"This Is Actually Bad Advice": How DMs Like Matt Mercer Shaped D&D's 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide
The primary architects behind the 2024 are designers working at publisher Wizards of the Coast, but they're not the only ones who had a hand in the new book. In honing advice for dungeon masters, WotC turned to some external creatives, including some celebrities famous for their skill at running the game. From host Matt Mercer to actress Deborah Ann Woll, the influence of outside DMs played an important role.
In an interview with , Creative Director Chris Perkins described the process of consulting with outside dungeon masters, in which Wizards of the Coast would send out chapters on DM advice along with a list of questions. Consultants would read the chapters with those questions in mind and provide feedback, ranging from "" to "" Senior Game Designer James Wyatt would then compile everything from both outside and in-house consultants into a spreadsheet to guide changes made to the book.
Chris Perkins: As we were finishing up chapters of the book that focused on DM advice, we sent those chapters, we bundled them up and sent them to our consultants with a list of questions. So as they're reading through the material, they would just keep these questions in mind as they're sort of digesting the advice and thinking about whether or not it's good or not.
And so it was questions like is there a better way to say this, or is this too complicated, or does this ring true to you? And so they read the advice that we were compiling, and they sent us back detailed notes. And they said, this is great, but this part here makes no sense to me, or this is actually bad advice if you're a neurodivergent DM.
Every DM has their own way of doing things, but consulting with a few who are known for their talents makes sense. 's 2014 suffered from problems with poor organization and struggled to effectively introduce DMs to the fundamentals of running the game. Bringing in more voices could help ensure that the advice inside will be useful for as many DMs as possible, and the main goal of
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