Mike MearlsRecensioni

Finally finished, cover to cover though I'm going to bet that I'll be referring to this again shortly. I've been a player of 3.5 and Pathfinder for many years, but this year I finally sat in the DM's chair, and in effort to figure out if I was worrying too much or not, sat down and started reading the DMG for 5E.

Besides game mechanics, the DMG has tips to move your players along, get them invested in the world, and create memorable sessions. I played through 5E with tabletop newbs, and they followed along easily, hungry for more at the end of the session (too bad it was a oneshot!)

For a game rule book, this one kept my interest!

A book of ideas for new DMS that is unessential to playing the game but a useful thing to have.

This is my 3rd D&D player's handbook and I really like how they've gone back to a more traditional feel to the game while still allowing for (and giving support to) DMs and Players who are used to the miniatures and tiles based play of 4th edition. I'm excited to start DMing under 5e in the coming weeks.

Much improved from the previous editions. Much easier to deal with!

Really really want to roll up a grave cleric, lots of tables that look like they'd be helpful DMing.

This is a great expansion to the game. My favorite parts of the book are the charts. The character background section mentions that none of it has to be set in stone, but it's a great tool to quickly get ideas for your character and generate a backstory. You can also roll their names and some stuff to connect them to their class.
The racial feats and spells are nice. Most of the subclasses look pretty cool, especially as different specific RP character concepts. Only a few don't look as great mechanically as the ones on the Player's Handbook (though it definitely added better subclasses for some, especially Ranger). The DM's tools look interesting and useful. It looks like it specifies some things from the other books (though I've never DMed or read DM's book).
Basically this book expands player options and is useful for creating more well-rounded characters.

This book is a strange kind of a mess. I was pumped after reading Player's Handbook, but this one was a disappointment. It seems like it was created using tables with random book ideas and then stitched together. It's incoherent in the topic selection, audience target, and level of details it provides on different occasions. If you had some previous experience with D&D and DMing, this handbook is perfectly skippable.

Part 1: Worldbuilding

What's the most important thing a person should know when they design their own world? Well, this book opens with gods, so I guess this must be crucial. It gives an extra example of a gods pantheon (to add to 4 different examples from Player's Handbook), and 3 pages on different religion systems (polytheism, monotheism, anlimalism...). There is nothing really meaningful or inspiring here. The presented pantheon has only names, symbols, and domains. There is no description of the gods, their nature, possible influence on the world in general and players' adventure in particular, or how they or their followers can enrich adventures (e.g. how demi-gods, prophets, cultists, or god's champions can be included, what relationship characters have with gods, especially those using divine magic). It mentions some of the gods are non-human, but we don't even know what race they represent and what it matters for that race. I would also expect tips on creating unique gods and making a pantheon work as a whole, but instead, authors use and recommend copy-pasting gods from different mythologies ("this is Athena with a different name, and this one is basically Seth"). These kinds of issues and questions are common in the rest of this handbook.

Few pages further we get more than 1 full page about coins. It can be basically summarized as "Design different names, shapes, and imagery for coins in different lands, cities, and ancient cultures" or even better with one picture showing examples. The tip is not bad, but is it really so important? I could find more meaningful things DMs should remember about.

Next! Factions and organizations. We get names and symbols for 5, but (very short) descriptions only for 2. What DM is supposed to do with the other 3 having no information about their goals, structure, members, and possible impact on adventures? I wish they used this one page from coins to get more detail here...

Only after those very specific subjects, we get more generic things like different sub-genres of fantasy, style of your games, how to treat magic, etc. which I personally would start from. Multiverse and all the rest is OK.

Part 2: Adventure design

There are some good tips and rules somewhere in this part. But it might be hard to find them as several chapters are basically random adventure generator. You get many tables with some decent hooks to use while crafting your campaigns, but little information on how to combine them in a single and exciting narrative that makes sense. For my taste, it was not enough information about good storytelling and too many tables with absurd purpose.

