I'm one of the ones that read it cover to cover! The big problem is that it's organized in the worst possible way. I've literally had the thought that some aspect (like renown, for example) would be perfect for my game. However, I forgot what it was called and that resulted in me making it up after getting frustrated trying to find it. My prep time is limited and valuable, and I don't want to spend it flipping through a book as well organized as Walmart.
I use sticky notes in my core book as reference tabs since I'm still new to dnd. I try to make each one unique, but you could always write on the tabs for things you're interested in implementing
I'd like to think Mrs. Mack is watching this now. "So proud of her! I'm just glad she stopped bringing the...nope...nope there's the sword. Always the sword."
I like playing Byleth in smash ultimate. In other word I appreciate weapon diversity, swords, bows, axes, spear/lance thing. We need to respect weapon rights😟
@@GinnyDi Somehow my 4th grade teacher always made her perception checks when I was passing notes in class, and I never made my saving throw versus detention.
One thing that can be said for the DMG is that every time you go looking for a specific thing, it feels like scouring pages upon pages of ancient mystic text, buried in which is the key for your project, something only the most skilled acolytes can find… And that vibe’s great and all, but I just wanna know how ADVANTAGE FREAKING WORKS
And then you discover that it was dealt with in the PHB, because of course you cant have all the rules to run the game in the book for the person that runs the game
Read the PHB first. Once you know how to be a player, read the DMG. They actually state this in the books. Read the MSM once you're building the world - those are the three books that were originally intended to play the game.
@@Hawk7886 I shouldnt flounder between two books to run a game to look for a simple rule, a players handbook shouldnt contain rules for running the game - or even better, the DMG should repeat the rules and be comprehensive enough to function as a standalone reference for a DM. Honestly, 99% of the time if i cant find something in 20 seconds im making it up. The books are structured to be obnoxiously useless for quick consultation and it feels really stupid to stop the mood to look up how to jump. Or rules for poisons.
@@matteod2567 If you need to reference something often, put it on your DM screen (jumping for example is on the official DM screen already.). If you don't use a screen, it can still be helpful to have the references in front of you, not in a book (like a screen, but flat on the table). As for a player's handbook shouldn't contain rules for running the game... Why shouldn't the players handbook contain all the rules for playing the game? That's what it's for. Yes there's character specific stuff, for building player characters, but that would be a very thin book if they stopped there. The point of the player's handbook is that is has all the rules you need to know to play. As a player, you shouldn't need more than that. A DM should also have access to those rules, afterall, you can't run a game if you don't know how to play it. Instead of having two of the same book with a different cover (or a very *very thick* DMG), they tell you in the DMG that the player's handbook contains all the rules you need to run the game.
Do people not know how to use indices anymore? I agree it's a poorly laid out book but you can quickly and easily find what you are looking for using the index
15:49 i wanna be at the mad hatters tea party ass table where someone yells out "CHANGE PLACES" and everyone moves around seats, changing who the dm, changing who all the characters are played by, making it all chaos then immediately getting back into business and acting like everything is normal
This is giving me major Scooby Doo 2 vibes-total chaos but in the best way! 😂 It would be perfect for a one-shot; keeping that energy up in a long-term game would be exhausting! But for a single session? Pure gold. I kind of want to try this now! 🎩
Ever played Bleak Spirit? It is basically this concept, fleshed out into a full game. You'd think it would be wild and wacky, but it actually has much more of an emphasis on somber Fromsoft-esque storytelling and mystery, where the players are each trying to piece together what the lore of this collaboratively-created world actually is.
I'm not lying, my hand is up because I've read the entire guide, despite the fact that all internet dnd advice tells you to ignore the DMG and that it's not all that helpful. Every time I see a post about "cool homebrew rules" or a meme fixing a problem that they think the books have never covered before, it's always something that's already in the DMG. Like others have said though, the book is simply organized in the worst way possible.
Not sure about the new monster manual in february, and think I read a dmg along time ago, but I'm sure the battle grid will be great with the ed greenwood campaign setting and some blood bowl minis, while I admire my new swords of northshire swords and climb the hill with the water every week, I guess both of my more artistically talented brothers will only get to play twice a year though.
The Special Properties table was one of the things that elevated my initial 5E DMing 10 years ago. You can develop an entire adventure by using that table and building the appropriate dungeon around the special properties of the magic item it is guarding.
Ooooh, lovely approach ! Reminds me of the some more atmospheric video games, like Zelda, introducing key items in dungeons themed after their properties. Very nice, I will absolutely steal that ^^
Gritty healing variant makes more time pass between adventures and allows you get away from the 5 minute adventuring day. Compared to the normal healing in 5e it definitely can make you feel the weight of traveling into the wilderness, dungeon, etc I kind of implicitly assume the fast action pace during adventures can only be maintained with players spending most of their time off from adventuring. Sure, you can do great feats of bravery and endurance but constantly? That wears on people and you just can't maintain full use of your body's ability day after day in my campaign rn at least.
slow healing is cool and all but healing surge is also pretty cool. I personally like to run healing surge with a few twists: you recover your hit dice like normal, they cannot be done outside of combat, and inspiration can be spent to make the surge faster/better (for context I also allow inspiration to be used for things like the plot twist thingy mentioned in this video, and give it out for a variety of reasons, as well as allow characters to hold onto multiple charges if the situation calls for it). If you ask me, the real best solution to making resource management a thing is not gritty healing but simply having the adventure take place over a set period of ingame time, such as half a week, making long rests a limited resource that the party may not even be able to use every session.
thing is its not a joke, a lot of people ask for things like Shorter rest times, things like disarming attacks or charging, spell points instead of slots, and its ALL in the DMG already. most of 5E "Fixes" are just stuff in the DMG
@@solsystem1342 It almost single handedly solves that adventuring day problem that can make 5e such a slog. I ran some games with it and it was nice having combats actually matter.
I have six DMGs (one for each edition plus 3.5), and I have read all of them cover to cover. Every single one of them is organized in a way that made sense to the designers, but is not necessarily intuitive for the average DM looking to find a particular thing. They all have the same sorts of information, but every one is organized differently depending on the order the designers thought made most sense. And I am sure every one of them agonizes over "I wish people would realize that the stuff they are searching for is RIGHT THERE!"
The problem with a book called the Dungeon Master Guide is that none of them are good at guiding readers to actual be dungeon masters. If they were written to actually do this they wouldn’t put optional rules before the information on actually running the game in its base form first. Running the adventure shouldn’t be chapter 3, it should be chapter one.
Yes. As a writer of level 3 TAFE courses (in a system where if it was "5", it'd be an undergrad course, for context), my first comment upon reading the DM manual was "needs better organisation for people who _don't_ know the game already." The thing about experts in any field is that they forget what it was like to be a beginner. They're so busy trying to stuff all the info in that they forget that what makes sense to an expert makes no sense to someone who's never picked up a subject before. This was actually a problem for me when I wrote my first course: I was being _too_ technical and wordy. One has to learn to break things down to a more basic, more logical level for beginners. That's why the maxim "those who can't do, teach" annoys me so much. People who can teach/break down things to a basic (ie, basic is not stupid!) level for someone who has no ide what they're reading is a real skill that needs to be learned, and it's also incredibly valuable.
@@GinnyDi I DMed 1e a bit, but got seriously into worldbuilding and campaign plotting in 2e. I changed cities around the time 3e came out, and by the time I gathered a new gaming group 3.5 had come out. I ran a 3.5e campaign (level 1 to 23) with that group that ran all the way through the 4e era and into the start of 5e. Then I ran another long 3.5e (level 1 to 24) campaign with a new group that ran from 2018 to early this year. Now running a new 3.5e campaign with the same group. I run 3.5e partly because of the resources I have available (including 68 issues of Dungeon magazine to draw adventures from), but also because I like the way 3.5e has clear rules for adapting monster stat blocks and for balancing unusual PC options (my last two campaigns both had a dragon PC). I picked up the 4e and 5e core books to see how the game was progressing, but so far have had no particular desire to change editions. I am not sure if I will buy the 5.5e books; it's unlikely I would use them in actual play. But I do enjoy watching 5e content on line, as much of it is edition agnostic. To answer the question of how much I use my DMG, I will note that my 3.5e PHB is falling apart, despite the fact that I have never been a player in 3.5e. My DMG, on the other hand, has less wear and tear than some of my other books, such as the Monster Manual, Spell Compendium, and Magic Item Compendium.
I'd love to see a part 2 of this, the 5e DMG has a lot of little gems that cover a lot of ground that plenty of online spaces will *insist* 5e doesn't have rules for. Notable rules: Morale, Loyalty, the *actual* wilderness exploration rules (Chapter 5 and Chapter 8 covers the whole gamut), Action Options in Chapter 9, and the initiative variants. It's really a shame the book was laid out like butt, there's so much good stuff in it.
I initially wanted to use this video idea as a series, where in each video, I break down a handful of related rules that are in the DMG that people should know about! But then I realized how long that idea had been sitting on my to-do list and how short a time we have until the new book... and I realized I needed to speed things up 😰
@@GinnyDi I see no reason to throw the idea out though. A lot of people won't be using 2024 DnD, and plenty of people still even run old ADND or DnD 3.5. You'll always have people playing 2014 DnD, so a series like that could be super beneficial even with the new DMG coming out! One reason I am so behind the idea is because, I am one who voted in your poll that I skimmed the DMG and over the years, I thought I knews the book pretty well. At least 3 things on your list, I had no idea was in there. And like you, I'm someone who has been through the DMG over the years, looking stuff up and using it for reference! if you explored each chapter in depth, who knows what we might find buried in the depths of the pages!
My favorite type of portal is a carriage. You must have an invitation to the location on the other side directly from the lord/lady/leader of it. Once in the carriage with the invitation, it begins the journey. A fog rolls over the carriage, blocking all vision for a time. Once the fog clears, they find themselves in the pocket dimension of the person who invited them.
That´s a good one. My favorite is stolen from the classic ancient Greek. Charon´s boat across the river Styx. Styx is the portal, and can only be navigated by Charon´s boat. Obviously it connects the plane of the mortals and that of the dead. The motive is nice and old, used a million of times - but that´s because it works. Oh, also I once played an old The Black Eye (DSA) solo adventure where a mystical pond was a portal into DSA´s version of the Feywild. The character had to get a little help by the nymphet that saved him/her at the start of the traversal to be able to return at all, not being able to breathe under water and so on. Of course the nymphet had to be swayed by helping her first. That was a pretty cool plot hook, and it all started with a runaway goat XD
Same, and after traversing the portal someone goes "Hey, you! You're finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right? And walked right into that imperial ambush, same as us and that thief over there."
