2024 D&D Dungeon Master's Guide Thoughts - Lazy RPG Talk Show

[@capressley]

Prepping an adventure? Open up the Mothership Wardens Guide. It's amazing! It provides just good solid advice for laying out ideas and planning. $20.00 for the pdf.

[@nightlight-zero]

On the betraying NPC thing, it’s also way way more fun as a PC to interact with somebody you *know* is untrustworthy. It becomes a problem you can apply agency to resolve: Can you influence if they’ll betray you? Can you betray them first? Can you secure insurance?

[@stewi009]

When I was trying to wrap my head around random encounters in Shadowdark I found it very helpful to just roll a bunch of random encounters and tell myself a little story about what the results meant. Imagine my own little group of PCs encountering this situation and how they might deal with it. In effect, practicing the art of random encounters outside of an actual game. Of course it's never the same in a game, but at least you've got some foundation from which to react to whatever your real players do. If you have the time and inclination, playing a solo game with an oracle can be a good way to see how it all fits together too.

[@stonerocks0]

40:37 ".... not 'Samwise Gamgee is actually Sauron'" 😂😂 loved that😂

[@GateKeeperPat]

Rapid fire question round up, so much good advice!

[@BetterMonsters]

100% on not betraying the characters; it's such an easy twist to add in as a GM, but table trust and lessons learned carry over from game to game, and you will train players to kill or ignore everyone they meet. The only exception for me is if you bring in a betrayer fully prepared for the outcome where they are caught out; don't hang anything on the secret being kept and you won't be tempted to twist the world to keep the secret. Give the players all the info they need to work it out, and let them reverse whatever ambush he has planned so they get to have agency rather than being told a story.

[@_girafff_6612]

I just had my first session of Draconis. I was a bit worried about D&D almost without combat but it went great and my players were more imaginative and roleplayed more than they usually do. I was thrilled 😍 and I am glad that the campaign will be available in English too ! I really recommend the book for people who want to explore a beautiful world. As always, thanks for a great video!

[@ryanroyce]

I'm hoping that the MM has random encounter tables in it as an appendix. A encounter table in the DMG gets outdated once any additional monster books get published, but if every monster book has its own table (preferably in a print-friendly format for my DM binder), then the resource grows over time.

[@tutepr107]

Sly, regarding Madness...I believe it is in the 2024 book, but renamed as Mental Stress. If you go to that section, it has a condensed version of the 2014 rules (short, long and indefinitely), plus it also adds psychic damage as an effect from such encounters

[@Frederic_S]

49:42 is the best part. I love this 😄 thank you so much!

[@GendefectX]

No money can be made with theater of the mind. ;)

[@darthknight1]

right, why would they promote something that doesn't sell minis?

[@daviddalrymple2284]

Yeah. They do pepper a few "theater of the mind" tips in chapters 2 and 3 of the new DMG (the tips for adjudicating areas of effects are buried in the "Mobs" section, for example) but it's a topic that deserves its own heading.

[@LumberLopper]

I actually like proficiency dice because a lot of newer dnd players get the attack bonus and damage bonus mixed up. By using proficiency dice, the bonuses are the same. Alternatively I think it also makes sense to add proficiency bonus to damage in general because the better you are at wielding a weapon, the better you are going to be at hurting someone with it.

[@KelticPhoenix]

I gotta say that I’m an early supporter of the Wondrous Worlds Kickstarter because I supported the Spectacular Settlements book. I think it’s so, so much fun to roll up some stuff while I’m bored and have time on my hands. I also have Dangerous Destinations, and their Castles & Crowns and use them slightly less. I’m really excited to see what WW has in store, though.

[@cedricklemay8785]

at 32:00, like a week or days before Ginny Di released her video about reading the DM guide, i started reading the 2014 one. The amount of stuff i didn't knew was in there, holy crap! Even some stuff i saw you post i read there and i remember thinking it's a shame WotC never released all those thing like people do. Well damn ... they do ... But sometimes, it is better presented, or structured, by other people. Also didn't knew there was two subclass (even if it's evil) in there, and it's a shame they never released it in another book. Even if 2024 is out, i still want to finish reading the 2014 one to see if i prefer something in 2014 better.

[@sirmclovin9184]

Also check out proficiency dice.

[@cedricklemay8785]

@@sirmclovin9184 Yeah i'm still at chapter 5, but can't wait to get to chapter 9. I think for now i will skip over treasures, and check them after all that. Some table i have skipped too because i want to read for now and not build. But proficiency dice i dont think i heard of that and now you made me want to read faster haha

[@Xplora213]

It’s truly embarrassing how few people seem to actually read core rule books. I appreciate that not everyone will understand what the text means but it’s hard to appreciate how things are supposed to work when you don’t know what they told you to do.

