If you've read any fantasy books with a singular main character, there is a lot of useful stuff to mine and mimic; story focuses mostly on what the character cares about, a few friendly characters help out from time to time (I recommend giving such characters a monster-like stat-block rather than a full PC-style write-up, and letting the player handle the mechanical bits of what the character.
JoanieSappho
Not drunk enough for this
So, I have been given a reason to read this in-depth, rather than simply use it to look things up as needed, and I've also recently been quietly reading the other Let's Reads going on/that have happened. As far as I can tell, the Dungeon Master's Guide doesn't usually get looked at too much - the only one I could find was the 1st edition one - so I figured I might as well combine the two. Take a good long look at this book, and write up my thoughts as we go along. Some bits might be short, and others will probably involve long, rambling tangents as they give me ideas.
Getting ideas is why this book was pushed at me, after all.
So, let's begin. 320 pages including the index, so a fair bit to work with. Frist, though, we get the Introduction section.
The Introduction is, for the most part, what you'd expect if you've played D&D for a while; a brief explanation of what a Dungeon Master is, how it involves varying levels of being an inventor, writer, storyteller, actor, improvisor and referee, and that the rules are meant to help the game, rather than put everything into tiny inflexible boxes.. Basically, it says 'don't get hung up on the rules, just have fun.'
Then we get the description of the book itself and, although it's been a while, it's rather different than the previous DMGs I've read, which were mostly about rules. This one is split into three parts - the first about deciding what kind of adventure you want to run, the second helps you create the adventures, and the third is the part with the actual rules in it.
Or, as the book puts it;
Part 1: Master of Worlds. The setting is more than just a backdrop. It should be something the characters are part of, and that's part of the characters. Part 1 is about keeping it consistent and determining the details of the world, and how that world should interact with the players and vice versa.
Part 2: Master of Adventures. This is vaguely familiar to parts of the 3.5e DMG that I can remember, although in that book this stuff filled a chapter or two, rather than a third of the book, and was mostly focussed on the treasure and random encounter tables. Part 2 is about NPC creation, the basic elements of adventure creation, between-adventure stuff, magic items, treasure and rewards, and the differences between adventuring in the wilderness/underground/etc.
Part 3: Master of Rules. The bit actually about the rules, and how they don't cover everything and you should feel fine making stuff up to fit whatever weirdness your group thinks up on the fly, although a bunch of optional rules are included here, such as miniature use, chase scenes, madnessand the creation of new races, monsters and character backgrounds.
That last bit looks interesting - adapting settings to 5e, or creating new 5e settings would almost definitely need new, more setting-appropriate backgrounds.
The last part is something I consider pretty basic about D&D, although, admittedly, I tend to leave it for online stuff - Know Your Players. (Online, I pretty much have to go for 'Get to Know Your Players', which makes sense. The game is definitely better if the players and DM get along with each other and don't accidentally/deliberately offend each other all the time. This bit of the introduction basically boils down to advice on how to engage players who favour certain playstyles. Stuff like giving monsters clues for the more investigative-minded players to have fun with, including puzzles for problem-solving players, and providing quantifiable rewards to non-combat encounters for optimizing players.
So, the Introduction is, for a 6-page section, surprisingly dense with interesting things, although most of what I find interesting about it is how it seems to be presenting this book as a way to make/adjust you own setting and how to fudge the rules to fit your party. Something rather looser than what I remember the previous DMGs to be like, which I like. More of a shift to 'how to make this work for whatever craziness you come up with' rather than 'here's the extra rules and mentions of other products if you want non-generic settings'.
Next time, Part 1, Chapter 1: A World of Your Own.
Getting ideas is why this book was pushed at me, after all.
So, let's begin. 320 pages including the index, so a fair bit to work with. Frist, though, we get the Introduction section.
The Introduction is, for the most part, what you'd expect if you've played D&D for a while; a brief explanation of what a Dungeon Master is, how it involves varying levels of being an inventor, writer, storyteller, actor, improvisor and referee, and that the rules are meant to help the game, rather than put everything into tiny inflexible boxes.. Basically, it says 'don't get hung up on the rules, just have fun.'
Then we get the description of the book itself and, although it's been a while, it's rather different than the previous DMGs I've read, which were mostly about rules. This one is split into three parts - the first about deciding what kind of adventure you want to run, the second helps you create the adventures, and the third is the part with the actual rules in it.
Or, as the book puts it;
Part 1: Master of Worlds. The setting is more than just a backdrop. It should be something the characters are part of, and that's part of the characters. Part 1 is about keeping it consistent and determining the details of the world, and how that world should interact with the players and vice versa.
Part 2: Master of Adventures. This is vaguely familiar to parts of the 3.5e DMG that I can remember, although in that book this stuff filled a chapter or two, rather than a third of the book, and was mostly focussed on the treasure and random encounter tables. Part 2 is about NPC creation, the basic elements of adventure creation, between-adventure stuff, magic items, treasure and rewards, and the differences between adventuring in the wilderness/underground/etc.