The fact that thieves can be ranked as Tumblr makes me want to rank bards that way too. "Only just a level 4 spirits bard? You're just a Pintrest. Talk to me when you're a Friendster, pup."
@@riuphane I meant it in the most jovial way I could, I assure you! I am so old, when I was in college at Syracuse talked to my girlfriend at a SUNY Purchase 5 hours away on ICQ!
I think Bards' progression should be Twitter > Friendster - Pinterest - Facebook With a super arrogant Facebook-level Bard going around saying "You see my Face is literally on a Book"
The idea that someone has already done the work and documented it but they didn't tell anybody, that reminds me a lot of real science and academia. 😅 The saying goes, "4 hours in the lab can save you 1 hour in the library".
About plot points that let someone take over as DM: Never Stop Blowing Up (from the Dimension 20 season of the same name) has a mechanic where, at a high enough level, rolling a nat 20 means you get to sit in the GM's chair for 60 seconds and make whatever you want happen and IT. IS. GLEEFUL CHAOS!
the "Gods must be crazy" is really fun. We had a 15+ hour session once. One Night with 6 Players/GMs switching the role as the DM every hour or so. All improvising and laughing 😂 all the time. We switched the DM role every hour or so. Then everyone level up their Character and the new DM moved the story onward from the one before. All players had to act as if the PC of the now DM was never there and the now appearing/reappearing PC was there the hole time. It was glorious.😂
Something I've taken from other systems is using plot points in a community pool. When you use one, that means it goes into the DM's pool. So if in an encounter you pay a point to do extra damage to Dragon, the DM gets that point and then on the dragon's next turn it can roll with advantage. Or maybe you use a point to say you know someone in a town from your backstory and then maybe your DM uses the story point they get to prevent you from disarming a trap later. It's been a lot of fun.
Reminds me of Coriolis and it´s Darkness Points system. It codifies when players can use it as some kind of fate points/plot armor - but the game master has ways of using it to add monsters, traps, critical failures on ship systems, or allow enemies to use their super special attack or skill. You get the drift. The important part is, those are not ratioed 1:1, so the GM needs to save up if the want something truly vile to hit in the worst possible moment +insert evil laughter here+ It is pretty awesome.
One bit of advice for chases, if I may. If you've got an encounter planned where the chances of one side trying to make good their escape are non-zero, it's a good idea to have a table of complications that makes sense for the terrain ready. A chase through the woods, for example, will be different than a chase through a city or town. I like to have the players do the rolling for what complications come up as well. It just adds more interaction to the whole event. And 9 times out of 10, the more interactive it is, the more fun it is.
As another piece of advice, many of the entries in the DMG's chase tables include both the complication and a prescribed check to avoid it. When using these tables (or making your own), I'd suggest ignoring the latter completely and letting the players come up with their own solutions to the obstacle presented.
Great tip! I love the idea of letting the players roll for complications-Keeps everyone on their toes and it feels less like I'M the one making their lives hard! 😂
With DnD media and content creators, It's so common to se how they only talk from their own experience and advice, which can helpful, but leaves you no other choice but to hit the manuals yet again if there's something creative or new that you want to try for your own character or campaign. Hi Ginny Di, if you are reading this, you have my thanks for being one of the few exceptions to the rule. K BYEEE
I don't love the chase rules (I made my own), but it's a great start for creating alternative encounters that challenge mobility. It also tends to favour our neglected martial characters. It also gives Dwarf players an excuse to yell "We Dwarves Are Natural Sprinters!!"
As an aside, though I think that line was meant as a comedic tension breaker, it bugs me. With a dwarf's constitution bonus and slower speed, a long distance race SHOULD be what they excel at. They may not catch you on a short chase, but when you have to stop to rest, they'll roll up on you like the MFin' Terminator.
@@ExplodingMarmalade I'd go the other way and say shorter distances and durations of high effort is where they would excel - though along the line of your reasoning the comfortable pace they can keep trucking all day and night without exhaustion is likely higher than the tall folk by tendency. But that is still a much slower pace than the group would be doing trying to actively run down their opponents who don't have a huge lead. The dwarf is just naturally carting too much mass about to make a fast long distance runner - if you look at the real endurance runners and climbers there is a very very strong tendency for them to be thinner and less generally powerfully built than the typical Dwarf - because carting lots of extra of muscle and bone around just takes more energy...
@@NathanielNow Obvious now you say it - That is why they build such grand, impressive, inviting and distracting structures deep underground - anybody comes calling unexpectedly has rolled very impressive stealth or access to powerful magic to get there without a welcoming committee. But then has to beat the hypnotic pattern effect and then actually notice the defensive features to protect themselves from the Dwarf protecting his home...
@@foldionepapyrus3441 The gold isn't for themselves. It's the bait. Dragons are dying out because the Dwarves keep trapping them and eating them. Smaug was an exception, not the rule.
The one little bit of information that a lot of people miss in the DMG, is the Disclaimer. Best DM advice ever. Actually, check all of the disclaimers. There is a lot of fun and useful commentary in them.
@@Bethgael I mean, it DOES have canon. That doesn't mean you have to use it; I personally only use a part of it, and homebrew part of it. But Faerun does, objectively, have canon.
@@Bethgael You're being a bit pedantic I think. That there is a canonical state that Faerun has, is indisputable. It's how WOTC based their lore (theoretically) for other things, and how they worldbuild. You are free to use whatever you want, you can disregard parts of it, etc, but it is still a canonical, set state that WOTC acknowledges as the natural state for their worldbuilding. That it is a multiverse allows for everyone to view their own personal versions of Faerune as plausible, but it doesn't take away that there is one set canonical world-building state for Faerune, for any other canonical material they publish.
@@shawnwolf5961 Er, no. You may be misunderstanding my meaning; I may be miscommunicating it, so I'll try to be clearer (Because I could say that someone insisting that there is "A" canon that WOTC subsidiary games/books etc is overly pedantic, and not what I meant, and then we'd be calling each other pedantic all day /grin). I mean, There is a "canon" Gorion's Ward--name, sex, class, that was in one of the books. But this has _not_ been "canonised" for, say, BG3, because every single player who played both had their _own_ Gorion's Ward that likely was not some silly bloke's power fantasy. ;) So, even official WOTC items don't canonise all of the others. :) The idea is to prevent your _players_ being pedantic about a "canon world state", to the point they end up arguing with you about distances, events, etc., which can make it impossible to play an "alternate" version of Faerun. Example: if I say X is Y distance from Z, then the game ends up being 10 minutes of a player trying to tell you which faerun" map is the "most accurate according to canon" (even when you've specified which map this campaign is using). Clearly, we don't want that, and it is a player problem, but the easiest way to shut down such an argument is to say that "WOTC canon is only canon for official WOTC not for everyone", and then if further argument ensues I quote The Book.
On portals, a player in my current Planescape campaign is a sentient ooze (we're using the plasmoid species for the mechanics) just found out that they are in fact a living portal because sap from the world tree dripped down into them when they were in the elemental plane of ooze.
I am currently in a The Gods Must Be Crazy campaign! We are switching DMs every session, along with a level up every session. It is pure insanity, but it a lot of fun. For some context, we started the campaign as half siblings all looking for our deadbeat bard dad. We are now halfway through and apparently are avatars of evil gods of destruction following an elemental/Tarot theme, inadvertently making them stronger as we level up. Oh, and said bard dad is in hell. That was one of my contributions.
I bring my own sugar container to diners if I'm getting coffee, but I feel like that's pretty self-explanatory if you've ever tried sweetening your coffee in a diner.
I'm one of the ones that have read it cover-to-cover, and I'm contantly surprised by people posting that D&D doesn't have xyz (a good example being degrees of failure). Nope it's right there in the DMG. Not only have I read it, but I've transcribed the three core books, Tasha's, Xanathar's, and a couple of others into my own TiddyWiki so they are all cross-linked. All of it into one single 10mb file that just opens in any browser and has it's own search engine built in - it took me three keystrokes to find the renown optional rule. Also metric equivalents. And automatically generated lists - like levelled bonus action spells, or the list of enchantment and illusion wizard spells for an arcane trickster. I copy the file and do my prep on top of it, so it's all at hand. Just be thankful that the 5e.2014 one is way better "organised" than the stream of consciousness that was the 1e DMG (trust me, it could be worse). Fingers crosssed that the new one is better!
Can you talk about your process of transcribing them without going insane? Guessing heavy use of OCR? I never use dndbeyond (Except for LMoP and DoIP, because free). I prefer physical books, and if I have to go digital, because a book is only available digitally, or because I need the convience, I would only use DRM free options like PDF or EPUB. I'd love to create those digital DRM free versions of my physical books myself by scanning and transcribing them... but that sounds like a nightmare of a task!
Renown and Piety are really fun. They expected these two systems a lot in later books. Renown is the core mechanic in Guildmasters Guide to Ravnica. All 10 Guilds really have their own structures, Titels and different rewards for climbing the ranges. This book is great btw. I was part of two great Ravnica Campaigns, one as a GM. Piety got his spotlight in Mythic Odysseys of Theros. I like this Book too. Even though I never had a Campaign in Theros, but I used the mechanics to build a System for a homebrew world.
You know, I've stopped watching most other creator's D&D videos but I still tune in for Ginny's because she (you) have such a refreshing approach to content, very practical and thoughtful 🙂
I could go on a diatribe about how badly organized the DMG is and how much gets missed (or is still missing) from it, but it's definitely useful to at least read through and understand. I commented on the poll that my professional field is in reading federal regulations (making the DMG nbd), and one major part of what goes on in creating these regs is actually making things more organized and quicker to reference for folks who have to know them. This is what WotC needs to do, not just ask about "what would you like changed in the text" but "what revisions can we make to make the text more organized." Hard to do, I know, when you're selling the thing, but there's no question in my mind that it would make it sell that much better in later years. On specifics in it: One of the reasons that poisons are essentially unused is that Lesser Restoration basically negates all notable effects of poisoning at most played levels, including those in the DMG...but one of the cool things about poison is the well known phrase "the dose makes poison" changes everything here. The more a DM/GM learns about basics of biochemistry, the more likely they can get around the Lesser Restoration problem if they want to implement poisons in a way that they're plot point or player use appropriate. Poisoner: "This is an enzymatic poison, it will slowly eat away at you from the inside." Cleric: Raises holy relic with an arrogant smile. Poisoner: "The enzyme is one you produce yourself, it's vital for your life. Should you idly cleanse it from the cells inside you, you will starve yourself to death. No, the cure to this poison isn't so simple."
I'm going to come across an old dinosaur here (ossified by nostalgia for the 20th Century) but the tables for non-weapons damage and consquences of a missed hit sent me right back to when we played ICE's Rolemaster and the custom damage tables with extensive text describing the critical misses (00 and 66 on percentile, oh and a table for every type of weapon). "you trip over an imaginary turtle and deliver full damage to yourself" was the sort of thing it said.
