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Yup, always have. Turns out if you actually read a book, it becomes a lot more useful! (sorry to sound salty, but I've had so many tell me how trash this book is, then go on to suggest things that _are in the book._ ) I've used a lot of the same sections, but also siege weapons, madnesses, poisons/diseases, a lot of the wilderness stuff. Most of my homebrew rules are variations on optional rules in this book.
I, just the past weekend, reread through the 2014 DMG and compiled all the things I needed from that book into an Excel Sheet for my upcoming campaign starting in January. Mostly I was collecting all the rules about weather, hazards, traps, and diseases since it'll be a wilderness survival campaign. I had totally forgotten that Green Slime and Brown & Yellow Molds (three classic monsters from all previous editions of the game) were in 5th edition as Hazards! It was like finding old friends in unexpected places.
Something I only discovered recently in the 2014 book is the mob rules and rules for adjudicating how many enemies a spell hits if you aren't using minis and a grid. They aren't optional rules either, they're fully intended for standard use and they make running Theater of the Mind combats so much easier! The 2014 DMG's biggest problem bar none is organization, it actually has a lot of usable game info in it, you just have to look really hard to find it
you didn't tell us to (8) leave a comment, but I'd like to leave a comment anyway, because I appreciate the work you do for this channel and the insights you share 🏆
Given the circumstances around the 5e release as a whole, I wonder if the reason the 2014 DMG is so strange in its formatting, tempo, and target audience, is because they were explicitly trying to get back old / returning players, rather than nurturing newly acquired players in 4e or 5e.
I actually liked the create a world first chapter when i started dming lol. I never took the dmg as a strict guide, but more as a pirates code. It opened up a lot of options for creativity without me feeling really bound by it. Now that I think about it I watched already a lot of running the game, so I knew what I needed and what I didn't. update: prepped my next session with the 2014 DMG random tables and it went really smooth actually
I kept waiting for the last thing on the list to be "Play Fair and Have Fun" and then you said it by itself and I was so disappointed and then you went back and made it number 7 and I laughed so hard. Well played.
I remember getting some use out of those tables early on, I think I just got tired of looking for them after forgetting where they were. Might have to take another look though, just listening to you talk about it gave me some fresh ideas for my next few sessions. Thanks dude!
This is a really interesting breakdown of the 2014 DMG. I've seen a bunch of new overviews but this analysis focused on useability for a new and old DM as well as reflecting on why it failed to imprint itself as well as it needed to was a unique take! Perfect timing too ;)
I don't expect you to get to this any time soon, but I'd encourage looking into the Pathfinder Gamemastery Guide/GM Core. I still stand by my Pathfinder 1E Gamemastery Guide and it even helps when I have questions about my 5E games. Thanks for the video and all the work you do.
It'll abandon the chronological follower feed in favor of some kind of algorithm. Give it a year or so. But hey, no reason not to enjoy it while it lasts
Congrats on getting this out before the new DMG arrived it's a perfect nostalgic(?) look back to what we had before we get hit with a bredth of new advice and content.
10:28 if you're interested in worlds built like this you should definitely check out Runeterra from the league of legends lore. Want a celestial mountain Mount Targon, pirate ocean Bilgewater, vast desert Shurima, "heroic" kingdom Demacia, Steampunk/chempunk cities Piltover and Zaun. League may be saltier than the dead sea but it has a very well built setting and there's even a 5e campaign setting book for it now That's officially licensed.
As someone who does struggle a bit with coming up with like... more than one NPC per adventure, I do find that NPC traits section fairly useful in the same way you described the magic item trait tables- great ways to inspire myself on how to make what could be a fairly standard NPC and give them a little extra flavour.
16:55 It seems to work backwards. The villain is trying to hunt down people who somehow wronged the vengeful god because the god offers a bounty, which is probably more than mere money. 17:40 I guess Saruman's method of taking over Rohan could be called "causing neglect"... I must agree one would be better off just pulling tarot cards at this point. 18:42 But then, everything changed when Air Elemental Nation attacked...
A fun tactic I use to craft magical items that I expect to use as loot from enemies is to take an ability I want that enemy to have and tie it to the magic item. For example, if I have an enemy spell caster, I could just make them cast usual spells, but I could just as easily have a ring of spell storing or a wand of fire bolt for them to cast through! Or if I want the party to fight a giant dire wolf, maybe a normal dire wolf ate an adventurer with a necklace of enlarge/reduce that got caught around his paw, causing him to grow massive!
