D&D 5E In Search Of: The 5e Dungeon Master's Guide

[Voadam]

Even if it's one part of a multipath strategy they seem key (and thus are doing their job) since WotC has released 3 starter sets in the span of it's lifetime. If they weren't doing their job why continue to invest in not only selling them but evolving them?

They could be doing their job but not be the central onboarding path.

A 32 page rulebook and adventure seems a small easy investment to develop.

They could be comparatively small print runs to meet the comparatively smaller demand for them.

Having new sets instead of reprinting old ones means an opportunity for marketing new products and perhaps double dipping on existing customers who already have one.

New sets can tie into hot properties as they did with Stranger Things (which also presents a double dipping opportunity).

Without more data the existence of multiple 5e starter sets tells us they have thought it was worth doing multiple times, but not much more.

 

[pointofyou]

Unless of course, you have been playing for a decade or two, in which case the book becomes needlessly simplistic and filler-heavy.

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.

 

[AnotherGuy]

A possible unpopular view, but Id like to see the treasure and magic items moved to the monster manual. This would free up room in the dmg at the cost of some monster blocks in the mm for magic item construction and other glossed over rules. I agree with many here that dming a game could be distilled down to simple concepts we see bad dms repeat. Like dm vs player mentality, how to handle tpks and murderhobboes, etc.

In case you were on the fence about this, it is definitely an unpopular view

 

[Imaro]

They could be doing their job but not be the central onboarding path.

A 32 page rulebook and adventure seems a small easy investment to develop.

They could be comparatively small print runs to meet the comparatively smaller demand for them.

Having new sets instead of reprinting old ones means an opportunity for marketing new products and perhaps double dipping on existing customers who already have one.

New sets can tie into hot properties as they did with Stranger Things (which also presents a double dipping opportunity).

Without more data the existence of multiple 5e starter sets tells us they have thought it was worth doing multiple times, but not much more.

SIGH... ok... it couldn't possibly be the simplest answer...they work. Well since no one here is a WotC employee and we can only go by what we see on the surface... we can agree to disagree.

 

[Maxperson]

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 adequate for a genuinely new DM.

There's a lot more DM material in there than that. The starter adventure is itself a decent example of world building. It puts together an area, including a town, NPCs, traits, adventure goals, treasure, etc. that show the DM one way to world build.

 

[Xamnam]

Like I said before, I used LMoP, I'm glad I did, it was fantastic for what I was looking for, I just viewed it as an small contained adventure as opposed to a tutorial. Still took me 22 sessions to get through all of it.

 

[Imaro]

Well, ideally, if the playing/running the game section is written well, no one would need to read all of the toolkit stuff in the DMG, or all the monsters, or even the character building for classes not being used in the game. I'm curious what the page count of that would look like compared to the total.

That wouldn't reduce the buy in cost? That's still $150 MSRP for the full game while knowing nothing about what you are buying (Which is just another reason the starter sets make a better onboard ramp for new players). Also how would they know they don't need to read anything else if they are new?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I know of people getting through Lost Mines of Phandelver in one long session. I know of people TPKing less than an hour in. I do not believe someone running it once is ready to make up their own campaign. They might be ready to run another published adventure. WotC would likely prefer they do that.

I'm not sure how much that says really. WotC would always prefer you buy more product.

 

[Imaro]

Like I said before, I used LMoP, I'm glad I did, it was fantastic for what I was looking for, I just viewed it as an small contained adventure as opposed to a tutorial. Still took me 22 sessions to get through all of it.

I wonder if you would have had any insurmountable issues if you had run it straight out the box... You chose to read the core books beforehand so there's no way to objectively say.

 

[pointofyou]

I am not talking about books in general... and I honestly enjoy reading through my D&D books but in the group I run I am literally the only person who reads them outside of the game, even the other DM has only skimmed them and has garnered the basics of running the game from online resources.

The other group I'm in is a dedicated discord for PoC gamers and nearly everyone there is new to D&D (It's a general gamer discord but has a sub channel for D&D). They learn through a mixture of online resources and participating in the games being ran, most only buy the PHB after being introduced to the game and realizing they like it so maybe my experiences are outliers but this is a relatively large sample of brand new players who wouldn't be playing D&D period if they had to read the near 900+ pages of core book material to learn.

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 it'd be better if new DMs found the DMG worth reading? I am as a rule unimpressed with the online resources I've looked at.