PSA: check what books and resources your local library has, my library has battle mats, rules books, published adventures, dice, and more for people to borrow! And if your library doesn't have the resources you want, you can request they purchase and add them to their collection! Working for a library, I can tell you they will almost always order items requested. Depending on the budget cycle the items could arrive really quickly or take a little while to be acquired and catalogued, but either way, free publicly available D&D and other TTRPG resources could be available at your local library so be sure to check it out! Haha, see what I did there?
As a fellow librarian, this shout out is very appreciated. Another thing I'll add is that a lot of libraries are part of larger systems, so even if your local library doesn't have a copy of the rulebooks in their collection, they might be able to put a hold on it for you from another library in your system, or potentially even request it via Outer Library Loan from libraries outside of your local system. This is especially notable for people who live near smaller libraries (like the one I work at) that might not have the resources to purchase the rulebooks and resources themselves, but might be connected to bigger libraries that do purchase that stuff.
Entirely accurate. This is a running joke in many of my games. The players are so into the mystery & drama that they are living out every moment. It's a good thing, but it has some real challenges.
Same, I felt that one. My current party has been playing for a little more than a year and I feel that we're maybe covered a week to 10 days in total in our adventure. 🤣
Seriously! I’m I the only one that thought LOTR was unreadable because it was so SLOW!! Took me a decade to read because I kept getting bored but wouldn’t give up because I felt obligated to read it. I want a game paced like an action movie!!!
As a person who's been playing d&d for over three decades and DMing for much of that time, I can honestly say that you have made a tremendous impact on the way I run games. You give excellent advice and deliver it in a way that is both clear and easy to understand and it's very clear that it comes from a place of having learned your lessons with real experience. Keep doing what you're doing and damn the haters ❤
Re: Bastions 15:44 "It's easy enough to just ignore this chapter, but as someone who would love to play D&D like the Sims, I'm not gonna lie, I am really amped about this." I nearly fell out of my chair in agreement.
@@GinnyDi of course! I know that a lot of your viewers can also easily get distracted, especially if they’re listening to something that doesn’t apply to them much, so hopefully this’ll help you retain more viewership!
As someone who has been exclusively a player since before the 1st Ed DMG came out, I found this video fascinating. Based on the 1st Edition DMG, I've always assumed that the book is mostly a rulebook that explains obscure game mechanics, lists magic items, houses the to-hit and saving throw charts, and contains some fun random dungeon tables for use in games when everyone is tired and nobody wants to work that hard. The idea that the DM might actually read all that advice stuff is such an alien concept to me, especially given that the DMs in my formative gaming years were a bunch of teenagers who learned by trial and error. Also a shout out to your sponsor. The me from the 1980s is very jealous of the fact that you can talk to a magical communication box and summon a limitless supply of specialized gaming dice for a reasonable price, when I had to catch two different buses to get to that one hobby shop in the suburbs that carried gaming supplies and whose whole inventory of dice was fewer than the bag sitting next to my monitor now. Truly, we are living in the future.
I hear you! One of my criticisms about the 2014 DMG is that, in my opinion, it couldn't make up its mind about whether it was a reference text, like you're described, or a guide that is meant to be read in full. It was too long and full of highly specific information to function as the latter, but it wasn't well-organized enough, concise enough, or well-indexed enough to function as the former. That's why I'm so glad to see that this one has made up its mind and seems to work quite well as a guide, that you can actually read.
@@GinnyDi Most tend to be more of a back and forth there with parts that are more meant to be in full or more of a reference text. 3/3.5, for example, was more set up for more aimed at people who are already running games and is more for how to build an adventure or campaign along with a decent pile of optional or variant rules that could be brought into it...some of which kind of became heavily tied into other things as time went on such as the cohorts and similar thanks to several classes that heavily relied on them. But you had things about the functions of the multiverse, environments, homebrewing, magic items (the rules for that were awesome things there for being able to balance them to some extent)... Honestly, I was hoping more that the new DMG was more of a DMG2 type thing where both DMG's have their own things to bring to the table and aren't that doubled up between them in order to provide more, especially with the heavy claims of compatibility between it and the 5e stuff.
I'm gonna be honest, I don't think it's good design to create a book where parts are meant to be read in full, and parts are meant to be referenced as-needed, if the book does not communicate that intention to you.
As someone who started playing in '79 with the 3 original PHB, MM, and DMG, I'm looking forward to this book. The DMG has always been sort of a weird duck.I've had them all, but the only 2 that really stick out in my mind are the original DMG for AD&D since it was also sort of a Gary Gygax manifesto on running the game, and had a ton of adaption material in it too for things like Gamma World ( which was actually my 1st RPG), and cartoons that I assume came originally from Dragon magazine. The 2014 was so memorable because it's index was so God awful ( as was the PHBs).
@@GinnyDi I’ve been googling to figure out what that is, and either you’re bringing a car or scaling fortified walls in your Denny's. I don’t know which is funnier.
Wizards of the coast did say in a Livestream that the tracking sheets will be available for free after the DMG 2024 comes out, unless I dreamed that cause I listened to it half asleep xD
As an old pre-AD&D blue book grognard, I enjoy both your enthusiasm and your insights on this shared hallucination of a game we all play. V. excited about the section on bastions. Every wizard needs a tower to call their own.
Hi Ginny, thanks for all the great input you've been providing. I'm slowly gearing up to work as a DM (in Southamerica) after over 25 years of running games, and you've been a great source of inspiration and comfort. I had just started reading the DM Guide (after your video)... so I guess I'll have to also ready the new one. T_T Thanks for all your great work. Stay awesome.
Thank you so much 🥰 I’m really glad the videos have been helpful! And wow, 25 years of running games is amazing! 😂 I wouldn't worry too much about diving into the new DMG right away - we've made it this far, right?
Some of those sheets might be bare, but as someone who gets lost easily, having a checklist ofnthe basics to hit is super helpful. I bet it's helps new DM's a ton know that they didn't underprep or overprep
I have the old Dungeon magazine that his lore was in and I've longed to create a paladin with an Oath dedicated to one of the Prince of Frost's ideals. Or maybe a warlock who made a pact to be a better actor, and the Prince wants him or her to only spread stories of tragic love.
For more ideas to work with the pace of Bastions and Bastion turns, it is worth checking out Adventures in Middle Earth which introduces a seasonal cadence for alternating between adventuring and wintering in the equivalent of a Bastion. Expanding downtime activities might help to introduce a mechanism to skip some time and have the characters develop some life outside of adventuring together as a party. Not suitable for all settings or tables, obviously.
That sounds really interesting! It could definitely help with pacing for some tables, though as you said, not every setting or group would go for it. Definitely something to consider for DMs or players who want more character development outside of adventuring!
@@GinnyDi I think it's really helpful for realism to have way more downtime. Bastions sound like the perfect mechanic to promote that. The game developed around adventures and to not need any profession huge ridiculous treasures became a DnD staple. But it might drive a party more if there was hardly any treasure. You'd actually have to save up for a few month long trip, or find ways to make money. A merc or a bard might find that easy, but the types you are less likely to meet would need a special reason to travel and creative ways to pay for them. Another game, Shadowrun, is almost entirely based on PC's being constantly broke and getting double-crossed on jobs. A lot of downtime also fixes the awkward situation that the players can go from zero to hero while the rest of the world stands still. Especially if that was just a week in game!
I hear you, but I stand by my point that this is all very dependent on the game! In my main home game, we're racing against the clock to stop a demon from taking over the world, and we are actively being hunted by multiple factions. Narratively, it DOESN'T make much sense for us to take a week off! We can argue the merits and demerits of downtime in games until we're blue in the face, but I'm more interested in figuring out how to make bastions work for all types of games, even the ones that don't have a lot of downtime built in.
Thanks for making an actually positive video on the new DMG! I've just seen so much hate videos (cause rant videos do better) that it's actually nice to see what might be worth checking out in the new edition.
I think it's worth noting that the embargo on the early access PDF only lifted yesterday - so other than a handful of people who have posted videos this week, a lot of those ranting and raving videos haven't actually read the book! I know it's easy to get clicks by being negative, but I am interested to see how or if the conversation changes once the book is available for everyone.
