D&D 5E Should a D&D 5e DM read the DMG and PHB?

[jasper]

I always wonder why players are happy to spend months, literally months, in terrible games instead of just DM'ing themselves. People are so lazy. I can't believe all his faults were so obvious to you, but you never considered taking over and running a good game.

Addiction to playing the game.

 

[akr71]

Does a DM need to read the DMG cover to cover? No.
Does a DM need to have an understanding of the rules of D&D - whatever edition? Absolutely, yes! Otherwise, you are not really playing D&D.

I have not read all of my DMG. I have read a lot of it, including the stuff on planes - more for adventure inspiration and such. I view it mostly as a reference manual. What does this magic item specifically do? Can its power(s) be used as an Action or a Bonus Action? I don't always follow CR for encounter building, but I have creating my own creatures lately and I use the section on creating your own monsters and run the math. Whether I use CR for encounter building or not, calculating the CR of my creations gives me a good sense of the power scale of what I've done. I Even when re-skinning an existing creature... I might have added an ability or power that skews its power level and I don't want to have to say to my players "oops, I messed up - that things was way too powerful for you." If I give fair warning and hint that there is something massively out of their league, that's a different story...

To the OP I would suggest finding a new group, or approach the other players about what you said here. Prepare a one shot - if you get the current DM on board to play your adventure, great - otherwise get the other players to play with you as DM. If they like your game better, problem solved. Hell, it may even inspire them to take a crack at DMing too.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

I've had too many experiences with cheap, lazy DMs to say that it's okay to skip reading the rules of the game. The majority of times I've run into these folks they were running linear games that suited their ideas of how the game should go, arbitrarily resolved encounters in they way they wanted them to go and allowed no input from players other than to be bit players in their pantomime. They wanted the power of being a DM but took none of the responsibility it requires. Of course, YMMV.

 

[delericho]

I completely agree. I've had great success running games for people who haven't read the rules. They have a character sheet that tells them what abilities they have, and I just follow the 3 basic steps of the game:

-I tell them the situation
-They tell me what they want to do
-I tell them the outcome

When it comes to making a specific roll, I tell them what to do or where to look on their character sheet for information or modifiers. They tend to pick up the rules organically this way pretty quickly, and I've never had anyone really struggle with playing if they start this way.

Yep, I've had a lot of success with starting like this.

There does come a point where players really should read the rules (or at least those related to their PC) - if you're committed enough to play for a month, you should probably be committed enough to learn how.

But for starting, I'd advocate for the minimum possible barrier to entry.

 

[BookBarbarian]

I've never read the DMG cover to cover, and I rarely use the PHB since I've switched from being a player to being a DM. However I use premade adventures, like the published Harcovers and the AL adventures available on the DMsGuild.

I could run the game with the Basic Rules and just these adventures as long as I trust my players to make their characters by the books, which I do.

Now in the specific case of the OP, it sounds like you may want to ditch this DM. If you are willing to give him one more try, refer him to the Basic Rules. They are a pretty easy read and cost nothing. Or if you can scrape $20 together I highly recommend the 5e Starter Set.

Good luck.

 

[feycreature]

Hey everyone, OP here. Thanks so much for the replies! I've read all of them and learned a lot, but I don't think I can possibly reply to everyone, so I'll try to reply to them by giving an update on our session last night and other details. And, by the way, I did manage to work out something with the DM after posting this to take over DMing for the group soon! Yay!

Last night was a surprisingly different game than every other session. We wandered from a little port hamlet to the main city and unexpectedly there was some kind of revolutionary coup there and we had to decide if we wanted to join sides with the incumbent or the citizens. As far as story goes, this was the first we'd learned anything about the king character and it was a surprise that he had something to do with someone else we killed deep in the woods (a "boss" that went down in like 1.5 rounds with no additional baddies to fight). He had us play a kind of wargame that reminded me a lot of Stormcloaks vs. Imperials in Skyrim, with different parts of the city controlled by one faction and we had an abstract army that we would send one way or another. His rules for the fighting were very complex, so I shouldn't even bother explaining it all here, but it was highly non-standard combat that usually involved us killing about 5 or 6 trivially easy guards per sector with a time allowance of 2 rounds. Each of the guards were abstractions of some greater number of guards, but sometimes even if we won decisively we'd lose like half of our force in that sector because of his d20 rolls that had something to do with it. At one point he had to call time and chill us out because we all got really frustrated with rules he didn't explain biting us in the ass (e.g. no long rests between days or enemies just popping out of nowhere 10 feet in front of us). As far as enjoying playing our classes and using our character strengths, it felt rather pointless, but it had some interesting aspects like an easy-mode RTS game. My gnome wizard got to propose a (Napoleonic) military strategy that I think paid off pretty well for us. Next session will involve fighting the king and his elite guards, but for gameplay reasons he doesn't want to let our 100+ person army at the doors help us as we go inside to kill the person they're trying to kill. "Sure....."

