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The books should be useful to folks with experience without presuming they have it.

Indeed. The entire game must be unplayable from all the problems with it. No wonder they're working on a revision. Clearly people are figuring out how to play and run the game. Tracing that to any single cause seems likely to be a fallacy.

Thank you for attaching a silent gif. No horror we imagine could equal Shatner's actual vocals. Probably.

If less Nimoy means less singing about Bilbo Baggins I'd call that a victory.

I'm afraid this is more like basic analysis but I remember quotes from WotC about 5e containing all the best parts of all the previous editions. If you're not writing for people with experience of those previous editions there's no need to trumpet such inclusion.

There are a few specific things I want. I want the book to be laid out and organized so actual people can actually read and use it. An actual functional index would be revelatory. I want a basic explanation of what people usually expect from the game as players. This might need some...

I am running for a couple of players new to the game and they both showed up with PHBs and having watched some livestreams. They've done fine but they seem to find themselves stumbling over the rules in ways I don't think they would if they'd come to the game through the books. Do you think...

Given that I think the biggest problem with the DMG is that it was written with the presumption everyone reading it had been playing D&D for a decade or two it should be no surprise I do not see this as an obvious outcome.

I expect you are wrong in some ways and I am wrong in others. I think books have enough advantages that it's worth making them as good as possible. That arguably means making them useful to DMs of any and every experience level.

Do the other sets have more material about running the game? What seems likely to me is someone picks up one of these sets expecting to run it. Then they see how little there is about actually running it and they buy the DMG expecting more helpful and more useful information. Which puts us back...

People keep suggesting people will learn to DM from the Starter and Beginner Sets. That seems laughable to me. There are just over three columns of DM material in the old Lost Mine of Phandelver Starter Set. That is maybe enough for someone coming from an old edition. It doesn't seem remotely...

I'm sure WotC says a lot of things. I'm sure at least some of those things are objectively true. I'm sure I wouldn't bet on any given thing being so.

I think my biggest problem with the Starter and Beginner sets is that from what I've seen they don't seem like really good introductions to the game. I'm probably just old but I'd probably prefer for them to follow the old ways and learn from an older sibling or cousin and walk uphill both ways...

I think their model for new players is watch liveplay stream then buy books then find table.

I am sure WotC would like it if every new DM would spend that extra twenty dollars. That doesn't mean it should be or seem like a requirement.

It sounds like what you are doing is preparing without deciding. At least deciding as little as possible.

Clearly you bought it for the magic items list.

There is a difference between being prepared to run a session and being prepared to run a campaign. How necessary it will be to read all the rules for the former will vary widely but for one's first campaign in a given game it seems like a good idea.

What I would want in a DMG would be less in the way of platitudes and more in the way of reasons to make specific choices. Upsides and downsides at least. It would be a bonus if the various optional "rules" were better thought out. That might just be crazy-talk.

I think this is very much to my point. Especially in an instance where one perhaps hasn't run any edition of D&D for a few years it might be a good idea to read the PHB and DMG for an edition entirely new to you before sitting down to run it. I thought so and I did so.