What is really frustrating? You get 12 intros to kick-off the adventure and... a table to roll d12 to pick one. You get 20 ideas for exciting locations and... a table to roll d20 to pick one. You get 20 kinds of shops you can find in a small city and... a table to roll d20 to pick one. What's the point of including all those tables? Just write "We will give you some ideas, roll a die to randomly select one". Saved space could be used to describe how to stitch those together in a coherent way...

My biggest disappointment by far was the complete omission of the story hooks that were introduced in 5e character building. There is absolutely nothing about how to use and develop some of the options presented in Player's Handbook like backgrounds, bonds, flaws, or mysterious items that characters can start the game with.

The whole chapter on magic items and artifacts was OK. I think it's a standard that everyone would expect from this book. Illustrations are very good, some of the descriptions could be more concise as all of this takes a significant part of the whole book.

Part 3: Rules (and Appendices)

This is the most decent part of the book. Extra rules, optional variants, guide to making your own rules, monsters, classes, etc. It is clear, concise, and concrete. Appendices include a random dungeon generator and some lists, maps, and tables that can be useful in some games or just are neatly organized.½

I was a die-hard fan of 3.5e for a long time but 5e seems to be a worthy successor! I really enjoyed this handbook and look forward to giving it a spin.

I started playing in times of AD&D 2e and this system was unnecessarily complex even then and the worldbuilding was absolutely minimal. So when 3.5e came around it was very refreshing, books looked inviting, it felt epic, and it gave a sense of the world that adventures happen. 5e takes it to the next level - mechanics are simplified, but it doesn't limit player's options; the book is full of story hooks and many are baked into character creation (read: mandatory); it provides glimpses of different settings and sets basic themes of each (multiverse in the 1st core book!).

5e seems to be fast and intuitive mechanic-wise and gives a lot of inspiration for both DM and PCs to build an epic story. It gives a variety of options to chose from and basically everything you need to start playing (even without other core books). A lot of OP combos, powers, and spells seem to be nerfed or eliminated, so I hope for a balanced play where every choice (race/class/etc.) gives a player an awesome experience.

My only issue with this book is the lack of a short core mechanics summary. The index is very poor and frustrating, there is no glossary (like in 3.5e), and the book is full of "You will learn more about it in Chapter X". So when you want a summary of what the Proficiency Bonus is for, you need to skip through 4 different chapters of the handbook to get a full picture.½

What a cool game and insane amount of lore!

Guys, that's official. I'm addicted to DnD.

Very odd choices. Some monsters.

A mish-mash of stuff.

From the art to monster descriptions, this is absolutely top-notch.

Fantastic guide. Well-written, fun, and full of neat stuff.

I absolutely loved this book

Possibly the best D&D edition so far crawls out of its baby bed. It's still to soon for this baby to grapple with its elders but the die has been cast with force. The newest D&D has new things that seem so fundamental in retrospect it's hard to realize they haven't always been there. Full review coming up on my blog.

Great creatures lie within. Simplicity and a good balance of fluff/crunch makes it a good bestiary. I deduct two stars for its lack of flexibility. There are no rules for creating your own monsters or NPCs. Review in my blog coming soon.

El arte es hermoso y el aspecto del libro evoca mucho más una fantasía tradicional que un MMORPG como lo hizo en la edición anterior. Es el DMG con más Carisma que jamás a tenido D&D.

El capítulo sobre diseño de mundos es completo y conciso, me gustaron las reglas de “renombre”. La sección sobre magia no tiene nada excepcional pero ayuda a sentar algunas bases que en versiones anteriores daban pie a confusión.

Maestro de aventuras
La parte de las aventuras es muy interesante y útil. Los encuentros con sus CRs, puntos de experiencia, dificultades y delicado balance, aunque un poco más simple, sigue casi igual que en ediciones anteriores. La creación de NPC dio un salto en el hiperespacio, lo que antes este libro sólo se conformaba con definir en bloques de estadísticas, hoy son personajes en todo el sentido de la palabra, con apariencia, rasgos, talentos, manerismos, ideales, vínculos, incluso secretos y defectos. Los villanos tienen su sección especial con aún más detalles: un plan malvado, métodos y debilidades. Es interesante que vengan opciones de clase exclusivas para NPCs.

