I was just looking this up for the other thread, but the 5e SRD is pretty extensive in terms of game master rules. And the various online versions of it are much easier to reference for a dm than the book. Generally I'm in favor of physical books over digital tools, especially at the table, but the dmg might actually be a place where a digital tool is superior (and more cost effective).Put the magic items in the monster book and then there's no need for the DMG.
13th Age's core rulebook is one of the few rpg rulebooks I've read cover-to-cover. The reason that's the case is how accessible it's written, and a major part of that accessibility is the regular sidebars that explain why one of the rules on that page is the way it is, and what other solutions they considered for addressing the issue that rule covers. Understanding the why's makes the rules much easier to understand and to remember.Adventure creation could be largely covered off by including a short (but well-designed!!!) adventure as an appendix with lots and lots of short to-the-point side notes saying "Here's why [this element] exists in this adventure, this is why it's where/what it is, and here's a few other options for it." along with a design-details summary at the end.
Yeah I remember reading 5e a lot of times and thinking "just tell us what you intend here"*. A lot of forum arguments about stealth might have been avoided if they'd just had a 13th Age style sidebar which told us something like "this is how we intend to use stealth, or perhaps more importantly, this is how difficult we intend it to be to get Sneak Attack, so in the case of the Rogue and hiding err on the side of being permissive".13th Age's core rulebook is one of the few rpg rulebooks I've read cover-to-cover. The reason that's the case is how accessible it's written, and a major part of that accessibility is the regular sidebars that explain why one of the rules on that page is the way it is, and what other solutions they considered for addressing the issue that rule covers. Understanding the why's makes the rules much easier to understand and to remember.
<Look over at the massive Frog God Games tomes bending the bookshelf>I'm starting to think that if we included everything people want (including me) the book might start to look like this:
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Yeah, the content is solid, but the organization is bonkers.I mainly would like it to be organized in a way that makes it easier to look things up. Even for sections I'm familiar with, even in D&D Beyond with its search capabilities it takes me much more effort to jump to a section I want to get to. The current organization just doesn't work well for me. More obvious cross-references would also help.