[@CecilQuetzalcoatl]

What did you write for dndbeyond? Actual content for the site or coding/programming? Are you still credited anywhere on the site?

[@bifflechips-t5r]

You've mentioned it before, but I really appreciate you hammering home the not betraying the PCs thing. I had been gearing for a similar thing in my own game, but as time had gone on, even if I think it would be clever, like it might be in a movie or game or something, it just reminded me of the other times it's come up before in previous campaigns, and it's just never really hit how I imagined it would. Even by supplying a different helpful NPC from an obvious villain faction who doesn't necessarily share their ideals, I thought I'd be subverting it in some way, and-- at any rate, I don't think I'll go that route, even as we get near the end of the campaign, I can already tell it wouldn't really work ultimately. The nice thing is, I think I can easily pivot away from it and use helpful NPC guy as a damsel or something later on as we get into the finale instead.

[@josephrion3514]

I want this encounter building discussion video, reminding self to look for it. I saw they removed the creating a monster or leveling up existing ones using HP armor damage and attack for only traits. That was rough I use that section for every campaign to scale monsters from published to higher level runs.

[@josephrion3514]

Please keep publishing an article a week. I read those with glee. Been doing it since dm David pointed me at you and especially since he has given up writing weekly two years ago and seemingly at all six months ago was his last post.

[@KloodRising]

Totally agree with your point on betrayal NPC. I actually use different approach to introduce a villain early who can become an ally against bigger threat later.

[@RPG_Bliss]

Nice advice on this one!

[@BLynn]

If your adventure is running in a dungeon I understand killing off the character if there is no ability to lock yourself in a room & wait the 1 to 4 hours for them to get one hit point, but do most players know about the rules of when a creature is at zero hit points you roll a d4 to determine how many hours before they get one hit point back? (I read it at one time & all the groups I am involved in use it, but I have never heard it brought up in general game discussions, so I just don't know who knows & who doesn't.)

[@SummerOtaku]

It’s so funny you say we’ll probably forget about bastions but that’s what I see D&D KZbinrs seemingly excited about that the most.

[@ChurroMaster]

In my experience, that may be even more to their point. I've often seen stuff where something becomes extremely hyped, and in a flash, *poof*, it's gone. Mostly because the excitement fades and people start questioning, "Do I really need this?" or they start noticing flaws in the thing that grates on their nerves.

[@Ironfranko]

I agree with you with the betraying NPCs, 100% My cure to it is the following: have the players find out way before the end of the adventure, but create some situation that forces them to still collaborate with the NPC even tho they strongly suspect they'll betray the party. Which makes the players feel smart more than feeling betrayed, and they can prepare for the finale, and counter betray the NPC. Not sure if it makes sense. This doesn't work for every adventure, of course, as Mike pointed out.

[@ChurroMaster]

I finally, after watching your show for over a year, bought Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master book. Hope it's worth the hype!

[@AltogetherGuy]

The best adventure book I’ve encountered is Trilemma Adventures. It comes with a setting and 48 beautifully illustrated adventures.

[@mandyspice3947]

I think that it would have been nice if crafting elements were a dominant part of the treasure tables. That is, if there was cohesion between crafting valuable and useful items and the rewards for adventure. A GM certainly can do those things, but the tables as is have things that have no use, other than flavor, beyond gold pieces. Finding a chunk of obsidian, when you need some for a set of magic armor, can be promising but also a plot hook, especially when the gm says, “This is enough for your Helmet, but for more, you’ll have to venture into the volcanic region in the south, said to be home to a certain Red Dragon.”

[@mAcChaosCh]

I think the two prep quotes can co-exist. You want to prep as little as you CAN, but there is still a minimum amount you NEED to prep if you aren't a GMing genius that will make life a lot easier. An hour or two sounds good.

[@AvengerYouT]

About the 24h free rules: Greyhawk wasn't there, and any mentions of the setting from the sample adventures were removed. The text were not the same as the DMG. So it could've been a change of mind.

[@b-you-tube]

I'm aware I might be opening a can of worms here, but: is there a reason why the math in your encounter tables changed between Lazy DM's Workbook and Forge of Foes? Former suggests up to CR 23 for 4 * level 20 characters, latter suggests up to CR 29. I only just noticed this, when you were talking about encounter building math just after 15:00

[@SlyFlourish]

The Lazy Encounter Benchmark evolved after the Workbook was published.

[@silentverdict]

My theory about how it could have been done by accident is I bet the Free stuff is all already in there as PHB or DMG and then they mark sections with a flag to make it part of the free rules. That would avoid duplicating the content in searches/character creation and lets you put everything in all at once and then easily mark which is free. A system like that would also make it much easier to accidentally flag entire systems as free when they shouldn't have been. Still sucks that it happened, but could definitely have been a screw up, and I think that's the most likely option considering how much content it as and how quickly they swapped it back out.

