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In Search Of: The 5e Dungeon Master's Guide
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<blockquote data-quote="Iosue" data-source="post: 8796619" data-attributes="member: 6680772"><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p></p><p>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 <em>least</em> number of issues with the 5e DMG. Nor would I want a new DMG to cover the above, <em>except</em> inasmuch as it explains and provides resources for applying the skills learned in an introductory set to other types of game.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Iosue, post: 8796619, member: 6680772"] 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. 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 [I]least[/I] number of issues with the 5e DMG. Nor would I want a new DMG to cover the above, [I]except[/I] inasmuch as it explains and provides resources for applying the skills learned in an introductory set to other types of game. [/QUOTE]
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