D&D General Dmg previews up

[Parmandur]

View attachment 381301
Looks like the Radiant Citadel returns, too!

Oh, nice, glad to see thst is not forgotten

 

[FitzTheRuke]

DM: "Gerald, the goblin attacks you. You take 3 damage"
DM: "Frank, your spell goes off and you kill 2 goblins."
DM: "Linda, your Bastion's pineapple harvest has been infested with bugs. Roll for insecticide. Ohhh a 7, half the crop is gone. Do you want to fire your gardener? Okay, Now roll to attack the hobgoblin king."

You jest - but that sounds AWESOME to me!

 

[FitzTheRuke]

The previewed mechanics felt very video-gamey to me.

I thought that the UA Bastion mechanics were terrible - not necessarily "video-gamey", but just plain "not good".

But I hold out hope that they had a look at, you know, something like Level-Up's Strongholds. Anything that would be much, much better.

They say that they took a lot of feedback and made a lot of tweaks. Here's hopin'!

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Based on the advertising, it does not seem overblown to me.

So no one but you called the IP, "The most important part of the book".

Because, and this really ought to go without saying, I suspect that DMing is the most important part of the book.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Eh, I’d just assume the PC has a steward running things for them while they’re away, and the player also controls that character. It’s not that the wizard is literally sending telepathic messages to the bastion (though at a high enough level I suppose they could,) it’s that they left the management of the bastion in the hands of a capable proxy who understands the wizard’s goals well enough to run it as the wizard would.

If there are rolls involved, one good (IMO) story-reason for a poor roll could be that the Steward did what they thought was what the PC wanted, but it turned out to be a mistake.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I'm sure the half page adventures are going to have a lot of things like "at the bandit camp (see map 14-b)" and but might not be fully playable, without a DnD Beyond freebie for stat blocks, until the MM comes out.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I think sections on Monster Types like Dragons, Demons, Hags and others might be heading into this glossary instead of the Monster Manual.

To reinforce this point this cut from the video

The part to the right of Asmodeus seems to be the explanation of Devil’s normally in the Monster Manual.

 

[Nefermandias]

Regarding variant rules, it feels like rather than give pages and pages of rules that only a small percentage of DMs might use, that they will reduce it down to perhaps two 'master' rules. DM Rulings (in the moment) and DM House Rules (permanent changes). Give a couple of play examples for both, emphasize that you can and should do what's fun for your table, and connect it to the multiverse.

For Example

DM Rulings - The DM can ignore RAW when the result seems nonsensical or just not fun, such as a PC who takes the hide action to gain the invisible condition and then dances in front of a guards face as they walk into the throne room to assassinate the evil king. If the player disagrees with the ruling, allow them to change their declared action that led to the moment.

DM House Rules - the DM can change any rule presented in these books. For example, if your table doesn't feel that combat is deadly enough, you could make death happen at 0 HP, give Exhaustion levels for failed death saves, and/or change resurrection rules to require an ability check or the completion of a quest to work. Once again, be sure to get buy in from your players that they also find these rules fun and let them know they can be changed if the result isn't what they were looking for. It may also be worth discussing with other DMs on forums such as enworld.org about changes you are thinking about before you take them to the group to see if other DMs have tried similar approaches.

I see what you mean. Empowering the DM to come up with his own rules might sound like a good idea, at least in principle.

That said, I really think the DMG should have some knobs for the DM to turn and adjust the pacing, difficulty and tone of the game.

I'm talking about things like the variant rest rules, slow natural healing and full encumbrance. All of those are powerful tools for fine tuning a campaign. The professional game designers shouldn't leave this heavy lifting in the hands of the DM.

 

[MarkB]

I'm sure the half page adventures are going to have a lot of things like "at the bandit camp (see map 14-b)" and but might not be fully playable, without a DnD Beyond freebie for stat blocks, until the MM comes out.

We'll see, but given how abbreviated they are and that there was mention of adjusting for party level, they might just have general rules for the encounter building like "choose one CR5 and four CR1 NPCs that look appropriate to this location from the Monster Manual", rather than specific lists of creatures.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I'm sure the half page adventures are going to have a lot of things like "at the bandit camp (see map 14-b)" and but might not be fully playable, without a DnD Beyond freebie for stat blocks, until the MM comes out.

Or, you know, just play with 2014 Monsters, because they all share the same names. (Barring any new ones, which they probably won't use in the DMG).