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

[Oofta]

You want specifics. I said it before and I said it again and I'll say it one more time.

I want the book to be laid out and organized so actual people can actually read and use it. An actual functional index would be revelatory.

As an actual person I read through it and didn't have an issue understanding it. I think it could be organized a bit better and of course everything can be improved. Much of it feels ass-backwards, put Running the Game at the front. World building and the multiverse at the end with treasure being the last chapter.

I still don't get all the complaints about the index. People still use them? It's an index in an age of google.

I want a basic explanation of what people usually expect from the game as players. This might need some granularity and some acknowledgment that people sometimes want and expect different things. It should probably include some specific advice for meeting those expectations.

They do talk about it here and there explaining why some people would want some style and not another. You have read the DMG, right? There's talk about different styles of players in the introduction, for what it's worth.

I want some specific commentary on why a DM would run one way as opposed to another. This doesn't need to be judgmental but rather than just telling the new DM they can run in these ways it seems useful to explain at least some of why people run those ways.

The result would probably disappoint. Because it would typically come down to "We looked at older games and what worked and what didn't. Then we discussed it as a group and made the best decision we could. We adjusted some things based on play test feedback."

I want the effects of and reasoning behind optional rules explained. I'd strongly prefer for those optional rules to have actual thought put into them and I'd strongly prefer for the explanations I want to actually reflect the effects of the optional rules on play.

I'll go back to roll of the dice. They explain the pluses and minuses of choices. Roll to resolve uncertainty almost all the time?

Relying on dice also gives the players the sense that anything is possible. ... A drawback of this approach is that roleplaying can diminish if players feel that their die rolls, rather than their decisions and characterizations, always determine success.​

Ignore the dice?

This approach rewards creativity by encouraging players to look to the situation you’ve described for an answer, rather than looking to their character sheet or their character’s special abilities. A downside is that no DM is completely neutral. A DM might come to favor certain players or approaches, or even work against good ideas if they send the game in a direction he or she doesn’t like. This approach can also slow the game if the DM focuses on one “correct” action that the characters must describe to overcome an obstacle.​

There are other examples and explanations throughout the book.

I want instruction on worldbuilding to focus on getting the most play out of the least work and getting quickly to play. It's fine to work out complicated geography and functional calendars but I do not believe those things are exactly necessary to start play. Telling new DMs to figure out some broad strokes of the setting then some specifics of where play starts then fill things in as needed would be nice. An example of doing so with thought processes explained would be superb.

They give advice on that. It does have a lot of options, but that's kind of the point of D&D that the feel of the world you create can vary significantly. If you want something handed to you, get a starter kit.

Is that specific enough?

All those things seem as though they might be more helpful for newer DMs and some might be useful for more experiences ones as well.

I know this is a broken record, but most DMs don't start in a vacuum. They have experience with D&D as a player, have plenty of background in fantasy worlds from varied sources including video games to novels.

Last, but not least, there is no such thing as perfect. A book that works for 80% of people is not going to work for 20%. As an IT person, there were many times when we had to focus on that 80% because that 20%? That was more effort than the rest of the 80%. The last 5% could be the most costly of all.

There is a trade-off. The core books are all between 320 - 350 pages. Obviously they have a page count target that they adhere to pretty strictly for a variety of reasons. There's only so much you can do with that limitation and the result will always targeted, the book is not targeted primarily at people truly new to D&D. That's what the free PDFs, encounters and videos along with the starter sets are for.

 

[Voadam]

I still don't get all the complaints about the index. People still use them? It's an index in an age of google.

When I have the book in front of me and I am trying to find something that I am not sure where it is I often go to the multipage index to try to find a page number to get the section I want.

I much prefer primary source references from the DMG when trying to figure out baseline 5e D&D rules. When googling something like 5e D&D grid rules I get references to the online basic rules and a bunch of website entries with a range of grid rule topics. I'd generally rather read the rules RAW for myself than someone else's take on them.

Other methods of finding stuff in the book itself would be just flipping around trying to remember where stuff generally is, using the table of contents, having someone else give me a page reference so I look it up myself.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

Yeah, its too bad WotC thinks people wouldn't go for it. The Metzer Basic was my introduction and still my starter set gold standard. I've used it with my own kids.

 

[Maxperson]

As an actual person I read through it and didn't have an issue understanding it. I think it could be organized a bit better and of course everything can be improved. Much of it feels ass-backwards, put Running the Game at the front. World building and the multiverse at the end with treasure being the last chapter.

I still don't get all the complaints about the index. People still use them? It's an index in an age of google.

The 5e DMG index? It's constructed horribly.

Here's one example. Look up Factions. Instead of getting 21-23, 101-102 for a total of 13 characters, we get "See organizations; see also creating a dungeon: factions" for a total of 57 characters and now I have to spend more time looking up something else. 4.5 times the number of characters used in order to not give me the information.

 

[Oofta]

The 5e DMG index? It's constructed horribly.

Here's one example. Look up Factions. Instead of getting 21-23, 101-102 for a total of 13 characters, we get "See organizations; see also creating a dungeon: factions" for a total of 57 characters and now I have to spend more time looking up something else. 4.5 times the number of characters used in order to not give me the information.

Guess I should have included an emoji, it was a joke.

