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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8802020" data-attributes="member: 18">I can't speak for the starter sets, but the DMG is probably the worst DMG for new DMs in the entire history of AD&D/WotC D&D. Certainly relative to the era it is.There's no excuse for that.There's no "it's the best we can do".It's nowhere near the best WotC could do. It's a rushed-out, terribly-organised, conceptually-confused, badly-written book which doesn't at all focus on the essentials of DMing, and as much as it's aimed at all, seems to have been aimed at pretty experienced DMs attempting to recreate a previously existing experience. But it's not even good at that.It's a good thing 2024 is coming up, because WotC could do drastically better, and I'm hoping that they will.Is that a misconception?In absolute terms, sure, like, it's not like learning a language or something.In relative terms to other modern TTRPGs, boardgames, tabletop wargames, complex videogames and so on? Yeah D&D is pretty difficult to learn, and a lot of the difficulty is unnecessary, frankly. D&D is particularly high-effort to run, compared to most modern TTRPGs and to literally all of the other games listed. That's the biggest challenge with D&D, and I honestly have no idea how popular it would be if it was significantly easier to run, but it would definitely be more popular.Better guidance, clearer rules, a better CR-type system (it is possible, 4E's was drastically better than 5E's one - admittedly 5E's is drastically better than 3E's), just better explanations focused on the basics and focused on keeping the game running and fun would be great. I honestly think more random tables and the like would also be very helpful to new DMs.And more WotC-supported online resources, frankly.</blockquote>

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