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Everything You Need To Know About The D&D 2024 Dungeon Master Guide

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Published: October 15, 2024 9:00 AM

While the Player Handbook for D&D 2024 is already in people's hands the next part of the Core Rulebook to release will be the Dungeon Master's Guide. We had a chance to sit down and hear from Chris Perkins, Creative Director, and James Wyatt, Principal Game Designer, about all of the changes that will be coming to the DMG and how the team of designers at Wizards of the Coast took on the feedback about 2014's Dungeon Master Guide and sought to improve it in every way.

Before diving into the contents of the new book Perkins and Wyatt took a moment to explain the influences that led to the changes we were to hear about. It began with the explanation that there was a lot of feedback that they heard from players, and that they had collected internally, about the 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide and how there were very easy-to-understand issues with it. From my own personal experience, a book about DMing beginning with the greater cosmology of the world instead of how to run a game was a bit confusing and represented a top-down approach, with more granularity being added as you proceed, the 2024 DMG will flip this on its head.

Artwork of Greyhawk at night

The primary goal for the 2024 DMG is that Wizards of the Coast wants this to be the "Ultimate resource for all DMs." This doesn't just mean that the layout has been improved but in designing the book they wanted to make sure that there was plenty of inspiration for DMs in the text but also in the different artwork that you'll be able to find throughout. Perkins also stressed that the tips here for DMs are "Designed by DMs for DMs", this advice is the tried and true kind that should help show that D&D doesn't need to be a labour but can be efficiently set up and executed.

Dungeon Master's Guide 2024 Chapter List

As we were about to get walked through each chapter of the book we were provided a list of all chapters and appendices.

1. The Basics
2. Running The Game
3. DM's Toolbox
4. Adventures
5. Campaigns
6. Cosmology
7. Treasure
8. Bastions
A) Lore Glossary
B) Maps

Alongside all of the above chapters and their contents there is also a collection of tracking sheets for campaigns, to help the DM structure how they might want to record major events and relationships that occur. While Appendix B is about a number of varied maps to be used for combat there is also a double-sided map of Greyhawk, one side showing the World of Greyhawk while the other details the City. This map will lend aid to the additional information about Greyhawk that will be available in the Adventures and Campaigns sections of the DMG.

Let's Start With The Basics

The DMG is meant to be a guide for all. It's for the new DMs as well as for the old. This chapter goes over what it's like to be a DM, just like in the PHB there will be scripts illustrating the kind of back-and-forth that might happen between the DM and the Player. Wyatt explained that this will also be expanded to include what a DM might be thinking as something is going on.

D&D 2024 Dungeon Master Guide How To DM

There is even a section about learning via watching, highlighting the prevalence of streamed and live D&D events that are readily available.

"You don't have to be Chris Perkins to be a good DM for you group, you need to facilitate your table" - Wyatt

Focus was also put on how to make sure that all players are having fun, and that it's a safe game.

Running the Game

This section goes over how to engage with players and understand their tastes, sorting out a manageable group size, working with multiple DMs and a variety of other tips for making sure that the game you're running is what's best for the players involved.

This is also where mechanics such as social interactions, exploration, combat, and character advancement are underlined. If it has to do with something the player will have agency over then this is the chapter that will cover it.

Perkins hopped in to highlight that each of the elements that they've added here is advice that's tried and true from DMs and is meant to help uplift new DMs.

Tracking sheets allow for DMs to keep track of a journal of the events, the growth of a settlement, and even one that highlights campaign conflicts. This isn't just meant to be a way for a DM to take record, but also a way to prompt the DM to think about more going on in their world.

"If everyone is having fun, you're playing D&D right" - Perkins

A DM's Toolbox Is Meant To Be By Their Side

This portion of the book is going to be the place that a DM will flip to in the moment in game, or even when preparing their sections. We were shown a massive list of topics that each have a page or more including but not limited to Chases, Death, Environmental Effects, Firearms & Explosives, Hazards, Mobs, Poison, Settlements, and Traps.

D&D 2024 Dungeon Master Guide DM Toolbox

For when you're wanting to add spice to your next session, or are working to find an element to center your next one-shot around this section is intended to be open and at your side.

Adventures and Campaigns

An interesting aspect of the new DMG is that it will break out creating not only a full campaign, but also adventures for a smaller scale.

