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

[Queer Venger]

It's OK to kill a goblin with a single sweep of the greatsword.

It's OK to fix a common disease with a single spell slot.

Diseases need CR and potency and (potential) complexity. But they also need to be able to enter the flow of play seamlessly and be actively remembered (even between sessions).

There's a lot of....enhancements...I can see to D&D's disease system (such as it is).

these are good points, what's the purpose of diseases if a simple spell can negate them... maybe the DMG will make them more narrative in. scope.

 

[Zaukrie]

D&D has never really had a great use of disease.

The mechanical role of disease is as a way to inflict a condition that robs characters of the option of rest (rests don't restore you, they make you worse), and drain your resources over long periods of time (so, when between adventures, or while travelling over land for many days).

But, a lot of D&D diseases get forgotten about because they don't directly impact the fight or the dungeon crawl the party is currently having. Diseases can last between sessions (because they impact between adventures), and so get lost. And it's relatively easy to remove them for a well-prepared party (a paladin or a cleric does fine).

There's space, though. My group had a run-in with mummy rot that's still ongoing. Kind of the exception that proves the rule, though.

Makes me want to make a DMs Guild supplement for diseases that can actually be used in play and impact the party.

I'm writing such a supplement now. Well, I'm on the golf course, not you know

 

[tetrasodium]

yeah, I get this, it feels like we are missing important pieces of the rules puzzle. I think wotc could have coordinated the publication release a bit tighter, maybe at most having them release within weeks or a month of each other. They just seem all over the place with this launch.

Quarterly numbers trumped all of that stuff.

 

[Remathilis]

yeah, I get this, it feels like we are missing important pieces of the rules puzzle. I think wotc could have coordinated the publication release a bit tighter, maybe at most having them release within weeks or a month of each other. They just seem all over the place with this launch.

Imagine waiting years between the Monster Manual (1977) and Dungeon Masters Guide (1979).

 

[Queer Venger]

Imagine waiting years between the Monster Manual (1977) and Dungeon Masters Guide (1979).

I cant, absolutely cant. Im so happy I don't live in those dark ages

 

[Kurotowa]

yeah, I get this, it feels like we are missing important pieces of the rules puzzle. I think wotc could have coordinated the publication release a bit tighter, maybe at most having them release within weeks or a month of each other. They just seem all over the place with this launch.

It's not a coordination issue, it's a logistics issue. Physical books come with all sorts of physical bottlenecks. Printing that many books takes time, and you can't just hire more printing houses because then you run into quality issues. Shipping that many books to all the stores is a second bottleneck. And from a business perspective, prime shelf space is limited and customer budgets are often happier with a staggered released.

I'm never shy of deriding when business majors are put in charge where they have no artistic skills and often know next to nothing about the production process or target audience. But I've also seen artists go bankrupt because they didn't apply business logic in the right places and just lost money hand over fist. If WotC had their business case analysts go over the numbers and decide that a staggered release is superior to a simultaneous release, that's a business decision I'm willing to respect.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If WotC had their business case analysts go over the numbers and decide that a staggered release is superior to a simultaneous release, that's a business decision I'm willing to respect.

I think the concern is that many of their decisions don't seem to be made as a result of any sort of analysis, beyond "what does Chris Cocks' personal gaming group look like?"

 

[tetrasodium]

I think the concern is that many of their decisions don't seem to be made as a result of any sort of analysis, beyond "what does Chris Cocks' personal gaming group look like?"

I'm not sure that we could even call it his "personal gaming group" using any normal definition of the phrase because he said that he plays [present tense/maybe ongoing/maybe regularly] with 40 people. Those are the kinds of numbers that you get only when you stretch the definition of playing with an individual to things like anyone participating in a game near you at a con or all of the people who happen to play at the same flgs even if you basically never really interact with them. The only other possibilities I can think of is "everyone working at wotc in x division and it's common to do quick n dirty drive by/email encounter testing" or the world's largest paid gm+paid player group of wish fulfillment support network.

The number doesn't even come close to passing the most casual of impulses. If you assume that the average group is 3-5 players and that the average game is around 2hours you are racing towards full time job ranges of playtime just to hit those numbers.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I'm not sure that we could even call it his "personal gaming group" using any normal definition of the phrase because he said that he plays [present tense/maybe ongoing/maybe regularly] with 40 people. Those are the kinds of numbers that you get only when you stretch the definition of playing with an individual to things like anyone participating in a game near you at a con or all of the people who happen to play at the same flgs even if you basically never really interact with them. The only other possibilities I can think of is "everyone working at wotc in x division and it's common to do quick n dirty drive by/email encounter testing" or the world's largest paid gm+paid player group of wish fulfillment support network.

The number doesn't even come close to passing the most casual of impulses. If you assume that the average group is 3-5 players and that the average game is around 2hours you are racing towards full time job ranges of playtime just to hit those numbers.

It's clearly playing in the style that Gygax used. If memory serves, that's when one DM maintains a large hex world where multiple player groups adventure through. That of play can have 40 people playing together.

 

[Kurotowa]

I think the concern is that many of their decisions don't seem to be made as a result of any sort of analysis, beyond "what does Chris Cocks' personal gaming group look like?"

That's executive decisions you're talking about. Stuff like "AI is the new hotness, we need to get on that bandwagon!" is not an artistic choice or a reasoned business case, but an executive leadership call. And large organizations do need people at the top making those calls and setting the direction for everyone.

Which is hardly to say that WotC and Hasbro have been making good executive leadership calls lately. But I do try and keep clear in my mind what choices are being made at what level and for what reasons. That way I can accept it when they say "We cannot physically print and ship all three core books simultaneously in the volume we expect to need, so we're doing a staggered release" as a reasonable statement. Which means I feel more confident saying so when ...other choices smack of pure bullcrap.