The "Everyone gets a Bastion" thing isn't to disimilar from what we do in my game. We technically have a shared stronghold, but all have our own little "facilities" that we manage. The Sorcerer has a library, The Druid a grove, The Rogue has a Spy Agency, Barbarian (me) has a tannery, etc. So its not too far fetched for everyone to have their own little zone in the same space :D
I think a shared space with facilities is far better than every player getting their own bastion AND facilities in their bastion. Imagine as a DM having to keep track of all the NPCs at each bastion, or having to address the outcomes of EVERY player's bastion turns! Just waaaay too much work, whereas a shared Stronghold with specialized facilities at least keeps this centralized.
I love that. I’m playing Starforged in co-op mode (no GM, just 4 equal players) in a PbP (play by post on discord) and we have a starship that basically acts like a stronghold (and mode of transportation) and it’s a place where for instance as a Gearhead my character can modify equipment in a workspace there.
@@mateobarrett6829I mean, it's mostly dependant on how interested everyone is. If your players are all excited by the idea of running their own bastions, then its not a slog to run that stuff; it's part of the fun! In my experience though, you usually get a mix of interest levels. Some are excited for a whole castle, some want a room in the castle, and some just need somewhere to take a Long Rest.
@@mateobarrett6829 honestly, it's not that much more work to have multiple bastions than just having one shared bastion. If you're running a faction based game, then you're already boiling large groups of NPCs down to singular shared goals. What is the thieves guild doing? What is the mercenary company doing? What is the barbarian tribe doing? The answer is they are all trying to get their hands on the plot mcguffin the party either just found and stole or is going to be hired to protect in the next session. Once you get to tier three and four levels you need to be applying this kind of faction building to the players just so the campaign feels epic enough. What is the rogue's thieves guild doing? They "earned" enough money to finance the rogue's pet project side hustle for another year, and they maintained the party's hold on the criminal underworld in the mega city the rogue calls home. What is the army of thousands of soldiers who flocked to the Fighter's war banner over the last 15 levels doing? They subdued the forces of a group of nobles who pisoned the king and put the fighter on the throne. What is the wizard's army of simulacrums doing? Casting divinations over and over to catch any problems coming up for the nation the PCs run. And what do all these things look like in terms of DM workload? 1. The DM checks their list of the top three NPCs that belong to each PC's pet project/npc network/bastion/side hustle. 2. The DM picks one npc. 3. The DM says, "Okay, Fighter. Your 2nd lieutenant just came back wounded with this piece of intel. Rogue, your 3rd lieutenant also just reported in from their last hiest with bad news. Profits are down and you now have a lead to why. Wizard, something has killed eight of your sims in the last week. This is what you three now know." 4. The DM hands the party the quest hook they want them to bite. Having these scenes take place in a fortress, the backroom of a casino, and the balcony of a multidimensional wizard tower doesn't change all that much for DM workload. It's still only about 3 or so NPCs to add to each player's list of personal storyline NPCs. Each faction is still reacting to the central tension of your plot, despite each PC controlling one of those factions. Each bastion action boils down to "make this thing" or "find out this thing." Just give the players the pages on faction rules, have them make up a few NPCs who will be their lieutenants, and then use each bastion/faction they build up as a delivery device for plot hooks. "Sure, sure. Your fancy garden made some potions, and his stage troupe made a little money. What really matters is that someone just put two of your NPCs in the infirmary. You guys gotta put at least four of theirs in the morgue."
🥰 That really means a lot to hear, and I’m so glad the channel has been helpful for your DMing! I’m always happy to provide a bit of inspiration-hope your games keep being awesome!
For world building I like to start small with just one country. Draw a map of it and the surrounding area, maybe name a couple other countries, but just go deep on the spot where the players are gonna be. A couple small things here and there about other places in the world (like Starkland being known for its herb and spice trade, or Nikuni being a mysterious island nation) will make it seem to the players like you have the whole world mapped out, even if it's just random bits and pieces.
The Stronghold Builder's Guidebook (3.5) is one of my favorite sourcebooks, and some of the Bastion rules remind me of the "owning a business" rules from 3.5's Dungeon Master's Guide II, which I always thought were interesting. Love seeing those concepts updated for 5e. D&D could benefit from even more "downtime" content (it needs a new name, really, because "downtime" makes it sound like what you're doing between times when you're actually playing, but talking about what happens at your home base during the two weeks between adventures is STILL playing, you know?)
I've been a DM for 45 years, so I'm not your target audience and I STILL find useful tips and ideas in your videos. And also, I haven't read a DMs Guide cover to cover since 1st Edition AD&D and I think I do just fine. You're not alone.
I hope you write those earrings off as business expenses because they 100% heighten my enjoyment of your videos! 😭💛 Also, the running gag with the sword is TOO GOOD!
The way I balance encounters is by assigning tags to certain enemy types and the variants I make up for my own setting, while matching that tag to a counter-tag based on player classes. For instance, clerics and paladins get certain class abilities and commonly have access to certain spells and abilities from their subclasses, as well as some warlocks and sorcerer subclasses. This means I can easily evaluate the way an undead horde would be rated based on party comp. Because I’ve tagged it as a thaumaturgical threat, and primarily clerics and paladins will have abilities that can manipulate the boundaries of life and death, then they will have a higher likelihood of success in combat, so the CR is kept RAW and applied, however, I remove or add 1CR for every secondary class that is in the party. This means if there is a warlock or cleric present then the probability increases that the encounter will be a success. So maybe I’ll do two of the same creature rather than one in that scenario. It’s a bit crunchy but once you get the formula down it works pretty good as a GUIDE to whether or not your players would be having a good time or not lol.
FWIW, I started playing in 1979 and have NEVER read any of the rule books front to back, except maybe the 1e Monster Manual. :) Thanks for the overview!
We should normalize carrying a hand-and-a-half sword to enforce boundaries when necessary. We should also normalize people respecting boundaries, but things happen.
@@pheralanpathfinder4897 Although it might be somewhat easier to _use_ , I think the sword is far more intimidating to _see_ . Gives those determined to cross boundaries another chance to question their choice before committing, and is far harder to later deny … "I didn't see she was carrying a sap!" is believable; "I didn't see she was carrying a sword!" is preposterous.
Personally, I find your advice refreshingly optimistic because of, and not in spite of, your relative newness. Even when I already know what you're talking about, I still like your approach to giving that advice, and I find that enthusiasm spreads whenever I get to share one of your videos
I love that I've started playing d&d a few months ago, the launch of these books feels almost perfect (if not a little late haha). I can't wait to see all three books and how they work together
Welcome to the hobby--I hope you get as much enjoyment as it has brought me and my gaming group. I've been playing for 40+ years. May your dice rolls never turn cold. Cheers!
The ingame time was very reassuring to hear. I literally just talked with my players once again about how slow we are moving. We average between half a day to a day per session. Have been playing for over two years and we got 50 days down. I thought we're doing something wrong xD
My group and I recently finished a wonderfully themed and fun campaign that took us 2 years to complete. Afterwards we calculated how long the journey took our characters and It was about like a month. 16:42
Another thing to keep in mind for building encounters is the entire encounter doesn't have to be all at once. It might say a difficult encounter is 2 adult green dragons and 20 wyrmlings. Break them into parts Maybe the party has to go through a bunch of cavern rooms filled with wyrmlings and dragon cultists before they get to the final lair. If they are blowing through rooms of wyrmlings no sweat the next room might have a few more, or if the party is being wrecked by one wyrmling that they can't seem to hit and keep criting on their poison tail attacks, remove most the rest by having that be the final room, or due to that fight all remaining enemy's flee from your sight and they arrive in the final layer. How much of their precious resources are the party willing to use before they know they are in the final battle?
"Normalizing clear and open discussions about expectations and boundaries" I feel that this should have been the norm, both in TTRPGs and everywhere else in life. The vast majority of issues at the table are due to a lack of open communications. Its amazing how much a game will improve if everyone (including the DM) actually talk about the game in a positive manner
No argument here. As an older player ( 57 ) I hear a lot of my cohorts bemoaning "wokeness." F that. If I'm running a game, and if player doesn't let me know about something traumatic to them, and I include it in a session, and they're deeply upset, I'm going to feel really bad that I accidentally hurt them. Having a session 0 with everyone filling out a "More please, sure, no, or Hell No!" for topics makes my life easier as a GM. Or if they have preferred personal pronouns for themselves and/or their characters. If I'm playing or running a game, my goal is to have fun, and make sure the people I'm playing with are having fun too. That's all a part of it.
