D&D (2024) Take A Closer Look At The 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide

Wizards of the Coast has just shared a video delving into the upcoming One D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide, due for release in 2024.

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Scroll down to post #4, below, for a more detailed text summary!

• Chapter 1 -- basic concepts
• Chapter 2 -- Advice, common issues
• Chapter 3 -- Rules cyclopedia
• Chapter 4 -- Adventure building
• Chapter 5 -- Campaign building
• Chapter 6 -- Cosmology
• Chapter 7 -- Magic items
• Chapter 8 -- 'A surprise'
• Appendices -- maps, lore glossary

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Well, not necessarily: they would want to sell a new FR guide at some point, whereas Greyhawk would work fine with basically anything published for 5E with minimal work: and using a non-FR Setting to show how a DM could make their own world and file off FR serial numbers could serve to sell nominally FR Adventure campaigns.

Whatever it is, my gut says Chapter 8 and the poster map are related. And Perkins seemed very pleased with whatever the mystery is.

This is a great point, the designers have been trying to sneak as much Greyhawk into 5e as they could for ages now, even if it meant sticking it in FR or naming most of the the general books after Greyhawk characters and doing Ghosts of Saltmarsh with a guide to translating it to other settings for years now, because the bosses would let them do a dedicated setting book for Greyhawk.

So sneaking Greyhawk Campaign Setting Guide into the DMG with the added bonus of tying it to the 50th anniversary is a cleaver back door way to do it, and it could be enough to open up Greyhawk to dmsguild. Plus its would tie into the Vecna adventure.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Just out of curiousity what gaps do you think the RD&D MM needs to fill? I think for lower levels, Celestials are a big one, for higher levels I'm not sure.

 

[Howndawg]

Just wait until you hear what your player characters will be cutting off next.

The Wand of Vecna.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Just out of curiousity what gaps do you think the RD&D MM needs to fill? I think for lower levels, Celestials are a big one, for higher levels I'm not sure.

Possibly by bringing back the Lantern Archon, Hound Archon, Avoral, Leonal, Bralani and Ghaele. Those are low to high level celestials that were in the main MM back in 3e.

 

[kenada]

Eight is a surprise, potentially TBA. (A nude fold-out of Vecna, I predict.)

Chapter 8 will be a mimic. The fold-out is the tongue.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Just out of curiousity what gaps do you think the RD&D MM needs to fill? I think for lower levels, Celestials are a big one, for higher levels I'm not sure.

For higher levels, I think they don't want DMs to feel restricted to dragons, fiends and a few undead. So giving some high CR versions of an array of monsters seems likely.

I am sure someone out there has a chart of monster types by CR, but for a long time, the fey weren't well represented throughout the WotC monster books, which is probably part of the reason why there are so many fey bestiaries on the DMs Guild, DriveThruRPG and Kickstarter. I think we're probably also light on constructs.

And I would like to see many, many more NPCs, of a wide level range. I don't want to have to toss a zillion thieves at my PCs to challenge them at even middle levels and surely not every swordsman in town can wipe out a low level party single-handedly.

 

[Vael]

And I would like to see many, many more NPCs, of a wide level range. I don't want to have to toss a zillion thieves at my PCs to challenge them at even middle levels and surely not every swordsman in town can wipe out a low level party single-handedly.

IIRC, they mentioned in the Creator Fest talk that the NPC section was getting a lot of love because NPCs are used heavily.

ETA: Found the relevant text from the EN report:

The new Monster Manual will have close to 500 monsters in it. It'll be the biggest MM D&D has ever had with almost all new art. We're focusing on higher level monsters and more NPCs because we've found that DMs use them a ton.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

And I would like to see many, many more NPCs, of a wide level range. I don't want to have to toss a zillion thieves at my PCs to challenge them at even middle levels and surely not every swordsman in town can wipe out a low level party single-handedly.

They probably do need to bring some of the NPCs like Archdruid and Warlord in Monsters of the Multiverse, over to the new MM.

 

[TerraDave]

I didn't do 4E, but it was my understanding that the 4E DMG did a lot of that, as did the 3E DMG2.

Ah ever the outlier. I did run 4e, a lot.

The DMG did not have the magic items, the PHB did, so they had to put something in there. Yes, it starts with "how to be a DM". Followed by "running the game". You can debate how well it worked. (Jame Wyatt did the book and tried to do a DM advice column after it came out, in which it became clear that he was having problems actually getting his campaign going to use as a basis for the column. Oh 4e.)

It does have a mini setting, with a mini adventure. the 3e DMG II also did something like that. So I wonder if that is was the mysterious chapter 8 is.

 

[overgeeked]

Here’s to hoping the sample campaign is Mystara or Nentir Vale. Most likely FR. Because it’s (almost) always FR.

I’m honestly hoping the “surprise” chapter is Mike Shea putting the best of Return of the Lazy DM into the actual DMG. Or it’s Matt Mercer writing the chapter. I doubt Matt Colville would be interested at this point.