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

[Parmandur]

True story! I had a dream last night that I went back in time to 1974 and taught Gygax to play 5e. He didn't like it.

That sounds like a great comedic short story.

 

[TiQuinn]

I'm not 'suggesting' anything! Read the books, it's spelled out plain as day. The GM shall grant one XP per GP of treasure recovered, with several modifiers and adjustments based on objective criteria. Any player in an AD&D 1e game can calculate their own XP and should get the same results the GM gets.

In 2e this is entirely untrue! The GM has to decide, is a particular action part of a 'class goal' and simply assign an XP value to it without any rules stating what that value should be. There are a few examples, but questions like how they should scale by level, etc. are mostly left to the GM. It's impossible for a player to objectively know what actions are rewarded to what degree. In that sense 2e is basically Calvin Ball.

Sorry, you’re a little late back to the thread. Feel free to read my other responses above but I think the importance of this point is very overblown.

 

[TiQuinn]

Which modules? I mean, nobody will disagree with you that the GM has some leeway in certain areas. Gygax even discussed the techniques of what we now generally call 'illusionism' or similar techniques in the service of generating a good game experience. So we know the intent was never something totally deterministic.

OTOH I don't know of any module which goes beyond the level of perhaps suggesting the GM consider factors like monsters reacting to intruders perhaps. Even then it's clear that these adventures were counting on no such thing. G1 is a fine example. Realistically no party would get far before raising a general alarm, at which point the situation will be almost immediately hopeless for the party.

Yes, we made our own dungeons, what does that change? The rules for how they work are quite clear! You can make up unique stuff, but it still has to be coded in, how it works, what dice throws relate to it, time expenditures, etc. 1e's rules are pretty complete on the subject.

Reacting to intruders is certainly a big difference compared to what other posters have laid out. I named several modules including Ravenloft, Dark Tower, Caverns of Thracia, ToEE, and Against the Giants that suppose that inhabitants of the dungeons may have different motivations, may ally with the party against other factions, may hunt the party down rather than stay in their coded area, strategize against the party. Thats certainly ground for the DM to apply their creativity rather than random rolls dictated by the 1e sourcebooks.

 

[niklinna]

OTOH I don't know of any module which goes beyond the level of perhaps suggesting the GM consider factors like monsters reacting to intruders perhaps. Even then it's clear that these adventures were counting on no such thing. G1 is a fine example. Realistically no party would get far before raising a general alarm, at which point the situation will be almost immediately hopeless for the party.

Didn't Keep on the Borderlands talk at some length about just that? Or am I misremembering?

 

[TiQuinn]

True story! I had a dream last night that I went back in time to 1974 and taught Gygax to play 5e. He didn't like it.

Wow, I had the same dream only he loved it, and then repackaged the rules and said he invented them!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

while I do not really disagree, I see this as a much smaller change than you do. First the DM designed the dungeon and populated it, now they also do the same for an overland world with multiple locations, it’s more a change in scope than in the fundamentals

There are a few dimensions of change here. 1e overland, possibly with quests or an explorative sandbox type arrangement still maintains the fundamental structure of objectives, to get gold, earn XP, and advance. It may inject some more complex goals, save a princess, discover a lost ruin, earn a reward from the Duke, etc. but the core advancement structure remains intact.

What IS lost at this point is the clear system by which the players decide what happens next. They're no longer deploying skill by deciding if and how to open a door, or proceed down a stair.

2e loses even that. XP is now wholly a subjective function of GM judgement. The players, once invested with the knowledge of what the rewards are and what creates risk, are now simply bit players, the GM invents the risk and reward, maybe he does or doesn't even pass that info to the players. No game mechanics structure this at all.

 

[mamba]

There are a few dimensions of change here. 1e overland, possibly with quests or an explorative sandbox type arrangement still maintains the fundamental structure of objectives, to get gold, earn XP, and advance. It may inject some more complex goals, save a princess, discover a lost ruin, earn a reward from the Duke, etc. but the core advancement structure remains intact.

I agree with the dimensions, I consider the impact much smaller however

What IS lost at this point is the clear system by which the players decide what happens next. They're no longer deploying skill by deciding if and how to open a door, or proceed down a stair.

2e loses even that. XP is now wholly a subjective function of GM judgement. The players, once invested with the knowledge of what the rewards are and what creates risk, are now simply bit players, the GM invents the risk and reward, maybe he does or doesn't even pass that info to the players. No game mechanics structure this at all.

the players never knew the rewards, you do not know what treasure is where in the dungeon and how to get to it. You do not know the risks / danger either, they can proceed cautiously, but there is no real risk vs reward decision the players are aware of and can use to determine a best course of action.

The dungeon is still designed and set up by the DM too, I see little difference between doing that and a module like Ravenloft or DL1.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Remove XP for gp, and that game no longer exists - colloquially, it is broken. Instead of a game with a win-condition known to the players, with a framework that the players can interact with and significantly influence (despite not having total control), what takes its place is a completely different game, in which the GM sets the win conditions, and controls scene-framing as they desire, and controls much of action resolution as they desire.

I didn't say anything about validity. I said that XP for gp is fundamental to the game presented by Gygax in the AD&D books. Get rid of it, and you get a completely different game. (More on this below, as well as in my posts upthread.)
.

So AD&D, as Gygax intended, is Gauntlet. You wander around endless mazes, fighting or avoiding monsters and collecting treasure that adds to your high score (XP) until you die. In essence, it's about collecting the highest score you can before your luck runs out.

Yeah, I can see why the game moved away from that.

Yes, but you are seriously selling it short! The DM isn't some weaksauce RNG with a couple dozen stock elements to deploy. They can add any sort of diabolical trap, monster, feature, etc. However they are required to place it within the context of the dungeon, and there are a pretty extensive set of rules for adjudication of interactions. The DM should extend those rules before play, during design, where it's obvious they're not adequate or are likely to be insufficient.

The players also have much wider leeway than in some computer game. Frankly the comparison is pretty much worthless.

Even so, the goals and means used in play are pretty well structured and laid out, so classic DC play can be quite formalized. There's generally SOME open ended stuff in any D&D game, but less than you all seem to think.

 

[MichaelSomething]

There's generally SOME open ended stuff in any D&D game, but less than you all seem to think.

Let me remind you you're dealing with Enworlders here. We're so skillfull and empowered we can create opportunities for open play that the average player can't even comprehend!

I can't blame a DM if they can't make judgments on my brilliant maneuvers. Being on Enworld has forged me into an apex player that has far more skill than the average DM can handle.

 

[Remathilis]

Yes, but you are seriously selling it short! The DM isn't some weaksauce RNG with a couple dozen stock elements to deploy. They can add any sort of diabolical trap, monster, feature, etc. However they are required to place it within the context of the dungeon, and there are a pretty extensive set of rules for adjudication of interactions. The DM should extend those rules before play, during design, where it's obvious they're not adequate or are likely to be insufficient.

The players also have much wider leeway than in some computer game. Frankly the comparison is pretty much worthless.

Even so, the goals and means used in play are pretty well structured and laid out, so classic DC play can be quite formalized. There's generally SOME open ended stuff in any D&D game, but less than you all seem to think.

A highly complicated version of Gauntlet is still Gauntlet; the basic play loop is the same, and just because it's being run on the most powerful computer known (the human brain) doesn't change the fact the goal of play was the same.