Anyway, I had actually been working on my own elaborate Faerûn campaign setting since before I even joined this group. I've had 6 months, off and on, to work on it, think it through, and world-build. There were a few chances for me to host a one-shot for the group, but those all fell through for various reasons. Since it seems we'll be wrapping up this chapter of his campaign in a few weeks by sailing off the damn island, it was the perfect timing for me to propose running my campaign for a minimum of 4 sessions. I'm getting hints from him that he would be cool if my campaign lasted for as long as players had interest, instead of us returning back to his world after some number of sessions. I think he's getting excited about his own character he'll be playing. I'm in the process now of helping everyone figure out their race/class/backgrounds. I think the group is ready for big change and I'm very excited to be getting behind the DM screen! Perhaps I could have done this sooner, but I'm glad I haven't burned a bridge with the DM so far since I think he'd be a good player. Next week 2 of our 5 players are out of town, so I'm going to run a session 0 prequel session for the 3 folks that will cover how they meet, etc. It's a lot to come up with on one week's notice but I have plenty of free time at the moment. After that we'll try to finish the other DM's campaign, hopefully with a bit more urgency.

I think I agree with most of you all that a DM should definitely have a good grasp of the PHB before deciding to DM. I think he expected us to be okay with a very rules-light version of D&D because in his mind "rules are for fools", but he adjusted a bit to incorporate more D&D-esque mechanics when he realized we actually liked D&D. I'm taking a very different approach to my DMing: very classic Faerûn D&D setting, classic tropes of story involving a major conflict between elves and humans, classic monsters, well-thought-out and challenging combat scenarios during most sessions, full D&D RAW, etc.

A big takeaway for me from this 5 month experience seems to be learning what not to do and how important the crunchier parts of D&D are. This thread has been very helpful for me to feel a little vindicated in my higher expectations and these tips are great to help me transition into my own campaign for the group. DM flaws notwithstanding, we did have enough fun each session to justify spending an evening every week doing it. I think others players' expectations are artificially low because for most of them this is their first game too.

 

[alienux]

I was just flipping through my DMG tonight and this thread came to mind when I was on page 5. The answer to this topic is covered in the rules. Under the section titled Part 3: Master of Rules, the fifth paragraph reads:

"To referee the rules, you need to know them. You don't
have to memorize this book or the Player's Handbook, but
you should have a clear idea of their contents so that,
when a situation requires a ruling, you know where to find
the proper reference."

 

[alienux]

Hey everyone, OP here. Thanks so much for the replies! I've read all of them and learned a lot, but I don't think I can possibly reply to everyone, so I'll try to reply to them by giving an update on our session last night and other details. And, by the way, I did manage to work out something with the DM after posting this to take over DMing for the group soon! Yay!

Last night was a surprisingly different game than every other session. We wandered from a little port hamlet to the main city and unexpectedly there was some kind of revolutionary coup there and we had to decide if we wanted to join sides with the incumbent or the citizens. As far as story goes, this was the first we'd learned anything about the king character and it was a surprise that he had something to do with someone else we killed deep in the woods (a "boss" that went down in like 1.5 rounds with no additional baddies to fight). He had us play a kind of wargame that reminded me a lot of Stormcloaks vs. Imperials in Skyrim, with different parts of the city controlled by one faction and we had an abstract army that we would send one way or another. His rules for the fighting were very complex, so I shouldn't even bother explaining it all here, but it was highly non-standard combat that usually involved us killing about 5 or 6 trivially easy guards per sector with a time allowance of 2 rounds. Each of the guards were abstractions of some greater number of guards, but sometimes even if we won decisively we'd lose like half of our force in that sector because of his d20 rolls that had something to do with it. At one point he had to call time and chill us out because we all got really frustrated with rules he didn't explain biting us in the ass (e.g. no long rests between days or enemies just popping out of nowhere 10 feet in front of us). As far as enjoying playing our classes and using our character strengths, it felt rather pointless, but it had some interesting aspects like an easy-mode RTS game. My gnome wizard got to propose a (Napoleonic) military strategy that I think paid off pretty well for us. Next session will involve fighting the king and his elite guards, but for gameplay reasons he doesn't want to let our 100+ person army at the doors help us as we go inside to kill the person they're trying to kill. "Sure....."