Part 3: Master of Rules. The bit actually about the rules, and how they don't cover everything and you should feel fine making stuff up to fit whatever weirdness your group thinks up on the fly, although a bunch of optional rules are included here, such as miniature use, chase scenes, madnessand the creation of new races, monsters and character backgrounds.
That last bit looks interesting - adapting settings to 5e, or creating new 5e settings would almost definitely need new, more setting-appropriate backgrounds.
The last part is something I consider pretty basic about D&D, although, admittedly, I tend to leave it for online stuff - Know Your Players. (Online, I pretty much have to go for 'Get to Know Your Players', which makes sense. The game is definitely better if the players and DM get along with each other and don't accidentally/deliberately offend each other all the time. This bit of the introduction basically boils down to advice on how to engage players who favour certain playstyles. Stuff like giving monsters clues for the more investigative-minded players to have fun with, including puzzles for problem-solving players, and providing quantifiable rewards to non-combat encounters for optimizing players.
So, the Introduction is, for a 6-page section, surprisingly dense with interesting things, although most of what I find interesting about it is how it seems to be presenting this book as a way to make/adjust you own setting and how to fudge the rules to fit your party. Something rather looser than what I remember the previous DMGs to be like, which I like. More of a shift to 'how to make this work for whatever craziness you come up with' rather than 'here's the extra rules and mentions of other products if you want non-generic settings'.
Next time, Part 1, Chapter 1: A World of Your Own.
When your PC is attacked by 20 rats, it’s a bummer for the DM to make all those attack rolls. The obvious hack is to make one attack roll for the whole group of rats. That gives you pretty spiky results though: the only options are “All the rats hit” or “All the rats miss.”
The 5e DMG has a fix for this: a rule for making monster group (mob) attacks without rolling millions of attack rolls, and without a single all-or-nothing attack roll. You consult a chart which tells you how many attacks hit. For instance, if the monsters hit on a 13, 1/3 of the attackers hit.
I love this idea, and I suggested that it is complete enough to form a whole mass combat system, but after using it in play, I’ve found some problems I’d like to address.
1) There’s no d20 rolls at all. Mob combat is different from any other D&D task resolution.
2) It’s completely smooth. An AC 18 fighter being shot at by 20 hobgoblins is hit by a steady and predictable 5 arrows per round.
3) It requires a chart – not a big one but not one that’s easy to keep in your memory. Like the attack matrix charts in 1e, it’s a page you have to bookmark.
4) Because there are no die rolls, it doesn’t work naturally with advantage/disadvantage and crits are impossible.
2) It’s completely smooth. An AC 18 fighter being shot at by 20 hobgoblins is hit by a steady and predictable 5 arrows per round.
3) It requires a chart – not a big one but not one that’s easy to keep in your memory. Like the attack matrix charts in 1e, it’s a page you have to bookmark.
4) Because there are no die rolls, it doesn’t work naturally with advantage/disadvantage and crits are impossible.
Here’s a possible-to-memorize approach, with slightly better math, which allows for misses, variable success, advantage/disadvantage, and crits.
Whenever a group of identical creatures make attack rolls (or any roll really – you could profitably use this for group saving throws too), make a single roll as normal. Divide the creatures into three roughly equal groups. One group rolls this number, one group rolls this with a +5 bonus, and one group rolls this with -5 penalty.
Implications of this system: Advantage/disadvantage doesn’t require any special rules. Just make a single roll with adv/disadv and apply the group modifiers to the result. Auto-miss and crits work as you’d expect too. Because each group uses the same natural die roll, a natural 1 means everyone misses and 20 means everyone crits. That’s fun: the 20 hobgoblins do 40d8+20 (200) damage!
The math: What’s a better model of making 20 attack rolls: this system or the DMG system? Both are pretty good, actually, but mine exactly matches in most situations (whenever you need to roll a 6 to 16 to hit) while the DMG system is better at modeling corner cases (you need to roll a natural 20 to hit or you only miss on a 1). To me that’s not a big deal, because with bounded accuracy, even a bunch of town guards (+3) only need a 16 to hit an adult red dragon (AC 19).
Here’s a chart that compares the average results.
Chance to hit per attack
d20 roll needed | Rolling all attacks | DMG mob system | blogofholding mob system |
2 | 95% | 100% | 88.33% |
3 | 90% | 100% | 85% |
4 | 85% | 100% | 81.67% |
5 | 80% | 100% | 78.33% |
6 | 75% | 50% | 75% |
7 | 70% | 50% | 70% |
8 | 65% | 50% | 65% |
9 | 60% | 50% | 60% |
10 | 55% | 50% | 55% |
11 | 50% | 50% | 50% |
12 | 45% | 50% | 45% |
13 | 40% | 30% | 40% |
14 | 35% | 30% | 35% |
15 | 30% | 25% | 30% |
16 | 25% | 25% | 25% |
17 | 20% | 20% | 21.67% |
18 | 15% | 20% | 18.33% |
19 | 10% | 10% | 15% |
20 | 5% | 5% | 11.67% |
So that’s the system: three groups with +5, +0 and -5 modifiers! Go forth and drown your PCs with armies!