It used to be assumed that players would share their phobias and limits. Formally adding it to the process is a positive step as many players don't speak up for various reasons.
I just love how you just keep going on and on and on about things that I love listening to! Thank you, @Ginny Di, you are amazing! But you must also be aware that you are great, wonderful, and lovely too.
I'm glad you mentioned the currency section. Honestly one of the main things I was curious about with this book was to see if they gave up trying to convince us that having different names and values for coins based on where you are geographically is fun and cool. "Hey a copper coin is called a nib in Waterdeep but a thumb in Cormyr, we promise this is interesting" -2014 DMG
Everybody's using Santander's Card of Wealth. You just tap it against the merchant's Wealth Sphere and it transfers wealth from your bastion to theirs.
For what it's worth, I have found your advice and perspective valuable and validating after reading through the 2014 DMG several years back and feeling confused about how the game actually works. Past "guides" were designed like reference books and re-enforced the philosophy that D&D is best learned by doing. Anyone who takes issue with your play-first approach to learning instead of starting with the somewhat opaque 2014 DMG doesn't understand the plight of new D&D players and DMs. I'm glad to see they guide is better designed to bring new DMs and players into the fold that do not yet have experienced friends to ask for advice! 😃
I like the bastions: reminds me of old school D&D where your characters could spend their ill gotten treasure on cinstructing castles and wizard's towers. That said, I'm definatly naming my next character Bastian, to confuse my DM.
Re Otiluke, in my last campaign, the PCs met an NPC gnome artificer who introduced himself thusly: "My name is Milo Dyson; perhaps you have heard of me?" (PCs: No) "Maybe you've heard of my invention, Dyson's Dust-Sucking Sphere? Guaranteed to clean your carpets in no time!" (PCs: No) "Otiluke! He stole my idea! 'Oh, I'm a wizard, I don't need devices to make magic, I just waggle my fingers! Look at me!' Now whenever someone hears 'sphere', they think of his name and not mine. One of these days I'm gonna ... never mind." Three 'Dyson' references rolled into one, and a dig at Otiluke as well.
@@MarkoSeldo Yeah, you recognized where I got the name. He was working on building a warforged prototype. The place he worked for mostly specialized in making mechanical birds for aerial reconnaissance, so it was called the Scrybird Eye Building.
Thanks for this video. I’m excited for the new DMG too. They’ve always been my favorite 1:05 The fact that you have to say all this shows how toxic some of the people around D&D have become. it’s sad.
To be fair, it’s really important to me to be transparent about my relationship with brands in my videos, and whether or not something’s sponsored. 😊 But hey, there will always be people who don’t believe me, no matter what I disclose! 😂
Something I keep in mind any time I'm in an argument on the internet is something Mike Mearls said almost 20 years ago now: People don't go on the internet because they're happy. They use the internet to distract themselves from something.
Thank you for another great video! I'm glad to hear they are making a run at streamlining encounter balance and i hope it works. Or at least is an improvment but there are so many variables it will be challenging to nail down. Best advice i have found is dont rigidly stick to creature stat blocks and be ready to modify on the fly. Takes time to get good at it but is worth it for your players.
As soon as you said Wizards should start educating people on D&D I immediately thought of a tiny classroom in the back of a lonely tavern in which several kids are sat, alongside their cleric, rogue and sorcerer teachers who are frantically trying to teach them everything they can before the BBEG turns up and takes over as a substitute teacher
19:57 she hit the nail on the head!! There is so much lore; so much more than BG3 Easter Eggs. Haha well said. I’m a nerd for the lore and I’m looking forward to learning more!
So, with the Player’s Handbook already out and the Dungeon Master’s Guide giving content creators early access, has this edition decided what the heck it’s called yet?
@CGCommando82 What is it called, then? Is it 5.5e? Is it One D&D? Did it come up with a new name altogether? This is a genuine question, because I haven’t heard anything about a consensus on this.
WotC themselves have been referring to it as "2024" - the "2024 Player's Handbook," for example. I don't know if that'll stick, but that's what I've been using. One D&D was always a "code name" for the project and was never meant to be permanent.
It's still 5E, they've said from the beginning it's not a new edition. There's no official shorthand afaik, but 5E (2024) seems to be the most common and accurate.
Thanks for the overview! Ignore those gatekeepers that slam you for not reading the whole DMG. I've never done that and have run hundreds of games for decades. You do a fab job and actually got me excited about the new DMG.
I found it at a thrift store a few weeks ago and I was so amped. I was like "finally, I can go investigate a strange noise in the darkness of my vast estate while wearing a nightgown and nightcap!!"
Thanks Ginny for keeping up on the sword usage references! I hear you on many of the points: CR issues (encounter balancing), DM prep per session vs world building, and helping DMs manage expectations for both themselves and their sessions. I hope I find the new DMG as useful as you did.
personally, I love bastions. I've been doing something very similar for years. Giving players the urgency to create their own little spaces and creating their own little NPC's to work them is awesome. It's like a gateway drug into DM'ing and maybe one day I'LL get to play this game :')
Encounter balance isn't about the numbers. It's about allowing for alternate reactions. A fight doesn't need to be to the death. Either side might flee. A villain might let heroes escape to humiliate them, spread their infamy, or tempt them into joining the villain's side. Even a predatory monster might let prey escape to look for easier prey or because it is frustrated or tired. Capturing and asking for a ransom or interrogation. The monster might even just be lonely or hungry for something else.
I mean, yeah, all that stuff is part of it! But the numbers are also a big part of encounter balance - it would be silly to pretend that questions of how much damage your party is dealing, how much damage the monsters are dealing, how many turns per round, and how many hit points everybody has somehow don't matter to encounter balance.
@@GinnyDi Playing fair and by the book is an expectation of many players, true. But sometimes they need Strahd to laugh, wave at them dismissively, and order his minions to finish them off instead of doing it himself. :)
In case it wasn't clear, I absolutely understand that when combat isn't going as intended, you have a lot of tools to pivot! In fact, I made a recent video about that skill set 😜 But just because you CAN do that, doesn't mean that we can't or shouldn't expect the challenge rating/encounter balance system to be functional.
"People tend to be more suspicious of positive opinions than negative ones." Good grief, if that isn't my experience with Star Citizen, I don't know what is.
@@GinnyDi Sorry I tend to post as I watch so I jumped the gun on that. On a side note I'm running into a tough situation, I like you and your video's but I've been getting more and more disillusioned by WotC/Hasbro and by extension D&D 5e so I'll probably not be watching your D&D 5e video's going forward
I haven't dm in years, but I suffered a stroke, so my mind is a little foggy. But I'm getting better, and I'm reading the new players handbook and it is helping me.
I hope your fog clears up. I experienced a similar but less extreme outcome when I went blind. Two eye surgeries were only a partial success and recovering from the surgeries is still ongoing three years later.
Just to make this absolutly clear, those 200 bucks on novelty earrings are non negotiable. I would call it a business expense, because those guillotine earrings mean absolut business! I would say they should be eligible for a tax refund. ;) Thanks for your video. Now I am stoked to get my copy of the DM's Guide next month. This is the first time for me to consider dming for my friends and when i think about world or encounter building I get easily intimidated. Your channel is such a great source of inspiration and genuine good tips and tricks. Thanks for all the hard work!
15:30 cute, my last campaign I paid a bunch of gold and downtime to build a home, now there are terms Bastion for it … my GM eye rolled, but allowed me to, and I even finagled the minor noble bard former prisoner snd severely PTSDed thug (also cultist prisoner/torture victim) to hire on. I envisioned the place as a short term rental area for upwards to eight visitors with a garden for the thug to tend … in short I play my own mini game even if the c GM is meh about it or the other PCs just want to swing swords and do evil
The little censor twinkle was great. I know you've talked about how "Video Ginny" and "IRL Ginny" have... very different salt content in their vocabulary, so it's not shocking or anything. But also that you managed to make it so cute. Makes me think of Dingo Doodles and her quacks. And then in the Fool's Gold book how they'll have the duck IN THE TEXT for censoring bad words that crop up in "in character" notes.
