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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 9364456" data-attributes="member: 1465">I've written many times that I consider the whole 2024 revision a bad idea, so I am not going to elaborate again on that, just stating my underlying point. Then, the 2024 DMG is clearly the least of my worries, because it's not going to change the game or create a fracture with its 2014 version or other books, unlike the PHB.I have mixed feelings on the 2014 DMG. It doesn't have a very good strategy to start with. It is divided into too many purposes, that aren't fully achieved within the size of the book:1- teach the DM how to run the game2- teach the DM how to design adventures3- teach the DM how to design new character/monsters content4- teach the DM how to design a fantasy world 5- provide a good list of magic items6- provide a good list of rules variants and modulesAll of these are good thing, but you can't treat all of them in depth in the size allocated to this book, so the result is that some important topics are largely underdeveloped, and the result is a book that does a little bit of everything but still leaves a DM a lot of work by themselves. It feels like a brochure, a trailer, or a coffee table book that only makes gamers feel good because it acknowledges the existence of the DM's purposes above, but it doesn't really help beyond the general concepts. I can imagine different DM needing help in different areas: some want to design their own adventures, other wants variant rules, some others want to create monsters... But I cannot imagine a DM not needing support in learning to run the game at the table, and this is one of parts that the DMG seriously lack at, because it covers too little and when it does cover something, it only gives one way to handle the topic instead of explaining different playstyle solutions, or it only mentions them instead of explaining.An example is the almost non-existent support to how to manage the vague rules on characters/ hiding and visibility: these rules are purposefully vague to let different DMs handle them differently, but then the DMG should have a good section on the many ways to do that. On the contrary, the vague rules on searching and finding hidden objects/doors/traps get a single solution in DMG which sounds like every DM must do it that way, unfortunately it is one way that has its own problems/drawbacks and the DMG doesn't seem to even to acknowledge that.It would be better for a DMG to focus on throughly cover running the game, and then see how much room is left for the other topics, then choose to cover less topics but in a good way. The only thing that is given a very good coverage is magic items which in fact take up a huge chunk of the book. Designing adventures and settings sucks, it's mostly feel-good text and no real teaching. Considering that not all DMs (especially beginners) are going to design adventures and settings, if it cannot be covered well enough it might as well be moved to a follow up book.So do I expect the 2024 DMG better? Well at least it has a significant increase in pages! That could really help, and it would also help if they shrunk the font size like in 3e books (they had a lot more content in the same page count). However WotC has had the habit of avoiding seriously putting effort in teaching content for 10 years so I have my doubts it will be different this time.</blockquote>

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