It took 10 years but I read the DM's Guide (and so should you)

► INDEX
0:00 Intro
1:40 Renown
3:13 Planar Portals
4:35 Son de Flor
5:45 Moral Quandaries
6:50 Special Features
8:12 Other Rewards
9:38 Resolution and Consequences
11:04 Improvising Damage
12:10 Chases
13:30 Poisons
14:45 Plot Points
16:21 Conclusion

★ Edited by Bia

Music from Epidemic Sound

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[tanjredshirt]

I told my DM that I didn't understand portals, but she said "I just can't make it any planar."

[jordanw]

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.

[brickhammer]

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.

[TheRealTopHatOnYT]

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

[Craigaleg]

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."

[lugaruclone]

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.

[Dungeons_And_Moogles]

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.

[rjjeffrey]

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.

[krikorajemian]

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!"

[Agell]

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.

[spopti]

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

[LimeyLassen]

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".

[Aikolon]

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.😂

[keatonr]

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.

[seabreeze]

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.

[completelynobody]

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.

[chancefortune]

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.

[mikececconi]

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."

[SXier]

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

[ElysianLys]

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!