OK - so in fairness, I WAS chairman of the UK's largest RPG club... but yes, I knew the the DMG cover to cover, and could quote "Page 78, paragraph 3" etc... but it was kinda my job at the time. Obviously the first page of most RPG's says "Ignore the rules in favour of the game". Which is correct - you should. But knowing the rules / guidelines always helps. That way you know how to break them....
As someone who sometimes brings my own sheets to hotels: I have super sensitive skin. A lot of standard detergent will make me break out in hives anywhere I've touched something washed in regular detergent, so on longer trips sometimes it's not worth the risk so I just bring my own haha. Not mad or anything, just adding context cuz I totally understand why that could seem like a weird thing to other people lol
Considering what most people do at hotels and how many people come and go versus how many cleaning people are on staff, it seems a reasonable thing to bring, to me xD
That's very fair, man I get you with the hives, mine are triggered by heat so every time I take a hot shower or if a part of my body gets too hot suddenly the doom begins. Hives suck ass
I got into D&D back in the early 80s, so of course I read the entire thing. We didn't have any internet back then to distract us, reading was common and helped pass the time.
Indeed. No if only the algorithm wouldn't insert a random ad whenever Ginni says "sponsor"; seriously, this is like the 4th recent video where I've had to skip an ad to get to the fun sponsorship message.
Seconding how fun the poisons table can be! I threw an impossible encounter at my players - a villain that could see into the future a few hours, and consequently couldn’t be hit by conventional attacks as he’d see them all coming and know exactly how to dodge. But my players acquired some Midnight Tears and watched as the smug villain realized with dawning horror that he was doomed, having already drank his death earlier in the day. Tons of fun ideas here, awesome vid!
Degrees of success and failure are a great time to incorporate that "Yes-No, And-But" grid from an earlier video. Nat 20, or beat the DC by 5 or more: Epic Success! "Yes, and..." Beat the DC by 1-4: Normal Success. "Yes" Miss the DC by 1 or 2: Near Miss. "Yes/No, but..." Miss the DC by 3 or more: Failure. "No" Nat 1, or miss the DC by 10 or more: Catastrophic Failure! "No, and..."
I was honestly trying to come up with different roles within a thieves guild. Good to know that's there. I cant wait to see how much the new DMG has changed.
I really like the realistic element of degrees of failure and success. I came across it in call of cthulu and wondered if it was a thing in d&d. Definitely going to read the DM guide now!
😂😅😢😮🎉 I love that you not only covered this topic, but you specified that DMs should not jam all options into a single game/campaign. I am one of those rare few who reads everything. I'm also one of the fewer who creates my own table that reference which elements pair well together and what type of campaign they are best suited for. I like to do a rough outline for a campaign (Five or so bullet points) and then review the table I created to determine what rule mechanics I want to put in place. This helps establish the game play style for the campaign.
I just want to say, the table for improvised damage, at least for me, has been one of the most underrated things I have ever used in the DMG. I have used, it, I continue to use it, and I always will use it. I used to use it as is, then I began making my own tweaks to it, using it for inspiration on improvised damage. Instead of pulling a number out of ones arse, the table gives a tangible scale for random damage. It's great, I love it, and it is one of the best things in the DMG I think--especially for newer DMs, but very useful even for seasoned ones. (Also thanks youtube, for not telling me this was posted until TWO DAYS AFTER)
I've always suggested that _everyone,_ no matter if you're a player or DM, read Chapter 9, specifically the "Combat Options" section on pages 270 -273. There's good stuff in there that really should have been in the Player's Handbook, like Disarming and Shoving. (Side note: "Speed Factor" was how combat worked before 3rd Edition. Every weapon and spell had a speed rating; heavier (more damaging) weapons were slower, and more powerful spells took longer to cast.)
I describe myself as a Level 1 DM, and I've consumed so much content on YT about how to do all these cool concepts I want to implement. So surprised to find how much content is in the book already. Not to say creators haven't put their spin on things
I’m a DM and I have to admit, I just read certain sections as needed. I didn’t read the DMG cover to cover, although over the years I think I have read most of it. Thanks for the video, it’s very useful, especially for the new DM’s out there.
My favorite moral quandary I've ever put before my players is they used a Scroll of Summon Tarrasque (Legendary Item from Rime of the Frostmaiden) to win a battle for their allied nation against the neighboring Kingdom. Unfortunately, the Tarrasque was too much entirely for the opposing army and it was pointed straight at the defending town. The result is that the party ended up aiding the enemy's team of Heroes/elite knights to delay the Tarrasque while the town evacuated.
I read cover to cover, all of them before DM’ing. Monster Manual 1-2, fiend folio, players handbook, dm guide, deities and demi-gods, but then too i started by playing chainmail back in the early 80’s.
I wonder if it's a generational thing or if it's about digital verse physical books. I devoured the physical books but my new digital rulebook is a slow read.
I just ran a homebrew that when you put a coin in a slot - walked through the portal and was teleported to that time period as dated on the coin. To return, you would have to put a second coin of the same in the portal coin slot. You would only have "X" amount of time to stay in that time period. Players seemed to enjoy being able to bring back something into the D & D campaign period they were in.
That sounds so cool! I love that time-travel twist-it’s such a fun way to keep your players on their toes. Definitely trying that idea in the future! 👏
Some random thoughts coming from this video: Use the poision system for also creating homebrew poisons specific to your campaign. Like you're going to fight an ancient red dragon? get the dragons bane poison which will weaken the dragon to a point where even your lower to mid levels party can defeat him. You can even make one or two sessions being about getting rare incrediants for that poison or if none of the characters has skills in alchemy, convincing an alchemist to brew up that dangerous poison for you. Also when people are talking about alternative rewards I always think of "favours" as one of those. Like one of the thieves guilt higher up members now is owing the players for them saving his daughter and bringing her back to him. They could ask for something immediate like being promoted or something, but more interestingly they could also save the favour for later, when they really need to get invitations to that ball night in the kings palace or when they are desperatly looking for a way of getting out of town or when they just need to talk to the king of thieves for negotiations about something related to the campaign. If done right this could be a good way of advancing the plot and giving the players an additional resource to use when they need to find a solution for complicated problems Last - the portals could also not have a direct path back to the original portal or world. This could be used for a one shot or a single side adventure during your campaign in which the players will need to find a way back to their homeplain or it could even be the start of a campaign that would be inspired by TV-series like sliders where they keep on hopping through portals to other plains, but never end up returning home.
I’ve read most of the 2014 DMG, and I think it has some great mechanics that are beneficial for play. It also seems very much like a cobbled-together bricolage of ideas rather than a cohesive book. I think that there was originally a design of 5e DnD that was extremely barebones, and the DMG existed with plug-and-play elements to add to it. Feats, variant humans, multiclassing, all sorts of ideas seemed to be add-ons along with many of the other elements of the game. They all improve it, but they also can work without it. I think Mike Mearls and the rest of the team did really great by paring DnD back to its absolute roots, then make systems that CAN, but don’t HAVE to be put in on top. I think they can go even farther, as I’ve seen with other games like Cypher system and Shadowdark, but at some point it stops being DnD. However, the bones for dozens of different “DnD’s” are all in the DMG. My favorite is the monster creation section, because when I would have enemies or random encounters, I would pick a random enemy image (online VTT) and then just take random damages and effects from the tables. Nobody knew anything about any of my enemies, and they used knowledge skills and reconnaissance to figure out how to deal with them. Great fun.
I’m one of the 21%! I read cover to cover and was flabbergasted that I was in the minority. You’re telling me only ONE FIFTH of yall said, “Oh my god. There’s so much I don’t know. I must hoard all available information to not be the weakest link.”
I'm not lying, Ginny! I read that thing firsthand in 2014. It has great tips for worldbuilding, but as other comments have said, it is badly organized and not very helpful for new DMs. Let's see if the 2024 version is better in that department.
@@VinceValentine oh yeah for sure, I have my notes, but theres little gems like the ones Ginny is showing us that wont fit on the screen, and I forget em
@@VinceValentine ah but you see, there are so many things I would like to remember that how do I then remember how to navigate the notes app, and remember what I have even made notes on. I have not figured that out yet
Maybe this is commonly known, but I recently learned about mob rules (for large group combat) in the DMG! I've played a bunch of different campaigns with many DMs (some very experienced!) but had never seen anyone run mob rules before, so it didn't occur to me that there was a better way. I was Googling advice for how to move through groups of 20+ enemies without slowing down the session too much and lo and behold it was in the DMG the whole time. Like other folks in the thread, I'd been told repeatedly to skip the DMG by other DMs, losing out on a lot of helpful info and rules.
Really appreciate that you specifically made this video for me Ginny! Or at least it feels that way considering everything talked about is perfect for the campaign I'm writing 🙏
"I recommend reading Chapter 3, creating adventures, or Chapter 8, running the game" literally made me laugh because those are like the two most basic things a DM would be doing, why are they so far apart? Unless it's a tricky ploy to get you ready for how unfocused the players can be...
They wanted to split it into 3 parts. As part 2 is about adventures, and part 3 is about the rules, and both those chapters are the first chapter in those parts, they are going to be seperated by the rest of the content in part 2 naturally. Maybe it wasn't the best decision to do that, as a lot of people seem to struggle with that layout. Not sure what a better layout would look like though. A bigger contents page would be the most helpful change probably.
@@CorrosiveCitrus The DMG I read a good bit of back in the day was for 3.5, and for me at least that layout worked well. Running the game, using the rules, then onto planning adventures and making NPCs, and then running a full campaign, with stuff about magic items and player options at the back.
One of the most important ones for me personally is the section that tells you how to properly add class levels to monsters. Like so many DMs complain about how fast their monsters get shredded but if you give anything even 1 level in barbarian you essentially double their hit points but it can get way crazier! Like giving a frost giant levels in Druid to get that Shaman feel or giving Demon Lords or Lesser Deities class levels when they’re in their domain (because the stats we have are just their avatars/aspects and not their actual bodies)
Not many people even read PHB to 100%, not to mention DMG. And than the same people claim that there's no degrees of success and failures in DnD (or a lot of other false stuff) :(
One of the side effects of not having read the dmg is homebrewing rules that are in there. Magic items having flair, chase scene rules (i also use con saves - just makes sense), poison types being contact, attack etc and my favourite - allowing players narrative decision. Though I do it more as "A small bell jingles as you cross the threshold, a halfling looks up from sewing and gives you a smile. Ginny, tell me one more thing about the shop?" As opposed to them playing a narrative point at any time in the game
True story ... for a few quick moments, I thought that you said that piety was for goths - and I'll be darned if that didn't make complete sense to me then, and it still does now 😂
The first couple of seasons of Adventure League used renown. The problem was it wasn’t well. One of my players broke a new DM and the module because player PC renown was so high.
