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

[Micah Sweet]

Except that it is consistently recognized as one of the best DMGs ever written, even by people who otherwise despise 4e. So what does that tell us?

That it's a well-written unnecessary book?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Not at all, 5e was never the edition actually designed for anything that could be called "DM empowerment". Instead it was the edition designed with the assumption that every story about horrible no good despotic GMs on places like /r/rpghorrorstories was reflective of the average GM & that players need rules to shield them from such behavior.

I'm quite well aware that this is your hobby-horse and you're absolutely insistent that it's true.

It's not, and never has been. But I know that arguing that to you is pointless.

The result of that design choice is one where the only direction a GM tends to have for going outside the rules is often a thing where the GM is expected to beusing fiat to snatch awesome away from players rather than cooperatively allowing them to be awesome & do awesome things together.

Before you disagree, the very idea that the GM should be amping up monsters & encounters in ways to compensate for what the inept monster math fails so badly at is evidence of that misguided failure of design.

That's just poor monster design. Completely unrelated--mostly because the monster design in 5e is some of the most lackluster we've seen. At least 3e, while being even less reliable, actually had diversity in its monsters. 99% of 5e monsters are either dull sacks of HP (because HP scaling is the only scaling allowed) or annoying "gotcha" monsters (because "gotcha" monsters are traditional).

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I simply don't agree that the inability to compromise on every issue is an indicator of bad faith.

If you cannot even in principle find a solution, SOMEONE is being a dogmatic jerk. Someone is acting in bad faith. Guaranteed.

Like, for real, we're talking about pretend elfgames. This isn't asking people to compromise on their core beliefs. This isn't asking people to do something immoral or indecent or even untoward. "Compromise" in this context rarely gets spicier than haggling over the exact results of a particular roll or questioning the reasoning behind a particular approach or adjudication.

Come on man. You're acting like this is something EXTREMO HORRIBLE. It isn't. It effectively never is in D&D.

 

[mamba]

Or, to put it in uselessly pithy terms: It's almost like "DM Empowerment" was kind of a bad idea to begin with.

eh, no ruleset is so all-encompassing and clear that there is nothing that needs a ruling, so the only question is where to draw the line.

I do not see 200 page rulesets as any better than 20 page rulesets, if anything they become too unwieldy fast, so some DM empowerment will always exist and I see no problem with that. If a specific DM abuses their position from your perspective then find another DM. If they keep running out of players then maybe they change their approach and if they do not run out then maybe the problem was you, or maybe the two of you just were not a good fit

 

[EzekielRaiden]

eh, no ruleset is so all-encompassing and clear that there is nothing that needs a ruling, so the only question is where to draw the line.

I do not see 200 page rulesets as any better than 20 page rulesets, if anything they become too unwieldy fast, so some DM empowerment will always exist and I see no problem with that. If a specific DM abuses their position from your perspective then find another DM. If they keep running out of players then maybe they change their approach and if they do not run out then maybe the problem was you, or maybe the two of you just were not a good fit

That it will always be there is no reason to say, "Eh, f**k it, do whatever." Again, the perfect solution fallacy is a fallacy for a reason. Just because perfection is impossible does not mean that improvement is pointless.

Whether the rules are 20 pages or 200 pages is completely irrelevant to whether the rules actually matter and are well-tested. Dungeon World can be played with ~20 pages of player-facing text. Its rules actually matter and are well-tested.

 

[mamba]

If you cannot even in principle find a solution, SOMEONE is being a dogmatic jerk. Someone is acting in bad faith. Guaranteed.

ok, let’s assume that for the sake of the argument, then why would the DM have to be the one giving in at all times, including the ones where the player is that jerk?

 

[Micah Sweet]

If you cannot even in principle find a solution, SOMEONE is being a dogmatic jerk. Someone is acting in bad faith. Guaranteed.

Like, for real, we're talking about pretend elfgames. This isn't asking people to compromise on their core beliefs. This isn't asking people to do something immoral or indecent or even untoward. "Compromise" in this context rarely gets spicier than haggling over the exact results of a particular roll or questioning the reasoning behind a particular approach or adjudication.

Come on man. You're acting like this is something EXTREMO HORRIBLE. It isn't. It effectively never is in D&D.

I'm not acting like this is an extreme situation, but people choose to play these games because they want to have fun, and fun is relative. It is entirely possible for two or more people at the same table to have differing ideas of what is fun for them, and when that happens a decision has to be made and that might leave one or more parties unhappy. It happens, and it is not bad faith.

 

[mamba]

Whether the rules are 20 pages or 200 pages is completely irrelevant to whether the rules actually matter and are well-tested. Dungeon World can be played with ~20 pages of player-facing text. Its rules actually matter and are well-tested.

I’d say the number of pages has a direct correlation to how many scenarios are covered in what detail and make rulings unnecessary, the fewer pages, the more decisions/ rulings that need to be made or the less universal the game.

DW lacks a ton of clear rules, for example take any of its monsters and compare them to their D&D counterparts.

Leaving that aside, so the 5e’s rules are what then, do not matter? are not well tested?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I’d say the number of pages has a direct correlation to how many scenarios are covered in what detail and make rulings unnecessary, the fewer pages, the more decisions/ rulings that need to be made or the less universal the game.

DW lacks a ton of clear rules, for example take any of its monsters and compare them to their D&D counterparts.

Leaving that aside, so the 5e’s rules are what then, do not matter? are not well tested?

I generally prefer more rules to less personally. Better to have them and not need them.

 

[tetrasodium]

I'm quite well aware that this is your hobby-horse and you're absolutely insistent that it's true.

It's not, and never has been. But I know that arguing that to you is pointless.

There is no reason to make it personal just because we are talking about indefensible design choices you happen to like.

That's just poor monster design. Completely unrelated--mostly because the monster design in 5e is some of the most lackluster we've seen. At least 3e, while being even less reliable, actually had diversity in its monsters. 99% of 5e monsters are either dull sacks of HP (because HP scaling is the only scaling allowed) or annoying "gotcha" monsters (because "gotcha" monsters are traditional).

we were talking about encounters, those nearly always are things that primarily depend on monster capabilities in ways that make 5e's inept monsters extremely relevant. Monster design does not exist in a vacuum. Monster capabilities & PC capabilities need to be designed as part of a broader interconnected thing, calling 5e's failure to do so "DM empowerment" is nothing of the sort. These problems extend well beyond monster design though, you need only look at the wide array of half baked incomplete and downright unusable optional & variant rules in the current DMG for more examples.