La parte de los dungeons también tiene mucho más contenido narrativo, los dungeons no son sólo una colección de trampas y cuevas sino que tienen un propósito y una historia. Los wilderness o junglas también son más interesantes con monumentos y lugares extraños, lamentablemente no vi nada sobre avalanchas ni erupciones volcánicas. Los pueblos tienen un poco más de vida también y aunque no entra en gran detalle da algunas ideas básicas de cosas que pueden hacer más interesantes a las ciudades. También se ofrecen herramientas narrativas, como semillas de aventura y foreshadowing, aunque muy concisamente. Las reglas para tiempo de descanso o downtime no son muy exhaustivas pero incluyen reglas para cuando un personaje “se va de juerga” y para esparcir rumores.

Las gemas y los artes están mucho mejor organizados en los tesoros de manera que es más fácil generar tesoros. Los objetos mágicos, por otro lado, están en un orden confuso, pero tienen más riqueza narrativa gracias a tablas de rasgos para estos objetos. Las reglas para crear objetos mágicos son mucho más elegantes y refrescantemente simples, libres de cálculos matemáticos complejos y mucho más interesante, pues involucra “formulas” especiales que el DM debe definir y pueden perfectamente dar paso a misiones o entretejerse en la historia de la campaña de mejor manera.

Maestro de reglas
La tabla para improvisar daño me pareció interesante, simplifica muchas reglas que solían estar esparcidas por varios lados en una pequeña tabla y me inspira a soñar con un sistema en el que todo el daño funcione de esta manera.

Las reglas para persecuciones son notablemente más complicadas que antes, en general me gustan menos a excepción de las complicaciones que funcionan de manera similar a las cartas de persecución de Pathfinder pero en forma de tabla. Las enfermedades vienen en forma descriptiva, texto simple, en lugar de utilizar una plantilla, lo que las hace mucho más difíciles de utilizar como referencia. La condición “envenenado” es simple y hermosa. Los venenos tampoco respetan ningún patrón ni plantilla, pero sus descripciones son mucho más cortas y concisas. Las reglas de demencia son interesantes y sencillas.

Me parece interesante la variante de “background proficiency” en donde, en lugar de skills, usted básicamente inventa una razón válida que vaya con su trasfondo cada vez que quiera sumar su bono de proficiencia a algo. El sistema es extensible a rasgos de personalidad, ideales, vínculos y defectos,

El sistema de hero points suena bastante decepcionante: 1d6 adicional suena como algo muy pequeño, aunque quizá con los números más pequeños de 5° edición sí sea realmente algo “heróico”. Es interesante la variante de atributos adicionales, honor y sanidad, al menos por el hecho de que muere una vaca sagrada en el acto (hace mucho que en D&D no había atributos adicionales), tiene potencial aunque no estoy seguro del todo de la ejecución final.

Las reglas para armas de fuego son simples pero completas (incluyen todos los tipos de armas de fuego incluyendo las futuristas), sin embargo no son muy realistas (no atraviesan armaduras). Hay variantes que pueden hacer el juego más lento y aburrido pero otras variantes que pueden hacerlo más divertido, como la de escalar criaturas grandes (a la Shadow of the Colossus) y me gusta que el “tumble” sea Destreza contra Destreza, la verdad tiene mucho sentido. Las lesiones remanentes o “lingering injuries” son también muy interesantes, aunque si se usan en cada golpe crítico, rápidamente el grupo de aventureros va a ser un grupo de lisiados.
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Maestro del juego
No me gusta el concepto de Dungeon Master que se presenta en este libro. Aunque en general es el mismo concepto tácito que siempre ha tenido D&D, nunca se había dicho tan claramente cuánto debe depender el juego del DM y cuánto de los jugadores. Nunca había sido nada puesto en piedra que dijera que “el éxito del juego depende de la habilidad del DM de entretener a los jugadores”... hasta ahora. Lo cierto del caso es que D&D no tiene por qué ser jugado así, con la balanza de la responsabilidad totalmente inclinada sobre el regazo del Dungeon Master. Se ve en diferentes proporciones dependiendo de los grupos particulares y sus distintos estilos de juego. En D&D siempre ha habido diversos estilos de masterear, el juego permite esta diversidad de estilos, aún lo hace, así que no estoy de acuerdo con poner un estilo por encima de otros, o peor, como la única posibilidad existente. En contraste, el libro presenta los diferentes tipos de jugadores. Mucho del libro consiste en listar cosas que el DM debe hacer. Tras leer el libro, un DM novato va a tener una larga y abrumadora lista de cosas que hacer antes de poder empezar a jugar. No dudo que a algunos les va a emocionar este enfoque, pero no todos los DMs son iguales ni tienen tanto tiempo a su disposición.

