D&D 5E "People complain, but don't actually read the DMG!" Which sections specifically?

[Yora]

I've seen the argument brought up many times and getting apparently plenty of agreement, that a lot of times when people complaining about things in 5th edition being bad or broken, they clearly haven't bothered to read the relevant sections in the DMG that cover those aspects. But I can't recall that argument ever being specific, and always more a general notion that this is an issue with a lot of complains that people have.
So I recently sat down again to read the DMG and look for interesting sections that provide explanations or alternative rules that stand out as seeming noteworthy. And couldn't find any.

What exactly are those supposed common issues that people have with 5th edition and which they wouldn't complain about if they carefully read what the DMG has to say about them?

 

[Stormonu]

Length of Long Rest/Short Rest is the one that comes to mind. I think the DMG covers it in the optional rules section as "gritty healing rules".

TBH, I've read the DMG (sections) from Holmes, B/X, BECMI, Rules Cyclopedia, 1E, UA, 2E, 3E, 3.5E, 3.5E DMG2, and 4E*; when 5E came around, I almost didn't buy the DMG and haven't read it except for a couple of sections (building encounters & monsters, introduction to magic items). I do need to sit down one day and force myself to read it - it's just that I know what most of it is gonna say.

* That's just for D&D; doesn't count various d20/Pathfinder games and the other hundred or so other RPGs I've read through on the DMs/GMs section.

 

[Mannahnin]

How to resolve social encounters might be another example. The DMG actually gives some pretty decent mechanics on it, which most folks seem to be unfamiliar with.

 

[DND_Reborn]

A lot of complaints can be handled by the variant combat options and such offered in the DMG IME:

1. One common complaint is about martials not being able to cut through swaths of creatures. (Cleaving Through Creatures, p. 272)
2. Another is disarming an foe. (Disarm under Action Options, p. 271)
3. Or moving through a foe's space (Tumble under Action Options, p. 272)
4. And not having the realism of injury in abstract HP (Injuries, p. 272)

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I've seen the argument brought up many times and getting apparently plenty of agreement, that a lot of times when people complaining about things in 5th edition being bad or broken, they clearly haven't bothered to read the relevant sections in the DMG that cover those aspects.

That's not exactly it. The truism is that no one reads the DMG because, well, no one reads it (for most values of "no one").

This is because the DMG both contains expansive (and occasionally contradictory) advice, as well as sketching out numerous variant rules. So you could have issues as diverse as "I don't like the way that 5e handles healing" (there's variant rules for that) to "I don't think that players should ever be allowed narrative control" (there's variant rules for that- the plot points) and so on.

It's not about 5e being bad or broken and the DMG fixing it, per se, it's that the wealth of options and customizations that are provided for, or at least pointed toward, in the 5e DMG are ignored because ... no one reads the DMG.

 

[Voadam]

Its more a joke meme about how people don't read the current edition DMG and do things as they always have even though some things have changed.

The most useful 5e DMG parts for running 5e as designed/intended I think would probably be the sections on encounter design and handling ability checks/non combat things like interactions.

The 5e DMG has a lot of sections on general advice and alternate rules, but the core 5e stuff I would think would be covered in encounters for combat pacing/challenge and how to specifically handle common non-combat stuff.

 

[Amros]

Something that comes to mind is the statement "the exploration pillar is so underdeveloped". But if you look at Chapter 5 in DMG p. 99, you see that there are lots of tables to create and populate dungeons and other environments; there are traps, doors and hazards with given DCs and mechanics; foraging, navigating and tracking DCs; etc.
Another topic usually brought to the table is the binary resolution for checks, but there is a section in the DMG p. 242 for Resolution and Consequences, which includes: Success at a Cost, Degrees of Failure, and Critical Success or Failure.
As Mannahnin said, rules for Social Interaction in page 244.
I remember rules for followers and hirelings too.
And lots more...

 

[darjr]

it's worse than no one reads it. Many of those that do don't retain whats in it. It's like reading a large textbook. Especially little special bits that they have no intention of using or any idea they need, at the time of reading.

 

[Lyxen]

I vote that the most misunderstood and badly quoted sentence of the DMG is the following one: "Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day."

And that the section that is read the least is the one that directly follows the sentence above, starting with: "If the adventure has more easy encounters, the adventurers can get through more. If it has more deadly encounters, they can handle fewer."

And in particular Modifying Encounter Difficulty, soooo many people claiming that the encounter system does not work and that their players (and by consequence themselves) are awesome players for clearing 5 deadly x10 encounters before breakfast...

 

[Burnside]

I would add that the the issue is compounded by the fact that the official 5E adventures are very often designed in ways that don't make use of the Dungeon Master's Guide or its ideas, despite the fact that it's one of the three books they all say is required in order to run the adventure. 95% of the time, the official adventures only employ the DM's Guide for magic items. The other 5% of the time, they tell you to use the (horrible) chase rules or (cringe-y) madness rules from Chapter 8.