D&D (2024) The New DM Tools In The New Dungeon Master's Guide

The 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide contains a 'toolbox'. The DM's Toolbox is the third chapter in the book, presented as an alphabetical miscellany of varied things to help you prep or run a game.

Each entry is 1-2 pages long and includes things like creating monsters, fear and mental stress, chases, firearms and explosives, and traps. For example, it goes in depth into chases, with details about wilderness or urban chases.

Much of the topics were already in the 2014 DMG--albeit organized differently. Some new topics include character death, and more detailed look at alignment--and how actions determine alignment and not vice versa.

Also included is a big table of 'dungeon quirks'--why, then, and by whom was it built? Examples include made by giants (with everything being larger scale), built on top of a cloud, and so on.

There's plenty more stuff--environments, a settlement tracker (Chris Perkins and James Wyatt roll up a random settlement in the video), hazards, mob rules, marks of prestige (rewards like deeds, medals, or titles).

 

[kittenhugs]

I use downtime to both move time between adventures and give space to focus on characters' personal stories. I've had them reconnecting with family members, become closely connected to a major crime organization, establish an underground cult, and even explore their character's identity in a very personal way. And a lot of it is done outside the session so we're still adventuring at the table.

That said... I've found Xanathar's Guide rules to be rough around the edges, and limiting. I would like another crack at a framework for it in the DMG that isn't just bastions.... But they haven't seemed to mention it at all, so far.

 

[Remathilis]

I wonder what other mechanical bits and bobs from a decade of publishing may have graduated to the DMG...

My guess is a lot of the "X revisited" rules made it to the new DMG. (Or at least the spiritual successors). Patrons would be another thing.

 

[Selas]

That's a symptom that grows from the fact that said player doesn't feel like they can get anything of value for the combat they care about in an edition designed around the assumption of starting gear and other mundane nonmagical equipment as the only gear needed or expected for their PC to keep up.

Yes there are other reasons why a player might be interested in those downtime activities, but at some point the realization of how pointless it all is in the grand scheme of things starts to chip away at those reasons. Once those chips start forming it winds up resulting in those reasons sliding towards feeling hollow unless the gm just keeps working harder and harder to spin the plates carrying those reasons faster and faster.

When there is a mechanical need both types of players are more eager to hook onto the thing the other enjoys because they can see personal value in it.

yes, but for others it's also a symptom of the video game mentality, where in many RPGs & MMOs these activities are handwaived by the click of a button. These players expect the same to happen on a TTRPG, and tend to get annoyed when they realize it isn't

 

[mamba]

To be a DM and not read the Guide is more shocking to me than being a player and not reading the Handbook.

for a new DM maybe, but if you already played most of the prior editions it won’t tell you much new

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I wasn't paying full attention watching the video, but I thought they made very brief mention of creature creation at one point.

They did, you are correct

 

[Xeviat]

for a new DM maybe, but if you already played most of the prior editions it won’t tell you much new

Except like the encounter building assumptions, magic item distribution assumptions...

I agree. Whenever people talk (joke?) about how "no one reads the DMG", I'm always the one who says, "I have!"

I for reals miss 3Es era of making tons of books for DMs and World Builders. It's honestly what really got me into D&D. The DMG gives understanding of the balance of the game in the system, and understanding the core assumptions makes it easier to adjust them.

For instance, 5E's encounter/day assumption fits a certain model of dungeon crawling, but it doesn't fit how a lot of people ended up playing the game. Knowing that the game really wants X amount of XP per long rest and 2 short rests per long rest as a balance point, you can see why full casters and even half casters can outshine short rest powered classes like Fighters, Monks, and Warlocks.

But the DMG has solutions! 3 deadly fights a day with a short rest in between fits the XP and rest assumptions. The slow rest variant works great for slower, more narrative games, because fitting in 1/3rd of a long rest's XP in one day works.

 

[Xeviat]

Ginny in particular has been very open about the fact that she's still a relatively new player and has had takes that she's since changed her mind on.

It's a good thing when people's views are allowed to evolve. If we yell at them for changing their minds to a point of view we agree with, we're just encouraging everyone to double down on even stupid stances. And we just have to look at the newspaper to see where that leads.

I'm not yelling at them. I'm just shocked.

 

[overgeeked]

I have players that like downtime but hate doing it during sessions. Those players want sessions to be reserved solely for adventuring, no downtime or shopping. I try to get some or all of it done between sessions buuut it can take a lot of the DMs time/effort and players may not realize that by running their downtimes between sessions you're essentially doing an extra mini session

That’s my preference as well. I don’t want to waste game time with pointless banter with random shopkeepers. Actually important RP with NPCs, absolutely at the table.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Alright.

I can admit when I'm wrong, at least, presuming these previews are in fact genuinely representative and the quality is a (major) step up from 5.0.

This sounds like exactly the kind of improvement the 5.0 DMG needed. I'm still going to reserve judgment about quality for now. But in terms of concept, this is moving in the right direction for a DMG: actually USEFUL TOOLS for DMs to be using, at the table, on the regular, to make it as easy as possible for DMs to do their basic DMing tasks.

Because that's how you empower DMs. You empower them to explore new ideas, because they aren't spending (IMNSHO, wasting) tons of time hemming and hawing over stuff, they're just using the effective tools given and moving on. You empower them to solve commonly-faced problems, so that common issues faced by DMs of yesteryear are genuinely not an issue 99.9% of the time. You empower them to show discernment and care, by giving them genuinely productive advice and guiding them toward tested, successful patterns of thinking and responding.

If they have written this stuff well--and that's an "if" written in sixteen-foot strobing neon letters--then I will happily eat crow on this one.

 

[tetrasodium]

yes, but for others it's also a symptom of the video game mentality, where in many RPGs & MMOs these activities are handwaived by the click of a button. These players expect the same to happen on a TTRPG, and tend to get annoyed when they realize it isn't

Ii never said that it was or was not. The post you quoted of mine wrote about both sides of that coin and made no indication of either set of motivations being better or more worthy than the other. Here and before your entire point seems to be an effort to mark one as good & acceptable play with the other some kind of badwrongfun and nothing else.