D&D’s worst book needs an update, and that’s an opportunity for creators of all stripes

polygon.com:

Currently in my home there are six copies of the Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition Player’s Handbook — one for me, one for my 13-year-old daughter, and four for the other kids that we play with from time to time. But there’s only one copy of the Dungeon Master’s Guide. In fact, after the first readthrough, that book has seen hardly any use in the Hall household at all. That’s likely to change in 2024, because the DMG is getting a dramatic facelift.

D&D publisher Wizards of the Coast has been talking about revised versions of its three core rulebooks for a long time now. The length of that promotional period is due, in part, to its ambitious slate of playtests that have already garnered nearly 500,000 written responses. Good feedback is hard to find, and when you’re getting it in volume it’s hard to make use of. Of course, the duration is also because Wizards sort of bungled the original announcement and spent a good chunk of 2023 clarifying its intent. But the D&D publisher appears genuinely motivated to make the books better — easier for players to find what they’re looking for, with richer guidance for every skill level. And the book that clearly needs the most work is the DMG, a fact that was made clear during a private press event in Seattle earlier this year.

“I don’t know if you recall,” said rules architect Chris Perkins at the time, “but chapter one of that book is on building a campaign, and one of the first things you’re told is the difference between a meritocracy and a plutocracy. It’s like, OK. I’m a new DM. Is this the most important thing I need to know about my campaign? No. [...] Chapter two is all about the D&D cosmology. Here are the Outer Planes and the Inner Planes. And it’s like, Is this the first