Summary
As part of the celebration ofDungeons & Dragons' 50th anniversary, Wizards of the Coast is releasing three new core rulebooks, the2024 Player’s Handbook, the2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide, and the 2025Monster Manual. Each book includes changes to the established lore, mechanics, and makes it easier for newcomers to jump into the game. ThePlayer’s Handbookteaches players how to play the game before they build their character with a new approach to character building.
The2024Dungeon Master’s Guideincludes advice and rules that can help new DMs jump behind the DM screen for the first time. It also includes new elements, such as the Bastion system, which allows players to build out their own piece of the world. It also includes examples and samples of adventures and a campaign. The newMonster Manualalso includes tons ofnew monsters for the DM to usewith their players. Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins have worked tirelessly to take feedback from players and DMs into account when revamping details, species, classes, subclasses, lore, and mechanics to enhance the game for everyone.
New D&D Book Celebrates 50 Years Of Dungeons & Dragons History Like Never Before
The upcoming book, The Making Of Original Dungeons & Dragons 1970-1977, takes a deep look at the earliest days of D&D and its creators.
During Gen Con,Screen Rantspoke with Chris Perkins about expanding the2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide. He explained why he wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to focus on theDungeon Master’s Guideand how feedback helped make it easier for DMs to use. Perkins also revealed a number ofexpert DMs includingCritical Role’s Matt Mercerwho had input on the book and how it will help both new DMs and veteran DMs.
Chris Perkins Says This “Has Been An Opportunity To Do Some Things With The Dungeons Master’s Guide I’d Always Wanted To Do”
Which of the new core rulebooks was the most fun to work on and expand?
Chris Perkins: So I was the lead designer of the Monster Manual last time and Co-lead on the Dungeon Master’s Guide. I’ve always been fond of monsters. I go crazy for Monster Books, but this time most of my energy was focused on the Dungeon Masters Guide. I have a long history of being a Dungeon Master. I’ve been doing it since I was 10. We were so, kind of, strapped back in 2012-2013 when we were finalizing the fifth edition rule books the first time.
Time strapped, cash strapped, that I didn’t feel like we could give the DMG as much attention as it needed. So from the day it went to the printer till now, basically, has been an opportunity to do some things with the Dungeons Master’s Guide I’d always wanted to do, but just couldn’t before. So I’d have to say, yeah, the DMG has been probably the one I’ve spent the most attention on this time around.
What were some of the elements that you weren’t able to include before and you were this time?
Chris Perkins: One of those was we didn’t have a very big art budget the first time around, so we couldn’t include a poster map in the book. We had to be very economical with our art, so we couldn’t do things like a big giant maps appendix. We had to basically use reused maps from earlier products, just kind of throw them in. And so definitely upscaling the art.
The other thing was we didn’t have a lot of time to do testing on the book to check how sort of tried and true and useful the advice was. Whereas this time we did. We did sort of test it and we brought in some expert DM consultants to help us read through the advice and say, does this sound right to you? Does this ring true? Does this sound like advice you would give to a new DM who is just starting out?
So having that ability to solicit a bit more feedback to make sure that what we’re telling people was being told in the best way possible. Other things that we wanted to do that we didn’t have time for was more show not tell, just including some sample adventures and some samples. Not only tell you how you build a campaign, but show you how you build a campaign. So lots of things.
Matt Mercer’s Advice Was “Critical To Giving Us Well-Rounded Feedback”
Who are some of the DM experts that you worked with?
Chris Perkins: So one of them was Matt Mercer. Who you might know from such shows as Critical Role.
I don’t know where I could.
Chris Perkins: [Laughs] He’s DMed once or twice. Deborah Ann Woll, who’s also a wonderful, wonderful AM. Every game she runs is such a joy to watch because there’s such an art. You can see the amount of preparation she puts into her work. But then two of our other consultants brought in completely different kinds of feedback.
One is Zac Clay. Zac runs games for a lot of kids and teaches kids how to run games. So Zac, I was super keen to get him aboard because he could give us some perspective on whether our advice would resonate with younger DMs. And then Alyssa Visscher, who has a lot of experience with Neurodivergence, the Neurodivergent DM style.
