D&D 5E What will it take to be a good DM in 5E?

[Lokiare]

What will make a DM good in reference to 5E?

Here are a few things that will be required knowing what we know from articles and the play test:

1. They will need to be able to do Quadratic Probability Equations in their head - Due to Advantage and Improvisation the DM will need to be able to calculate relative success and failure chances when handing out Advantage and Disadvantage as well as when setting DC's for improvised actions.
2. The DM will need to be a master story teller - Due to the way Vancian casting can be abused and the 5 minute work day, the DM will have to be able to outsmart all of the players every time by coming up with story reasons why they can't fight once or twice then rest for 24-48 hours to get spells back.
3. The DM will need a photographic memory - Due to the way improvisation works the DM will have to remember every single ruling over the course of a 20 level campaign (months or years) or have players that get their 'verisimilitude' hurt. They will seem arbitrary and be mistaken as showing favoritism when they are not.
4. (Optional) Be a master at Rock, Paper, Scissors - This depends on how the spells are done, but just from Sleep, Hold Person, and Charm Person we can see that the previously broken spells like teleport and scry will probably make it back in and force the DM to line every dungeon with lead and have anti-scry spells on every BBEG.

What else will the DM of 5E need to be 'good'?

 

[GX.Sigma]

y u so mad :(

 

[Lokiare]

y u so mad

Who's mad?

I'm pointing out what it will take to be a 'good' DM in 5E.

If it helps your mental image of me just imagine a on the end of every other sentence...

 

[Dice4Hire]

Sometimes I think a good 5E DM will need to avoid forums like the plague.

 

[MortalPlague]

Sometimes I think a good DM needs to avoid forums like the plague.

Fixed it for you.

Sadly, I find this more and more true.

 

[MichaelSomething]

5. A good 5E DM must be knowledgeable in every "rule" module produced so that they can customize the game to their liking.

 

[Lokiare]

5. A good 5E DM must be knowledgeable in every "rule" module produced so that they can customize the game to their liking.

That's very true...

 

[Ichneumon]

As someone who's been a 5e DM, albeit the playtest version, I never felt the need for mind-bending mathematics or knotty rationalizations. Was I good? Well, good enough for the players to want more 5e. It helps to have players who are more interested in a fun time than in meticulous probability calculation and rules lawyering, but I suspect the former applies to most groups.

 

[Lokiare]

As someone who's been a 5e DM, albeit the playtest version, I never felt the need for mind-bending mathematics or knotty rationalizations. Was I good? Well, good enough for the players to want more 5e. It helps to have players who are more interested in a fun time than in meticulous probability calculation and rules lawyering, but I suspect the former applies to most groups.

How did you set DC's for improvisation? If you ignored setting the DCs then you were house ruling and that's not really relevant to the conversation beyond "Needing to be good at house ruling" which applies equally to all editions.

As to probability calculations whether you actually pulled out the math or guesstimated in your mind based on a 'feeling' you were calculating probabilities. When you handed out Advantage because the fighter whopped the goblin on the head with his sword, you had to decide whether it was enough to justify that kind of advantage especially seeing the fighter might decide to try that more often.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think mostly the same qualities that made for good DMs in the classic D&D era (basically, the previous century, '74-99).

You are going to need to do /some/ 'encounter prep,' though. It looks like you're not going to need to dedicate the large amounts of time it took to create monsters and NPCs in 3.x, for instance, but that you're not just going to have formulaic combat encounters and skill challenges like in 4e. So, somewhere between the two when it comes to encounter prep, but you have to do some. You might not be able to get away with simply populating an area and letting the party sand-box their way through it (see 'balance police,' below).

You might have to do a fairly large amount of up-front work to get a campaign going - it depends on just how many and varied these modules turn out to be, and to what degree 'house rules' (variants) come back into vogue. Worst case, getting a campaign ready could be tantamount to designing your own game. Best case, you make a few module choices, fiddle with a few 'dials' and get about what you want - you just have to know what you want.

If the playtest is any indicator, you're going to have to be the earthy incarnation of the god of improv. Fortunately, many of us long-time DMs /are/.

Less fun, you'll likely have to be the balance police. That means staying on top of (and banning/nerfing) outre 'builds,' as any 'modern' (3e/4e) DM should be accustomed to doing. It's a little more involved then just checking for too man/too-broken items or improbably high stats when a new character comes into your campaign. As Mr. Mearls has already intimated, you'll have some guidance on how to run your game - how many encounters/rounds/XP of monsters you must throw down between long rests to retain balance. If 5e sticks to it's plans to achieve balance among classes by making each 'best' at something, you'll also want to be sure to script in the proper situations so that everyone gets to do their 'best' thing a reasonable proportion of the time. (Of course, all that assumes you care - you can just let the players sort out balance issues, themselves, by giving up on characters that aren't up to snuff and trying something else until they hit on something viable.)