The 2024 DMG cares even less about dungeons

After hearing gossip about it for weeks, I finally got a chance to look at the 2024 version of the D&D 5e DMG. Reception to the book has been positive. There is a lot of advice for navigating the game's many notorious social pitfalls. There's a section that says that players aren't supposed to exploit the game's rules! ...People needed that to come down from the mountain for some reason.

As more information came out, I noticed small details mentioned in passing that threw up red flags for me. It seemed like no one else was talking about it. Was it true that the new DMG wouldn't include rules for creating monsters? Was it true that the Dungeon Master's Guide reduced rules for making dungeons?

Kinda. The rules for "creating a creature" are abysmal, and are better described as "modifying an existing creature", because that's all the guidance the book gives - the authors recommend changing a creature's size, type, ability scores (so long as they don't affect its attack bonus, damage, AC, hit points, or spellcasting ability), languages, proficiencies, senses, spells (so long as the spells don't do damage), the flavor and name of its attacks, and its resistances and immunities. They also recommend adding traits, and give a handful of examples.

I never loved the 2014 DMG's monster creation rules. But at least the authors provided the information to extrapolate a custom monster's CR from its statistics, and vice versa. It was an involved process, but the guidelines were there. The new DMG just tells the DM how to reskin skeletons into ice skeletons.

Maybe the upcoming Monster Manual has more detailed guidelines. But, I doubt it.

As for dungeons, there's still something there, but it's different, and I'm not sure it's in a good way. 

For comparison, let's review what the 2014 DMG presented. The information is in two places - Chapter 5 and Appendix A.

The former has tables for determining a dungeon's location, its creator, its purpose, and historical events, usually related to its ruin. I've always found these tables useful. For fun, I tried rolling up a dungeon just now and got the following results:

• Location: Underwater
• Creator: Dwarves
• Purpose: Lair
• History: Dwarves still in control

Underwater + Dwarves immediately throws me for a loop, and in a lot of cases I might reroll, but I think, "Okay, this is a dwarf stronghold or mine that flooded and is now submerged. That's cool." I get Lair as the purpose, which is fine - an underground dwarf colony that struck an aquifer and flooded makes sense.

Then I roll "Original creator still in control." I could reroll this too, but instead, I'm now thinking that this is a sea dwarf homestead. Are they water-breathing dwarves, or do they have a Gungan set up with means of keeping the water out, with submersible vessels to travel to and from the surface? What deep-sea mining are they doing down there? Or were they regular dwarves, but they turned into fish people and flooded their home on purpose? Or did they all die in the flood and reanimate as aquatic undead?

Those four simple rolls provide a lot of fuel for the dungeon conceptualization fire. Once I have the big idea, it's easy to imagine what the place looks like, and what monsters, traps, tricks, and treasures are there.

The chapter goes on to describe dungeon factions and ecology, and to recommend varying encounter difficulty. There's guidance about mapping a dungeon, and descriptions of dungeon features like walls, doors, light, air, and sound, and dungeon hazards.

Appendix A looks like Appendix A of the AD&D 1e DMG, which I'm sure is an intentional throwback, considering the nostalgia-oriented design of 5e. I don't care for this random style of dungeon design, with impractical fractal corridors and bizarre geometry, but I found it helpful when I started mapping dungeons and had no idea what I was doing. It's helpful to have random tables of rooms sizes, corridor lengths, and door types. It prevents every room from being 30 feet by 30 feet or every door from being stuck or locked.

The later section, "Stocking a Dungeon", is far more useful. It starts with tables which list what rooms can be found in each type of dungeon (going back to the "Dungeon Purpose" table in Chapter 5). I'm not going to create a random dungeon layout where the treasure vault or fire giant king's bedroom is the first room in the dungeon and the audience chamber ends up in the middle for some reason, but it is helpful to have a big list of rooms that can be found in a given type of dungeon. 

It is helpful to know that a "death trap" usually has an antechamber, a guardroom, a puzzle room, a trapped room, a scrying chamber, and a vault hidden behind a secret door and protected by traps. I don't have to include all those rooms, and I can include others, but if I don't know what a room should be, I can refer to this list and use it like a dungeon checklist.

The "Stocking a Dungeon" section continues with a "Current Chamber State" table, which is fine, but following that is "Chamber Contents", which includes a more traditional dungeon stocking table, which the DM can roll on to determine what the "main thing" in the room is: is it empty, or does it contain a monster, trick, trap, or treasure?

Unfortunately, I don't like this table. 50% of the results are monsters, and only 20% of the rooms are empty. The remaining balance is 8% dungeon hazards, 5% obstacles, 13% traps, and 4% tricks. Compare that to AD&D's distribution:

That's 60% empty rooms, 25% monsters, and 5% each special, trick/trap, and treasure. The problem with 5e's stocking table is that it has twice the frequency of monsters, and 80% of rooms contain bad things that will happen to the characters. No wonder 5e players think dungeons are un-fun slogs! 

I use my own version of the AD&D table to stock my 5e dungeons, or I use Delta's rule. But although I dislike the way the 2014 DMG presents dungeon stocking, I still appreciate that they demonstrate it as something the DM can do.