I was also of the mind "Oh well, encounter balance is probably impossible to do" and then I played Pathfinder and oh boy is it hard to continue with my currently still active D&D campaigns after seeing how possible and easy it can be...
Conspiracy theorists: "Hear that? She denied being sponsored by WotC. Only someone with a guilty conscience would bring something like that up. CLEARLY, she's being sponsored by WotC!" By the way, Ginny, I seriously LOVE how self-aware and sober minded you are. Please keep being awesome!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I have been trying to gain confidence in DMing for a while. Working with DMG 2014 has been a STRUGGLE. You and other creators have been a necessary part of my dnd journey. I look forward to more info on the 2024 DMG
RE Bastions: in the video game Destiny, there's this concept called a Throne World. Its sort of like the seat of power for incredibly powerful creature and characters and it sits in a pocket dimension. What if a player's bastion just sits in a pocket dimension that they can conjure a portal to once per day (setting dependent of course)?
2:10 I think that every single walk, hike or other overland travel will always have one place or moment that is worth exploring IRL so why not in game. Multi stage break up also highlights this too.
Your jokes and sense of humor are really hitting lately. Laughed loud multiple times. Great video, as always! Am really excited for bastions, I'm also THAT type of player (proudly) ❤
9:20 Ginny, I already had 4 adventures to tide my party over with for the next couple years, I didn't need the thought of breaking up an Adult Green Dragon Polycule in their psychodelic forest of lies added tot he list lol
Another amazing video. Id love to see an in depth breakdown/commentary on the bastion system. Has it had a glow up since the UA or is it very similar? I can't wait to hear more, Ginny. Keep being amazing!
i'm really excited about the bastions! i try to pace my campaigns to have more downtime between adventures, and i think the bastion turns might be a good way to pace that and reward players for taking the extra time. it might also encourage us to take more breaks between scenes in an adventure to do research and gather supplies
5:23 no speaking as the representative of the ENTIRETY of gen z (yes hello that's me /j) any information that i need to give to people i hand draw with a pen and paper then hand it to them physically, sometimes if it's extra special i have a letter wax candle which i seal envelopes with for a bit of extra fun. can you tell i don't go to parties?
@@GinnyDi brat summer is like gen x rave culture but we're gayer about it, louder about it, only do coke and its associated with chartreuse which is tennis ball colour even tho the name clearly suggests it should be like a beautiful deep red
The best advice I ever got about encounter balance is to not. And it made my games a lot better. Instead, I decide what monsters are present based on the logic of the situation, and allow my players to assess threats. Much easier for me to not fret over creating a perfect experience, and makes for a lot of enjoyment for my players when they size up monsters to see what they can take on. Great video, I appreciate the breakdown of the new DMG!
I want to know more about poisons. I suspect the ones meant for combat will follow the example of the basic poison, but I wonder if a few will function similarly to acid, alchemist's fire, etc. Meaning you trade one attack to chuck the vial at a target and they make a save or suffer the effects.
I'm really hoping that the new book fixes magic item pricing. The old method of "this +1 armour is worth 501 gold. Or maybe 5000 gold. Or any ammount in between, you figure it out." just is not helpful in the slightest!
Thank you for the breakdown on the DMG. I got a dinged/damaged PHB 2024 from my LGS reluctantly, but it was absolute value. I love the character creation! I am really excited after seeing this video for the new DMG now. Just have to wait for one to fall off a truck. 🚚📚 Dming with guard rails, adventures that can plug and play homebrew and organizational help. Much more excited to try to be a DM now! 😁
![[DRIP] ‘Woke Up In Tokyo (RUKA & ASA)’ PREVIEW](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QN44lcR_VkI/mqdefault.jpg)
PSA: check what books and resources your local library has, my library has battle mats, rules books, published adventures, dice, and more for people to borrow! And if your library doesn't have the resources you want, you can request they purchase and add them to their collection! Working for a library, I can tell you they will almost always order items requested. Depending on the budget cycle the items could arrive really quickly or take a little while to be acquired and catalogued, but either way, free publicly available D&D and other TTRPG resources could be available at your local library so be sure to check it out! Haha, see what I did there?
This is awesome - thanks for sharing!
@@GinnyDi Just doing my civic duties✨
Thank you for spreading the good word of cool free nerd stuff, fellow library worker 🙏
@@zigorously I will plug the library every chance I get 😂
As a fellow librarian, this shout out is very appreciated. Another thing I'll add is that a lot of libraries are part of larger systems, so even if your local library doesn't have a copy of the rulebooks in their collection, they might be able to put a hold on it for you from another library in your system, or potentially even request it via Outer Library Loan from libraries outside of your local system. This is especially notable for people who live near smaller libraries (like the one I work at) that might not have the resources to purchase the rulebooks and resources themselves, but might be connected to bigger libraries that do purchase that stuff.
@15:39 "Flying, doing magic, and now owning property". How very very true.
This one hurt a lot - but made me cackle like a lunatic. Thank Satan I am a masochist :D
Don't forget the fantasy myth of getting 8 hours of sleep in a row.
@@telarr9164 It`s actually 6...
@@Riusnailly 6 hours a night? Luxury!!! ;)
My group also moves at a snail's pace -- "Oh boy, can't wait to take my annual bastion turn" killed me!
Entirely accurate. This is a running joke in many of my games. The players are so into the mystery & drama that they are living out every moment. It's a good thing, but it has some real challenges.
Same, I felt that one. My current party has been playing for a little more than a year and I feel that we're maybe covered a week to 10 days in total in our adventure. 🤣
@@MrAzhrarn So you only took 10 long rests?
@@RottenRogerDM Long Rests? What are those? ;)
Seriously! I’m I the only one that thought LOTR was unreadable because it was so SLOW!! Took me a decade to read because I kept getting bored but wouldn’t give up because I felt obligated to read it.
I want a game paced like an action movie!!!
As a person who's been playing d&d for over three decades and DMing for much of that time, I can honestly say that you have made a tremendous impact on the way I run games. You give excellent advice and deliver it in a way that is both clear and easy to understand and it's very clear that it comes from a place of having learned your lessons with real experience. Keep doing what you're doing and damn the haters ❤
Wow, three decades of D&D-now that’s impressive! Thank you so much for the kind words, that really means a lot ❤️
Re: Bastions 15:44 "It's easy enough to just ignore this chapter, but as someone who would love to play D&D like the Sims, I'm not gonna lie, I am really amped about this." I nearly fell out of my chair in agreement.
Sword!!!
*Also, as a member of Gen Z who runs a D&D game, I 100% yeet PDFs into the cloud.
I do too. For only my own use and not my players ;D
Im on the line between millenial and zoomer, and i too yeet pdfs (tho i like to have them printed too if possible)
I am a firm Gen X, and I do the same. (Then again, I also use spreadsheets as character sheets.)
As a millennial I fold my pdfs into paper aeroplanes and toss them into the cloud.
@@davidjennings2179 you call them aeroplanes? You sound more silent generation to me
1:25 Tracking Sheets
6:43 Encounter Balance
10:31 Ready-Made Game Elements
14:30 Bastions
18:12 Lore Glossary
oh hey, thanks! I meant to add an index to the description during the upload but I got distracted 😅
@@GinnyDi of course! I know that a lot of your viewers can also easily get distracted, especially if they’re listening to something that doesn’t apply to them much, so hopefully this’ll help you retain more viewership!
20:14 Leg Day
You're missing 2:02 She pulls out her sword 🤣
@@GinnyDioh no, not you?!?!
As someone who has been exclusively a player since before the 1st Ed DMG came out, I found this video fascinating. Based on the 1st Edition DMG, I've always assumed that the book is mostly a rulebook that explains obscure game mechanics, lists magic items, houses the to-hit and saving throw charts, and contains some fun random dungeon tables for use in games when everyone is tired and nobody wants to work that hard. The idea that the DM might actually read all that advice stuff is such an alien concept to me, especially given that the DMs in my formative gaming years were a bunch of teenagers who learned by trial and error.