0:44 This!!! This is exactly my beef with 5E and why I am always shocked when people say “5E doesn’t have rules or explanations for this so I made up this house rule” and I have to look at them and say “Um, actually it does but if you enjoy your house rules, you do you”.
The presentation of information in the 2014 DMG is terrible, nd it's the big reason why almost no one has read it. But they SHOULD! Like you touched on at the end of the video, so many problems people have online are solved in this book (were never problems to begin with) but folks don't know about it because the organization of info in this book is a mess. I'm really hopeful for the 2024 DMG because I know James Wyatt is working heavily on it, and he was project lead on the 4e DMG which is hands down my favourite DMG in any edition, and I think has just some of the best general GMing advice ever put to page in a D&D book.
The ADnD 1e DMG is profound in ways that cant be put into words. Far from approachable, far from perfect, but does contain raw nuggets of wisdom hitherto unseen by the eyes of mortals
Folks aren't reading the rulebooks for two reasons: poor organizational layout and a decade of the online D&D community telling them not to bother with rules.
I'd absolutely love a Pt. 2 to this or even see it as a series. You have really good, creative ideas for how these can be used and effectively convey how to implement them and why they're important. One of your best videos IMO :)
idea for portals have basically a "stargate" a giant ring that has 7 symbols that are needed to open it to a specific plane (like the movie/tv shows) there would be a "dialing device" where you enter the pains "coordinates" but that would be like each plain has a fixed one that can be use to travel between different plains.
Can we talk about how cute that outfit is?!?!?!?!?! Challenge rating isn't fixable unless there are ability score limits for character creation. Rolled character abilities make characters to variable to hop to balance for.
The DMG has clearly taken a lot from the DMG 3.5 edition, but only took the parts they found interesting and placed it somewhere random in the book. The poisons come from the 3.5 DMG which has an even larger table. Magic items come from 3.5 as well, even copying the rarities without checking if they still fit. The arrow of slaying was very good in 3.5, hench the rarity rare, in 5e its terrible but still rare.
We implemented a combination of inspiration and plot points in our games. We are using coins to keep track. instead of inspiration players get 'hero coins'. Every session each player gets 1 by default, and I hand them out generously. players can collect up to 10 hero coins. - 1 hero coin can add+1 to a roll (or subtract from the GM-s roll) - 3 hero coins can give a reroll (either player or gm) - 5 hero coins can buy an auto success, or a minor plot change (this is the most used for us, the guys are worldbuilding like there's no tomorrow, without noticing, e.g.: Silver Kingselaf: a healing plant that can heal almost any wounds when used under full moon, but is deadly poison any other time.) - 10 hero coins can make a major plot change. like the secret backroom shop of "legal until noticed by anyone" kind of items. The whole idea started from this part of the DMG so it was worth to read.
I have read the whole thing, but you have to understand that was back in 1982 when we didn't have the internet, or cell phones, or VOD. So in the evenings the only thing you had to do was watch TV (mostly crap) or read books. Reading the DM's Guide WAS my VOD. I would read it and visualize all the cool stuff. I wasn't even a DM! I just loved looking thought the pages. Didn't even ruin our games, my DM didn't mind that I read it.
Zee Bashew did two videos of tables from the DMG that changed my DMing ever since: Mob Combat and Social Encounters. Two charts I completely missed because I skimmed through all the story crafting and world building sections
The renown aspect isn't new to me and I don't even DM, BUT that's because I played in the Adventurer's League and I believe you've said you're mostly a homebrew player/DM. The main 5 factions (use to) matter in AL adventures and have 5 renown ranks. You could earn extra points if an adventure or module had your faction personally involved, otherwise you'd gain a single point after the module or after so much time in a hardcover. AL rules gave bonuses per ranks like a free +1 weapon, believe was, rank 3. AL also had a limit on magic items based on level and the faction item was only for that session, so it wasn't like players could stockpile and open their own business. It was nice then because only 1 player could walk away with a possible magic item find in that session, so if you were say Wil Wheaton and always rolled a 1 to win that item, this would at least give you a magic weapon to damage the more common monsters at mid level.
I first found out about plot points in the Supernatural RPG and use them in all my Campaigns now. And when I alluded to maybe not using them in our next campaign, my players all wanted them to stay. They are just such a fun reward for the players, and really engage them in the world when thinking about how they can justify the thing they want appearing in the plot. I love them.
I read it cover to cover in 1983 for the first time, they used to say that players shouldnt read that or the monster manual at all back then, like they were some secret forbidden tomes😱
Wait, you've been a DM for a long time according to other videos I've seen on this channel and now you're saying you haven't read the whole Dungeon Master's Guide until now?
Having started with 1st Ed AD&D... that thing was not written to be read cover to cover. It was a wild collection of notes jammed together. Playing it as teens, we knew which pages to flip to for the tables we couldn't live without (until we got a DM screen) and other than that, we ignored it. Years later, I'd go back and flip to random pages and start reading. Some sectuons were advice from your Wise Uncle Gary about how to run a game, not all of it actually wise. Many systems were rightly consigned to the dustbin of game design: Did ANYONE play with the rule that you didn't level up until you also paid for training? And who were top level characters supposed to get training from? In 1st Ed D&D, there was literally a limit on how many Druids of a certain level could exist in the world: You had to challenge a senior druid to take their title when you leveled up. If you were the top level druid, who could train you? And making magic items required sacrificing permanent character health. It wasn't just that the 1st Ed DMG was nigh enreadable for the way it was organized, but many of the first-run ideas that got stuffed into it were simply anti-fun.
It is a good idea to know what is in the GM book/section, if you are GM'ing a game system. Usually, it is told from that perspective instead of from the Player perspective. It is stuff/tools that GMs can use to enhance the verisimilitude! 5e D&D's DMG was certainly as described by most who've read it. The 50th Anniversary Edition D&D DMG is claimed by the developers to be a lot more useful/relevant, and with better editing/organization. For those making the switch, I'll hope for your that it is what they claim.
Portals are great if you want to even randomize things. Especially if you write your own adventures. It can be harder on the DM if new. But if your not going to use a module/book and do the whole thing. Pick the ones you like and use a random dice to decide the order.
The plot points remind me of Icon rolls from 13th Age. Basically at the start of a session you roll a certain amount of d6s based on which major factions you have a strong relationship with. If you roll a 6 you can cash in that roll later in the session to get help from this faction (or that faction's enemies if depending on your relationship), but if you roll a 5 then cashing in this favor will cause something unexpected to happen. Maybe you get info from someone but now you need to go on a side quest for them. Maybe you find another way into a fortress/ dungeon but its filled with traps instead of alarms. Maybe getting help from one faction makes you a target for a different one.
I told my DM that I didn't understand portals, but she said "I just can't make it any planar."
Shut up and take my upvote.
Nice
adds a new dimesion to dad jokes.🤣
This joke really crosses a threshold.
Man this is good
I'm one of the ones that read it cover to cover! The big problem is that it's organized in the worst possible way. I've literally had the thought that some aspect (like renown, for example) would be perfect for my game. However, I forgot what it was called and that resulted in me making it up after getting frustrated trying to find it. My prep time is limited and valuable, and I don't want to spend it flipping through a book as well organized as Walmart.
YES, exactly!! That's such a good way to phrase it 😂
You kids..
One of my major complaints too - this is what happens when you let a fiction writer write reference material xD
I use sticky notes in my core book as reference tabs since I'm still new to dnd. I try to make each one unique, but you could always write on the tabs for things you're interested in implementing
If 5E is like Walmart then is the 2024 version like Target?
I'd like to think Mrs. Mack is watching this now. "So proud of her! I'm just glad she stopped bringing the...nope...nope there's the sword. Always the sword."
4th grade is when you really need that sword. lol
I like playing Byleth in smash ultimate. In other word I appreciate weapon diversity, swords, bows, axes, spear/lance thing. We need to respect weapon rights😟
I like to imagine it's the same sword. Back in 4th grade it was really hard for Ginny to lug it around. But she grew into it.
She tried to give me detention for it... but that's why I always carry a sword.
(Seriously though, no weapons in school, kids 👀)
@@GinnyDi Somehow my 4th grade teacher always made her perception checks when I was passing notes in class, and I never made my saving throw versus detention.
One thing that can be said for the DMG is that every time you go looking for a specific thing, it feels like scouring pages upon pages of ancient mystic text, buried in which is the key for your project, something only the most skilled acolytes can find…
And that vibe’s great and all, but I just wanna know how ADVANTAGE FREAKING WORKS
And then you discover that it was dealt with in the PHB, because of course you cant have all the rules to run the game in the book for the person that runs the game
Read the PHB first. Once you know how to be a player, read the DMG. They actually state this in the books. Read the MSM once you're building the world - those are the three books that were originally intended to play the game.
@@Hawk7886 I shouldnt flounder between two books to run a game to look for a simple rule, a players handbook shouldnt contain rules for running the game - or even better, the DMG should repeat the rules and be comprehensive enough to function as a standalone reference for a DM.
Honestly, 99% of the time if i cant find something in 20 seconds im making it up. The books are structured to be obnoxiously useless for quick consultation and it feels really stupid to stop the mood to look up how to jump. Or rules for poisons.
@@matteod2567 If you need to reference something often, put it on your DM screen (jumping for example is on the official DM screen already.). If you don't use a screen, it can still be helpful to have the references in front of you, not in a book (like a screen, but flat on the table).
As for a player's handbook shouldn't contain rules for running the game... Why shouldn't the players handbook contain all the rules for playing the game? That's what it's for. Yes there's character specific stuff, for building player characters, but that would be a very thin book if they stopped there. The point of the player's handbook is that is has all the rules you need to know to play. As a player, you shouldn't need more than that.
A DM should also have access to those rules, afterall, you can't run a game if you don't know how to play it. Instead of having two of the same book with a different cover (or a very *very thick* DMG), they tell you in the DMG that the player's handbook contains all the rules you need to run the game.
Do people not know how to use indices anymore? I agree it's a poorly laid out book but you can quickly and easily find what you are looking for using the index
15:49 i wanna be at the mad hatters tea party ass table where someone yells out "CHANGE PLACES" and everyone moves around seats, changing who the dm, changing who all the characters are played by, making it all chaos then immediately getting back into business and acting like everything is normal
this is absolutely possible in a D&D one-shot but it's hard, it's easier with other games
This is giving me major Scooby Doo 2 vibes-total chaos but in the best way! 😂 It would be perfect for a one-shot; keeping that energy up in a long-term game would be exhausting! But for a single session? Pure gold. I kind of want to try this now! 🎩
Ever played Bleak Spirit? It is basically this concept, fleshed out into a full game. You'd think it would be wild and wacky, but it actually has much more of an emphasis on somber Fromsoft-esque storytelling and mystery, where the players are each trying to piece together what the lore of this collaboratively-created world actually is.
