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

 

[tetrasodium]

The 5e dmg has a lot of awful & unforgivable sins made against GMs. I think one of the top ones on my list of inexcusable hurdles flung at GMs is the table on page 38.

Firstly it is a table of what should be player facing in the PHB where the GM could say "make characters using the [low magic campaign | standard campaign | high magic campaign] rules". That's a pretty unforgivable sin because it's a thing the GM should be able to choose from & easily have their players use it just by pointing at "step X option Y" of the character creation rules or similar.

Secondly is a problem that entirely devalues the entire table to the point of being a waste of ink at best. Rather than actually providing rules that would result in characters being built to different baselines of power that would provide room in the monster & equipment math for those different campaigns it literally states that a character being made 1st-4th in a low magic campaign should have "Normal starting equipment" then in a standard campaign should have N"ormal starting equipment" followed by in a high magic campaign should have "Normal starting equipment". No that's not a typo or a copy/paste error on my part... It really does say in the wrong book that all of those character power level impacting campaign choices should have those quoted starting equipment allotments with no mention of point buy/starting array/hit point/etc expectations.

If it got better with the tier2/3/4sections it might at least have some value, but instead those suggest magic item allotments for a low magic campaign that is far beyond what the system math expects & then simply rips the dial off to continue turning beyond that starting point of 11 on a dial that didn't even go to ten when it adds more & more magic items to PCs in standard & high magic campaigns.

edit: I worry about the lore section being an excuse to dump a setting guide for FR & GH into the DMG just to put one in print. Crawford mentioned a couple cities & names in the interview but none of them were from Eberron Athas or Ravenloft. Coincidentally that's pretty much the ratio for 5e's namedropping in non-setting books for all of 5e

 

[Clint_L]

I think there is a possibility that 2024 DMG may be the book I am most interested in of the revised core.

I kind of agree. It's the one with most room for new stuff.

Like, we know pretty much everything that is going to be in the PHB in advance, and they are not making big changes anyway. Going from what they've said and from Monsters of the Multiverse, there won't be big changes in the MM, either. But the DMG is almost a tabula rasa. There could be a ton of new stuff. Plus there are guaranteed to be lots of new magic items.

 

[Yaarel]

Regarding plans for Chapter Three, I am concerned about any "rules cyclopedia" being in the DMs Guide.



As a DM, I hope every rule that is necessary to play a complete game of D&D is all in one place: the Players Handbook.

I appreciate how the UA playtests consolidate the skill check rules for social reactions, jumping, and hiding, to be in one place. These default gaming rules belong in the Players Handbook.

The default gaming rules in the Players Handbook must be elegant: "as simple as possible, but not simpler". They also need to be as setting-neutral as possible. A DM needs a free hand to build a world without fighting against any conflicting setting assumptions that are baked-in the Players Handbook.

Any default setting assumptions in the Players Handbook need a light touch. Be "medievalesque" technology but where magic exists. (Perhaps aim for the reallife millennium between years 500 and 1500 CE.) Default classes need narrative flexibility, so the players can use the rules to customize a personal character concept. Likewise, the DM can use these open-ended classes in a new context in a different kind of setting.

All setting details, such as planar cosmology, gods, the pervasiveness of magic items, and so on, belong to the world of the DM. There are official setting guides to choose from that detail a specific world, like Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Ravnica, and so on. Meanwhile the DMs Guide can help the DM create an entirely new setting from scratch.

The mechanical rules to play the game belong in the Players Handbook.

But the details about the setting and the creatures that inhabit it, belong to the world that the DM builds.

Here, all "variant rules" belong in the DMs Guide. The variants can significantly establish the tone and themes of a specific setting.

So if having "rules cyclopedia" in the DMs Guide means, there is a list of tried-and-true variant rules that work well, that is great.

But if the cyclopedia means that I as DM need to keep on juggling back-and-forth between two separate books in order to doublecheck and clarify the gaming rules for a single adjudication, then that becomes unpleasant.

The default gaming rules belong in the Players Handbook, and need to be as simple and as narratively flexible as possible.

Any variant rules that the DM chooses to cherry-pick from the DMs Guide are something different. They are part of the worldbuilding.

 

[Azzy]

There is a great arguement it will be Greyhawk instead because this is the only space they are likely to be able to slip Greyhawk into, and among the designers there are Greyhawk fans.

I'm kinda hoping, but I could see Nentir Vale also being a good choice.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I'm guessing the pull-out is a slipcover for one of the DM Screens you we all seem to have accumulated in the 5e era. Maybe we will get a new screen if you buy the bundle edition.

I'm for a new design and hope the DMG will provide more worth than just a section on items. I actually use the 4e DMG at least for the town chapter on Fallcrest.

The new MM will have new creatures for high level play. Seems like it is not worth buying for me since I do not get past 12-13 level and will likely be able to update the monsters I use from someplace online. That is not making me want to buy it just for some new art.

Heck, new art alone is enough a reason to buy the book for me!

 

[Demetrios1453]

• 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

That is sooooooo much better than the current DMG. I was truly baffled by the chapter order in it when I first picked it up - why are you putting advanced cosmology stuff so near the front? Why are magic items in the middle (putting them at the back makes it easier to find the chapter like in previous editions)? This order seems to flow from basic to more advanced in a much more reasonable and logical order.

 

[Demetrios1453]

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.

I have a feeling we'll see the archons and guardinals in the upcoming Planescape product. But, then again, reprinting a few in the 2024 MM to pull up the woefully low number of MM celestials is something I'd be OK with.

 

[Demetrios1453]

It would be very cool if the "surprise" is a mini Greyhawk part, which would be a great way to celebrate the setting for the anniversary. And I would be willing to guess that the Vecna adventure will spend some significant time on Greyhawk, so this would be a way to help introduce it. And it would also release it for the DM Guild, which I'm sure everyone would love to see.

I really hope any prospective 2024 FR setting will use the 3e campaign setting as its guide, I'd love to see it brought into the current edition with a good updated timeline and lots of nice illustrations (which was the one thing lacking in the 3e book - even the best art in it could charitably be described as "meh").

 

[Yaarel]

Looking over the chapter structure again, I agree with @Parmandur that the surprise stuff is likely a setting and its map, which would let the campaign construction chapter be its own thing, with references to the fuller setting at the end.

If the "surprise" chapter is a setting and its map, then:

I want the local regional setting for the two towns to be from the origins of D&D:

• The village of Blackmoor by Arneson
• The city of Greyhawk by Gygax

I want to be able to plug-and-play these two towns into any setting that I am using.

Blackmoor corresponds geographically to reallife Churchill in Canada (a remote town on the shores of Hudson Bay that is built around a hospital that is responsible for a vast wilderness of indigenous populations).

Greyhawk corresponds to reallife Chicago in the US. This can translate into a prosperous cosmopolitan urban setting.

The DMs Guide is a great place to put these two regional settings, in a way that honors the inventors of D&D, for the 50th Anniversary Edition of D&D, and the 10th Anniversary of 5e.

 

[Chaosmancer]

For monster manual stuff I could see a few things.

1) High level beasts and low and high level plants
2) mid to high level oozes
3) high level fey
4) low level celestials
5) low and high level constructs
6) High level monstrosities, and more monstrosities in general
7) More diverse humanoids