I got into D&D a 5 years ago when a coworker invited me to play. I ended up buying the 5e DMG along with the MM later and it is my 1st DM’s guide. I read most of it, besides the magic items section, which I could not care about less. I got a ton of advice for years from RUclipsrs and that improved my DM’ing a lot. Just DM’ing improved my DM’ing a lot. I also joined a writing club and got advice from them. It’s a really complex hobby that takes a lot of investment. I was never unsatisfied with the 5e DMG because I never expected it to be a complete authority on the subject
Wait. Twitter DIDN'T have a followers-only feed??? How is it somehow WORSE than I thought?? Okay, I have an idea for how the villain enacting the vengeful will of a god could do it by bounty hunting. Maybe this god needs sacrifices, but the villain has a twisted moral compass. They don't want to sacrifice random civilians, so they take bounties and offer them up to their god because, in their mind, they're "bad people" who had prices on their heads anyway.
It did, but it wasn’t the default, and it also wasn’t chronological so they could still refresh it whenever you got bored, so you never got “caught up”
For the cataclysmic events thing I kinda do both present and historical, I’m currently running a trilogy of campaigns. The first campaign ended with the BBEG using a magic to begin turning other races into humans and recreate the world, in campaign 2 cause the heroes didn’t thwart him fast enough the population of non-human races are far smaller and so in campaign one it was a present event but in 2 and 3 it’s literally the Big Bang
16:50 How anyone heard this and didn't immediately imagine a bible-thumping gunslinger who uses fire and brimstone doctrine as a thin justification for his bloodthirst and acts of terror is beyond me.
4th edition Dungeon Master's Guide*s* It's been a while since I read the first one, and I don't know if I ever read Dungeon Master's Guide 2 or just skimmed it, but I recall a Reddit post ages ago singing its praises, though I don't remember any of the given reasons. It just always sticks out in my head that 4EDMG2 is really really good even for other games and editions according to that Redditor.
Man don't knock using slander to advance the cause of a god of mayhem. Just ask the Nomadic Merchants of Elden Ring how effective slander by a servant of a god of chaos is. And by "ask", I mean watch an hour plus lore video about Shabriri and the Outer God of Frenzied Flame because holy crap, of all the plot points you're not going to get without poring over miscellaneous item descriptions and throwaway dialogue with a jeweller's loop and a fine-toothed comb, how thousands of Nomadic Merchants wound up entombed alive beneath the capital with the Three Fingers and how Shabriri committed the cardinal sin of slander and became the most hated man in the world is absolutely one of them.
Great review, thanks Mike. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the 2024 DMG, whenever it comes out. Also, I'm happy for you that you dumped your 'X'. Hopefully the rest of the world will do the same.
I like the 2014 DMG, as an experienced DM. But it would be a bit overwhelming for a new DM. Then again, so was the 1E one and I loved that. I love realm building and there is a heap of cool stuff for that. More inspiring tables would have even been better. I never cared for balanced encounter stuff. I am not sure why there were player options subclasses etc in there too. NPCs don't use full classes so just save those for a later player's book.
I too am looking forward to the as yet unreleased DMG! But seriously, the 2014 DMG deservedly gets a lot of flak for its organization, but the info inside is broadly good. I've had SO MANY conversations online where someone is complaining about something or trying to homebrew something and the solution exists in the 2014 DMG, they just either couldn't find it or had never bothered to try due to the book's reputation. I've used my crystal ball to look into the future and I still don't think the 2024 DMG is as good as the 4th edition DMG, but it's going to be a big improvement, when it does come out that is. . .
the great news is the 2024 dungeon master's guide isn't releasing until december 7th here in australia, so the dungeon master's guide isn't out yet from a certain point of view
From what you're describing of it, I can't help but wonder if prior to all of that there should be a "If you want to make a world on the fly rather than using a prepublished setting, here's the default assumptions of the game and what you'll need to make before session 1," and some procedures you can follow - either randomly or by fiat - based on the results of what happened to build out and get ready for the next adventure, similar to Mausritter's advice on setting up and running a hexcrawl. Make it feel both optional and achievable, rather than overwhelming. "Here's the information you'll need to know about the initial settlement of your homebrew campaign before the first session, and here's how to build out the campaign world as you go based on the homebrew adventures you're running and generating from these charts."
