Some already have the 2024 Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook In hand, and the other two core books will leak out in the next few months, but I worry about those Releases that follow will not address what the game truly needs. If the 2024 revision follows the model of its 2014 predecessor, fans will see core books and starter sets for brand new tabletop RPG hobbyists, and then a series of books that alternate between adventures, campaign-setting books and rule expansions. . The game, instead, requires elaborately explained adventures that clearly illustrate campaign styles, from political intrigue to hex crawls.
The 2024 DND Dungeon Master’s Guide Launches soon, and this prompted me to revisit the 2014 dmg. Like many DMs, I read the book in its entirety shortly after the release of 5e DND. In the years since, I only open it to look at the magic item list or to consult a specific optional rule when it comes up in my campaignLike the insanity system or the statistics for firearms. I remember that when I originally read the 2014 DMG I was largely satisfied with it. It gave me everything I felt I needed to run a 5e-appropriate campaign.
5e’s DMG focused too much on world building
Starting DMs need to focus on how to run a campaign, not create new worlds
The Masterwork video game Disco Elysium Started from DND Homebrew, but my home world was certainly less impressive. Still, the dmg Gave me the tools to homebrew a world that fit the mechanics and vibe of 5e. This gave me the rules and suggestions I needed to run a campaign with a mix of all the pillars of gameplay, namely combat, exploration and social interaction. Except, it didn’t. I realized on my last reread that the 5e DMG didn’t really teach me about how to create a campaign world. The rest came from my experiences with the elderly DND Publications.
The ambiguously named Game 2024 DND is launching with a DnD Player’s Handbook Which starts fresh, much closer to an entirely new edition than a simple revision of the 5e system. Veteran fans know what to expect from a Player’s Handbook or a Monster ManualBut the third core book of DND has always had a more ambiguous role. Some publications bury core mechanics in a book that players are never meant to see. Its role as a repository for magic item stats is consistent. Less consistent is How really useful it is for starting Dungeon Masters.
Often, there are tips for newbies DND Dungeon Masters, with broad-ranging advice to “Run intrigue“or”run a sandbox adventure,“But little in the way of practical examples of running any of these styles. When I saw the recommended number of combat encounters per adventuring day, I immediately made the logical leap that I could ensure those with a story that had consistent time-bound narrative Steaks. The dmg He didn’t tell me that; Recent DnD DMing experience tells me that. There was no guidance on organically incentivizing players to press instead of taking a long rest after each combat.
For new DMs, adventures need to be fully explained, now simply show the format
When DMs use a DND Adventure aimed at beginning DMs, it usually only teaches them how to run that specific adventure. They might infer certain things based on how the adventure is structured that they could use when creating their own custom adventures and campaigns. There was remarkably little transparency in the play tests before 2024 DND. Playtesters were shown a piece of Honored Arcana playtest material and asked to provide their thoughts on it. The Design goals of the creators remained opaque. A starter adventure can feel the same way, without sidebars from the writers explaining its structure.
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While compressing decades of DMing experience into a single book may seem quixotic, it may be possible. Imagine an adventure with multiple game modes, one focused on each column. This social pillar-focused edition explains how DMs can incorporate combat into a byzantine web of alliances and deception. A broken kingdom with various factions fighting for power, surrounded by ruins containing powerful relics, could fit the bill. The intrigue-focused approach can detail each faction and its leader, and the various schemes of blackmail and assassination they have planned. The book can Show DMs how adventurers enmeshed in political struggles work.
Inexperienced DMs may think that an intrigue-focused game lacks combat. While the social stakes are high, the intrigue-based campaigns are as bloody and brutal as any dungeon crawler.
This may explain how DND Parties split and then reform, as a rogue can shadow an agent of another faction while the fighter goes undercover with corrupt constables. Once the party has information about an assassination attempt that threatens their faction, they gather to round up the assassins and engage in battle. An Real practical example can illustrate how intrigue can work with DND while still ensuring time-based stakes that encourage multiple daily combat encounters. The same adventure can illuminate the more awkward “sandbox game,” and even the classic hex crawl model, and how to make it functional with DND.
Every D&D style requires stakes and urgency
The history of the DM must always involve time-bound failure conditions
If the players are not designated as deeply involved members of a faction, they may just be bog-normal adventurers who accept a contract to acquire the relics for one of the factions. Where the game focused on intrigue might have the players fight information carriers to learn when the hired mercenaries of a rival faction deliver a relic, and move to intercept them, the heroes in the sandbox style go into the wild to search dungeons and ruins . Time-sensitive stakes still apply, as the client can communicate rival faction agents are pursuing the same goals. This gives a hex creep urgency.
The biggest flaw of sandbox-style hex crawls is the plodding pacing and lack of focus. Time-bound stakes mean too often long rests cause the mission to fail.
The hex crawl is a format as dated as DNDs Tomb of horrorsWhich relies on the overland travel rules some DMs avoid. A map of the area is divided into hexes, each representing a number of miles. Some hexes may have dungeons to explore, while others have unrelated combat encounters, clues, or treasure. A “motivated hex climb” changes things. If the party takes a long rest after one battle, a spell sent from their patron may inform them that one of the relics has been claimed by a rival faction. This heightens the story’s time-sensitive stakes.
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A third example that focuses on the combat pillar might wave off the complexity of the social pillar or the decision-making of the exploration pillar and Cast adventurers as hired muscleEssentially. The story remains the same, but now the heroes are escorted by the scouts of a faction to the entrances of each dungeon in sequence, and the players only focus on battling its guardians and claiming the loot. The The same story is unfolding in all three formatsBut they vary in how involved the player characters are in their complexities. All three also reinforce multiple daily combat encounters.
D&D Adventures should explain their structure
Starter adventurers can clearly spell out the logic of their plan for new DMs
An anthology like DNDs Quests from the Infinite Staircase Showcases several styles, but a more useful format for starting DMs would explain why story structure is important to ensure there are always time-bound stakes that are relevant to the players. They may have personal convictions for their faction, or they simply don’t want relics to fall into an evil faction’s clutches.
Even profit-motivated adventurers don’t want to be tempted to claim treasure when others are also looking for it. Dungeons and Dragons Campaign styles need examples and explanations In an adventureNot one paragraph per column in these Dungeon Master’s Guide.
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