This means it's about teaching the player how to make efficient notes that a DM can have in front of them to run a session, as opposed to a curated 30+ page adventure that WOTC would publish themselves.

There are also 5 sample adventures that are 0.5-1 pages in length and model how you can craft a full adventure in a compact format. This will be an adventure you can drop right into with players in the situation where one or two players can't make it for their full campaign.

"I'm hoping that a lot of new DMs will look at these adventures and see it's not hard" - Perkins

Moving into talking Campaigns, Perkins really wanted to get across that crafting a campaign is like creating an adventure but instead of an Adventure being made of a few encounters, a Campaign is just created from a few Adventures.

A Cleric Bastion from D&D 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide

The Adventure and Campaign sections will be very similar it's just the scale with which they're carried out.

An aspect of the creation of the Campaign in the new DMG will also be at the hands of the players. Whether they're making different decisions, or see something more interesting off the beaten path, there's also a lot here about how the DM can make the player's help them steer the campaign in a way that's interesting to them.

The sample campaign, Greyhawk, will be able to be used with the example adventures. These adventures – at level 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7 – will be standalone but are also able to weave together to created a grander Greyhawk narrative. In working to teach DMs how easy it is to move things around there will also be suggestions for how these adventures could occur in places other than Greyhawk.

Maps are included that can be versatile in use (15 in total) and some will be used in the adventures, but others will not be so a DM can use them as they wish. They wanted the maps to be interesting, but also simple enough to promote a DM to have the idea that they can create a map like it themselves.

Colorized versions will be available in the D&D Maps tool, but the more simplistic/black and white versions can be found in the book.

D&D 2024 Dungeon Master Guide Bastions

Bastions

Bastions are a concept already used in D&D in the past but they wanted to bring it back. Is intended as a way to make downtime a more enjoyable activity. "The player can play an invaluable role in creating content for a campaign that the DM doesn't have to be the only one inventing things" and that's where the idea of the Bastion's as a way to let the Player take custody of a part of the world and make it the guiding force.

In wanting to realize this in the game Perkins explained that what they settled on was simple. If the Players and DM decide that Bastions work well in the campaign then they can include them at Level 5. The Bastion is essentially a home base, and while the artworks shown were impressive Perkins highlighted that it could be something as simple as an attic or a house.

There are different facilities that you'll unlock as you level up allowing you to shape it to your whim. These are sanctuaries.

Combat Encounters and Tables

While only briefly brought up Perkins did want to reinforce that the Combat Encounter instruction, something many have long scrutinized, has also been "turned on it's head." The previously multiple pages have been condensed into a single page for efficiency and greater understanding. Perkins reassured that just because there's less in terms of wordcount it will be better at assisting DMs in creating encounters for any challenge.

D&D 2024 Dungeon Master Guide Adventure Situations

Creating a variety of challenges will also be possible with a number of tables that will be included meant to assist DMs by allowing them to roll, or by just prompting their creativity. While we didn't see too much of tables what we did see was grouped "Adventure Situations" for levels 1-4 and 5-10. It was also confirmed that there will be similar tables for higher level play addressing the longstanding criticism of nothing for endgame players published officially.

Rules for Crafting

The crafting of magical items and potions was something covered in the 2024 PHB but will be further expanded upon with the release of the DMG. Here are rules that expand the magic item creation rules even further. They'll be in the Treasure portion of the DMG before the list of Magic Items. The only items that you can't create are artifacts because the way to create those has been lost to time.

If your players have the time and money as well as the interest in creating items of power for themselves then this is where you'll be able to find a balanced approach for players to follow. 

DM Screen

Lastly, information was shared about the DM screen that will be available alongside the 2024 Dungeon Master Guide. The info on it has been revised for the 2024 rules, not only that but there are also visual improvements. The team worked with UI consultants who helped create a better layout and improve it. Text size is much larger so it can be read at a distance (especially good for those of us with poor eyesight).

A major change has also come with the advent of so many DMs running games with Laptops open that block crucial information in the center spaces of the DM screen. The center panels of the DM screen will now include information that the designers expect most DMs will already know but may need to reference less often leaving the most frequently used information to be on the side panels and more readily accessible.


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Andrew has written Video Game and Entertainment news, reviews, and guides for 10+ years. As Senior Content Manager, he assists in creating and editing… More about Andrew

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