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

 

[Parmandur]

I suspect we will have a lot of people using the Level Up bestiary or the Kobold Press equivalent with no issues at all, other than a happy DM.

Absolutely no doubt, and by design.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Hey, take it to the designated thread!

Is the 2024 rules update a new edition? Argue about it here (not everywhere else)!

As much fun as it is having this question infect every other thread, how about we go crazy and centralize the conversation in one place? So, in 2024, if you're using the new PHB, MM, DMG and whatever other books are released to support them, are you playing a different edition of Dungeons &...

www.enworld.org

 

[TrippyHippy]

Can’t really see myself buying a new Dungeon Master’s Guild. I don’t think I’ve taken the old one off the shelf since I bought that!

Really, with the new-not-new-edition, the only consequential new book that will be relevant to me will be the Player’s Handbook - because that is where all the substantial rules changes seem to be.

Looking forward to Planescape though!

 

[tetrasodium]

In an effort to get back on topic I want to talk about the TCoE session zero rules mentioned by Perkins. They are on page 139 v& pretty much continue on to 141 with various related tangents. On more than one occasion I've gone to look for those rules because someone mentioned them, but each time I'm quickly reminded "oh yea, I scrobbed them from my memory because they are useless to me as a GM". I might even be giving them too much credit there because I spent a while trying to decide if they are actively harmful or just needlessly hostile but decided it's close enough that they are just useless.

Through those pages the GM is given the following responsibilities:

• As the DM, youcan help players during the character creation process by advising them to select options that will serve the adventure or campaign that awaits.
  • The players are under no obligation to work with you, have no guidance on doing so, & even have character creation rules in the PHB that don't even bother to mention working with anyone until a character is gfully built.
• Each player has options when it comes to choosing a character race, class, and background, though you mayrestrict certain options that are deemed unsuitable for the campaign.
  • Same problem as before but worse. You as the GM need to either strictly limit or foresee any possible clash & squash it now even though players have nothing encouraging them to work with you or describe how they might do so during chargen
• If there are multiple players in the group, youshould encourage them to choose different classes so that the adventuring party has a range of abilities.
  • No. Just no... 5e was made so every character is a one man army with isekai main character plot armor levels over the top skills abilities & insulation from risk. I can't encourage it because players have no pressure to do so and nothing telling them how they might do so. I'm tired of trying to push this only to have most or all of the group go mute, open their books, & start following "chapter 1: step by step character creation" in silent isolation as described in RAW. This isn't something the GM can accomplish with so little support we have players using a core rulebook actively working against the GM's efforts. Even more frustrating here is that back in 2e & 3.x players would often actively engage in this unprompted because they wanted to make sure their weaknesses were covered by someone else in the group, it was just common sense that the tank would make sure someone could heal them & the controller would make sure someone could make use of their controlled targets & so on with the healer glass cannon rogue & so on. PCs don't have weaknesses they feel pressure to be worried about getting hung out to dry anymore & the player facing rules don't even hint at doing it.
• you should work with the player to decide who that generous benefactor is and build relevant storylines into the larger campaign.
  • This is a reference to a BIFT based example of ""I'm trying to pay off an old debt I owe to a generous benefactor" but it's a mess for several reasons. I have 5 players barely working with me & some of them only doing it in hopes of invoking rule zero to gain extra abilities like whatever is linked to the generous benefactor... I don't have the ability to weave in five of these kind of threads at this point because none of those five are making any effort to work with each other at this point. Worse than those reasons is the fact that players are one hundred percent free to simply nosell anything related to this if I do bring it up.... Even if that nosell would result in burned bridges the players have PCs that don't actually need anything that might be put in the lurch & the GM has no fate compel type tools that might be able to at least patch a prepped adventure linked to such a thing. Don't relegate the GM to the role of author for a player's self insert fanfic if the Players are not discouraged from ignoring the hooks or even slightly pressured to bite the hook.
    
