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

[pointofyou]

I think most people agree that the book could be reorganized a bit and there's always room for improvement. As far as the length of the books, I'm sure there's a lot of factors that go into it. No, it's not set in stone but if you look at the shelf of a store selling TTRPGs (not just D&D) most of the books are quite similar size and format. I would assume there's reasons for that, whether it's tradition, what booksellers expect and want to shelve, cost/benefit analysis of more pages it appears they have a target length and format. I don't expect that to change.

Looking at stuff I'm poking around in and have handy

The Cypher System Core Rulebook is about 450 pages. It contains player rules and a small bestiary and a pretty good GMing section with advice on setting up a game in a number of genres and settings.

The Zweihänder Core Rulebook is about 670 pages. It contains player rules and a sizable bestiary and lots of information about the presumed setting and a large GMing section with much more in the way of actual GM-facing rules and a few sample scenarios. It is difficult to imagine someone reading this book and not understanding the game's presumptions.

The Haunted West Core Rulebook is almost 800 pages and reminds me of some of my college textbooks. It contains player rules including a lifepath system that takes up more than 125 pages and the GMing section contains sample scenarios and sample places and a small bestiary. In addition to a kinda slim section roughly equivalent to Running The Game there is GMing advice strewn throughout the book and though there are several specific ways to run the game laid out in the book the presumptions of them all are clear and there is no particular favor given to any particular approach.

There are really two points here. One is that there's plenty of room in the market for TRPG books with larger page counts. Someone really into rules-light games could probably provide examples of slimmer books but that really isn't my preference and I'm really not that someone. The second point is that It's possible to provide good GMing advice in a TRPG book no matter the page count.

 

[Maxperson]

If the limits are not different then neither is what is possible different.

You literally just said that if red is not different then neither is red different. Let the limits/possibilities go man. They are not relevant. This is all about the process. Do you go with the process of deciding everything? Do you go with the process of rolling for everything? Or do you go with a process that combines the two?

Yet some people prefer one and others prefer the other and I do not think the dozen or so sentences on the topic in the DMG are adequate or particularly good.

Yes, they do prefer one process over the others. And you have yet to articulate anything that the DMG does not cover regarding the above processes other than vague "It's not good enough" and "It should be better." That isn't sufficient.

If you can't pinpoint exactly what needs to be added or changed and why, then as far as I'm concerned, the DMG does just fine. What I see in there explains the differences well and lays out pros and cons. A new DM can read that and come away confident on the style he prefers.

 

[pointofyou]

You literally just said that if red is not different then neither is red different. Let the limits/possibilities go man. They are not relevant. This is all about the process. Do you go with the process of deciding everything? Do you go with the process of rolling for everything? Or do you go with a process that combines the two?

Yes, they do prefer one process over the others. And you have yet to articulate anything that the DMG does not cover regarding the above processes other than vague "It's not good enough" and "It should be better." That isn't sufficient.

If you can't pinpoint exactly what needs to be added or changed and why, then as far as I'm concerned, the DMG does just fine. What I see in there explains the differences well and lays out pros and cons. A new DM can read that and come away confident on the style he prefers.

The point of possible is that the DMG says rolling for everything means anything is possible. That implies that the limits of the possible are different if you roll than if you don't. That is a false implication and I think it means the statement "rolling for everything makes it so anything is possible" is false.

I have said specifically what I think needs to be improved in the DMG at least three times and I will not repeat myself further.

 

[Maxperson]

The point of possible is that the DMG says rolling for everything means anything is possible. That implies that the limits of the possible are different if you roll than if you don't.

No, it implies that you won't get a no and that everything will be possible with a roll. This is different from the DM choosing, which only matches rolling possibilities if the DM never says no and just says yes for everything. Practically speaking, that will never happen and therefore rolling achieves more things being possible than the DM deciding does.

The limits are the same. The processes and actual game play possibilities will be different.

 

[Older Beholder]

The interesting thing about this is, the 80s Basic Sets have pretty good reputations as introductions to the game. I, for one, think they are excellent (that's right, I used italics for emphasis!). But what makes them so good is just how extraordinarily constrained they are. They don't examine differing player agendas, they don't even cover adventuring in the wilderness. The focus solely on running a dungeon-crawl game, and their practical, procedural advice in terms of creating adventures is purely on creating dungeons. They take a tiny sliver of the potential of RPGs, and double-down on that.

But I've come to the conclusion that, actually, the best, most efficient way to teach someone to DM is to teach them how to create and run dungeon-crawls. Even if eventually they will go off and do Critical Role/Dragonlance type narrative-heavy campaigns, or urban campaigns centered on social interaction or West Marches sandbox. The constrained, highly focused style of play is easy to pick-up, and the skills the players and DMs learn there provide a solid foundation upon which the skills for handling the many other styles of game (indeed, many other game systems) can be extrapolated.

But, such an introductory product would never fly today. Not only because dungeon-crawls are passé, but because no one would be on-board with introducing the unlimited freedom and potential of TRPGs by focusing on a highly focused, highly constrained aspect of them.

The 5E equivalent of the Basic Set is the Starter Set: 'Lost Mine of Phandelver', not the DMG.
The 5E Starter set also has a pretty good reputation as an introduction to the game.

