, engaged, and GMs are more likely to play rough and get excited about what they can potentially do.

When you take all the rules away and it's all "whatever That One Guy says, goes," suddenly you need to have that trust just to get off the ground, and anything that endangers that trust imperils the entire exercise. Nobody knows where they stand anymore, so every motive becomes questionable and every deviation becomes suspicious, whether on the GM's side or the players'.

Or, to put it in uselessly pithy terms: It's almost like "DM Empowerment" was kind of a bad idea to begin with.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I mean, magic items were in the 4e PHB, rather than the DMG.

Making that version even less necessary than the others to play (except 1e, which had the attack matrices needed to run combat).

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's almost like, when you have actual rules that both sides genuinely stick to and only break with group consent, they help engender mutual trust and respect When both sides feel they are getting a fair shot and can know that they should make use of the tools available to them to the best of their ability, players are more likely to feel, and become, engaged, and GMs are more likely to play rough and get excited about what they can potentially do.

When you take all the rules away and it's all "whatever That One Guy says, goes," suddenly you need to have that trust just to get off the ground, and anything that endangers that trust imperils the entire exercise. Nobody knows where they stand anymore, so every motive becomes questionable and every deviation becomes suspicious, whether on the GM's side or the players'.

Or, to put it in uselessly pithy terms: It's almost like "DM Empowerment" was kind of a bad idea to begin with.

People don't always agree, and some positions simply don't have a compromise point. When that happens, someone has to decide.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

People don't always agree, and some positions simply don't have a compromise point. When that happens, someone has to decide.

If a person cannot even in principle achieve compromise, someone "deciding" isn't actually going to help things. You have asserted on the one hand that at least one person is participating in bad faith, and then said that it's somehow possible for anyone to overcome that with anything. It isn't. Someone participating in bad faith will defy the "decider" regardless.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Making that version even less necessary than the others to play (except 1e, which had the attack matrices needed to run combat).

Except that it is consistently recognized as one of the best DMGs ever written, even by people who otherwise despise 4e. So what does that tell us?

 

[mamba]

In certain circles, possibly.

anything is in certain circles, nothing is universally true when it comes to TTRPG tastes

 

[tetrasodium]

It's almost like, when you have actual rules that both sides genuinely stick to and only break with group consent, they help engender mutual trust and respect When both sides feel they are getting a fair shot and can know that they should make use of the tools available to them to the best of their ability, players are more likely to feel, and become, engaged, and GMs are more likely to play rough and get excited about what they can potentially do.

When you take all the rules away and it's all "whatever That One Guy says, goes," suddenly you need to have that trust just to get off the ground, and anything that endangers that trust imperils the entire exercise. Nobody knows where they stand anymore, so every motive becomes questionable and every deviation becomes suspicious, whether on the GM's side or the players'.

Or, to put it in uselessly pithy terms: It's almost like "DM Empowerment" was kind of a bad idea to begin with.

Not at all, 5e was never the edition actually designed for anything that could be called "DM empowerment". Instead it was the edition designed with the assumption that every story about horrible no good despotic GMs on places like /r/rpghorrorstories was reflective of the average GM & that players need rules to shield them from such behavior.

The result of that design choice is one where the only direction a GM tends to have for going outside the rules is often a thing where the GM is expected to beusing fiat to snatch awesome away from players rather than cooperatively allowing them to be awesome & do awesome things together.

Before you disagree, the very idea that the GM should be amping up monsters & encounters in ways to compensate for what the inept monster math fails so badly at is evidence of that misguided failure of design.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If a person cannot even in principle achieve compromise, someone "deciding" isn't actually going to help things. You have asserted on the one hand that at least one person is participating in bad faith, and then said that it's somehow possible for anyone to overcome that with anything. It isn't. Someone participating in bad faith will defy the "decider" regardless.

I simply don't agree that the inability to compromise on every issue is an indicator of bad faith.