    No this is not a case of "give your players what they want" or "you & your players need to agree on the type of campaign" because the GM has multiple players in no way pressured to work together. Not only that the players come to the session zero & zero+N primed by a PHB to believe that they are The Main Character surrounded by sidekicks who have the job of getting with The Main Character's story.. "D&D is about telling your story" & all that. A player should write a book if they want to tell a story because the order of operations is GM describes ->players react. With that order a story forms through the events that develop & choices made not by a player telling it
• During session zero, your role is to let the players build the characters theywant and to help them come up with explanations for how their characters came together to form an adventuring party.
  • How about a player facing section about how they need to work with the GM to fit the GM's world campaign & so forth rather than just stonewalling & trying to work in loopholes to get things the GM said no to or a section on how it's important for the player to remember this kind of stuff & act as if it remains the case rather than just ignore it
• Here are some questions you can ask the players as they create characters to get a sense of the party's relationships:
  • Are any of the characters related to each other?
  • What keeps the characters together as a party?
  • What does each character like most about every
  other member of the adventuring party?
  • Does the group have a patron? See chapter 2, "Group Patrons," for patron examples.
  • Again everything from the last point still applies, the GM is still in a position where they need to fight the PHB in a ryuleset that provides no pressures for the players to actively participate on this rather than just saying whatever needs saying to convince the GM to let them continue by making characters in isolation & throwing their backstories at the GM.
• If the players are having trouble coming up with a story for how their characters met, they may choose an option from the Party Origin table or let a d6 roll choose it for them. You should spend part of session zero helping the players flesh out the details. For example, if the characters came together to overcome a common foe, the identity of this enemy needs to be determined. If a funeral gathered the group, the identity of the deceased and each character's relationship to them will need to be fleshed out.
  • Don't just dump this on the GM & walk away without player facing guidance here. The GM has very little control over this and this is a system that makes efforts to defang any risks that could be associated with doing this poorly or simply ignoring it on a later session. The bulk of this text needs to be player facing not aimed at the GM.
• Session zero is the perfect time for you and the players to discuss the experience they're hoping for, as well as topics, themes, and behavior they deem inappropriate.
  • It's hard to be more blatant with telling the GM to just give the players what they want and do your job without actually saying it.

At no point are the players encouraged to work with the GM or accept the fact that sometimes the GM might need to make changes not covered during a session zero doctoral thesis presentation because one or more players forced their hand. You as the GM need to cover every possible thing during session zero without losing player interest or allowing unexpected loopholes/problematic cracks & plsyers are under no obligation to really work with you.


That goes on & on in a loop like that with all of the responsibility put on the GM's shoulders. The only exception is these

Spoiler: two player responsibilities

The players will respect you and the effort it takes
to create a fun game for everyone. The players will
allow you to direct the campaign, arbitrate the
rules, and settle arguments. When you are talking,
the players are listening.
• The players will respect one another, listen to one
another, support one another, and do their utmost
to preserve the cohesion of the adventuring party.

Players are not directed to help or work with the GM on any of that... just sit back and "allow" the GM to do it all because they showed up to be The Star.


That's not a reasonable or even useful section of GM facing text. Experienced GMs can handle those things easily enough given active player participation & doesn't need to be told such vague generalities. Inexperienced GMs need advice on handling it. Both types of GMs need players who are amenable to actively working with them in good faith because much of it is areas where the GM has very little control or say over things the players can't simply ignore later, getting players to that state is where the bulk of the Session Zero text needs to lie. This couple pages in TCoE may as well be a tvtropes or wikipedia entry intended for a hostile GM who doesn't understand why they are toxic.

 

[beta-ray]

Haha! I watched the video you posted called ONE D&D where they talk about the new version of D&D called ONE D&D with the title and end credit reveal of the new name…ONE D&D…yes so clear they were never going to call it ONE D&D. If anything the limb I went out on just got upgraded.

This one?

25 seconds into the video they say:

"… we embark on an initiative that we call One D&D"

Not a new edition they are calling One D&D.

At around the 1:20 mark Perkins talks about how well they like 5e and says:

"… We are no longer in a position where we think of D&D as an edition, it's just D&D"

This is him saying that they like 5e and will build on it.