[@Jescribano1]

Peaceful dnd sounds kinda boring. I would need to read an adventure to understand the kind of story we would be playing

[@Delmworks]

I imagine it would have to focus on emotional or environmental conflicts rather than violent conflict…so it’s ether the greatest thing since sliced bread or a special circle of hell depending on the players

[@MarkCsigs]

Roughly 40+ years ago when I was still a kid I made an NPC whose purpose was to get the party to trust them so he could betray them. But I named him Mal .. something or other. When they met him one of my players goes "I don't trust this guy, his name starts with "Mal". He's just going to betray us," and attacked. Ha! Never bothered with the betrayal trop since.

[@Xplora213]

That’s pretty unhinged 😳😳😳😳😳

[@HowtoRPG]

Thanks.

[@peterclose1545]

I think it is okay to have several possible missions, one of them given by an evil NPC. It is a way for the players to discover that NPC is evil; then it gives them an interesting choice of whether to complete, subvert or counter the original mission.

[@mooxim]

Sounds like a lot of the new DMG is stuff they had in the 4th Edition DMG. On The topic of betraying the party, DMG '14 featured this in a random table of 12 adventure climaxes, "An ally betrays the adventurers as they're about to achieve their goal. (Use this climax carefully, and don't overuse it.)" And this in a random table of 10 twists, "Completing the goal secretly helps the villain." I've had fun with it in the past but it does break the trust between you and your players. There's a bit of fun to be had in having your players squint suspiciously at your NPCs but I think I might prefer your blanket approach of saying never do it in future. You make a good case. There's so much more tension to be had in the devil you know. Adding your 10 alternatives to my notes.

[@ZaxPBG]

I think the basic free rules will go large again on release. They did the same thing for PHB.

[@frontendchaos]

With your tweak to Shadowdark spells, couldn't you get the same effect just by changing the casting check to after you cast a spell? So it's really a "roll to keep" rather than roll to cast? I suggested this in a forum somewhere and got shut down, but I just listened to an actual play this week where the wizard never succeeded on a single spell. It was amusing to hear them joke about whether that guy was actually a wizard or just a peasant, but that level of unreliability wouldn't work at my table.

[@samdouglas32]

"If something doesn't work at your table, change it or throw it out and don't look back." pg. 102 Roll to keep makes magic more predictable than what Mike proposed -- I _know_ I have a fireball in me, vs. I have a DC14 that I can fireball them this turn. Less bookkeeping though. I've considered alternatives where failing a spell check doesn't make you forget the spell, but you take damage (i.e. exhaustion). I haven't fully considered the intricacies but I like the fantasy of that more than vancian

[@alexwolfe3359]

Also there are so many more fun secrets you can play with characters peeking behind the curtain. Like when Jarlaxle is disguised in Dragon Heist. It’s hard to spot the disguise as written sure but it’s honestly more fun to tip your hand a little and have players be like heyyyyy wait a minute that guy is sus

[@sumdude4281]

It's taken me a long time to learnt he lesson of the betraying NPC. Don't do it. Once it's done the players than don't trust anyone thereafter and its a massive headache as a DM.

[@Nick-dc6ix]

Regarding random monster tables, I essentially never use them, never think about using them, never reach for them, never want them I'm not everyone, plenty of folks might like em, not passing judgment on that, but, for my part, skipping those tables is what I'd do too

[@joshaddinsall472]

I really liked the new DMG, but I did miss a lot of the more comprehensive stuff they had in the 2014 guide. Imo return is still the goat for running a game and I have yet to find another DMG that has been as beneficial as that one. But I do hope new DMS get something out of this book before finding new sources that can be more useful for them I did a few practice prepping sessions for my game and I did enjoy it, but it's not nearly as intuitive as the lazy dungeon masters prep and I don't see myself using it going forward.

[@BetterMonsters]

My theory is that the Statistics by CR table in 2014 was playtested and finalized far before the MM, but a design shift happened after its release and the MM monsters got changed, so now they've moved the table to the MM to eliminate the possibility of the same thing happening again. If they've just chucked the table I'm gonna riot, though. DMs need to be able to form reasonable expectations for what CR means, and the only reason to get rid of the table is if you want to apply CR inconsistently without getting scolded for it.

[@Xplora213]

That’s utterly absurd. Mathematics don’t change.

[@daviddalrymple2284]

I 100% agree that friendly-seeming NPCs shouldn't betray the party. But it's perfectly valid for them to seek REVENGE against the party.

[@markkernow]

So sad they took the good stuff away from the free D&D 2024 rules.The adventures and the lore glossary looked useful. 😢 I too thought they had done a good thing... shame to see them walk it back

[@lonic123]

Thanks

[@dukejaywalker5858]

If I ever introduce a NPC who is likely to betray the PCs, I'm fine with and ready for them to figure that out right away. I may even let a few hints slip out...!