The rest of Appendix A has a lot of tables. There's a "Monster Motivation" table, which is like a reaction roll, and decent. There's a limited "Dungeon Hazards" table. There are obstacles, traps, tricks, and tons of dungeon dressing tables. I don't use this stuff now, but when I got back into D&D, these were useful as idea generators.

The most useful resources for dungeon building in the 2014 DMG are the tables for determining the dungeon's location, creator, purpose, and history, plus the list of rooms found in each type of dungeon. The dungeon stocking table is lackluster, but is serviceable for a DM who wants to lean into 5e's tactical combat action-centric design. It suggests that one can use a dungeon stocking table, and a DM can modify the exact distribution of room types to taste. These elements combined are a great introduction to conceptualizing dungeons as well filling those dungeons with interesting things.

Now, let's look at what's been included in the 2024 DMG - and what hasn't.

The 2024 DMG has been entirely reorganized. I'm going to refer to "Chapter 3: DM's Toolbox", which has a section on dungeons. The dungeon-oriented Appendix A of 2014 has been eliminated. 

The dungeon location, creator, purpose, and history tables have been collapsed into one "Dungeon Quirks" table. The book recommends using a single quirk or combining as many quirks as the DM likes. As a demonstration, let's see what we get.

First, I roll "Abandoned because the site was cursed by a god or other powerful entity", which is dungeon history. It doesn't tell me anything about where the site is, who built it, what it is, or, by extension, what god or powerful entity it's related to. So, I roll again to add another element to it. 

Next, I roll "Amazingly well preserved ancient city inside a dome encased in volcanic ash, submerged underwater, or entombed in desert sands." Specific, but okay. I now know where and what the dungeon is, and why it was abandoned. I don't know who built it, so I roll again.

I roll "Built in a volcano." The city was already potentially buried in volcanic ash, so...sure. We're just getting more specific about the location.

I roll again. "Transformed by multiple events or disasters over the course of centuries." Sure. That can describe many dungeons, and hasn't added much to this particular dungeon.

I roll again. Finally, I get "Made by a powerful spellcaster (perhaps a lich) as a site for magical research and experimentation." I feel like I have a sufficient overview of the dungeon. It took five rolls to get there, and two of those rolls only added redundant details.

I tried again, and it took six rolls to get those same four pieces of information (location, creator, purpose, and history), with three redundant rolls.

Some extra rolling isn't a big deal, but there are other consequences. Collapsing four tables into one results in entries being cut. One can no longer generate a dungeon made by elves, hobgoblins, mind flayers, or yuan-ti (all of which were included in 2014's "Dungeon Creator" table).

That's not to say a DM can't include those dungeons in their game using the 2024 rules, but it was helpful for the 2014 DMG to say, "These are the four things a DM needs to know about their dungeon." The table entries are not super important, but by rolling all four elements into one table and not calling them out explicitly, the four elements are hidden from the new DM. 

The rest of the section on dungeons is similar to parts of the 2014 DMG. A dungeon is chambers and passages and a DM usually maps it on graph paper. Use asymmetry and three dimensions and branching paths and wear and tear and natural features and secrets. Got it.

Then, there's a list of rooms that can be found in dungeons and a brief blurb about each: crypts, guard posts, living quarters, subterranean areas, shrines, vaults, and work areas. That's all.

Of course the book is not suggesting those are all the rooms in a dungeon, or in every dungeon, but it's still a step back from what came before. It was helpful for the 2014 DMG to say, "Now that you know your dungeon was once a lair, here is a list of rooms often found in a lair." The 2024 DMG says instead, "Now that you know your dungeon is a lich's laboratory, here is a list of rooms often found in dungeons in general."

What about stocking suggestions? I acknowledged that the table in the 2014 DMG was not great, but appreciated that it at least suggested an intended distribution of room types, and that this might then lead to DMs customizing the stocking table to fit their tastes. Is there anything like this in the 2024 DMG?

No. The book says to vary encounters by including a mix of combat, exploration, and roleplaying, as well as easy, medium, and hard encounters, but I can't find any suggestions about the number of encounters to include, or traps, or tricks, or treasure, or how much of a dungeon should be empty. There are suggestions about building tension and managing the pace of the game, including when to let the characters rest, but nothing else. The authors eliminated the useful and unfairly maligned "adventuring day", so the DM can't design a dungeon around that structure, either.

The new DMG says that dungeons can be a variety of locations and sizes and that I should map them. I know that they have rooms and monsters and traps and treasure, but I have no idea how many or what kind and in what proportion. The 2024 DMG doesn't tell me. It tells me to figure it out myself. It's not unlike the 2014 DMG in that way, but it is a step further in that direction.

If the AD&D 1e DMG is D&D's encyclopedia, then the 2024 DMG is D&D's self-help book. It's very encouraging, and nice. It might get a DM motivated to start a new game, but it's not a reference document. It doesn't help the DM run the game. The DM is going to have to help themselves.

It's not bad, or useless, but it's worse, and less useful than the 2014 DMG (which is saying something), whereas I thought the 2024 rules were supposed to be more useful. I thought they were supposed to be better for new DMs and players. I thought that was the whole point...aside from doing the bare minimum to remarket and resell 5e all over again, that is.

...On the plus side, reaction rolls are back! In true 5e fashion, the rules are worse than previous iterations of the same concept from an entire 50 years ago, but maybe that's a topic for another time.