I haven't gotten into social media, and everything I hear implies that I'm not really missing out on much. Now, do I spend too much time scrolling RUclips's main page for videos to catch my interest? Maybe, but still sounds better than social media doomscrolling.
I'm the weirdo DM who has read the DM's Guide through multiple times. Do I like how it's set up? Not at all. However, I do feel way more confident in my skills DMing having read it. If for no other reason than I know where to find what I need when I need it!
I think the 2014 DMG unfairly gets a bad reputation - it's almost a meme at this point. To be fair - my experience of the book was returning to DnD in 2018 after playing and DMing a ton of 1st and 2nd Edition (and many other TTRPGs) in the 80s and 90s (and missing 3rd and 4th ed) so reading through all the first few chapters on world building and the Planes of Existence was like returning to an old friend and my imagination was firing !!! I definitely agree with the criticism that those chapters are not the ideal introduction for new DMs who have no idea how to run a game.
Gems and Magic Items... I want a PRICE!!! With the new 2024 rules, the crafting is too easy. If you have prices you can have a concrete way to make things harder to get by controlling the gold supply. Right now I can make boots of flying for 200 gold and 2 weeks crafting time or less if I have a buddy helping me. Elves can go even faster because of low sleep time. Crazy dangerous!
What about that secret 7th thing: comment? I'll be honest that I've been running tabletop games for a few years now and literally never looked in any book for how to handle a world/npc.
It always seems to me that when people review any DMG, the most common critique is “I don’t use this chapter because I make it up myself” or “I don’t use this section because I have a library of third party books to cover this topic”. But a DMG contains redundant or ‘useless’ sections because some people don’t have the experience to make it up on their own, or they need to see a list of suggestions to brew their own game. It feels like someone critiquing “See Spot Run” by saying they can make up better stories, or that they have Cujo on their bookshelf already, which is a better story about a dog. I’m not saying the 2014 DMG is a good resource, but a lot of its content is going to seem thin compared to a full book honing in on a topic, or the experience of a seasoned DM.
I also think that WotC bowed to tradition by adding so many rolling tables, but didn’t consider the usefulness to them for more experienced DMs. If they removed rolling tables, or reframed them as “inspiration tables”, a list of suggestions to consider, adapt, or adopt, I think they would be able to include more than 20 options, and push new DMs to create. But WotC probably feared pushback from traditionalists if they removed rolling tables, or perhaps didn’t even consider it an option to remove them. So instead, new DMs get the impression that the tables must mean something, because they are everywhere, but barely anyone who has DM’d for any significant time really uses them.
I have recently heard that the Tales of the Valiant Game Master's Guide is amazing & will be reusable far beyond the 5.24 one will be, but I haven't looked at either, any thoughts about that?
when you said an execution is happening at the same day as the wedding my mind swiftly gone to the maccap ritual in this culture a wedding can and an execution must happen at the same day . a the same place. a symbolism of a new life begins where another ends like instead of breaking a glass cup you make a head roll :D the idea of also being a warning to the groom to take care of the pride and maybe the father in law is the one who is "honored" to do the execution .... all these idea rushes in my head in the span of 5 seconds XD ... Help ? LOL also there are many things you can such together an aberration sword that is convent . its conovent about knowledge . like come on key to ancient knowledge and knowledge is power, a villain goal done by neglect is letterly the plot line for many evil kings making their own children their worst enemies. or neglecting a ritual to withhold an ancient evil. the vellai here isnt an active villain it is in their inactivity that they are ruinous .... like the democrats :D maybe its deleperet even they are obstructionist . making the people indulge in rumors and misinformation so they can let their overlords do thier evil schemes ... like the republicans :D there is a lot of things you can come up if you truly restrect tyourselfs to the rolls nomatter what
I can't believe Mike gaslit is about the new DMG being out. I had to check dndbeyond just to make sure it still wasn't out. I didn't expect something like this out of you. I thought you were better #supergatemike #dmggate #unsubscribe
The 2014 DMG lists Saladin Ahmed's "Throne of the Crescent Moon" as an inspirational book. And I HATED that book. It was extremely painful to read, and I will never get over a shapeshifter losing her ability to shapeshift for most of the novel because she is on her period. Worst part of the DMG.