Also a shout out to your sponsor. The me from the 1980s is very jealous of the fact that you can talk to a magical communication box and summon a limitless supply of specialized gaming dice for a reasonable price, when I had to catch two different buses to get to that one hobby shop in the suburbs that carried gaming supplies and whose whole inventory of dice was fewer than the bag sitting next to my monitor now. Truly, we are living in the future.
I hear you! One of my criticisms about the 2014 DMG is that, in my opinion, it couldn't make up its mind about whether it was a reference text, like you're described, or a guide that is meant to be read in full. It was too long and full of highly specific information to function as the latter, but it wasn't well-organized enough, concise enough, or well-indexed enough to function as the former.
That's why I'm so glad to see that this one has made up its mind and seems to work quite well as a guide, that you can actually read.
@@GinnyDi Most tend to be more of a back and forth there with parts that are more meant to be in full or more of a reference text.
3/3.5, for example, was more set up for more aimed at people who are already running games and is more for how to build an adventure or campaign along with a decent pile of optional or variant rules that could be brought into it...some of which kind of became heavily tied into other things as time went on such as the cohorts and similar thanks to several classes that heavily relied on them. But you had things about the functions of the multiverse, environments, homebrewing, magic items (the rules for that were awesome things there for being able to balance them to some extent)...
Honestly, I was hoping more that the new DMG was more of a DMG2 type thing where both DMG's have their own things to bring to the table and aren't that doubled up between them in order to provide more, especially with the heavy claims of compatibility between it and the 5e stuff.
I'm gonna be honest, I don't think it's good design to create a book where parts are meant to be read in full, and parts are meant to be referenced as-needed, if the book does not communicate that intention to you.
If you wanted good dice, you had to attend a con somewhere, or find a trade school with an enterprising student😊
As someone who started playing in '79 with the 3 original PHB, MM, and DMG, I'm looking forward to this book. The DMG has always been sort of a weird duck.I've had them all, but the only 2 that really stick out in my mind are the original DMG for AD&D since it was also sort of a Gary Gygax manifesto on running the game, and had a ton of adaption material in it too for things like Gamma World ( which was actually my 1st RPG), and cartoons that I assume came originally from Dragon magazine.
The 2014 was so memorable because it's index was so God awful ( as was the PHBs).
0:50
Ginny meets WOTC gangster in the bathroom at Denny's.
"I got your word this won't cross the border?"
"It's never leaving town...."
I would *never* meet a gangster in a Denny's bathroom
... that's why I always bring an Escalade
@@GinnyDi More like an Espada, right?
@@GinnyDi
I’ve been googling to figure out what that is, and either you’re bringing a car or scaling fortified walls in your Denny's. I don’t know which is funnier.
@@eddiemate It's a model of SUV from Cadillac.
@@GinnyDi😂😂😂
Wizards of the coast did say in a Livestream that the tracking sheets will be available for free after the DMG 2024 comes out, unless I dreamed that cause I listened to it half asleep xD
That's great news!!
I love the little skeletons dancing on the ears
I always get weird looks in the Denny’s parking lot when I wear them in April, so I’m definitely making the most of spooky season while it lasts!
Good use of the monthly budget 👍
Those things are pretty cool, but I personally prefer the pink guillotines she had on in the commercial segment ^^
@@GinnyDiScrew the people in the Denny's parking lot, you wear those skellies with PRIDE!
"owning property". Okay I'm literally dead now 😂
As an old pre-AD&D blue book grognard, I enjoy both your enthusiasm and your insights on this shared hallucination of a game we all play.
V. excited about the section on bastions. Every wizard needs a tower to call their own.
I'm really hopeful that these rules will be as good as the BECMI rules. I've been leaning on the green boxes set the past four decades.
Hi Ginny, thanks for all the great input you've been providing. I'm slowly gearing up to work as a DM (in Southamerica) after over 25 years of running games, and you've been a great source of inspiration and comfort. I had just started reading the DM Guide (after your video)... so I guess I'll have to also ready the new one. T_T
Thanks for all your great work. Stay awesome.
Thank you so much 🥰 I’m really glad the videos have been helpful! And wow, 25 years of running games is amazing! 😂 I wouldn't worry too much about diving into the new DMG right away - we've made it this far, right?
Some of those sheets might be bare, but as someone who gets lost easily, having a checklist ofnthe basics to hit is super helpful. I bet it's helps new DM's a ton know that they didn't underprep or overprep
They actually showed the Prince of Frost today in the Lore Glossary overview and… yes, hello Ice Husband
HECK YES!! He wasn't in the asset package they sent me but I'm glad he's being SEEN
I have the old Dungeon magazine that his lore was in and I've longed to create a paladin with an Oath dedicated to one of the Prince of Frost's ideals. Or maybe a warlock who made a pact to be a better actor, and the Prince wants him or her to only spread stories of tragic love.
Funniest part of this to me is that is the exact same art they used in 4e for him. So I'm just like "Yeah... that's him...: 😂
Loved that you wore guillotine earrings while talking about "budget cuts"
For more ideas to work with the pace of Bastions and Bastion turns, it is worth checking out Adventures in Middle Earth which introduces a seasonal cadence for alternating between adventuring and wintering in the equivalent of a Bastion. Expanding downtime activities might help to introduce a mechanism to skip some time and have the characters develop some life outside of adventuring together as a party. Not suitable for all settings or tables, obviously.
That sounds really interesting! It could definitely help with pacing for some tables, though as you said, not every setting or group would go for it. Definitely something to consider for DMs or players who want more character development outside of adventuring!
@@GinnyDi
I think it's really helpful for realism to have way more downtime. Bastions sound like the perfect mechanic to promote that.
The game developed around adventures and to not need any profession huge ridiculous treasures became a DnD staple. But it might drive a party more if there was hardly any treasure. You'd actually have to save up for a few month long trip, or find ways to make money. A merc or a bard might find that easy, but the types you are less likely to meet would need a special reason to travel and creative ways to pay for them.
Another game, Shadowrun, is almost entirely based on PC's being constantly broke and getting double-crossed on jobs.
A lot of downtime also fixes the awkward situation that the players can go from zero to hero while the rest of the world stands still. Especially if that was just a week in game!
I hear you, but I stand by my point that this is all very dependent on the game! In my main home game, we're racing against the clock to stop a demon from taking over the world, and we are actively being hunted by multiple factions. Narratively, it DOESN'T make much sense for us to take a week off!
We can argue the merits and demerits of downtime in games until we're blue in the face, but I'm more interested in figuring out how to make bastions work for all types of games, even the ones that don't have a lot of downtime built in.
@@GinnyDiI abstracted it to six bastion turns per level in my frostmaiden game. Take them all at once on each level up.
Thanks for making an actually positive video on the new DMG! I've just seen so much hate videos (cause rant videos do better) that it's actually nice to see what might be worth checking out in the new edition.
I think it's worth noting that the embargo on the early access PDF only lifted yesterday - so other than a handful of people who have posted videos this week, a lot of those ranting and raving videos haven't actually read the book! I know it's easy to get clicks by being negative, but I am interested to see how or if the conversation changes once the book is available for everyone.
@@GinnyDi Hi Ginny! That's good to know. I just also want to say, that your videos have really helped me a ton as a new DM! I appreciate you so much
Me,
Players,
the key is to just make turning left leading to where right was originally going to go.
The "Everyone gets a Bastion" thing isn't to disimilar from what we do in my game. We technically have a shared stronghold, but all have our own little "facilities" that we manage. The Sorcerer has a library, The Druid a grove, The Rogue has a Spy Agency, Barbarian (me) has a tannery, etc. So its not too far fetched for everyone to have their own little zone in the same space :D
I like that idea
I think a shared space with facilities is far better than every player getting their own bastion AND facilities in their bastion. Imagine as a DM having to keep track of all the NPCs at each bastion, or having to address the outcomes of EVERY player's bastion turns! Just waaaay too much work, whereas a shared Stronghold with specialized facilities at least keeps this centralized.