Sorry don't know the fellow's name (~1:45) but he expands on that:

"The sort of change you're going to see isn't about taking anything away from you, isn't about changing any of that stuff that you love, it's much more about giving you more-- giving you more options, giving you more choices you can make, more character types you can play, more magic spells you can cast. Basically, you know, we're very happy with the game they way it is today, we just want to build on that. We're revising the major core rulebooks that every player uses: the Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Master's Guide, the Monster Manual…"

They mention it in the video, but it might be clearer in the video's description:

One D&D is the code name for the next generation of D&D, bringing together three initiatives that will shape the future of the game:
--D&D Rules. This takes what we love about fifth edition and updates the rules of the game to reflect the feedback we have heard from players and where the game is today.
--D&D Beyond. This will be the platform for your digital D&D collection, content, and tools.
--D&D Digital Play Experience. In early development, the D&D Digital play experience will offer an immersive player experience, rich creation tools for Dungeon Masters, and a connected space for DMs and players to get together and play D&D.

As noted, it is a code name. And refers to more than just the core books, it is them expanding on D&D Beyond, and in the VTT space.

 

[beta-ray]

Hey, take it to the designated thread!

Is the 2024 rules update a new edition? Argue about it here (not everywhere else)!

As much fun as it is having this question infect every other thread, how about we go crazy and centralize the conversation in one place? So, in 2024, if you're using the new PHB, MM, DMG and whatever other books are released to support them, are you playing a different edition of Dungeons &...

www.enworld.org

Sorry didn't get to your post until after I posted.

 

[vecna00]

For the record, this is what came out ofnthe creator summit:

View attachment 282461
View attachment 282462

These are damn beautiful!

 

[vecna00]

The beauty of exceptions based design: a group could go with the new PHB and DMG but inly use Monsters from 2014, or use only 2014 characters and spells and so on but switch to the 2024 MM, or mix qnd match which is what will ne common. We are already doing that, since they sneakily put 2024 rules in recently published books.

I used a mix of 3.0 and 3.5 for my campaigns and never had an issue. I'll more than likely be doing the same when the new books roll out.

 

[Iamoutofhere]

This one?

25 seconds into the video they say:


Not a new edition they are calling One D&D.

At around the 1:20 mark Perkins talks about how well they like 5e and says:


This is him saying that they like 5e and will build on it.

Sorry don't know the fellow's name (~1:45) but he expands on that:


They mention it in the video, but it might be clearer in the video's description:



As noted, it is a code name. And refers to more than just the core books, it is them expanding on D&D Beyond, and in the VTT space.

Yep that one. The one where they constantly refer to it as One D&D.

Anyway, it’s not D&D…it‘s Hasbro’s house ruled garbage…made by a company that wants to squeeze you for every last cent with it’s upcoming D&D XS Ultimate Game Pass release. It’s soulless modern corporate sludge. Enjoy.

 

[Stalker0]

Sigh...

Backwards compatibility was never meant to mean "your old PHB is 100% the same as the new one." It meant "you know that monster we printed in that module several years ago? It's still viable using the newer rules without converting it."

The issue of course is that backwards compatibility has never been defined, so there are several reasonable interpretations of it.

The simplest version is that the words used in the old stuff still mean the same thing. If something tells me to take an action.....actions haven't changed. A saving throw hasn't changed etc. If a spell has the same name as an old spell, it does the same thing. If a 2024 class wants to use a new mechanic they can, but it needs a new word. You can't take an old mechanic and mean something different with it.

The more restrictive version is a notion of "equivalency", the idea that old and new stuff can not only be used at the same table from a mechanics standpoint, but there is an expectation they will play in a similar way with a similar power level. Ie a 2014 fighter and a 2024 fighter at the same table should both feel like they are reasonably contributing to "fighter stuff" in roughly equal ways. Not exactly equal of course, but neither player feels their version "sucks".

The first version is honestly pretty open. As long as your willing to create new terms you can generate whatever new mechanics you want. However, I think a lot of people ascribe to version 2, which is where a lot of the argument about the new druid is coming from (the new moon druid is clearly inferior in terms of combat strength to the old one.....and so is that actually "backwards compatible"? The answer lies in which definition you use.