I ran a sidequest set in the feywild where one of the challenges made everyone switch characters for a day, it was great fun.
I also like to think that this rule can be a way for forever DMs to play a game together
I'm not lying, my hand is up because I've read the entire guide, despite the fact that all internet dnd advice tells you to ignore the DMG and that it's not all that helpful. Every time I see a post about "cool homebrew rules" or a meme fixing a problem that they think the books have never covered before, it's always something that's already in the DMG. Like others have said though, the book is simply organized in the worst way possible.
Every time? Always?
There is a whole world of actual Homebrew for you to explore that the DMG doesn't even hint at then!
💯
@@Michael-bn1oi obviously not always, there's plenty of fun homebrew stuff I can enjoy that has no basis in the DMG. I exaggerate for dramatic effect.
Where on the internet does it say to ignore the DMG? That's super lame, it's literally the book the DM is _supposed to read!_
Not sure about the new monster manual in february, and think I read a dmg along time ago, but I'm sure the battle grid will be great with the ed greenwood campaign setting and some blood bowl minis,
while I admire my new swords of northshire swords and climb the hill with the water every week, I guess both of my more artistically talented brothers will only get to play twice a year though.
The Special Properties table was one of the things that elevated my initial 5E DMing 10 years ago. You can develop an entire adventure by using that table and building the appropriate dungeon around the special properties of the magic item it is guarding.
I love this idea of starting with the powerful loot item and working backwards! What a fun way to theme a dungeon!
oooooh, now THAT'S an idea! :o
Ooooh, lovely approach ! Reminds me of the some more atmospheric video games, like Zelda, introducing key items in dungeons themed after their properties. Very nice, I will absolutely steal that ^^
I've always joked that half of homebrews are actually stuff that is just in the DMG. Fire Arms is one, and very slow healing is another one.
Gritty healing variant makes more time pass between adventures and allows you get away from the 5 minute adventuring day. Compared to the normal healing in 5e it definitely can make you feel the weight of traveling into the wilderness, dungeon, etc
I kind of implicitly assume the fast action pace during adventures can only be maintained with players spending most of their time off from adventuring. Sure, you can do great feats of bravery and endurance but constantly? That wears on people and you just can't maintain full use of your body's ability day after day in my campaign rn at least.
slow healing is cool and all but healing surge is also pretty cool. I personally like to run healing surge with a few twists: you recover your hit dice like normal, they cannot be done outside of combat, and inspiration can be spent to make the surge faster/better (for context I also allow inspiration to be used for things like the plot twist thingy mentioned in this video, and give it out for a variety of reasons, as well as allow characters to hold onto multiple charges if the situation calls for it).
If you ask me, the real best solution to making resource management a thing is not gritty healing but simply having the adventure take place over a set period of ingame time, such as half a week, making long rests a limited resource that the party may not even be able to use every session.
thing is its not a joke, a lot of people ask for things like Shorter rest times, things like disarming attacks or charging, spell points instead of slots, and its ALL in the DMG already. most of 5E "Fixes" are just stuff in the DMG
@@solsystem1342 It almost single handedly solves that adventuring day problem that can make 5e such a slog.
I ran some games with it and it was nice having combats actually matter.
Right?! At this rate, we’ll be inventing spell slots next 😂
I have six DMGs (one for each edition plus 3.5), and I have read all of them cover to cover. Every single one of them is organized in a way that made sense to the designers, but is not necessarily intuitive for the average DM looking to find a particular thing. They all have the same sorts of information, but every one is organized differently depending on the order the designers thought made most sense. And I am sure every one of them agonizes over "I wish people would realize that the stuff they are searching for is RIGHT THERE!"
The problem with a book called the Dungeon Master Guide is that none of them are good at guiding readers to actual be dungeon masters. If they were written to actually do this they wouldn’t put optional rules before the information on actually running the game in its base form first. Running the adventure shouldn’t be chapter 3, it should be chapter one.
I would say that by far the 4e DMG and especially the DMG II are some of the best guides on how to be a GM ever created for any game systems
Yes. As a writer of level 3 TAFE courses (in a system where if it was "5", it'd be an undergrad course, for context), my first comment upon reading the DM manual was "needs better organisation for people who _don't_ know the game already." The thing about experts in any field is that they forget what it was like to be a beginner. They're so busy trying to stuff all the info in that they forget that what makes sense to an expert makes no sense to someone who's never picked up a subject before. This was actually a problem for me when I wrote my first course: I was being _too_ technical and wordy. One has to learn to break things down to a more basic, more logical level for beginners. That's why the maxim "those who can't do, teach" annoys me so much. People who can teach/break down things to a basic (ie, basic is not stupid!) level for someone who has no ide what they're reading is a real skill that needs to be learned, and it's also incredibly valuable.
Wow, that’s an impressive collection! Do you have a favorite edition or are they all infuriating in their own unique ways? 😂
@@GinnyDi I DMed 1e a bit, but got seriously into worldbuilding and campaign plotting in 2e. I changed cities around the time 3e came out, and by the time I gathered a new gaming group 3.5 had come out. I ran a 3.5e campaign (level 1 to 23) with that group that ran all the way through the 4e era and into the start of 5e. Then I ran another long 3.5e (level 1 to 24) campaign with a new group that ran from 2018 to early this year. Now running a new 3.5e campaign with the same group.
I run 3.5e partly because of the resources I have available (including 68 issues of Dungeon magazine to draw adventures from), but also because I like the way 3.5e has clear rules for adapting monster stat blocks and for balancing unusual PC options (my last two campaigns both had a dragon PC). I picked up the 4e and 5e core books to see how the game was progressing, but so far have had no particular desire to change editions. I am not sure if I will buy the 5.5e books; it's unlikely I would use them in actual play. But I do enjoy watching 5e content on line, as much of it is edition agnostic.
To answer the question of how much I use my DMG, I will note that my 3.5e PHB is falling apart, despite the fact that I have never been a player in 3.5e. My DMG, on the other hand, has less wear and tear than some of my other books, such as the Monster Manual, Spell Compendium, and Magic Item Compendium.
I'd love to see a part 2 of this, the 5e DMG has a lot of little gems that cover a lot of ground that plenty of online spaces will *insist* 5e doesn't have rules for.
Notable rules: Morale, Loyalty, the *actual* wilderness exploration rules (Chapter 5 and Chapter 8 covers the whole gamut), Action Options in Chapter 9, and the initiative variants.
It's really a shame the book was laid out like butt, there's so much good stuff in it.
I initially wanted to use this video idea as a series, where in each video, I break down a handful of related rules that are in the DMG that people should know about! But then I realized how long that idea had been sitting on my to-do list and how short a time we have until the new book... and I realized I needed to speed things up 😰
@@GinnyDi I see no reason to throw the idea out though. A lot of people won't be using 2024 DnD, and plenty of people still even run old ADND or DnD 3.5. You'll always have people playing 2014 DnD, so a series like that could be super beneficial even with the new DMG coming out!
One reason I am so behind the idea is because, I am one who voted in your poll that I skimmed the DMG and over the years, I thought I knews the book pretty well. At least 3 things on your list, I had no idea was in there. And like you, I'm someone who has been through the DMG over the years, looking stuff up and using it for reference! if you explored each chapter in depth, who knows what we might find buried in the depths of the pages!
My favorite type of portal is a carriage. You must have an invitation to the location on the other side directly from the lord/lady/leader of it. Once in the carriage with the invitation, it begins the journey. A fog rolls over the carriage, blocking all vision for a time. Once the fog clears, they find themselves in the pocket dimension of the person who invited them.
When did we get to Cainhurst Castle?
@@daniellemurnett2534 Literally where I fell in love with the general concept, kupo. Lol
That´s a good one. My favorite is stolen from the classic ancient Greek. Charon´s boat across the river Styx.
Styx is the portal, and can only be navigated by Charon´s boat. Obviously it connects the plane of the mortals and that of the dead.
The motive is nice and old, used a million of times - but that´s because it works.
Oh, also I once played an old The Black Eye (DSA) solo adventure where a mystical pond was a portal into DSA´s version of the Feywild.
The character had to get a little help by the nymphet that saved him/her at the start of the traversal to be able to return at all, not being able to breathe under water and so on. Of course the nymphet had to be swayed by helping her first. That was a pretty cool plot hook, and it all started with a runaway goat XD
@@murphieslaw6932 That sounds awesome, kupo!
Same, and after traversing the portal someone goes "Hey, you! You're finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right? And walked right into that imperial ambush, same as us and that thief over there."
The fact that thieves can be ranked as Tumblr makes me want to rank bards that way too. "Only just a level 4 spirits bard? You're just a Pintrest. Talk to me when you're a Friendster, pup."
I know you're making a joke, but it still made part of my soul sad.
@@riuphane I meant it in the most jovial way I could, I assure you! I am so old, when I was in college at Syracuse talked to my girlfriend at a SUNY Purchase 5 hours away on ICQ!
I think Bards' progression should be Twitter > Friendster - Pinterest - Facebook
With a super arrogant Facebook-level Bard going around saying "You see my Face is literally on a Book"
@@mikececconi2677 ICQ the good ol' days. TBH the ICQ games were boss!
@@peleg6748 Makes sense, bards are good at propaganda
The idea that someone has already done the work and documented it but they didn't tell anybody, that reminds me a lot of real science and academia. 😅
The saying goes, "4 hours in the lab can save you 1 hour in the library".
About plot points that let someone take over as DM: Never Stop Blowing Up (from the Dimension 20 season of the same name) has a mechanic where, at a high enough level, rolling a nat 20 means you get to sit in the GM's chair for 60 seconds and make whatever you want happen and IT. IS. GLEEFUL CHAOS!
I would feel SO overwhelmed if I had to suddenly jump into the DMs chair! I love it though 😂😂
Notes! Preparedness! And leaning into the "AAAAAAA UM UM UM" as much as possible to let your brain run wild is all a part of the fun!
@@GinnyDi The laws of D&D are *mine* AND THEY WILL OBEY ME!!!
@@GinnyDi The correct ruling is always "everything explodes!"
One of the best seasons! But I would never use this feature lol I can't handle the pressure 😂
the "Gods must be crazy" is really fun.
We had a 15+ hour session once. One Night with 6 Players/GMs switching the role as the DM every hour or so. All improvising and laughing 😂 all the time.
We switched the DM role every hour or so. Then everyone level up their Character and the new DM moved the story onward from the one before.