I love that. I’m playing Starforged in co-op mode (no GM, just 4 equal players) in a PbP (play by post on discord) and we have a starship that basically acts like a stronghold (and mode of transportation) and it’s a place where for instance as a Gearhead my character can modify equipment in a workspace there.
@@mateobarrett6829I mean, it's mostly dependant on how interested everyone is. If your players are all excited by the idea of running their own bastions, then its not a slog to run that stuff; it's part of the fun!
In my experience though, you usually get a mix of interest levels. Some are excited for a whole castle, some want a room in the castle, and some just need somewhere to take a Long Rest.
@@mateobarrett6829 honestly, it's not that much more work to have multiple bastions than just having one shared bastion.
If you're running a faction based game, then you're already boiling large groups of NPCs down to singular shared goals. What is the thieves guild doing? What is the mercenary company doing? What is the barbarian tribe doing? The answer is they are all trying to get their hands on the plot mcguffin the party either just found and stole or is going to be hired to protect in the next session.
Once you get to tier three and four levels you need to be applying this kind of faction building to the players just so the campaign feels epic enough.
What is the rogue's thieves guild doing? They "earned" enough money to finance the rogue's pet project side hustle for another year, and they maintained the party's hold on the criminal underworld in the mega city the rogue calls home.
What is the army of thousands of soldiers who flocked to the Fighter's war banner over the last 15 levels doing? They subdued the forces of a group of nobles who pisoned the king and put the fighter on the throne.
What is the wizard's army of simulacrums doing? Casting divinations over and over to catch any problems coming up for the nation the PCs run.
And what do all these things look like in terms of DM workload?
1. The DM checks their list of the top three NPCs that belong to each PC's pet project/npc network/bastion/side hustle.
2. The DM picks one npc.
3. The DM says, "Okay, Fighter. Your 2nd lieutenant just came back wounded with this piece of intel. Rogue, your 3rd lieutenant also just reported in from their last hiest with bad news. Profits are down and you now have a lead to why. Wizard, something has killed eight of your sims in the last week. This is what you three now know."
4. The DM hands the party the quest hook they want them to bite.
Having these scenes take place in a fortress, the backroom of a casino, and the balcony of a multidimensional wizard tower doesn't change all that much for DM workload. It's still only about 3 or so NPCs to add to each player's list of personal storyline NPCs. Each faction is still reacting to the central tension of your plot, despite each PC controlling one of those factions.
Each bastion action boils down to "make this thing" or "find out this thing." Just give the players the pages on faction rules, have them make up a few NPCs who will be their lieutenants, and then use each bastion/faction they build up as a delivery device for plot hooks.
"Sure, sure. Your fancy garden made some potions, and his stage troupe made a little money. What really matters is that someone just put two of your NPCs in the infirmary. You guys gotta put at least four of theirs in the morgue."
So much for "we're playing 2014 and not buying another set of books", now I want to buy the new DMG.
I gotta say Ginny, i love your channel and you really have helped me with my DMing! You are always my first choice when looking for inspiration.
🥰 That really means a lot to hear, and I’m so glad the channel has been helpful for your DMing! I’m always happy to provide a bit of inspiration-hope your games keep being awesome!
For world building I like to start small with just one country. Draw a map of it and the surrounding area, maybe name a couple other countries, but just go deep on the spot where the players are gonna be. A couple small things here and there about other places in the world (like Starkland being known for its herb and spice trade, or Nikuni being a mysterious island nation) will make it seem to the players like you have the whole world mapped out, even if it's just random bits and pieces.
The Stronghold Builder's Guidebook (3.5) is one of my favorite sourcebooks, and some of the Bastion rules remind me of the "owning a business" rules from 3.5's Dungeon Master's Guide II, which I always thought were interesting. Love seeing those concepts updated for 5e. D&D could benefit from even more "downtime" content (it needs a new name, really, because "downtime" makes it sound like what you're doing between times when you're actually playing, but talking about what happens at your home base during the two weeks between adventures is STILL playing, you know?)
I've been a DM for 45 years, so I'm not your target audience and I STILL find useful tips and ideas in your videos. And also, I haven't read a DMs Guide cover to cover since 1st Edition AD&D and I think I do just fine. You're not alone.
I hope you write those earrings off as business expenses because they 100% heighten my enjoyment of your videos! 😭💛
Also, the running gag with the sword is TOO GOOD!
The way I balance encounters is by assigning tags to certain enemy types and the variants I make up for my own setting, while matching that tag to a counter-tag based on player classes. For instance, clerics and paladins get certain class abilities and commonly have access to certain spells and abilities from their subclasses, as well as some warlocks and sorcerer subclasses. This means I can easily evaluate the way an undead horde would be rated based on party comp. Because I’ve tagged it as a thaumaturgical threat, and primarily clerics and paladins will have abilities that can manipulate the boundaries of life and death, then they will have a higher likelihood of success in combat, so the CR is kept RAW and applied, however, I remove or add 1CR for every secondary class that is in the party. This means if there is a warlock or cleric present then the probability increases that the encounter will be a success. So maybe I’ll do two of the same creature rather than one in that scenario. It’s a bit crunchy but once you get the formula down it works pretty good as a GUIDE to whether or not your players would be having a good time or not lol.
FWIW, I started playing in 1979 and have NEVER read any of the rule books front to back, except maybe the 1e Monster Manual. :) Thanks for the overview!
Ginny: “Nobody paid me to talk about this book.”
Denny’s: “HaHa, they fell for it!”
Me: 🤔
Cadillac: “Hey, we paid a little too; don’t forget about us!”
Me: 🤦
....damn, you caught me red-handed! 😩 I'm in the pocket of Big Denny's!
We should normalize carrying a hand-and-a-half sword to enforce boundaries when necessary. We should also normalize people respecting boundaries, but things happen.
Sword is more likely to happen than people being respectful my friend lol
@@DrakeHardy That's fair, if unfortunate 🤣
A sap might be better...
@@pheralanpathfinder4897 Although it might be somewhat easier to _use_ , I think the sword is far more intimidating to _see_ . Gives those determined to cross boundaries another chance to question their choice before committing, and is far harder to later deny … "I didn't see she was carrying a sap!" is believable; "I didn't see she was carrying a sword!" is preposterous.
Personally, I find your advice refreshingly optimistic because of, and not in spite of, your relative newness. Even when I already know what you're talking about, I still like your approach to giving that advice, and I find that enthusiasm spreads whenever I get to share one of your videos
I love that I've started playing d&d a few months ago, the launch of these books feels almost perfect (if not a little late haha). I can't wait to see all three books and how they work together
Welcome to the hobby--I hope you get as much enjoyment as it has brought me and my gaming group. I've been playing for 40+ years. May your dice rolls never turn cold.
Cheers!
The ingame time was very reassuring to hear. I literally just talked with my players once again about how slow we are moving.
We average between half a day to a day per session. Have been playing for over two years and we got 50 days down.
I thought we're doing something wrong xD
Love your character skits. You do an amazing job balancing the lampshade.
Your videos have been a big part of making me feel confident enough to try and run a game. Thank you.
My group also runs at a crawl. It just took us 18 sessions to run a week of adventuring time! That's what you have to do if you meet on weeknights
My group and I recently finished a wonderfully themed and fun campaign that took us 2 years to complete.
Afterwards we calculated how long the journey took our characters and It was about like a month. 16:42
Another thing to keep in mind for building encounters is the entire encounter doesn't have to be all at once. It might say a difficult encounter is 2 adult green dragons and 20 wyrmlings. Break them into parts
Maybe the party has to go through a bunch of cavern rooms filled with wyrmlings and dragon cultists before they get to the final lair. If they are blowing through rooms of wyrmlings no sweat the next room might have a few more, or if the party is being wrecked by one wyrmling that they can't seem to hit and keep criting on their poison tail attacks, remove most the rest by having that be the final room, or due to that fight all remaining enemy's flee from your sight and they arrive in the final layer. How much of their precious resources are the party willing to use before they know they are in the final battle?
im so excited for this new book! i frickin love worksheets c:
ty for the new video!
"Normalizing clear and open discussions about expectations and boundaries"
I feel that this should have been the norm, both in TTRPGs and everywhere else in life.