Alyssa was able to bring us a lot of comments on ways to make the DM advice more useful to DMs who struggle with Neurodivergence, in addition to just being a fantastic DM. So their advice was critical to giving us well-rounded feedback.
I love how this seems really geared towards helping first time DMs a lot, but what are some of the elements that you think are going to be especially exciting for veteran DMs?
Chris Perkins: So even though veteran DMs obviously have a style and know a lot, sort of know what they want to do and what they want to achieve, I think one of the things that’s important and often undersold about books of advice and things is validation. I think it’s important that there’s advice in there that the experience DM goes, That’s the way I do it. I feel good now. I feel like I am validated. That’s super important.
I think too, that just making sure that the resources that the experienced DM needs are easy to find within the book. It has to be a better reference guide. So just reorganizing the information so that you can find it more quickly. For instance, a lot of experienced DMs, the DMG in 2014 had some organizational issues to the extent that they didn’t even know that the content that they were looking for was in there.
Somebody mentioned in one of the questions [during the press conference], pricing information about magic items. Well, actually, that information is in the 2014 DMG. Most people don’t even know it’s there. So making that easier to find and making it clearer so that the experienced DM can just find it very quickly and not have to waste time.
A lot of DMs didn’t know that there were explosives and firearms rules in the old Dungeon Master’s Guide. Surfacing that information, making the rules clearer, crisper, easier to find so that we’re not wasting the experience DMs time. The other thing that I think is going to be useful to both novice and experienced DMs are the tracking sheets that we provide.
So a lot of DMs have their own methodology for keeping track of information, but maybe they haven’t thought of tracking it in this way. So they’ll see these tracking sheets and go, Oh, actually, this is a really clever way to track information about an NPC. I’m going to actually adopt this for my game going forward.
D&D Creatives Are “Always Hunting For New Ways To Engage The Player”
What was your favorite aspect of bringing in the Bastions, and how do you think that will elevate the gameplay?
Chris Perkins: Oh, my favorite thing is we’re always hunting for new ways to engage the player. So we know players love to build characters. They love to collect dice, they love to have specific dice for specific characters. They’ve got these activities. Some players just create characters to create characters knowing they may never get to run them. It’s an activity that they enjoy separate from the game.
We wanted to find something that was meaningful that actually had an impact on the campaign and on their characters that was another activity for players to engage in. This idea of you’re building your home, you’re building your home base, your safe space, your place where you go back to between adventures and giving you a solid framework so that there is rules weight to it, it has consequence. The things that you’re creating, you can actually use and amplify your character or amplify your party.
That was immensely compelling for me to think about. In the early days, it was Jeremy [Crawford], myself and Ray Winninger just sitting in a room and going, Okay, well how do we actualize this? How do we make this an activity that is not going to be frightening to players? It’s going to be welcoming and they’re going to want to sink their teeth in, and how are we going to make it sort of deep and robust enough so that everybody’s bastion in the end feels different and unique and customizable?
And then also in the back of our heads thinking, okay, if we have a digital platform in the future, is this something that could live there? Could that unlock visualizations of bastions that we just simply cannot do in the space of the DMG? So those two aspects of giving the players this wonderful activity that is meaningful and robust, and also looking toward the future and having people being able to use Sigil as a platform to build actual bastions and share them with each other is another aspect that was very compelling.
You mentioned your love of monsters before. Do you have a favorite new monster in the Monster Manual?
Chris Perkins: I do. Yes. It’s hard to it down, but I think my favorite monster right now is the Blob of Annihilation. It’s terrifying, which I like. So yeah, I’m going to go with the Blob. Ask me again in a year after I’ve played some of these new monsters, that might change.
What for you was the most potentially rewarding part of creating monsters at different levels so that people could face them throughout the campaign instead of a one and done situation?
Chris Perkins: Yeah, that’s certainly one of the things that was called out to us as a deficiency in the 2014 book, is you get up to above level 10 and 11, the high level monsters become more sparse. If you’re building adventures, it’s hard to fill those adventures with unique different feeling monsters. So really the goal here, I think primarily was just to make that level play, have as many different monsters for the DM to plunder as possible.