All these complaints about the 5E DMG all seem to go back to wanting it to cover 1st ed dungeon crawling specifically.

 

[Iosue]

The 5E equivalent of the Basic Set is the Starter Set: 'Lost Mine of Phandelver', not the DMG.
The 5E Starter set also has a pretty good reputation as an introduction to the game.

Agreed on both points, but I would say that LMoP, as much as I love it (I've run it about four times!) does not teach the DM the core competencies that I'm talking about here. It gets the DM and players familiar with the rules and common procedures of the game. It provides plenty of content for the group to get through, during which they will get valuable experience as players and DMs. All very fine qualities.

However, it does not teach the DM how to build an encounter, let alone a scenario, let alone an adventure. Specifically, all it explicitly teaches the DM is how to read and run a prepublished adventure. That's not necessarily a criticism! I understand that the expected on-ramp was that a DM (and group) would get gain experience through all the content provided in the Starter Set, then perhaps move on to the Basic Rules for character creation, perhaps another prepublished adventure, and when the DM felt comfortable and ready, they would then get the DMG which has all the procedures and advice for building an adventure. I think that's one reasonable approach, and it certainly seems to have been successful.

But! If I was building a DM from scratch, I think a more effective way to do it would be to give them Moldvay Basic, and have them focus on dungeon-crawling, at least initially. Why? Because it's constrained and focused, and learning to create a dungeon provides foundational skills. Once you learn how to create a dungeon, you can extrapolate that into other play styles.

Scenario design is essentially dungeon-creation on a larger scale. From a starting point, you create paths to different encounters. Some paths lead to a variety of different encounters, while some encounters can be reached by multiple paths. You create chokepoints to progress, and devise multiple ways to bypass these chokepoints. You have events triggered by time, other events triggered by the PCs actions. You have random events that create complications.

You could certainly approach this from a non-dungeon perspective. You could break it down into non-dungeon terms, as I've done here, and teach that. But I would suggest that a dungeon provides the most straightforward application of these ideas, is thematic of D&D (it's right in the name!) and can handle a wide variety of encounters (the so-called "three pillars" of combat, social interaction, and exploration), and so has great use as a practical example.

All these complaints about the 5E DMG all seem to go back to wanting it to cover 1st ed dungeon crawling specifically.

Well, Moldvay dungeon crawling specifically, but it really doesn't even have to be that. You could do the same thing with a focused application of the 5e rules. And for what it's worth, I'm probably the person in this thread with the least number of issues with the 5e DMG. Nor would I want a new DMG to cover the above, except inasmuch as it explains and provides resources for applying the skills learned in an introductory set to other types of game.

 

[Older Beholder]

Agreed on both points, but I would say that LMoP, as much as I love it (I've run it about four times!) does not teach the DM the core competencies that I'm talking about here. It gets the DM and players familiar with the rules and common procedures of the game. It provides plenty of content for the group to get through, during which they will get valuable experience as players and DMs. All very fine qualities.

However, it does not teach the DM how to build an encounter, let alone a scenario, let alone an adventure. Specifically, all it explicitly teaches the DM is how to read and run a prepublished adventure. That's not necessarily a criticism! I understand that the expected on-ramp was that a DM (and group) would get gain experience through all the content provided in the Starter Set, then perhaps move on to the Basic Rules for character creation, perhaps another prepublished adventure, and when the DM felt comfortable and ready, they would then get the DMG which has all the procedures and advice for building an adventure. I think that's one reasonable approach, and it certainly seems to have been successful.

Firstly, my apologies, my previous post came across a lot blunter than intended. You weren‘t complaining at all.

And I see what you’re saying. I just think they’re moving away from the approach you’re talking about. But hey, you never know, they bring out themed starter sets all the time, there’s always the possibility they’ll drop a dungeon crawl themed starter set in the style you’re looking for.

 

[jasper]

I have DM the Lost mine. And have the two other starter sets. Can any one give a page number where there is DMs advice on how to run in any of the sets? I am specifically not including the upgrade/downgrade advice.

Nevermnd there is some good advice in Lost mines at the beginning.

 

[jasper]

DMG One. Should include Chapter 4 from Tasha's and it should be updated and in some places expanded on.
Play Styles AKA what is a power gamer, rules lawyer, actor, causal etc.
A quick five room dungeon and sample of play. Jasper the Fighter "I attack the door." DM "Roll an attack against AC 12. But if there are monsters behind the door, they will know what you are doing."

 

[FrozenNorth]

The claim that the current DMG acts as a reference and that the main problem is the layout just doesn’t make sense to me.

By way of example, the DMG only has 4 pages on traps and only includes 9 sample traps. Some reference! And traps are something that you find in most playstyles.

I no longer have my 4e DMG, but as I recall, it had quite a few hazards. By way of comparison, Level Up has 40 pages of hazards. PF2 includes traps in the Core Rulebook and still manages to devote 9 pages to them and include 20 examples.

As I mentioned earlier, the environmental hazards section in the DMG is also quite poor, with extreme cold and extreme heat barely impacting characters, and the hazards described mostly unable to work as standalone hazards.