The vast majority of issues at the table are due to a lack of open communications. Its amazing how much a game will improve if everyone (including the DM) actually talk about the game in a positive manner
No argument here. As an older player ( 57 ) I hear a lot of my cohorts bemoaning "wokeness." F that. If I'm running a game, and if player doesn't let me know about something traumatic to them, and I include it in a session, and they're deeply upset, I'm going to feel really bad that I accidentally hurt them. Having a session 0 with everyone filling out a "More please, sure, no, or Hell No!" for topics makes my life easier as a GM. Or if they have preferred personal pronouns for themselves and/or their characters.
If I'm playing or running a game, my goal is to have fun, and make sure the people I'm playing with are having fun too. That's all a part of it.
It used to be assumed that players would share their phobias and limits. Formally adding it to the process is a positive step as many players don't speak up for various reasons.
I just love how you just keep going on and on and on about things that I love listening to! Thank you, @Ginny Di, you are amazing! But you must also be aware that you are great, wonderful, and lovely too.
I'm glad you mentioned the currency section. Honestly one of the main things I was curious about with this book was to see if they gave up trying to convince us that having different names and values for coins based on where you are geographically is fun and cool.
"Hey a copper coin is called a nib in Waterdeep but a thumb in Cormyr, we promise this is interesting" -2014 DMG
Honestly, who uses cash these days, anyway? 😂
Everybody's using Santander's Card of Wealth. You just tap it against the merchant's Wealth Sphere and it transfers wealth from your bastion to theirs.
@@GinnyDi As we speak, a gnome artificer is inventing the magical blockchain.
What I’m incredibly happy about is that, this time, the DM’s Guide won’t take *4 years* to come out in my language.
Big win!
“It’s in my list of baby names” ok but if Ginny does become a mom, she’ll be the coolest fucking mom ever lol
I do not plan to bring any tiny Ginnys into this world, but I hope to be the weird aunt for all my friends' kids 🥰
@@GinnyDi That's a good goal. I too strive to be a weird aunt
@@GinnyDi honestly super based! We stan our charmingly weird aunts and uncles lol
For what it's worth, I have found your advice and perspective valuable and validating after reading through the 2014 DMG several years back and feeling confused about how the game actually works. Past "guides" were designed like reference books and re-enforced the philosophy that D&D is best learned by doing. Anyone who takes issue with your play-first approach to learning instead of starting with the somewhat opaque 2014 DMG doesn't understand the plight of new D&D players and DMs.
I'm glad to see they guide is better designed to bring new DMs and players into the fold that do not yet have experienced friends to ask for advice! 😃
Never underestimate the power of a hyperfixating nerd.
I like the bastions: reminds me of old school D&D where your characters could spend their ill gotten treasure on cinstructing castles and wizard's towers.
That said, I'm definatly naming my next character Bastian, to confuse my DM.
Re Otiluke, in my last campaign, the PCs met an NPC gnome artificer who introduced himself thusly:
"My name is Milo Dyson; perhaps you have heard of me?"
(PCs: No)
"Maybe you've heard of my invention, Dyson's Dust-Sucking Sphere? Guaranteed to clean your carpets in no time!"
(PCs: No)
"Otiluke! He stole my idea! 'Oh, I'm a wizard, I don't need devices to make magic, I just waggle my fingers! Look at me!' Now whenever someone hears 'sphere', they think of his name and not mine. One of these days I'm gonna ... never mind."
Three 'Dyson' references rolled into one, and a dig at Otiluke as well.
Lol, nice. Gotta love a good Dyson sphere reference!
This was a good comment. I'll be back.
@@MarkoSeldo Yeah, you recognized where I got the name. He was working on building a warforged prototype. The place he worked for mostly specialized in making mechanical birds for aerial reconnaissance, so it was called the Scrybird Eye Building.
Thanks for this video. I’m excited for the new DMG too. They’ve always been my favorite
1:05 The fact that you have to say all this shows how toxic some of the people around D&D have become. it’s sad.
To be fair, it’s really important to me to be transparent about my relationship with brands in my videos, and whether or not something’s sponsored. 😊 But hey, there will always be people who don’t believe me, no matter what I disclose! 😂
Something I keep in mind any time I'm in an argument on the internet is something Mike Mearls said almost 20 years ago now: People don't go on the internet because they're happy. They use the internet to distract themselves from something.
@@katherineberger6329 lots of happy people use the internet. A small and loud minority of people are angry
I genuinely enjoy all of your content Ginny. Each bit of humour totally works on me, the information is clear. Looking forward to the next one.
Bastions! Bastions! We don't need no stinking Bastions!
Thank you for another great video!
I'm glad to hear they are making a run at streamlining encounter balance and i hope it works. Or at least is an improvment but there are so many variables it will be challenging to nail down.
Best advice i have found is dont rigidly stick to creature stat blocks and be ready to modify on the fly. Takes time to get good at it but is worth it for your players.
As soon as you said Wizards should start educating people on D&D I immediately thought of a tiny classroom in the back of a lonely tavern in which several kids are sat, alongside their cleric, rogue and sorcerer teachers who are frantically trying to teach them everything they can before the BBEG turns up and takes over as a substitute teacher
19:57 she hit the nail on the head!! There is so much lore; so much more than BG3 Easter Eggs. Haha well said. I’m a nerd for the lore and I’m looking forward to learning more!
I'm curious what to see they have about the species/subspecies, since they cut it out of the PHB.
They don't have any content about species/subspecies in the DMG. It's all in the PHB.
@GinnyDi that's a little disappointing. Maybe in the monster manual...
So, with the Player’s Handbook already out and the Dungeon Master’s Guide giving content creators early access, has this edition decided what the heck it’s called yet?
Yes
@CGCommando82 What is it called, then? Is it 5.5e? Is it One D&D? Did it come up with a new name altogether? This is a genuine question, because I haven’t heard anything about a consensus on this.
WotC themselves have been referring to it as "2024" - the "2024 Player's Handbook," for example. I don't know if that'll stick, but that's what I've been using.
One D&D was always a "code name" for the project and was never meant to be permanent.
@@tsifirakiehl4250 Fifth Edition (2024) looks to be what its coalesced around
It's still 5E, they've said from the beginning it's not a new edition. There's no official shorthand afaik, but 5E (2024) seems to be the most common and accurate.
Thanks for the overview! Ignore those gatekeepers that slam you for not reading the whole DMG. I've never done that and have run hundreds of games for decades. You do a fab job and actually got me excited about the new DMG.
"they're gonna have to get their bludgeoning damage somewhere else" lol stay amazing Ginny Di you're great!
Thanks for the great preview! It was great meeting you and chatting at B&N in FTC!
Okay, but the brass candle holder in the corner there... I need it. For reasons. 🤣
I found it at a thrift store a few weeks ago and I was so amped. I was like "finally, I can go investigate a strange noise in the darkness of my vast estate while wearing a nightgown and nightcap!!"
@@GinnyDi Right?! Like I just wanna wander my haunted library by candlelight in the middle of the night. Is that too much to ask? 😆
Thanks Ginny for keeping up on the sword usage references! I hear you on many of the points: CR issues (encounter balancing), DM prep per session vs world building, and helping DMs manage expectations for both themselves and their sessions. I hope I find the new DMG as useful as you did.
With a huge thanks to you, I'm excited for D&D again. Looking forward to getting my alternate cover DMG + GM Screen soon!
personally, I love bastions. I've been doing something very similar for years. Giving players the urgency to create their own little spaces and creating their own little NPC's to work them is awesome. It's like a gateway drug into DM'ing and maybe one day I'LL get to play this game :')
Encounter balance isn't about the numbers. It's about allowing for alternate reactions. A fight doesn't need to be to the death. Either side might flee. A villain might let heroes escape to humiliate them, spread their infamy, or tempt them into joining the villain's side. Even a predatory monster might let prey escape to look for easier prey or because it is frustrated or tired. Capturing and asking for a ransom or interrogation. The monster might even just be lonely or hungry for something else.
I mean, yeah, all that stuff is part of it! But the numbers are also a big part of encounter balance - it would be silly to pretend that questions of how much damage your party is dealing, how much damage the monsters are dealing, how many turns per round, and how many hit points everybody has somehow don't matter to encounter balance.