All players had to act as if the PC of the now DM was never there and the now appearing/reappearing PC was there the hole time. It was glorious.😂
How did you keep going that long?
OMG that's so fucking funny
Something I've taken from other systems is using plot points in a community pool. When you use one, that means it goes into the DM's pool. So if in an encounter you pay a point to do extra damage to Dragon, the DM gets that point and then on the dragon's next turn it can roll with advantage. Or maybe you use a point to say you know someone in a town from your backstory and then maybe your DM uses the story point they get to prevent you from disarming a trap later. It's been a lot of fun.
Reminds me of Coriolis and it´s Darkness Points system. It codifies when players can use it as some kind of fate points/plot armor - but the game master has ways of using it to add monsters, traps, critical failures on ship systems, or allow enemies to use their super special attack or skill. You get the drift.
The important part is, those are not ratioed 1:1, so the GM needs to save up if the want something truly vile to hit in the worst possible moment +insert evil laughter here+ It is pretty awesome.
The number of people I've seen complain that +X items aren't interesting enough, but don't know about the customization tables drives me nuts.
Lol I've had DMs ask me where I got the homebrew item idea.
DBB dropped all those cool customized options which is a huge shame.
One bit of advice for chases, if I may.
If you've got an encounter planned where the chances of one side trying to make good their escape are non-zero, it's a good idea to have a table of complications that makes sense for the terrain ready. A chase through the woods, for example, will be different than a chase through a city or town.
I like to have the players do the rolling for what complications come up as well. It just adds more interaction to the whole event. And 9 times out of 10, the more interactive it is, the more fun it is.
As another piece of advice, many of the entries in the DMG's chase tables include both the complication and a prescribed check to avoid it. When using these tables (or making your own), I'd suggest ignoring the latter completely and letting the players come up with their own solutions to the obstacle presented.
Great tip! I love the idea of letting the players roll for complications-Keeps everyone on their toes and it feels less like I'M the one making their lives hard! 😂
With DnD media and content creators, It's so common to se how they only talk from their own experience and advice, which can helpful, but leaves you no other choice but to hit the manuals yet again if there's something creative or new that you want to try for your own character or campaign. Hi Ginny Di, if you are reading this, you have my thanks for being one of the few exceptions to the rule. K BYEEE
I don't love the chase rules (I made my own), but it's a great start for creating alternative encounters that challenge mobility. It also tends to favour our neglected martial characters. It also gives Dwarf players an excuse to yell "We Dwarves Are Natural Sprinters!!"
As an aside, though I think that line was meant as a comedic tension breaker, it bugs me. With a dwarf's constitution bonus and slower speed, a long distance race SHOULD be what they excel at. They may not catch you on a short chase, but when you have to stop to rest, they'll roll up on you like the MFin' Terminator.
@@ExplodingMarmalade I'd go the other way and say shorter distances and durations of high effort is where they would excel - though along the line of your reasoning the comfortable pace they can keep trucking all day and night without exhaustion is likely higher than the tall folk by tendency. But that is still a much slower pace than the group would be doing trying to actively run down their opponents who don't have a huge lead. The dwarf is just naturally carting too much mass about to make a fast long distance runner - if you look at the real endurance runners and climbers there is a very very strong tendency for them to be thinner and less generally powerfully built than the typical Dwarf - because carting lots of extra of muscle and bone around just takes more energy...
@@foldionepapyrus3441 This just in: Dwarves are an ambush species
@@NathanielNow Obvious now you say it - That is why they build such grand, impressive, inviting and distracting structures deep underground - anybody comes calling unexpectedly has rolled very impressive stealth or access to powerful magic to get there without a welcoming committee. But then has to beat the hypnotic pattern effect and then actually notice the defensive features to protect themselves from the Dwarf protecting his home...
@@foldionepapyrus3441 The gold isn't for themselves. It's the bait. Dragons are dying out because the Dwarves keep trapping them and eating them. Smaug was an exception, not the rule.
> "Succeed with a complication"
This is a fun rule, it lets you keep the narrative moving forward when it would otherwise stall.
The one little bit of information that a lot of people miss in the DMG, is the Disclaimer. Best DM advice ever. Actually, check all of the disclaimers. There is a lot of fun and useful commentary in them.
YES! This is something I quote every time someone tries to say that Faerun has "canon".
@@Bethgael I mean, it DOES have canon. That doesn't mean you have to use it; I personally only use a part of it, and homebrew part of it. But Faerun does, objectively, have canon.
@@shawnwolf5961 Yes, it has A canon state. But it is not THE canon state that everyone must append to. Don't make me quote the book. ;)
@@Bethgael You're being a bit pedantic I think. That there is a canonical state that Faerun has, is indisputable. It's how WOTC based their lore (theoretically) for other things, and how they worldbuild.
You are free to use whatever you want, you can disregard parts of it, etc, but it is still a canonical, set state that WOTC acknowledges as the natural state for their worldbuilding.
That it is a multiverse allows for everyone to view their own personal versions of Faerune as plausible, but it doesn't take away that there is one set canonical world-building state for Faerune, for any other canonical material they publish.
@@shawnwolf5961 Er, no. You may be misunderstanding my meaning; I may be miscommunicating it, so I'll try to be clearer (Because I could say that someone insisting that there is "A" canon that WOTC subsidiary games/books etc is overly pedantic, and not what I meant, and then we'd be calling each other pedantic all day /grin). I mean, There is a "canon" Gorion's Ward--name, sex, class, that was in one of the books. But this has _not_ been "canonised" for, say, BG3, because every single player who played both had their _own_ Gorion's Ward that likely was not some silly bloke's power fantasy. ;) So, even official WOTC items don't canonise all of the others. :) The idea is to prevent your _players_ being pedantic about a "canon world state", to the point they end up arguing with you about distances, events, etc., which can make it impossible to play an "alternate" version of Faerun. Example: if I say X is Y distance from Z, then the game ends up being 10 minutes of a player trying to tell you which faerun" map is the "most accurate according to canon" (even when you've specified which map this campaign is using). Clearly, we don't want that, and it is a player problem, but the easiest way to shut down such an argument is to say that "WOTC canon is only canon for official WOTC not for everyone", and then if further argument ensues I quote The Book.
On portals, a player in my current Planescape campaign is a sentient ooze (we're using the plasmoid species for the mechanics) just found out that they are in fact a living portal because sap from the world tree dripped down into them when they were in the elemental plane of ooze.
Ok mind blown! 😀I so wanna steal that, can I?
@@Glimmcomp Be my guest!
I am currently in a The Gods Must Be Crazy campaign! We are switching DMs every session, along with a level up every session. It is pure insanity, but it a lot of fun.
For some context, we started the campaign as half siblings all looking for our deadbeat bard dad. We are now halfway through and apparently are avatars of evil gods of destruction following an elemental/Tarot theme, inadvertently making them stronger as we level up.
Oh, and said bard dad is in hell. That was one of my contributions.
read every dnd book i had cover to cover, took notes for efficient future uses, and went from there
You the real MVP!
you rule, my guy!
Don't forget optional actions in combat, like disarm, overrun/tumble, or climbing onto a larger creature.
Woah, woah, woah - hold up. At 0:16 - you're telling me 6% of people bring their own cutlery to a restaurant?
What even is the point? It's going to be on a plate anyway, the cutlery feels like half the equation
I bring my own sugar container to diners if I'm getting coffee, but I feel like that's pretty self-explanatory if you've ever tried sweetening your coffee in a diner.
I'm also surprised it's such a small number
I mean, if you already bought a lot of cutlery for your restaurant you may as well eat there.
@@Katwind My parents used to bring Cutlery to some Asian restaurants because they couldn't use chop sticks.
I'm one of the ones that have read it cover-to-cover, and I'm contantly surprised by people posting that D&D doesn't have xyz (a good example being degrees of failure). Nope it's right there in the DMG. Not only have I read it, but I've transcribed the three core books, Tasha's, Xanathar's, and a couple of others into my own TiddyWiki so they are all cross-linked. All of it into one single 10mb file that just opens in any browser and has it's own search engine built in - it took me three keystrokes to find the renown optional rule. Also metric equivalents. And automatically generated lists - like levelled bonus action spells, or the list of enchantment and illusion wizard spells for an arcane trickster. I copy the file and do my prep on top of it, so it's all at hand.
Just be thankful that the 5e.2014 one is way better "organised" than the stream of consciousness that was the 1e DMG (trust me, it could be worse). Fingers crosssed that the new one is better!
Can you talk about your process of transcribing them without going insane? Guessing heavy use of OCR?
I never use dndbeyond (Except for LMoP and DoIP, because free). I prefer physical books, and if I have to go digital, because a book is only available digitally, or because I need the convience, I would only use DRM free options like PDF or EPUB.
I'd love to create those digital DRM free versions of my physical books myself by scanning and transcribing them... but that sounds like a nightmare of a task!
I wish DDBeyond did stuff like this. The potential of that tool is extraordinary but WotC has just collected cash since buying it.
Renown and Piety are really fun.
They expected these two systems a lot in later books.
Renown is the core mechanic in Guildmasters Guide to Ravnica. All 10 Guilds really have their own structures, Titels and different rewards for climbing the ranges.
This book is great btw.
I was part of two great Ravnica Campaigns, one as a GM.
Piety got his spotlight in Mythic Odysseys of Theros.
I like this Book too. Even though I never had a Campaign in Theros, but I used the mechanics to build a System for a homebrew world.
You know, I've stopped watching most other creator's D&D videos but I still tune in for Ginny's because she (you) have such a refreshing approach to content, very practical and thoughtful 🙂
I could go on a diatribe about how badly organized the DMG is and how much gets missed (or is still missing) from it, but it's definitely useful to at least read through and understand. I commented on the poll that my professional field is in reading federal regulations (making the DMG nbd), and one major part of what goes on in creating these regs is actually making things more organized and quicker to reference for folks who have to know them. This is what WotC needs to do, not just ask about "what would you like changed in the text" but "what revisions can we make to make the text more organized." Hard to do, I know, when you're selling the thing, but there's no question in my mind that it would make it sell that much better in later years.
On specifics in it:
One of the reasons that poisons are essentially unused is that Lesser Restoration basically negates all notable effects of poisoning at most played levels, including those in the DMG...but one of the cool things about poison is the well known phrase "the dose makes poison" changes everything here. The more a DM/GM learns about basics of biochemistry, the more likely they can get around the Lesser Restoration problem if they want to implement poisons in a way that they're plot point or player use appropriate.
Poisoner: "This is an enzymatic poison, it will slowly eat away at you from the inside."
Cleric: Raises holy relic with an arrogant smile.
Poisoner: "The enzyme is one you produce yourself, it's vital for your life. Should you idly cleanse it from the cells inside you, you will starve yourself to death. No, the cure to this poison isn't so simple."
