D&D 5E Dungeons and Dragons: The "Dungeon Master's" edition.

[Gargoyle]

I was disappointed by the lack of modularity. There is very little of it. However, when I look at the book from the viewpoint of "What would I change given the restriction of the current page count?" I don't have a good answer. As I look at every section, I think "yep, I need or really want that" and by the time all that stuff is in there, you're left with very little room for modular stuff, but they still squeezed in the must have optional/variant rules like a small section on tactical options and healing options, etc.

I applaud WotC for giving us transparency into the design process, and I'm ok with the type of content and design they picked because:

1. The quality of the game design that they did choose and its implementation is high.
2. There are some dials and levers in the game, just not as many or not as explicit as we were led to believe there might be.
3. Designing a great foundation of D&D rules that players of all earlier editions could find common ground on was much more important than dials and levers.
4. There really weren't any "promises" made. They did set some expectations about the type of content, but I feel the only actual promise they made is that they would listen to playtesters and do their best, which I think they did.

They were modifying the DMG up until the last minute, and had the courage to cut some things that weren't playtested enough like mass combat. I feel like they hit the ball out of the park, even if it wasn't the grand slam I'd hoped for. It's not a perfect book at all, and I still have some nits to pick, but I'm satisfied with it and looking forward to options in Unearthed Arcana.

 

[TheFindus]

I agree that WotC did not entirely deliver the modularity that was promised, mostly because it turned out they didn't need to.

They went in to the playtest expecting there to be a few large, highly different groups of D&D players. Over time they found that to be false. They were instead able to build a game that appealed to a vast majority, which could be modified in small ways and through DM empowerment to handle most of the outliers.

So we have a collection of simple rule tweaks, but few large modules.

I think they went into the playtest expecting there to be large different groups of players. Then the 4th edition players saw the rules of the first couple of playtests and thought: mmmh, how is this supposed to turn into something that resembles what the current edition excels at? And I think these people left and did not give any more input.
And that is why this edition looks the way it does: those players whose tastes were mostly reinforced by the majority of the playtests stayed and formed this new edition.
And maybe WotC does not need to deliver on modules regarding modules for the 4E-type of play because most of those who liked that style will come along anyways.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I think they went into the playtest expecting there to be large different groups of players. Then the 4th edition players saw the rules of the first couple of playtests and thought: mmmh, how is this supposed to turn into something that resembles what the current edition excels at? And I think these people left and did not give any more input.
And that is why this edition looks the way it does: those players whose tastes were mostly reinforced by the majority of the playtests stayed and formed this new edition.
And maybe WotC does not need to deliver on modules regarding modules for the 4E-type of play because most of those who liked that style will come along anyways.

There is some truth to this, in that the rolling surveys automatically create a selection bias.

The developers have several times mentioned that they turnout for the surveys was greater than expected. My suspicion is that those of us with strong opinions on various aspects of the game were drowned out by a usually silent majority.

And not all 4E fans will have left the playtest. There's a lot of 4E influence, if little direct copying, in the final game.

 

[AmerginLiath]

The 'modules,' like the rules in general of 5e, have been sliced up finely and stitched into a larger collection of options and suggestions. It's very hard (except in a few places) to grab one chunk and say "this is Nth Edition!" – which was surely done on purpose, given how each edition has has really good elements and really flawed elements alike. A large part of the issue remains the game of Telephone over the idea of what the DMG would/could contain, honestly from people on all sides who need to better understand how publishing works.

I personally really like how the DMG ended up. What has stopped me from wanting to DM over recent editions is the issue of math and system mastery. I don't have the time to learn every nuance of the legal code that is 3.x or 4th (and I say that as a historian who works in math publishing as a day job, so it's not a "it's too hard!" comment – it's a question of investment of what I find fun vs. my limited free time). THIS is a game that I actually want to run, because both myself and the players (professionals, grad students, parents, etc) with no time or care for system mastery can just be creative about coming up with hair-brained schemes and I can call out what to roll on. Until now, there was always that ONE guy (always a different one, but it's like "We are Legion, because we are many!") in the group who would moan about the exact rule on that one page and then team-kill until we got it "right."

5e is beautiful and the 5e DMG is like the illegitimate child of Gary Gygax and Santa Claus.

 

[guachi]

I made a list of all the optional rules and all the random tables in the DMG. There are at least 64 optional rules. Some are rather minor; some have multiple parts. There are 174 random tables.

I was not around during the playtest. Could those who are disappointed in the lack of modularity point to actual words said by the developers on when this modularity was promised and what that modularity would entail? I have not read the 3e or 4e DMG but compared to 1e, 2e, B/X, and BECMI 5e is the most free form of the lot and those DMGs were no slouches in empowering the DM to do whatever.

 

[Gargoyle]

I made a list of all the optional rules and all the random tables in the DMG. There are at least 64 optional rules. Some are rather minor; some have multiple parts. There are 174 random tables.

I was not around during the playtest. Could those who are disappointed in the lack of modularity point to actual words said by the developers on when this modularity was promised and what that modularity would entail? I have not read the 3e or 4e DMG but compared to 1e, 2e, B/X, and BECMI 5e is the most free form of the lot and those DMGs were no slouches in empowering the DM to do whatever.

I don't believe it was promised either, but I do believe it was stated as a design goal, and that set some expectations. I'm too lazy to look for a link on their redesigned site (if that's even where I got that from) so if you don't believe me on that, it's ok. Suffice to say, I don't think we were lied to, and perhaps I assumed too much. Whether it's their fault or not, I was a bit disappointed though.

While optional and variant rules do make the game more modular, it's nothing different than we've seen before, and so I expected more. And I certainly don't believe tables add any sort of modularity (though I do love them).

My impression was that the rules were going to feature many dials and levers so that you could set up a campaign with explicit options like a specific level of magic, and that you could specify explicitly a level of detail for rules like combat. It's not like you can't do these things with 5e, you absolutely can, but the modularity design that I was personally imagining was supposed to make it more explicit and easier to communicate. For instance, instead of listing all the optional and variant rules that you use, you could simply use keywords like "Low Magic", "Slow Healing", and "Highly Tactical" to specify what type of game you were running, dials and levers. The options would be presented in packages so that you could mix and match, perhaps not every little rule, but at least groups of rules. I was hoping for something like dials and levers rather that you had to set, rather than what we have, which is a base game with some options. Another concept was that the Basic rules could be thought of as the only set of mandatory rules, and all the rules in the PHB and DMG would be optional. Even though that wasn't specified in the PHB, it could have been laid out in the DMG.

I didn't have a firm idea of what it was going to be like, because they never said, but I did think it was going to be more configurable in a structured way than past editions, and that doesn't seem to be the case, with the very notable exception that there is a Basic edition that you can default to. (which of course has still been done before with BECMI, sort of...5e gives you a more complete Basic ruleset, which is awesome).

Regardless though, I'm happy with how it turned out.

 

[trentonjoe]

I made a list of all the optional rules and all the random tables in the DMG. There are at least 64 optional rules. Some are rather minor; some have multiple parts.

If it isn't to much trouble could you post that list?