Do you use the 2014 Dungeon Master’s Guide for your games?
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I did not by friend who is a DM found it really useful.
Yup, always have. Turns out if you actually read a book, it becomes a lot more useful! (sorry to sound salty, but I've had so many tell me how trash this book is, then go on to suggest things that _are in the book._ )
I've used a lot of the same sections, but also siege weapons, madnesses, poisons/diseases, a lot of the wilderness stuff. Most of my homebrew rules are variations on optional rules in this book.
Thanks for posting this before the new version of the DMG came out, your timing is impeccable.
When rolling on the charts - always roll twice and then take the best. That is a very good piece of advice they could include.
Or combine them
This book really does the whole thing of "Alright, first thing's first when charting out a campaign: mapping out and visualizing plate tectonics!"
The DMG is filled with great ideas that are almost impossible find anywhere. Including the DMG itself.
Wow Mike, great timing! The new DMG is coming out soon and you got this video out just in time!
This is exactly the type of video I needed to see in the lead up to the 2024 DMG coming out.
I, just the past weekend, reread through the 2014 DMG and compiled all the things I needed from that book into an Excel Sheet for my upcoming campaign starting in January. Mostly I was collecting all the rules about weather, hazards, traps, and diseases since it'll be a wilderness survival campaign. I had totally forgotten that Green Slime and Brown & Yellow Molds (three classic monsters from all previous editions of the game) were in 5th edition as Hazards! It was like finding old friends in unexpected places.
Something I only discovered recently in the 2014 book is the mob rules and rules for adjudicating how many enemies a spell hits if you aren't using minis and a grid. They aren't optional rules either, they're fully intended for standard use and they make running Theater of the Mind combats so much easier! The 2014 DMG's biggest problem bar none is organization, it actually has a lot of usable game info in it, you just have to look really hard to find it
you didn't tell us to (8) leave a comment, but I'd like to leave a comment anyway, because I appreciate the work you do for this channel and the insights you share 🏆
It truly is wonderful that this came out before the 2024 DMG came out. I couldn't imagine us all playing along if it had somehow been delayed :)
Excellent timing! I was hoping someone would make a video about the old DMG before the new one came out!
Given the circumstances around the 5e release as a whole, I wonder if the reason the 2014 DMG is so strange in its formatting, tempo, and target audience, is because they were explicitly trying to get back old / returning players, rather than nurturing newly acquired players in 4e or 5e.
I actually liked the create a world first chapter when i started dming lol. I never took the dmg as a strict guide, but more as a pirates code. It opened up a lot of options for creativity without me feeling really bound by it. Now that I think about it I watched already a lot of running the game, so I knew what I needed and what I didn't.
update: prepped my next session with the 2014 DMG random tables and it went really smooth actually
I kept waiting for the last thing on the list to be "Play Fair and Have Fun" and then you said it by itself and I was so disappointed and then you went back and made it number 7 and I laughed so hard. Well played.
I remember getting some use out of those tables early on, I think I just got tired of looking for them after forgetting where they were. Might have to take another look though, just listening to you talk about it gave me some fresh ideas for my next few sessions. Thanks dude!
This is a really interesting breakdown of the 2014 DMG. I've seen a bunch of new overviews but this analysis focused on useability for a new and old DM as well as reflecting on why it failed to imprint itself as well as it needed to was a unique take! Perfect timing too ;)
I don't expect you to get to this any time soon, but I'd encourage looking into the Pathfinder Gamemastery Guide/GM Core. I still stand by my Pathfinder 1E Gamemastery Guide and it even helps when I have questions about my 5E games. Thanks for the video and all the work you do.
Glad Blue Sky is working better for you! Seems like they learned at least one of the lessons about social media from Tumblr.
It'll abandon the chronological follower feed in favor of some kind of algorithm. Give it a year or so. But hey, no reason not to enjoy it while it lasts
@@CJWproductions it already has an algorithm, it's under the "Discover" tab. You have the choice between that and only seeing who you follow.