@@GinnyDi Playing fair and by the book is an expectation of many players, true. But sometimes they need Strahd to laugh, wave at them dismissively, and order his minions to finish them off instead of doing it himself. :)
In case it wasn't clear, I absolutely understand that when combat isn't going as intended, you have a lot of tools to pivot! In fact, I made a recent video about that skill set 😜 But just because you CAN do that, doesn't mean that we can't or shouldn't expect the challenge rating/encounter balance system to be functional.
"People tend to be more suspicious of positive opinions than negative ones."
Good grief, if that isn't my experience with Star Citizen, I don't know what is.
Why not have tracking sheets as free pdf?
...yes! I say that in the video! 😅 I think that would be a good idea and I hope they do it once the book is out!
@@GinnyDi I think Wizards confirmed that they will be doing that in one of their DMG videos, but someone please fact check me 😅
@@GinnyDi Sorry I tend to post as I watch so I jumped the gun on that. On a side note I'm running into a tough situation, I like you and your video's but I've been getting more and more disillusioned by WotC/Hasbro and by extension D&D 5e so I'll probably not be watching your D&D 5e video's going forward
7:50 just because 5e can't do it, doesen't mean is not possible, I have played a decent size of games that gave decent encounter balance
Ive been watching your videos for years and I love them. I have been recommending them to people all the time.
I haven't dm in years, but I suffered a stroke, so my mind is a little foggy. But I'm getting better, and I'm reading the new players handbook and it is helping me.
I hope your fog clears up. I experienced a similar but less extreme outcome when I went blind. Two eye surgeries were only a partial success and recovering from the surgeries is still ongoing three years later.
Just to make this absolutly clear, those 200 bucks on novelty earrings are non negotiable. I would call it a business expense, because those guillotine earrings mean absolut business! I would say they should be eligible for a tax refund. ;)
Thanks for your video. Now I am stoked to get my copy of the DM's Guide next month. This is the first time for me to consider dming for my friends and when i think about world or encounter building I get easily intimidated. Your channel is such a great source of inspiration and genuine good tips and tricks. Thanks for all the hard work!
At least 10% of my comments are about earrings. It's WELL worth the investment 😂
100% agree with your comments about Bastions and Lore Glossary, these sound like great additions/improvements! TY for another great video!
Nothing is more powerful than spite and nerds. So shake in fear of a spiteful nerd
15:30 cute, my last campaign I paid a bunch of gold and downtime to build a home, now there are terms Bastion for it … my GM eye rolled, but allowed me to, and I even finagled the minor noble bard former prisoner snd severely PTSDed thug (also cultist prisoner/torture victim) to hire on. I envisioned the place as a short term rental area for upwards to eight visitors with a garden for the thug to tend … in short I play my own mini game even if the c GM is meh about it or the other PCs just want to swing swords and do evil
The little censor twinkle was great.
I know you've talked about how "Video Ginny" and "IRL Ginny" have... very different salt content in their vocabulary, so it's not shocking or anything. But also that you managed to make it so cute.
Makes me think of Dingo Doodles and her quacks. And then in the Fool's Gold book how they'll have the duck IN THE TEXT for censoring bad words that crop up in "in character" notes.
I was also of the mind "Oh well, encounter balance is probably impossible to do" and then I played Pathfinder and oh boy is it hard to continue with my currently still active D&D campaigns after seeing how possible and easy it can be...
Conspiracy theorists: "Hear that? She denied being sponsored by WotC. Only someone with a guilty conscience would bring something like that up. CLEARLY, she's being sponsored by WotC!"
By the way, Ginny, I seriously LOVE how self-aware and sober minded you are. Please keep being awesome!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
I have been trying to gain confidence in DMing for a while. Working with DMG 2014 has been a STRUGGLE. You and other creators have been a necessary part of my dnd journey.
I look forward to more info on the 2024 DMG
Hello Ginny!
Hello!!
@@GinnyDi Hi!
@@GinnyDi Hello there!
Wassup ma homie
RE Bastions: in the video game Destiny, there's this concept called a Throne World. Its sort of like the seat of power for incredibly powerful creature and characters and it sits in a pocket dimension. What if a player's bastion just sits in a pocket dimension that they can conjure a portal to once per day (setting dependent of course)?
Dora the Explorer ass travel structure 😂
Honestly, I could've been improving my Spanish all these years!
2:10 I think that every single walk, hike or other overland travel will always have one place or moment that is worth exploring IRL so why not in game. Multi stage break up also highlights this too.
Your jokes and sense of humor are really hitting lately. Laughed loud multiple times.
Great video, as always!
Am really excited for bastions, I'm also THAT type of player (proudly) ❤
9:20 Ginny, I already had 4 adventures to tide my party over with for the next couple years, I didn't need the thought of breaking up an Adult Green Dragon Polycule in their psychodelic forest of lies added tot he list lol
BOO
Did I scare you?
Sorry I can’t not, it’s October.
Since never technically. Its not out yet.
I’ve tricked you Ginny, now it looks like you’re talking about something random because I edited my comment.
I thought TH-cam had glitched and posted my reply to another comment 😂
Truly the spookiest thing that's happened all day!
Another amazing video. Id love to see an in depth breakdown/commentary on the bastion system. Has it had a glow up since the UA or is it very similar?
I can't wait to hear more, Ginny. Keep being amazing!
god bless wizards of the coast adding neopets officially to their books... too tired of homebrewing the game in every time i want to play!
Finally, my Faerieland campaign setting is getting some official content!
You are absolutely part of the reason I am as comfortable dming now than I was even two years ago
I'M FINALLY EARLY TO A VIDEO AND IT'S A VIDEO I ACTUALLY NEED TO WATCH
WELCOME!
i'm really excited about the bastions! i try to pace my campaigns to have more downtime between adventures, and i think the bastion turns might be a good way to pace that and reward players for taking the extra time. it might also encourage us to take more breaks between scenes in an adventure to do research and gather supplies
5:23 no speaking as the representative of the ENTIRETY of gen z (yes hello that's me /j) any information that i need to give to people i hand draw with a pen and paper then hand it to them physically, sometimes if it's extra special i have a letter wax candle which i seal envelopes with for a bit of extra fun. can you tell i don't go to parties?
😮 we've finally found you! I have SO many questions.
What is a Brat Summer?
@@GinnyDi brat summer is like gen x rave culture but we're gayer about it, louder about it, only do coke and its associated with chartreuse which is tennis ball colour even tho the name clearly suggests it should be like a beautiful deep red
The best advice I ever got about encounter balance is to not. And it made my games a lot better. Instead, I decide what monsters are present based on the logic of the situation, and allow my players to assess threats. Much easier for me to not fret over creating a perfect experience, and makes for a lot of enjoyment for my players when they size up monsters to see what they can take on.
Great video, I appreciate the breakdown of the new DMG!
Ginny, I swear you're getting more "How do you do, fellow kids?" every day.
11 months floored me. I can't picture it. Our group flies through a week in about 3 sessions.
There are spiders under my skin and they tell me to play pickle ball
ok
I love the Bastion mechanics, it brings a stardew-esque management system to tabletop that I didn’t even imagine in D&D.
It’s how DnD was played in the 70s and 80s
Really useful overview! Thank you! Of course the Ginny Di delivery and content is its usual enjoyable bonus 🙂
I want to know more about poisons. I suspect the ones meant for combat will follow the example of the basic poison, but I wonder if a few will function similarly to acid, alchemist's fire, etc. Meaning you trade one attack to chuck the vial at a target and they make a save or suffer the effects.
I'm really hoping that the new book fixes magic item pricing. The old method of "this +1 armour is worth 501 gold. Or maybe 5000 gold. Or any ammount in between, you figure it out." just is not helpful in the slightest!
Such a great video Ginny !!
Thank you for the breakdown on the DMG. I got a dinged/damaged PHB 2024 from my LGS reluctantly, but it was absolute value. I love the character creation! I am really excited after seeing this video for the new DMG now. Just have to wait for one to fall off a truck. 🚚📚 Dming with guard rails, adventures that can plug and play homebrew and organizational help. Much more excited to try to be a DM now! 😁