The new Dungeon Master's Guide is now frontloaded with the basics and contains a gift for DMs

Releasing on 12 November 2024 is the new and updated Dungeon Master's Guide, as well as a new DM Screen. We in May, but now we've been given a peak inside by WIzards of the Coast.

want this to be the ultimate companion for you as a DM, meaning you keep it with you during sessions and while prepping. It's compatible with everything 5th Edition, and contains the following chapters:

The Basics

Running the Game

DM's Toolbox

Adventures

Campaigns

Cosmology

Treasure

Bastions

Lore Glossary

Maps

The Layout

In this version of the DMG, the basic stuff like how to run a game and how to DM are at the front of the book, meaning you don't have to flick through all the chapters to collate the information together. If its basic stuff that you're likely to need often, it's right at the front.

Next is a section on running the game, which includes tried and true advice from actual DMs on things like player tastes, group size, running social interaction, exploration, or combat, and resolving outcomes. It also includes a section on playing with Multiple DMs.

Next is the DMs toolbox, which includes everything you'd need as a DM to interact with your players in the . It contains things like traps, hazards, poisons, and gifts, but also lesser considered things like doors, fear, mental stress, and NPCs. In essence, this is all the stuff you come across while prepping, and is the real meat of the book for more experienced DMs and worldbuilders.

Adventures and campaigns are very similar, and are presented using the same flow in the new DMG - Lay out the premise, draw players in, plan encounters, and bring it to an end.

There's then sections on Cosmology, which explain the pantheon of the Gods and the important figures in this area, as well as a list of treasures that players might find throughout the game.

Bastions

With the consent of the Players and DMs, players might be able to start a Bastion at level 5, giving them a more meaningful way to spend their downtime. Bastions are the players being the DM, managing their strongholds in a way that has rules, is structured, and can - according to Wizards of the Coast - be quite rewarding.

In addition to bastions, players and DMs now have concrete rules on crafting, being able to craft basically anything that's not an artifact. That includes all other magic items included in the book, of which there are over 100 pages.

Lore Glossary

New to the DMG is a Lore Glossary, which contains information on almost every character and entity in the world of Dungeons & Dragons. If it's not here, it's likely because its elsewhere in the book - for example in the section on Gods and cosmology.

Theres total integration with D&D beyond, including the maps tool, which lets you important maps directly from the DMG into the tool itself.

DM Screen

As well as a new DMG, there's also a new Dungeon Master's Screen coming, and this has also had a redesign.

Wizards understand that a lot of more veteran DMs play with a laptop, and this likely covers the two middle panels of the DM screen. Wizards have taken this into account, and have put the more basic information on these centre panels, meaning that more experienced DMs will hopefully just be covering up the parts of the screen containing information they won't be using anyway.

The Dungeon Masters Guide releases on 12 November 2024, and we will be covering more previews relating to it in the coming days and weeks.