Congrats on getting this out before the new DMG arrived it's a perfect nostalgic(?) look back to what we had before we get hit with a bredth of new advice and content.
10:28 if you're interested in worlds built like this you should definitely check out Runeterra from the league of legends lore. Want a celestial mountain Mount Targon, pirate ocean Bilgewater, vast desert Shurima, "heroic" kingdom Demacia, Steampunk/chempunk cities Piltover and Zaun. League may be saltier than the dead sea but it has a very well built setting and there's even a 5e campaign setting book for it now That's officially licensed.
As someone who does struggle a bit with coming up with like... more than one NPC per adventure, I do find that NPC traits section fairly useful in the same way you described the magic item trait tables- great ways to inspire myself on how to make what could be a fairly standard NPC and give them a little extra flavour.
That really was a missed opportunity for a Spanish Inquisition joke.
Fear , surprise AND ring the bell !
NOBODY expects the post video call-to-actio--oh.... right!
This will help me as I make my decision to purchase the soon-to-be released 2024 DMG. Thanks Mike. You’re a good Mike.
Loved the bit at the end. Reminded me of a Monty Python skit. If you've gotten to the end of the video you know which one I'm talking about.
16:55 It seems to work backwards. The villain is trying to hunt down people who somehow wronged the vengeful god because the god offers a bounty, which is probably more than mere money.
17:40 I guess Saruman's method of taking over Rohan could be called "causing neglect"...
I must agree one would be better off just pulling tarot cards at this point.
18:42 But then, everything changed when Air Elemental Nation attacked...
A fun tactic I use to craft magical items that I expect to use as loot from enemies is to take an ability I want that enemy to have and tie it to the magic item. For example, if I have an enemy spell caster, I could just make them cast usual spells, but I could just as easily have a ring of spell storing or a wand of fire bolt for them to cast through! Or if I want the party to fight a giant dire wolf, maybe a normal dire wolf ate an adventurer with a necklace of enlarge/reduce that got caught around his paw, causing him to grow massive!
2014 is the advanced guide while 2024 is the beginners guide
I got into D&D a 5 years ago when a coworker invited me to play. I ended up buying the 5e DMG along with the MM later and it is my 1st DM’s guide. I read most of it, besides the magic items section, which I could not care about less. I got a ton of advice for years from RUclipsrs and that improved my DM’ing a lot. Just DM’ing improved my DM’ing a lot. I also joined a writing club and got advice from them. It’s a really complex hobby that takes a lot of investment. I was never unsatisfied with the 5e DMG because I never expected it to be a complete authority on the subject
I honestly never had any complaints about it. Seemed much better than anything that came before it.
Wait. Twitter DIDN'T have a followers-only feed??? How is it somehow WORSE than I thought??
Okay, I have an idea for how the villain enacting the vengeful will of a god could do it by bounty hunting. Maybe this god needs sacrifices, but the villain has a twisted moral compass. They don't want to sacrifice random civilians, so they take bounties and offer them up to their god because, in their mind, they're "bad people" who had prices on their heads anyway.
It did, but it wasn’t the default, and it also wasn’t chronological so they could still refresh it whenever you got bored, so you never got “caught up”
I never bought 2014 DMG, thanks for getting this out before the new one came out and me getting it on DDB.
For the cataclysmic events thing I kinda do both present and historical, I’m currently running a trilogy of campaigns. The first campaign ended with the BBEG using a magic to begin turning other races into humans and recreate the world, in campaign 2 cause the heroes didn’t thwart him fast enough the population of non-human races are far smaller and so in campaign one it was a present event but in 2 and 3 it’s literally the Big Bang
Oh man, this video sure makes me excited for the new DMG for 5.5 that WILL BE comING out some time SOON… I CANT WAIT until it RELEASES
lol 😉
Thank you for this video, my library has a D&D kit that includes the 2014 editions of books, and I doubt they'll be updated soon.
Legend says that Mike is still thinking of things to add to the to do list... :)
I can't wait for the new DMG, I bet we'll finally get art for the potion of healing, but I guess I wouldn't know yet
Great video. Not sure the Game Master’s Book of… series by Jeff Ashworth is from Cubicle 7 in case anyone is looking for it.
