D&D General Does WotC use its own DMG rules?

[LordEntrails]

Wow, another thread that has devolved. I'm surprised.

The only rule you need to follow from any D&D book is “The code is more what you'd call 'guidelines' then actual rules. Welcome aboard the Black Pearl Ms.Turner”

 

[Emerikol]

Wow, another thread that has devolved. I'm surprised.

The only rule you need to follow from any D&D book is “The code is more what you'd call 'guidelines' then actual rules. Welcome aboard the Black Pearl Ms.Turner”

It's like we are playing totally different games. Oh wait. Practically we are.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'll stop when everyone else does too.

That's the deal. People stop constantly complaining that WotC hasn't made the exact D&D game they themselves individually want and that the designers are greedy and stupid jerks for not doing so, and I'll stop commenting on why it isn't WotC job or capability to give them the ridiculous and esoteric system they want and that the person could easily solve their own problems on their own without WotC or anyone else's help.

I'd say 'good luck with that', but no, I don't want to wish someone luck on their proposed campaign of harassment.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I'd say 'good luck with that', but no, I don't want to wish someone luck on their proposed campaign of harassment.

Of course. Only the people who yell at Wizards of the Coast are the ones allowed to do so. Gotcha. Good luck with that as well!

 

[KYRON45]

90% of statistics are made up on the spot.

Whatever, it’s going to be more than half - there are a lot more than the two different ways to play D&D.

"Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 14% of people know that."...Homer Simpson.

 

[tomedunn]

I didn't have the impression that the 5.0 DMG rules for building encounters of a wanted difficulty and for creating new monsters have been exactly popular in the last 10 years. And now that the 5.5 DMG content is getting revealed, there are already discussions about how once again encounters build and monsters creation rules aren't good enough once again. I think WotC designers have mentioned that they actually took good effort to "revise" these rules for the new DMG, which got me thinking... what exactly does it mean they "revised" them? I know it sounds like a dumb question, but bear with me...

For sure WotC does create encounters in their published adventures and monsters in most of their manuals. Therefore, WotC at least has been using a method for doing these things. It doesn't necessarily mean they use rules, but they aren't just doing it randomly. But do the DMG rules really match with the methods WotC use in their published material?

If indeed the DMG rules or guidelines are the same as what they use, this presumably is the result of 10 years of designing adventure encounters and monsters for this edition: what really did they have to work on so hard for the new DMG, other than simply put in words the method they already use? If on the other hand the DMG rules are something else, well the question is why are they even coming up with something like that instead of just telling us how they do it? This made sense back in 2014 when they had to write a DMG before actually designing many adventures and their encounters, and before knowing well enough if the MM entries were balanced enough, but after 10 years they should just either know how, or know they don't know how.

I can imagine that some of you at this point are already thinking, that maybe WotC doesn't really use any "rules" because building encounters and creating monsters "are an art, not a science". Well then, why doesn't WotC very honestly say so in the DMG? If the book's purpose is to teach people how to be an effective DM, and the truth is that you can't define "rules" for certain stuff, then it would be a good idea to teach that as well.

On the monster side of things, I've calculated CRs for some 2,000 published monsters using the method outlined in the 2014 DMG and generally they match the listed values in each stat block. There are obviously outliers, but on average they're close.

When they republished monsters from Volo's and Tome of Foes in Monsters of the Multiverse I did a comparison between the new and old versions and, for the monsters that changed, they generally became more consistent with the 2014 DMG monster making rules.

Now, there are some differences between the baseline stats for monsters presented in the 2014 DMG and published monsters (I have a full breakdown here) but, overall, whatever method they're using internally appears to be largely consistent with the 2014 DMG.

In terms of encounter building, I generally calculate the difficulty for encounter in the adventures I've run, and those have practically always fallen in the difficulty ranges outlined in the 2014 encounter building rules. Unfortunately, that only covers a handful of published adventure modules. I would have loved to analyze the topic more broadly but, sadly, my time for doing so is often very limited.

 

[Emerikol]

I think we chase a hopeless goal. Encounters are easy and hard for different reasons for different groups. Maybe it's true the bad guys shouldn't be flying if the good guys don't have a good ranged option. But the DM should be able to eyeball a lot of this with experience and while inexperienced it should be easier to compensate for his mistakes.

 

[TwoSix]

I think we chase a hopeless goal. Encounters are easy and hard for different reasons for different groups. Maybe it's true the bad guys shouldn't be flying if the good guys don't have a good ranged option. But the DM should be able to eyeball a lot of this with experience and while inexperienced it should be easier to compensate for his mistakes.

I understand the desire for a more comprehensive set of encounter building guidelines, but I ultimately agree that it's far more art than science and generally just something you learn by doing. (And analyzing after you do, of course.)

 

[Vaalingrade]

Even artists get some level of instruction beyond 'ruin hundreds of dollars worth of canvas' though.

The DMG at bare minimum should address common variables like flight, party composition and hard gated effects like requiring magic items or a certain spell to be effective.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Even artists get some level of instruction beyond 'ruin hundreds of dollars worth of canvas' though.

The DMG at bare minimum should address common variables like flight, party composition and hard gated effects like requiring magic items or a certain spell to be effective.

“Address them” in what way? State that the numbers are meaningless if the players have no way to harm the monster (or visa versa)? I think that even for beginners that is bleedin obvious!

You heard the phrase “show, don’t tell”? This DMG includes 5 short adventures. What do you think they are for?