Conclusión
El nuevo Dungeon Master’s Guide es un libro increíblemente completo y perfectamente adornado, con contenido que antes estaba disperso en varios tomos distintos, inclusive tiene apéndices con mapas y útiles tablas para generar dungeons al azar. Lástima que no toca el tema de la improvisación más que con la recomendación de otro libro en la parte de “inspiración para el DM”. No es perfecto y a veces trata de tragar más de lo que puede morder, pero el nuevo DMG es definitivamente un tomo de valor para cualquier Dungeon Master, novato o no.

As an avid table-top RPG player, I found this latest edition of DnD to be the best yet to come out of Wizards of the Coast. Granted I have only dabbled in 1st and 2nd edition, but playing 3rd, 3.5, and 4th for the past 11 years or so, this 5th edition book seems to take all the good things in the last few tries and compiles them all together into this version. It was an enjoyable read especially if you read it out loud as I did to my newborn daughter.
Now for a little uber-nerdom fan talk - If you follow RPG politics you may know that a lot of 4th edition DnD game designers jumped ship over the past couple years to make their own kickstarter games like Numenera and 13th Age. It's rumored that they did this because they wanted to get back to basics but Wizards of the Coast wasn't having it because it's hard to make a "back to basics" RPG profitable. Having played these recent offshoots for the past couple years now, you can tell that Wizards of the Coast took the hint and decided to get back to their roots a bit and incorporate more "theater of the mind" and storytelling elements into their game mechanics. This is a good thing in my opinion, but some of it seems a bit borrowed. Numenera for instance, has a random roll list of bizarre items that you might come across as a player. The items tend to be weird and quirky, like a two headed cat fetus in a jar for instance. These items are called oddities and add a bit of strangeness to the world but rarely do they serve any real tactical advantage. That's ok because Numenera isn't really about combat, it's about discovery. DnD is however about combat a majority of the time This new version of DnD happens to included a random roll list called "trinkets" which appears to be very similar to the Numenera concept. When I came across the trinkets page in the new edition of this player's handbook it seems a little out of place. Wizards of the Coast also added the idea of "bonds" which seems to be directly drawn from 13th Age. I find this funny because these are probably the kind of concepts that Monte Cook and Rob Heinsoo wanted to incorporate into DnD before they left. Regardless of these interesting asides, the book is well put together, well edited, and contains decent art that isn't too cartoony. I look forward to checking out the new Monster Manual and Dungeon Master's Guide soon. I have also been given a reprieve from DMing by my players since we have a new edition to the family and I don't have a lot time to plan out adventures. So another brave soul is DMing for now and I'm really looking forward to playing through this new system over the next year or so.

Hrm. I'm collecting these more than enjoying them.

A little too light on fluff for me. Prefer fluff.

The first adventure for 4E is ... the same.

Many diehard D&D fans will not like this edition, but from a DM point of view I feel this makes it a lot simpler for writing. The blocks are nice. The only thing I wish they would change was the perception and insight stats. Sometimes they're just not there, especially in the published adventures. Besides that, its got the same spattering of the originals, but I'm excited to see what the new ones will bring.

We are still playing through this one, but so far so good. Now if we could ever actually get to the keep on the shadowfell, then we could find out what's so damn important there.