I'm going to come across an old dinosaur here (ossified by nostalgia for the 20th Century) but the tables for non-weapons damage and consquences of a missed hit sent me right back to when we played ICE's Rolemaster and the custom damage tables with extensive text describing the critical misses (00 and 66 on percentile, oh and a table for every type of weapon). "you trip over an imaginary turtle and deliver full damage to yourself" was the sort of thing it said.
OK - so in fairness, I WAS chairman of the UK's largest RPG club... but yes, I knew the the DMG cover to cover, and could quote "Page 78, paragraph 3" etc... but it was kinda my job at the time. Obviously the first page of most RPG's says "Ignore the rules in favour of the game". Which is correct - you should. But knowing the rules / guidelines always helps. That way you know how to break them....
As someone who sometimes brings my own sheets to hotels: I have super sensitive skin. A lot of standard detergent will make me break out in hives anywhere I've touched something washed in regular detergent, so on longer trips sometimes it's not worth the risk so I just bring my own haha. Not mad or anything, just adding context cuz I totally understand why that could seem like a weird thing to other people lol
Considering what most people do at hotels and how many people come and go versus how many cleaning people are on staff, it seems a reasonable thing to bring, to me xD
I totally get that, except... the detergent is supposed to be washed off by the time you're laying on them, why does it still irritate your skin?? :o
@@NoahOMorainRush same way you can still smell flowery soap after its washed, it's still in the fabric even if most of it is gone
That's very fair, man I get you with the hives, mine are triggered by heat so every time I take a hot shower or if a part of my body gets too hot suddenly the doom begins. Hives suck ass
I got into D&D back in the early 80s, so of course I read the entire thing. We didn't have any internet back then to distract us, reading was common and helped pass the time.
Why are your ads always so cute and fun 😭😭😭😭 only UA-camr where I don’t skip it. That’s a talent.
Indeed. No if only the algorithm wouldn't insert a random ad whenever Ginni says "sponsor"; seriously, this is like the 4th recent video where I've had to skip an ad to get to the fun sponsorship message.
Of all the dndtubers Ginny is the one I want to play with the most
And now a new DM guide comes out in November for you to read it!
Hopefully, it'll be more engaging than the 2014 as a cover-to-cover read!
@@GinnyDi Crawford said it was better organized in a video
@@Mark-ki7ic Crawford also said the 2014 DMG was the best one they've ever made
@@GinnyDi Indeed!
As someone who's played since the late 80s or so, that's a lower bar
than it should be.@@CorrosiveCitrus
Seconding how fun the poisons table can be! I threw an impossible encounter at my players - a villain that could see into the future a few hours, and consequently couldn’t be hit by conventional attacks as he’d see them all coming and know exactly how to dodge.
But my players acquired some Midnight Tears and watched as the smug villain realized with dawning horror that he was doomed, having already drank his death earlier in the day.
Tons of fun ideas here, awesome vid!
"nobody will know in a word nerd" *tail reveal* is SENDING me
Degrees of success and failure are a great time to incorporate that "Yes-No, And-But" grid from an earlier video.
Nat 20, or beat the DC by 5 or more: Epic Success! "Yes, and..."
Beat the DC by 1-4: Normal Success. "Yes"
Miss the DC by 1 or 2: Near Miss. "Yes/No, but..."
Miss the DC by 3 or more: Failure. "No"
Nat 1, or miss the DC by 10 or more: Catastrophic Failure! "No, and..."
I was honestly trying to come up with different roles within a thieves guild. Good to know that's there. I cant wait to see how much the new DMG has changed.
I can actually see my table being super into the "gods must be crazy."
We have 4 DMs at our table and we're a pretty chaotic 😅
I read all of AD&D and 2e. The change in organization between those two editions is stark.
What the heck!?! Right when the portal to the sponsor happend an ad appeared, that was spot on!! XD
I really like the realistic element of degrees of failure and success. I came across it in call of cthulu and wondered if it was a thing in d&d. Definitely going to read the DM guide now!
😂😅😢😮🎉 I love that you not only covered this topic, but you specified that DMs should not jam all options into a single game/campaign. I am one of those rare few who reads everything. I'm also one of the fewer who creates my own table that reference which elements pair well together and what type of campaign they are best suited for. I like to do a rough outline for a campaign (Five or so bullet points) and then review the table I created to determine what rule mechanics I want to put in place. This helps establish the game play style for the campaign.
I just want to say, the table for improvised damage, at least for me, has been one of the most underrated things I have ever used in the DMG. I have used, it, I continue to use it, and I always will use it. I used to use it as is, then I began making my own tweaks to it, using it for inspiration on improvised damage. Instead of pulling a number out of ones arse, the table gives a tangible scale for random damage. It's great, I love it, and it is one of the best things in the DMG I think--especially for newer DMs, but very useful even for seasoned ones. (Also thanks youtube, for not telling me this was posted until TWO DAYS AFTER)
I read all the guides in full, and then over the course of the next decade forget them.
I’ll watch this video as soon as I’m done changing the bedsheets at the hotel to the ones I brought with me.
I love you're shirt!! Fruit Bats are my favorite animals!!!💕🦇
Thank you!! I love it too 🥰 It's from Morningwitch
I've always suggested that _everyone,_ no matter if you're a player or DM, read Chapter 9, specifically the "Combat Options" section on pages 270 -273. There's good stuff in there that really should have been in the Player's Handbook, like Disarming and Shoving. (Side note: "Speed Factor" was how combat worked before 3rd Edition. Every weapon and spell had a speed rating; heavier (more damaging) weapons were slower, and more powerful spells took longer to cast.)
I describe myself as a Level 1 DM, and I've consumed so much content on YT about how to do all these cool concepts I want to implement. So surprised to find how much content is in the book already. Not to say creators haven't put their spin on things
You've given me evil, evil ideas with the midnight tears poison. I love the plot points part as well.
I’m a DM and I have to admit, I just read certain sections as needed. I didn’t read the DMG cover to cover, although over the years I think I have read most of it. Thanks for the video, it’s very useful, especially for the new DM’s out there.
My favorite moral quandary I've ever put before my players is they used a Scroll of Summon Tarrasque (Legendary Item from Rime of the Frostmaiden) to win a battle for their allied nation against the neighboring Kingdom. Unfortunately, the Tarrasque was too much entirely for the opposing army and it was pointed straight at the defending town. The result is that the party ended up aiding the enemy's team of Heroes/elite knights to delay the Tarrasque while the town evacuated.
I read cover to cover, all of them before DM’ing. Monster Manual 1-2, fiend folio, players handbook, dm guide, deities and demi-gods, but then too i started by playing chainmail back in the early 80’s.
I wonder if it's a generational thing or if it's about digital verse physical books.
I devoured the physical books but my new digital rulebook is a slow read.
I just ran a homebrew that when you put a coin in a slot - walked through the portal and was teleported to that time period as dated on the coin. To return, you would have to put a second coin of the same in the portal coin slot. You would only have "X" amount of time to stay in that time period. Players seemed to enjoy being able to bring back something into the D & D campaign period they were in.
That sounds so cool! I love that time-travel twist-it’s such a fun way to keep your players on their toes. Definitely trying that idea in the future! 👏
Some random thoughts coming from this video: Use the poision system for also creating homebrew poisons specific to your campaign. Like you're going to fight an ancient red dragon? get the dragons bane poison which will weaken the dragon to a point where even your lower to mid levels party can defeat him. You can even make one or two sessions being about getting rare incrediants for that poison or if none of the characters has skills in alchemy, convincing an alchemist to brew up that dangerous poison for you.
Also when people are talking about alternative rewards I always think of "favours" as one of those. Like one of the thieves guilt higher up members now is owing the players for them saving his daughter and bringing her back to him. They could ask for something immediate like being promoted or something, but more interestingly they could also save the favour for later, when they really need to get invitations to that ball night in the kings palace or when they are desperatly looking for a way of getting out of town or when they just need to talk to the king of thieves for negotiations about something related to the campaign. If done right this could be a good way of advancing the plot and giving the players an additional resource to use when they need to find a solution for complicated problems
Last - the portals could also not have a direct path back to the original portal or world. This could be used for a one shot or a single side adventure during your campaign in which the players will need to find a way back to their homeplain or it could even be the start of a campaign that would be inspired by TV-series like sliders where they keep on hopping through portals to other plains, but never end up returning home.
as one of the people that read the whole DMG, i completely forgot about a bunch of this stuff! thanks for the reminder
I’ve read most of the 2014 DMG, and I think it has some great mechanics that are beneficial for play. It also seems very much like a cobbled-together bricolage of ideas rather than a cohesive book. I think that there was originally a design of 5e DnD that was extremely barebones, and the DMG existed with plug-and-play elements to add to it. Feats, variant humans, multiclassing, all sorts of ideas seemed to be add-ons along with many of the other elements of the game. They all improve it, but they also can work without it. I think Mike Mearls and the rest of the team did really great by paring DnD back to its absolute roots, then make systems that CAN, but don’t HAVE to be put in on top. I think they can go even farther, as I’ve seen with other games like Cypher system and Shadowdark, but at some point it stops being DnD. However, the bones for dozens of different “DnD’s” are all in the DMG. My favorite is the monster creation section, because when I would have enemies or random encounters, I would pick a random enemy image (online VTT) and then just take random damages and effects from the tables. Nobody knew anything about any of my enemies, and they used knowledge skills and reconnaissance to figure out how to deal with them. Great fun.
I’m one of the 21%! I read cover to cover and was flabbergasted that I was in the minority. You’re telling me only ONE FIFTH of yall said, “Oh my god. There’s so much I don’t know. I must hoard all available information to not be the weakest link.”
I'm not lying, Ginny! I read that thing firsthand in 2014. It has great tips for worldbuilding, but as other comments have said, it is badly organized and not very helpful for new DMs. Let's see if the 2024 version is better in that department.
Also mannnn I really try to remember to use the tools but I have a hard time reading something more than once, and ten years later my memory is foggy!
@@Brooke_Corbyn Notes on the DM screen have always helped me remember stuff.
@@VinceValentine oh yeah for sure, I have my notes, but theres little gems like the ones Ginny is showing us that wont fit on the screen, and I forget em
@@Brooke_Corbyn Maybe a note app or a booklet will help... just write down all the things you learn from online sources and organize them later.
@@VinceValentine ah but you see, there are so many things I would like to remember that how do I then remember how to navigate the notes app, and remember what I have even made notes on. I have not figured that out yet
The Magic Item customization tables are one of my favorite parts of the DMG
Maybe this is commonly known, but I recently learned about mob rules (for large group combat) in the DMG! I've played a bunch of different campaigns with many DMs (some very experienced!) but had never seen anyone run mob rules before, so it didn't occur to me that there was a better way. I was Googling advice for how to move through groups of 20+ enemies without slowing down the session too much and lo and behold it was in the DMG the whole time.