[@ADN1974]

about the GM guide : contraty to previous edition, the goal nowaday of Hasbro is to sell you dnd beyond and lots of stuff, it seems logical that they won't talk about theatre of the mind, or how to make your own adventure or random table :)

[@jarrettperdue3328]

"Once you have your own style, you don't need it."

[@Hacker-at-Large]

Betraying NPCs are great if you telegraph it, but appeal to their greed. Let them distrust, but need the NPC.

[@1979fsa]

It can be a lot of fun like "He was villian! I knew it" "Ive never trust that guy!"

[@danddjacko]

The best book ever for teaching D&D was the book 'what is dungeons and dragons' by john butterfield

[@Robstopper78]

Thanks, I'll be saying "chapped my ass" for the rest of the week

[@b-you-tube]

Wichita hard cover adventure is he talking about, where the players will miss "5 levels" worth of content if they find out the npc has betrayed them?

[@SlyFlourish]

Vecna Eve of Ruin

[@gamermilk6399]

PCs had to loot and burn the orphanage, the hospital, and the soup kitchen so they wouldn't betray us, later. GM was just waiting to backstab us. 😅

[@1979fsa]

It CAN be good but the idea of peaceful dnd sounds to me (as player and dm) as limiting as a only-combat dnd.

[@OwlFish]

I was disappointed by the 2024 dmg. Its a good book for new dm's. That being said certain advice is jest missing. Why in the Dungeon masters guide is there barely any advice on how to draw, make and key a dungeon? So many of the things I used often in the 2014 guide were gutted for Greyhawk, Bastions and the lore glossary. I ask myself when I prepare my games do I see myself picking this book up for anything other than the magic items? The answer is Probably not. Where as for the 2014 the answer was yes. So in that regard I think it's inferior.

[@Femonnemo]

Stop giving advice to Wizard´s do things that will supersede your books =]

[@Knopey]

Why? They won't do it anyway. 😅 That betraying quest giver, for example, Mike has been calling out since I think before Spelljammer. I think it's safe to offer them advice. 😂

[@akashambatwamiller6924]

I have not seen the final versionof Bastions but I amlooking for ward to it. That said it is not for every one nor every table. Regardless, it belonged in the PHB not the DMG.

[@nicholasmiller1731]

GOOD NEWS EVERYBODY!

[@brianwilson259]

I like your content Mike but please for the love of god pull the mic back a little bit. If i have to hear you swallow in my ear one more time im gonna loose my mind!!! Lol

[@prestonluhman8168]

Maybe have a spoiler warning next time when talking about stuff from published adventures, i.e. NPC betrayal. You listed a campaign I'll be playing in soon.

[@seanpinkey2188]

Sorry it was completely and totally ruined for you. There's no way you can put that behind you and separate it from your player knowledge opposed to your character's. Ruined forever. I'm sorry. Also what are you talking about?

[@trevorsharp460]

@@seanpinkey2188 it's a pretty measured response my guy, the sort of thing Mike has cared about in the past. No one's whined about anything, just vibes. I've fallen out of love of the "betrayal npc" hook too, but once you know Jim is John's evil twin brother it does color your interactions with him. Or at least add unnecessary mental overhead.

[@seanpinkey2188]

​@@trevorsharp460 Ahh I understand now. There's a betrayal in a campaign from an NPC. Named ______. Oops, you heard it, read it, or otherwise now know... (a video perhaps) **Spoilers** Yes it would be nice to have a disclaimer. Yeah spoiler alerts my dudes but also, nothing is defined in D&D, every story different, and you WILL find spoilers when watching reviews on yet-released products and those that are years old. I guess, do you stop playing D&D because of this because your sense of honor, emersion, or overpowered by the META and the game is ruined? Or can you continue to play and have fun? I don't use the NPC betrayal hooks, (Stale and overused in everything), I go for inner player party betrayals. But if someone spoils somethings for me as a player, or the DM makes a mistake, whoops I guess we are human and I put it behind my character's mind. Even if I know, and my character doesn't, I can have fun with that still. Thanks for explaining it to me.

[@ChurroMaster]

​@@trevorsharp460 I feel like this proves the point he was trying to make in that it kind of ruins your campaign if somebody knows that they are going to be betrayed. In this case, you found out because Mike said something, but imagine having simply figured it out, and still having to play the adventure the way you're having to play the adventure knowing the twist?

[@jabeck03]

Enough plugging other products!!! Geez

[@tevkaber4604]

Dude, I’m right in the middle of Baldur’s Gate III - did you have to give spoilers? You held back from spoiling Spelljammer a couple sentences earlier!

[@SlyFlourish]

I never mentioned anything from bG3