16:50
How anyone heard this and didn't immediately imagine a bible-thumping gunslinger who uses fire and brimstone doctrine as a thin justification for his bloodthirst and acts of terror is beyond me.
4th edition Dungeon Master's Guide*s*
It's been a while since I read the first one, and I don't know if I ever read Dungeon Master's Guide 2 or just skimmed it, but I recall a Reddit post ages ago singing its praises, though I don't remember any of the given reasons. It just always sticks out in my head that 4EDMG2 is really really good even for other games and editions according to that Redditor.
Man don't knock using slander to advance the cause of a god of mayhem. Just ask the Nomadic Merchants of Elden Ring how effective slander by a servant of a god of chaos is.
And by "ask", I mean watch an hour plus lore video about Shabriri and the Outer God of Frenzied Flame because holy crap, of all the plot points you're not going to get without poring over miscellaneous item descriptions and throwaway dialogue with a jeweller's loop and a fine-toothed comb, how thousands of Nomadic Merchants wound up entombed alive beneath the capital with the Three Fingers and how Shabriri committed the cardinal sin of slander and became the most hated man in the world is absolutely one of them.
Great review, thanks Mike. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the 2024 DMG, whenever it comes out. Also, I'm happy for you that you dumped your 'X'. Hopefully the rest of the world will do the same.
I like the 2014 DMG, as an experienced DM. But it would be a bit overwhelming for a new DM. Then again, so was the 1E one and I loved that. I love realm building and there is a heap of cool stuff for that. More inspiring tables would have even been better. I never cared for balanced encounter stuff. I am not sure why there were player options subclasses etc in there too. NPCs don't use full classes so just save those for a later player's book.
This is a good channel. I like Mike.
I too am looking forward to the as yet unreleased DMG!
But seriously, the 2014 DMG deservedly gets a lot of flak for its organization, but the info inside is broadly good. I've had SO MANY conversations online where someone is complaining about something or trying to homebrew something and the solution exists in the 2014 DMG, they just either couldn't find it or had never bothered to try due to the book's reputation.
I've used my crystal ball to look into the future and I still don't think the 2024 DMG is as good as the 4th edition DMG, but it's going to be a big improvement, when it does come out that is. . .
The joke at 22:27 made me cackle 🤣
the great news is the 2024 dungeon master's guide isn't releasing until december 7th here in australia, so the dungeon master's guide isn't out yet from a certain point of view
That plushie behind you I keep thinking is Lightning McQueen.
Cool! Perfect timing before DMG 2024 came out 🎉
From what you're describing of it, I can't help but wonder if prior to all of that there should be a "If you want to make a world on the fly rather than using a prepublished setting, here's the default assumptions of the game and what you'll need to make before session 1," and some procedures you can follow - either randomly or by fiat - based on the results of what happened to build out and get ready for the next adventure, similar to Mausritter's advice on setting up and running a hexcrawl.
Make it feel both optional and achievable, rather than overwhelming. "Here's the information you'll need to know about the initial settlement of your homebrew campaign before the first session, and here's how to build out the campaign world as you go based on the homebrew adventures you're running and generating from these charts."
A cultist on a mountain top...
Burnin' like a silver flame...
I haven't gotten into social media, and everything I hear implies that I'm not really missing out on much. Now, do I spend too much time scrolling RUclips's main page for videos to catch my interest? Maybe, but still sounds better than social media doomscrolling.
I'm the weirdo DM who has read the DM's Guide through multiple times. Do I like how it's set up? Not at all. However, I do feel way more confident in my skills DMing having read it. If for no other reason than I know where to find what I need when I need it!
Not gonna lie I flip through the DMG occasionally and sometimes I forget just how useful some of the things are.
"Amongst our Weaponry..."
The lack of random treasure hoard tables is I think a huge misstep in the new dmg
I wonder if you have done a video about Lancer (TTRPG build arround mechs), I think its art is really cool and its worldbuilding is interesting.
it works for Dominos
spit out my Dominos pizza
I think the 2014 DMG unfairly gets a bad reputation - it's almost a meme at this point.
To be fair - my experience of the book was returning to DnD in 2018 after playing and DMing a ton of 1st and 2nd Edition (and many other TTRPGs) in the 80s and 90s (and missing 3rd and 4th ed) so reading through all the first few chapters on world building and the Planes of Existence was like returning to an old friend and my imagination was firing !!!