 

[pointofyou]

The limits are entirely irrelevant. Deciding, rolling for everything, a mixture of both, the limits are never different. This is about the process, not the limits and the difference in processes between Rolling With It and Ignoring the Dice are profound.

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

 

[pointofyou]

It certainly sounds from this conversation 1 has not actually read the DMG or is just making a case for personal preference. Especially when there are calls for "real advice" and when asked what that may entails, the answer comes back as I'm not a games designer as if one was asked to work the mechanics of the game.

Supposedly one can have the language capacity to critique the DMG for an entire week in discussion with multiple posters but when it comes to real advice, the language fails one.

What we (general) appear to agree upon is that the 5e DMG needed a better structural layout, a better index and that there is no "example of play" within the book. The rest of the criticism seems to be personal preferences and various biases showing.

If one had actually read the conversation one might have noted that particular bit of the DMG was specifically chosen and that the poster who chose it had in fact read it.

I agree that reading comprehension is a problem.

 

[pointofyou]

As an actual person I read through it and didn't have an issue understanding it. I think it could be organized a bit better and of course everything can be improved. Much of it feels ass-backwards, put Running the Game at the front. World building and the multiverse at the end with treasure being the last chapter.

I still don't get all the complaints about the index. People still use them? It's an index in an age of google.



They do talk about it here and there explaining why some people would want some style and not another. You have read the DMG, right? There's talk about different styles of players in the introduction, for what it's worth.



The result would probably disappoint. Because it would typically come down to "We looked at older games and what worked and what didn't. Then we discussed it as a group and made the best decision we could. We adjusted some things based on play test feedback."



I'll go back to roll of the dice. They explain the pluses and minuses of choices. Roll to resolve uncertainty almost all the time?

Relying on dice also gives the players the sense that anything is possible. ... A drawback of this approach is that roleplaying can diminish if players feel that their die rolls, rather than their decisions and characterizations, always determine success.​

Ignore the dice?

This approach rewards creativity by encouraging players to look to the situation you’ve described for an answer, rather than looking to their character sheet or their character’s special abilities. A downside is that no DM is completely neutral. A DM might come to favor certain players or approaches, or even work against good ideas if they send the game in a direction he or she doesn’t like. This approach can also slow the game if the DM focuses on one “correct” action that the characters must describe to overcome an obstacle.​

There are other examples and explanations throughout the book.




They give advice on that. It does have a lot of options, but that's kind of the point of D&D that the feel of the world you create can vary significantly. If you want something handed to you, get a starter kit.



I know this is a broken record, but most DMs don't start in a vacuum. They have experience with D&D as a player, have plenty of background in fantasy worlds from varied sources including video games to novels.

Last, but not least, there is no such thing as perfect. A book that works for 80% of people is not going to work for 20%. As an IT person, there were many times when we had to focus on that 80% because that 20%? That was more effort than the rest of the 80%. The last 5% could be the most costly of all.

There is a trade-off. The core books are all between 320 - 350 pages. Obviously they have a page count target that they adhere to pretty strictly for a variety of reasons. There's only so much you can do with that limitation and the result will always targeted, the book is not targeted primarily at people truly new to D&D. That's what the free PDFs, encounters and videos along with the starter sets are for.

Both the PHB and the DMG seem to have the same number of like-sized signatures. While I'm sure those were chosen with some thought there's no reason to think either of them is metaphorically set in stone.

I agree that most people who were coming to 5e when it was new were not coming without experience. Gathering all of those people with knowledge of and affection for previous editions is why they were so careful not to exclude any reasonably common way to play D&D. They clearly wrote the DMG so people would fill in gaps with their previous experience and believe they saw support for their preferred play in the book. The problem is that people are coming to the game now with no experience of previous editions and nothing to fill in those gaps so WotC need to write the book with a different audience's different needs in mind.

There are options in the DMG aplenty but opinions and actual actionable advice are hard to come by and usually buried. A good reorganization along with actual advice would be a boon.

 

[Oofta]

Both the PHB and the DMG seem to have the same number of like-sized signatures. While I'm sure those were chosen with some thought there's no reason to think either of them is metaphorically set in stone.

I agree that most people who were coming to 5e when it was new were not coming without experience. Gathering all of those people with knowledge of and affection for previous editions is why they were so careful not to exclude any reasonably common way to play D&D. They clearly wrote the DMG so people would fill in gaps with their previous experience and believe they saw support for their preferred play in the book. The problem is that people are coming to the game now with no experience of previous editions and nothing to fill in those gaps so WotC need to write the book with a different audience's different needs in mind.

There are options in the DMG aplenty but opinions and actual actionable advice are hard to come by and usually buried. A good reorganization along with actual advice would be a boon.

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.

 

[Iosue]

Yeah, its too bad WotC thinks people wouldn't go for it. The Metzer Basic was my introduction and still my starter set gold standard. I've used it with my own kids.

It’s not even WotC. If WotC came out with a version of Mentzer Basic for the new iteration, they’d get pilloried on these and many other forums. “People are watching Critical Role/Stranger Things/Honor Among Thieves and wanting to get into D&D, and your introductory product has gone all-in on dungeon-crawls?” Pedagogically, I think it would be great. PR-wise, I think it would be a disaster.