We also were told that a lot of our NPCs, which are by far and away the most used monsters, they kind of capped out around level eight. So giving DMs more ammunition in effect so that they can make those higher level adventures more interesting and more varied is certainly a huge goal. But also from a design point of view, it’s a fun design challenge because high level does not necessarily mean more complex.
You want high level monsters that are just as easy and fun to play as some of the low level monsters. So I think from a creative point of view, one of the fun challenges was, Okay, let’s fill up these empty slots, but let’s not fill them all up with super complex creatures.
And the other thing I really grooved on this time around was just as Jeremy was talking about earlier in the presentation, filling out some of the monster families . Just making all of them, and then going back and making sure that every monster has its fun shtick and that every monster is intuitive to run, is not causing DMs any pain during the game to run.
“There’s A Lot Of Excitement” About The Future Of D&D
What were some of the key pieces of feedback that really influenced you guys when you were making the2024 Player’s HandbookandDungeon Master’s GuideandMonster Manual?
Chris Perkins: Oh God, there’s so many. I’ll just pick one at random. One of the key pieces of feedback we got on the Monster Manual concerned lair actions and regional effects of some of our more iconic monsters. A lot of dragons and high level monsters have these things. The problem is those lived outside of the stat blocks. Lair actions were kind of in the story text, but a lot of our DMs use Monster stat blocks off of D&D Beyond.
So they would get the stat block and they got none of that other information. So they were essentially missing a key part of the monster when they were trying to run it. In some cases, they didn’t even know it was there. Like, Oh, this monster has lair actions? I wish you had told me. There’s nothing in the step block that tells me this. There’s something else I need. So one of the things we did was we folded all the lair action stuff, the coolest bits, into the Monster stat block.
So whether you’re running a monster out of the Monster Manual or using D&D Beyond, you have all the information in the steat block. That’s a key piece of user feedback that we just got. It’s like, Oh, well, yeah, duh, of course we need to fix this somehow. There are more lessons like that, that 10 years of watching people play the game, whether watching people online or getting feedback through Unearthed Arcana, it’s just like, Oh, I get it. That’s a wrinkle in the bed that we need to smooth out to create a more fun experience at the table. And that lair actions thing is just one example.
Being part of this 50 year anniversary of D&D, what has been the most surprising part of your journey with Dungeons & Dragons?
Chris Perkins: Now that we’re in the 50 year benchmark of D&D, the number one question I get asked is, What’s going to be the next 50 years? People are already ready to move on. There’s a lot of excitement about the future, and I think that, for me, the thing that most excites me is that the tent is bigger than ever. It’s more welcoming than ever. I think we’ve made some really good inroads into making the game more inclusive, more accepting, more welcoming to people, less of a barrier to entry.
We’ve got a really exciting product coming up on the heels of the core rulebooks that’s going to reinvent how starter games are thought about and delivered. I’m very excited because I think it’s going to be the most welcoming, exciting way to get new people to understand the fundamental concepts of D&D if they’re not already playing.
I love that that’s where the conversation is happening, that it’s all about making the game more welcoming and accepting. While at the same time, also looking toward a future where we’re still continuing to do things that are unexpected, challenging the expectations about what a campaign setting might be, or how it might look, or how it might be delivered. Those conversations are happening all the time. More so now that we’re at the 50 year benchmark, we’re being challenged to look at the future with open eyes and not just do the same things we’ve always done.
About The New Dungeons & Dragons Core Rule Books
Introducing the2024 Player’s Handbook, the new and improved guide for fifth edition DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. Packed with endless character options, striking illustrations, and a streamlined design, every part of this 384-page book is a joy to experience. Excite your imagination with the2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide, revised and expanded for fifth edition D&D! Whether you’re a new or experienced Dungeon Master, here’s everything you need to weave epic tales, build fantastical worlds, and inspire memorable moments for your party to enjoy. In the new and improved2024 Monster Manual, meet a monstrous menagerie of creatures for fifth edition! Encounter iconic D&D favorites and a whole host of mighty new monsters. Let their stories, illustrations, and streamlined stat blocks fuel your epic adventures.
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Dungeons & Dragons2024 Player’s Handbookwill be released September 17, the2024 Dungeon Master’s Guidewill be released November 12, and the newMonster Manualwill be released June 04, 2025.