Like other folks in the thread, I'd been told repeatedly to skip the DMG by other DMs, losing out on a lot of helpful info and rules.
Really appreciate that you specifically made this video for me Ginny! Or at least it feels that way considering everything talked about is perfect for the campaign I'm writing 🙏
"I recommend reading Chapter 3, creating adventures, or Chapter 8, running the game" literally made me laugh because those are like the two most basic things a DM would be doing, why are they so far apart? Unless it's a tricky ploy to get you ready for how unfocused the players can be...
They wanted to split it into 3 parts. As part 2 is about adventures, and part 3 is about the rules, and both those chapters are the first chapter in those parts, they are going to be seperated by the rest of the content in part 2 naturally.
Maybe it wasn't the best decision to do that, as a lot of people seem to struggle with that layout. Not sure what a better layout would look like though. A bigger contents page would be the most helpful change probably.
@@CorrosiveCitrus The DMG I read a good bit of back in the day was for 3.5, and for me at least that layout worked well. Running the game, using the rules, then onto planning adventures and making NPCs, and then running a full campaign, with stuff about magic items and player options at the back.
One of the most important ones for me personally is the section that tells you how to properly add class levels to monsters. Like so many DMs complain about how fast their monsters get shredded but if you give anything even 1 level in barbarian you essentially double their hit points but it can get way crazier! Like giving a frost giant levels in Druid to get that Shaman feel or giving Demon Lords or Lesser Deities class levels when they’re in their domain (because the stats we have are just their avatars/aspects and not their actual bodies)
Don't tell that to reddit. They will all say DoNt aDd ClAsS levElS tO mOnSterS!!!!!!! over and over again.
Not many people even read PHB to 100%, not to mention DMG. And than the same people claim that there's no degrees of success and failures in DnD (or a lot of other false stuff) :(
This is very true.
One of the side effects of not having read the dmg is homebrewing rules that are in there. Magic items having flair, chase scene rules (i also use con saves - just makes sense), poison types being contact, attack etc and my favourite - allowing players narrative decision. Though I do it more as "A small bell jingles as you cross the threshold, a halfling looks up from sewing and gives you a smile. Ginny, tell me one more thing about the shop?"
As opposed to them playing a narrative point at any time in the game
True story ... for a few quick moments, I thought that you said that piety was for goths - and I'll be darned if that didn't make complete sense to me then, and it still does now 😂
Harrowhark Nonagesimus has entered the chat 💀
The level of organization for all her tabs makes my brain so happy.
Also, a full poison table is exactly something I need.
Me. I read 5E during Covid. I lost track of the number to times I read the 1E book..
The first couple of seasons of Adventure League used renown. The problem was it wasn’t well. One of my players broke a new DM and the module because player PC renown was so high.
yes the book is a slog, Chapter order. Sensible layout. laughs in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.
0:44 This!!! This is exactly my beef with 5E and why I am always shocked when people say “5E doesn’t have rules or explanations for this so I made up this house rule” and I have to look at them and say “Um, actually it does but if you enjoy your house rules, you do you”.
The presentation of information in the 2014 DMG is terrible, nd it's the big reason why almost no one has read it.
But they SHOULD! Like you touched on at the end of the video, so many problems people have online are solved in this book (were never problems to begin with) but folks don't know about it because the organization of info in this book is a mess.
I'm really hopeful for the 2024 DMG because I know James Wyatt is working heavily on it, and he was project lead on the 4e DMG which is hands down my favourite DMG in any edition, and I think has just some of the best general GMing advice ever put to page in a D&D book.
The ADnD 1e DMG is profound in ways that cant be put into words. Far from approachable, far from perfect, but does contain raw nuggets of wisdom hitherto unseen by the eyes of mortals
Folks aren't reading the rulebooks for two reasons: poor organizational layout and a decade of the online D&D community telling them not to bother with rules.
I'd absolutely love a Pt. 2 to this or even see it as a series. You have really good, creative ideas for how these can be used and effectively convey how to implement them and why they're important. One of your best videos IMO :)
0:32 sounds like you’re powerful enough to become a warlock patron :)
idea for portals have basically a "stargate" a giant ring that has 7 symbols that are needed to open it to a specific plane (like the movie/tv shows) there would be a "dialing device" where you enter the pains "coordinates" but that would be like each plain has a fixed one that can be use to travel between different plains.
I have read the entire DMs guide..... for AD&D. That kinda cured me of reading DMGs all the way through.
The 3e and 5e ones are much better.
Can we talk about how cute that outfit is?!?!?!?!?! Challenge rating isn't fixable unless there are ability score limits for character creation. Rolled character abilities make characters to variable to hop to balance for.
The DMG has clearly taken a lot from the DMG 3.5 edition, but only took the parts they found interesting and placed it somewhere random in the book. The poisons come from the 3.5 DMG which has an even larger table. Magic items come from 3.5 as well, even copying the rarities without checking if they still fit. The arrow of slaying was very good in 3.5, hench the rarity rare, in 5e its terrible but still rare.
We implemented a combination of inspiration and plot points in our games. We are using coins to keep track. instead of inspiration players get 'hero coins'. Every session each player gets 1 by default, and I hand them out generously. players can collect up to 10 hero coins.
- 1 hero coin can add+1 to a roll (or subtract from the GM-s roll)
- 3 hero coins can give a reroll (either player or gm)
- 5 hero coins can buy an auto success, or a minor plot change (this is the most used for us, the guys are worldbuilding like there's no tomorrow, without noticing, e.g.: Silver Kingselaf: a healing plant that can heal almost any wounds when used under full moon, but is deadly poison any other time.)
- 10 hero coins can make a major plot change. like the secret backroom shop of "legal until noticed by anyone" kind of items.
The whole idea started from this part of the DMG so it was worth to read.
I really need audio books for the manuals. It's an untapped market.
But who would you choose to read them??
@@GinnyDi Matt Mercer, Taliesin Jaffe, Sam Witwer, Keanu Reeves.
@@GinnyDi Aabria Iyengar and Aimee Carrero but they do it as Lolth and Opal and are mutually frustrated at the text the entire time.
@@sike3000 Tal has 4,000 years of knowledge and can recite these with ease!
I have read the whole thing, but you have to understand that was back in 1982 when we didn't have the internet, or cell phones, or VOD. So in the evenings the only thing you had to do was watch TV (mostly crap) or read books.
Reading the DM's Guide WAS my VOD. I would read it and visualize all the cool stuff. I wasn't even a DM! I just loved looking thought the pages. Didn't even ruin our games, my DM didn't mind that I read it.
You do realize the DMG isn't the same as 50ish years ago, right?
I have a vibe this was prep so you'll be able to make a comparison when the new book comes out. Yay for good use of time!
You've seen right through me 😂
Zee Bashew did two videos of tables from the DMG that changed my DMing ever since: Mob Combat and Social Encounters. Two charts I completely missed because I skimmed through all the story crafting and world building sections
The renown aspect isn't new to me and I don't even DM, BUT that's because I played in the Adventurer's League and I believe you've said you're mostly a homebrew player/DM. The main 5 factions (use to) matter in AL adventures and have 5 renown ranks. You could earn extra points if an adventure or module had your faction personally involved, otherwise you'd gain a single point after the module or after so much time in a hardcover. AL rules gave bonuses per ranks like a free +1 weapon, believe was, rank 3. AL also had a limit on magic items based on level and the faction item was only for that session, so it wasn't like players could stockpile and open their own business. It was nice then because only 1 player could walk away with a possible magic item find in that session, so if you were say Wil Wheaton and always rolled a 1 to win that item, this would at least give you a magic weapon to damage the more common monsters at mid level.
I first found out about plot points in the Supernatural RPG and use them in all my Campaigns now. And when I alluded to maybe not using them in our next campaign, my players all wanted them to stay.
They are just such a fun reward for the players, and really engage them in the world when thinking about how they can justify the thing they want appearing in the plot.
I love them.
Ginny Di: I finally read a 300 page book
Me: I’ve read every core rule book since epoch
We are not the same.
I read it cover to cover in 1983 for the first time, they used to say that players shouldnt read that or the monster manual at all back then, like they were some secret forbidden tomes😱
Wait, you've been a DM for a long time according to other videos I've seen on this channel and now you're saying you haven't read the whole Dungeon Master's Guide until now?
Having started with 1st Ed AD&D... that thing was not written to be read cover to cover. It was a wild collection of notes jammed together. Playing it as teens, we knew which pages to flip to for the tables we couldn't live without (until we got a DM screen) and other than that, we ignored it.
Years later, I'd go back and flip to random pages and start reading. Some sectuons were advice from your Wise Uncle Gary about how to run a game, not all of it actually wise. Many systems were rightly consigned to the dustbin of game design: Did ANYONE play with the rule that you didn't level up until you also paid for training? And who were top level characters supposed to get training from? In 1st Ed D&D, there was literally a limit on how many Druids of a certain level could exist in the world: You had to challenge a senior druid to take their title when you leveled up. If you were the top level druid, who could train you? And making magic items required sacrificing permanent character health. It wasn't just that the 1st Ed DMG was nigh enreadable for the way it was organized, but many of the first-run ideas that got stuffed into it were simply anti-fun.
My favorite way to get to a different plane was to pee behind the wrong bush while in the Fay realm.
It is a good idea to know what is in the GM book/section, if you are GM'ing a game system. Usually, it is told from that perspective instead of from the Player perspective. It is stuff/tools that GMs can use to enhance the verisimilitude!
5e D&D's DMG was certainly as described by most who've read it. The 50th Anniversary Edition D&D DMG is claimed by the developers to be a lot more useful/relevant, and with better editing/organization. For those making the switch, I'll hope for your that it is what they claim.
How can you be a referee and not read the fuking rules?
I’m one of those 21% who has read the DMG but I’d forgotten about nearly every point you brought up here 😂
Portals are great if you want to even randomize things. Especially if you write your own adventures. It can be harder on the DM if new. But if your not going to use a module/book and do the whole thing. Pick the ones you like and use a random dice to decide the order.
The plot points remind me of Icon rolls from 13th Age. Basically at the start of a session you roll a certain amount of d6s based on which major factions you have a strong relationship with. If you roll a 6 you can cash in that roll later in the session to get help from this faction (or that faction's enemies if depending on your relationship), but if you roll a 5 then cashing in this favor will cause something unexpected to happen. Maybe you get info from someone but now you need to go on a side quest for them. Maybe you find another way into a fortress/ dungeon but its filled with traps instead of alarms. Maybe getting help from one faction makes you a target for a different one.