I definitely agree with the criticism that those chapters are not the ideal introduction for new DMs who have no idea how to run a game.
Gems and Magic Items... I want a PRICE!!! With the new 2024 rules, the crafting is too easy. If you have prices you can have a concrete way to make things harder to get by controlling the gold supply. Right now I can make boots of flying for 200 gold and 2 weeks crafting time or less if I have a buddy helping me. Elves can go even faster because of low sleep time. Crazy dangerous!
What about that secret 7th thing: comment? I'll be honest that I've been running tabletop games for a few years now and literally never looked in any book for how to handle a world/npc.
It always seems to me that when people review any DMG, the most common critique is “I don’t use this chapter because I make it up myself” or “I don’t use this section because I have a library of third party books to cover this topic”. But a DMG contains redundant or ‘useless’ sections because some people don’t have the experience to make it up on their own, or they need to see a list of suggestions to brew their own game. It feels like someone critiquing “See Spot Run” by saying they can make up better stories, or that they have Cujo on their bookshelf already, which is a better story about a dog.
I’m not saying the 2014 DMG is a good resource, but a lot of its content is going to seem thin compared to a full book honing in on a topic, or the experience of a seasoned DM.
I also think that WotC bowed to tradition by adding so many rolling tables, but didn’t consider the usefulness to them for more experienced DMs.
If they removed rolling tables, or reframed them as “inspiration tables”, a list of suggestions to consider, adapt, or adopt, I think they would be able to include more than 20 options, and push new DMs to create.
But WotC probably feared pushback from traditionalists if they removed rolling tables, or perhaps didn’t even consider it an option to remove them. So instead, new DMs get the impression that the tables must mean something, because they are everywhere, but barely anyone who has DM’d for any significant time really uses them.
I have recently heard that the Tales of the Valiant Game Master's Guide is amazing & will be reusable far beyond the 5.24 one will be, but I haven't looked at either, any thoughts about that?
I haven’t had a chance to get into Tales of the Valiant yet but I’m hoping to pick it up and take it for a spin in the new year!
@SupergeekMike do buy PDFs or prefer physical books?
when you said an execution is happening at the same day as the wedding my mind swiftly gone to the maccap ritual in this culture a wedding can and an execution must happen at the same day . a the same place. a symbolism of a new life begins where another ends like instead of breaking a glass cup you make a head roll :D
the idea of also being a warning to the groom to take care of the pride and maybe the father in law is the one who is "honored" to do the execution .... all these idea rushes in my head in the span of 5 seconds XD
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Help ? LOL
also there are many things you can such together an aberration sword that is convent . its conovent about knowledge . like come on key to ancient knowledge and knowledge is power,
a villain goal done by neglect is letterly the plot line for many evil kings making their own children their worst enemies. or neglecting a ritual to withhold an ancient evil. the vellai here isnt an active villain it is in their inactivity that they are ruinous .... like the democrats :D
maybe its deleperet even they are obstructionist . making the people indulge in rumors and misinformation so they can let their overlords do thier evil schemes ... like the republicans :D
there is a lot of things you can come up if you truly restrect tyourselfs to the rolls nomatter what
I dunno Mike, that might be too many things for me to keep track of... What was it again?
I can't believe Mike gaslit is about the new DMG being out. I had to check dndbeyond just to make sure it still wasn't out. I didn't expect something like this out of you. I thought you were better #supergatemike #dmggate #unsubscribe
The 2014 DMG lists Saladin Ahmed's "Throne of the Crescent Moon" as an inspirational book. And I HATED that book. It was extremely painful to read, and I will never get over a shapeshifter losing her ability to shapeshift for most of the novel because she is on her period.
Worst part of the DMG.
I enjoyed the video, overall. I almost always do, but that ending was obnoxious. I hope we don't get more of that.
In all fairness, I wont invest in the 2024 "new edition". I would have liked WotC to just make 6e, rather than feel they have to perfect 5e.
I disliked several of the options in Tasha's, and haven't really bought anything since.
It's still quite bad. This is a $50 book. Having 5 useful paragraphs and 5 useful tables is very unimpressive.
you should do Peter Falk as Columbo
just one more thing