Anyway, I had actually been working on my own elaborate Faerûn campaign setting since before I even joined this group. I've had 6 months, off and on, to work on it, think it through, and world-build. There were a few chances for me to host a one-shot for the group, but those all fell through for various reasons. Since it seems we'll be wrapping up this chapter of his campaign in a few weeks by sailing off the damn island, it was the perfect timing for me to propose running my campaign for a minimum of 4 sessions. I'm getting hints from him that he would be cool if my campaign lasted for as long as players had interest, instead of us returning back to his world after some number of sessions. I think he's getting excited about his own character he'll be playing. I'm in the process now of helping everyone figure out their race/class/backgrounds. I think the group is ready for big change and I'm very excited to be getting behind the DM screen! Perhaps I could have done this sooner, but I'm glad I haven't burned a bridge with the DM so far since I think he'd be a good player. Next week 2 of our 5 players are out of town, so I'm going to run a session 0 prequel session for the 3 folks that will cover how they meet, etc. It's a lot to come up with on one week's notice but I have plenty of free time at the moment. After that we'll try to finish the other DM's campaign, hopefully with a bit more urgency.

I think I agree with most of you all that a DM should definitely have a good grasp of the PHB before deciding to DM. I think he expected us to be okay with a very rules-light version of D&D because in his mind "rules are for fools", but he adjusted a bit to incorporate more D&D-esque mechanics when he realized we actually liked D&D. I'm taking a very different approach to my DMing: very classic Faerûn D&D setting, classic tropes of story involving a major conflict between elves and humans, classic monsters, well-thought-out and challenging combat scenarios during most sessions, full D&D RAW, etc.

A big takeaway for me from this 5 month experience seems to be learning what not to do and how important the crunchier parts of D&D are. This thread has been very helpful for me to feel a little vindicated in my higher expectations and these tips are great to help me transition into my own campaign for the group. DM flaws notwithstanding, we did have enough fun each session to justify spending an evening every week doing it. I think others players' expectations are artificially low because for most of them this is their first game too.

It seems like you have a really good attitude about this, and it's good that it worked out that you can take over as DM without any negativity or hostility. One thing you might want to think about in your session 0 is to set an expectation that the players understand at least the basic rules, since he may skip them as a player, too. Or at least be sure that he'll respect how you DM based on the rules.

 

[feycreature]

It seems like you have a really good attitude about this, and it's good that it worked out that you can take over as DM without any negativity or hostility. One thing you might want to think about in your session 0 is to set an expectation that the players understand at least the basic rules, since he may skip them as a player, too. Or at least be sure that he'll respect how you DM based on the rules.

I've been trying hard not to be that know-it-all toxic player who can't be happy. Qualms I've had I mostly just bottle up with optimism that he'll improve over time and that I might well make mistakes of a similar proportion if I were a new DM. He's improved over time, and has learned many more rules than he did at the outset, but I think he also struggles with not having much experience as a player or watching enough recorded campaigns like Critical Role, etc.

I'm not terribly worried about them skipping rules with me around since I'm normally an enforcer anyway. I've played enough with the others to trust they can play normally and I think our current DM would be more or less average with the rest of them at this point. They'll be new to their classes, so they may have to figure a few things out, but that's to be expected. In my house rules document I did initially write something about "Everyone is expected to learn how to play. If you have to be reminded repeatedly how something works, you're doing it wrong" but I decided to remove it because I think most people have gotten the basics down well so far, at least within the relatively easy challenges we've faced -- and I didn't want to sound accusatory.