MichaelSomething
Legend
Lack of a commoner class.
D&D 5E What Do You Not Like About The 2014 5E DMG?
- Thread starter Reynard
- Start date
I covered my opinion on this in detail before-
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I would boil down both the great strength and weakness of the 5e DMG to the following-
In this way, the DMG is not prescriptive (telling your how to DM) so much as it is descriptive (explaining how other people DM, and providing ideas and options for a campaign or adventure).
The key to understanding all of this is that the DMG does not seek to tell a DM how the DM should run a game, or what type of campaign the DM should run. Far from it- it is agnostic as to the style of play the table uses.
On the other hand, it served a much more important purpose - it provided both a toolbox, as well as being open-ended to allow most people to play D&D the way that they wanted to. Because the DMG didn't prescribe a playstyle, it also couldn't be weaponized against people that don't play that way!
But just as important as the many, many, many variant rules in the DMG is the entire vibe of the DMG- it is not about telling people how to run their own game, as much as it is giving tables the inspiration, tips, and tools that they need to make a game their own, while preventing others from telling you that you're doing it wrong.
I think that some of the criticisms of the DMG (especially organization!) are valid. But the 2014 DMG served a valuable purpose in the sense that it wasn't prescriptive. Unfortunately, this lack of prescription (you play it THIS WAY) also meant that it is more of a grab-bag of different ideas without a coherent philosophy.
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I would boil down both the great strength and weakness of the 5e DMG to the following-
In this way, the DMG is not prescriptive (telling your how to DM) so much as it is descriptive (explaining how other people DM, and providing ideas and options for a campaign or adventure).
The key to understanding all of this is that the DMG does not seek to tell a DM how the DM should run a game, or what type of campaign the DM should run. Far from it- it is agnostic as to the style of play the table uses.
On the other hand, it served a much more important purpose - it provided both a toolbox, as well as being open-ended to allow most people to play D&D the way that they wanted to. Because the DMG didn't prescribe a playstyle, it also couldn't be weaponized against people that don't play that way!
But just as important as the many, many, many variant rules in the DMG is the entire vibe of the DMG- it is not about telling people how to run their own game, as much as it is giving tables the inspiration, tips, and tools that they need to make a game their own, while preventing others from telling you that you're doing it wrong.
I think that some of the criticisms of the DMG (especially organization!) are valid. But the 2014 DMG served a valuable purpose in the sense that it wasn't prescriptive. Unfortunately, this lack of prescription (you play it THIS WAY) also meant that it is more of a grab-bag of different ideas without a coherent philosophy.
Having read the last 3 pages I agree with much of what has been said but am going to add one more... Tone. The 2014 dmg carries a time of being written towards an expected event planner/cruise ship director. That really shows even beyond tome when you start thinking about the mentality that is needed to explain some of the omissions & weird choices in some areas of the ruleset that have already been mentioned up thread. There's a pretty good video I came across recently on that tone
That ultimately makes it a very steep uphill battle to do much that could be in conflict with that tone despite all the talk about rulings not rules and 5e being designed to make house rules easy to add.
Yaarel
🇮🇱 🇺🇦 He-Mage
2024 discontinues the inconsistent esoteric opaque technical term "Creature Rating" and only ever refers to what "level" a monster happens to be (as if a player character).
Building an encounter normally means the players are to face a lower level monster but that has extra hit points and does heavy damage for several rounds. The encounter builder needs to explain clearly how to do this well.
There needs to be a chart with typical stats (plus ranges) for each level of a monster when the DM needs to create a monster on the fly.
There needs to be a chart that lists extensively: the level of the party, the number of party members, and the appropriate level of the monster depending on the number of monsters.
Building an encounter normally means the players are to face a lower level monster but that has extra hit points and does heavy damage for several rounds. The encounter builder needs to explain clearly how to do this well.
There needs to be a chart with typical stats (plus ranges) for each level of a monster when the DM needs to create a monster on the fly.
There needs to be a chart that lists extensively: the level of the party, the number of party members, and the appropriate level of the monster depending on the number of monsters.
Designing Encounters | Level Up
a5e.tools
Hussar
Legend
But it is a very telling point.
The DMG is so superfluous that you can pretty easily play without it.
I mean sure you could try to get away without a monster manual but that would make using modules very difficult since many don’t list the stats, just the monster names.
The only sort of needed part of the DMG is magic item descriptions. Everything else you can pretty much ignore.
That’s not really a rousing endorsement of the DMG.
Parmandur
Book-Friend, he/him
Yeah, that's why they are pretty radically changing the DMG.
Shardstone
Hero
The DMG is written to be a toolbox for creating games, but it does a poor job when it comes to Encounters, and it spends too many pages on creating random dungeons. Instead, it should focus on terse dungeon sites of 5-10 rooms max, include more about how to run the wilderness, and give tips for creating social challenges.
