Yora
Legend
Remains to be seen whether it'll make me happy or not, but I'll be *very* interested to see what they do with this.
Lanefan
My interest gauge just went from 0 to 1. Now I feel like I might at least take a look at it.
Remains to be seen whether it'll make me happy or not, but I'll be *very* interested to see what they do with this.
Lanefan
"Sidebars in the new DMG help DMs to customize the game to match past editions of D&D."
Let's say my toilet has a leak (true story, actually). The DIY guide gives me step-by-step instructions on removing the tank and replacing the gaskets, and gives me some advice regarding water conservation upgrades I might want to make while I have the toilet disassembled.
The self-help manual tells me to take a deep breath and remember to be grateful that I have a toilet at all.
I don't mean to be flip -- I suffer from an anxiety disorder, and I have derived great personal peace from books that have told me to take a deep breath and be grateful (maybe not in so few words). But all the inner peace in the world isn't going to stop my toilet dripping like a torture chamber of politely indeterminate Asian origin.
By the same token, all the well-intentioned advice in the world isn't going to help me when I need to quickly generate dungeon dressing for a room off the beaten path that my PCs have decided to search top-to-bottom, or when I need to know what the development team has playtested with regard to Constitution saving throw DCs versus poisons of various lethality, or when I need a guideline for an appropriate end-of-quest treasure reward to a party of seven 4th-level PCs.
A campaign is no less complicated a thing than a character, so why should the tools available to me for its construction be any less load-bearing than those provided to players? We don't load the PHB down with roleplaying advice until /after/ all the races, classes, ability scores, feats, skills, equipment, and spells are properly tabulated and organized. All I ask is the same consideration.
So this is the mysterious step between Starter Sets and DMG buyers?Well, that explains the price increase, then! Price of wood has increased, plus the extra expense of the sanding, lacquering, and the engraving of "Noob Knocker" on the flats costs extra these days.
Plus, just imagine the look on a mugger's face when he tries to rob that dorky person carrying their silly little DMG...
I'm not going to get this completely right, so anyone with more publishing experience than I have should step in and correct me.
That said, this is something I don't think a lot of people know, but there's a reason why numbers like 320 and 224 and 192 show up a lot in publishing, and it's because of the way books like this are bound. All of these numbers are divisible by 32, which is the size of a bound section of pages in the book. If a page count goes to, say, 193, and can't be reduced, a new section of pages has to be added and suddenly the designers have 31 more pages to fill.
So while 320 pages might be a placeholder, it's pretty likely that it is accurate, because it can't end up at 315, or 325, or even 321. It will either be 320, 288, or 352.
Did I explain that without making a total ass of myself?
Mike said on Twitter a while ago that the DMG won't have much DM advice, since it'll be aimed at people who are already expert DMs. New DMs are the target audience for the starter set (and I guess some mysterious in-between step).
Game stores everywhere will be littered with the smoldering bodies of the failed. It will be glorious.
To become a dungeon master is to be forged in a white-hot crucible. One does not forge steel over a candle.
What are you, the screenwriter of Conan the Barbarian?
Very well explained, but I think you need some stuff that fits in-between those extremes in a "proper" DMG, because D&D is a social game played with humans, not a purely mechanical system.
My main fear with the DMG is that it will be basically 30% optional "modular" rules, 30% magic items, 20% optional races/classes/etc., and 20% hard mechanical details with no proper explanation of how to use them in a game! Hopefully that isn't the case. Even DIY stuff usually tells you when X tool is appropriate and not Y and so on.
Now this gets me excited and harkens back to the Greatest RPG Product of All Time, the 1st edition DMG.
What are you, the screenwriter of Conan the Barbarian?
It certainly seems like a quote that could be backed by the Conan soundtrack (best soundtrack ever btw), but I doubt that he is either John Milius or Oliver Stone, and our forums are poorer for it!
My little joke aside, what more do we know? Does that last sentence ("Inside you'll find...") tell us everything we need to know, making this thread another exercise in speculative futility? Or have their been hints along the way of something else?
Remember, this is 320 pages - a meaty tome for the DMG. Magic items are back, which accounts for a lot, and presumably there will be some modular options ("optional game rules"), but I suppose I'm wondering about the first couple parts - world building, adventure design, etc. And will there be setting info and/or example adventures?
What say you?
I can't view the attachment. Is it just me?So this is the mysterious step between Starter Sets and DMG buyers?
View attachment 61791
Now that I think back that does have a familiar sting to it... They really are going for that old school feel.
I can't view the attachment. Is it just me?