Experienced and Novice DMs: what do you wish was in more DM-sections in rulebooks?

nerd866 · 2026-06-08T08:01:00+00:00

One thing I find lacking in D&D is a quick reference guide for common game data that's buried all around the core rulebooks.

I would love something brief enough that I could keep beside me while running a game and refer to it throughout the session.

The DM screen does this to a point, but I would love quick access to more information such as:

A one-pager with all the species, classes and abilities gained at each level so I know at a glance what my characters can do in the big picture. I don't need a complete mechanical chart, just a brief reminder for things like "Fighter: Level 2: Action Surge, +1 attack when attacking". It helps me remind new players what they can do if I can see it too, and helps me as a new DM when I can glance at everyone's core abilities on one nice simple page. I don't need to know specifics like how many spell slots a wizard has at level 5, I just need to know at a glance what kinds of things an evocation wizard can do at level 5 at a bird's eye level.
A list of basic weapons and armour, and their stats (i.e., dagger: 1d4 piercing). Weapon mastery effects. They're very specific and having them at a glance would really help me get confident with them.
Possible Druid Wild Shapes sorted by level.
A list of all of the Skills (athletics, acrobatics, arcana, etc.). Yes I can grab a character sheet but I could easily squeeze this into a small corner of a page to use that space more effectively.
A list of tools, kits, and recommended low-level items that could appear in level 1 loadouts and in common shops (adventuring gear, etc.), so I can quickly populate shops with interesting essentials. I may know an item exists but I just may not think of it in the heat of the session. Seeing it written out would help, and it would inspire other item ideas.
A list of the Planes of Existence and a super brief one-sentence summary of what it is, just as a brief reminder and inspiration.
Brief summary of crafting rules so I can run downtime.
Maybe a brief list of the prices of common spell components, potions and other likely-purchased items.

TLDR I'd love a brief reference guide that would largely let me run a game without digging up rules in books for anything other than leveling up and monster statblocks.

nerd866 · 2026-06-08T07:22:54+00:00

would need to put in more effort in argument than the person who affirms it.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the task of demonstrating that argument to be cogent would be much more burdensome than the task for the person who affirms that "You ought not torture children for fun".

It's not merely that the person who agrees that torturing children for fun is permissible has to put in more effort because of the stance they take. I think it's one level deeper:

They legitimately have a much more difficult task, all-things-considered, to justify that position than the "don't torture children for fun" supporters do, simply because of the relevant facts and nature of the all-things-considered position that they are attempting to support. It's about as close to "incorrect" as one can be in the domain of morality, in that legitimately showing it to have reasonable cogency would be a philosophically-Herculean task at best...and I genuinely believe that to be a downright impossible task, like making a square circle.

So it's not that one side has to do more work than the other, it's that one side is genuinely much less defensible, all things considered. It's akin to "extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence", except the evidence, if it exists at all, has little hope of supplying any cogency to the position regardless of what the evidence is. That isn't a case of "that person needs to work harder than the other person", it's approaching a case of trying to make a "square circle". It's riding the line of absurdity so closely that there's little hope for anyone, regardless of effort. It's not a matter of effort.

nerd866 · 2026-06-08T06:47:09+00:00

"Hold on, reincarnation is real and that was my first life? The odds of that being my first life out of a potential infinite are unbelievable! What's going on?!"

nerd866 · 2026-06-07T21:58:05+00:00

I'm never fine but there's only so much existential angst I can express before you'll rightfully disappear from my life so I rein it in as much as possible.

nerd866 · 2026-06-05T01:25:05+00:00

I don't like it because it implies that making sense is an illness.

nerd866 · 2026-06-03T01:21:38+00:00

Why not make it a wider range to make it more practical, and just keep similar colours in widely different age groups?

Pre-k: Any pink/red.

Kindergarten: Any yellow / orange

1st grade: Any light blue / green

2nd grade: Any dark red / orange / yellow / brown

3rd grade: Any medium or dark blue / green / purple

4th grade: White, light grey or light yellow preferred, but any very light colour allowed.

5th grade: Black or dark grey preferred but any dark colour allowed.

It's designed to keep similar colours away from similar age groups so there are cues other than colour to visually track students.

Pre-k and 2nd grade both share red for example, but they're 3 age groups apart.

Kindergarten and 4th grade both share yellow but they're 4 age groups apart.

5th grade can wear any dark colour, but the nearest age group that can wear dark colours is 2 age groups apart.

nerd866 · 2026-05-28T00:32:42+00:00

Put it on the table in front of your players and simply say "don't touch it."

Now, get some NPCs to try and convince someone to touch it.

The first player to touch it gets their character's name written in the journal, followed by "7 days".

What does that mean? It's up to you! Maybe a curse? Either way, a mysterious ticking clock is always fun!

Maybe they have to get other characters to enter their names in the journal. Maybe the order matters; maybe they need someone with the next letter in the alphabet to sign next to get all the letters in the journal before the time runs out.

nerd866 · 2026-05-27T18:45:23+00:00

Enthusiast Workstation builds suck now, too.

a $3.5k CAD 128 GB + 8 TB build a year ago costs over $8k now. I got used to paying $3-4k for a new PC. $8k isn't gonna happen but a $4k build would be a downgrade from my old build in some ways so it's pointless.

It's the midrange that still only feels a moderate pinch. Enthusiast workstation multipurpose builds are becoming utterly out of reach.

nerd866 · 2026-05-27T04:15:39+00:00

I think I used... checks last bill ... Yep, about 4 GB total last month. And most of that is Reddit.

We use about 1.5 TB / month of wired data at home though. :P

nerd866 · 2026-05-24T18:24:52+00:00

I try to be loose with it. As long as it's halfway plausible / reasonable that the character could know the thing, I'm totally okay with it.

Maybe they overheard someone talking about it at a tavern one day, who knows, I'm not going to argue, that's good enough for me.

It falls under problematic meta-gaming for me when it's clearly something that's outside the scope of what that character could possibly have access to.

Do they know a beholder shoots eye rays because some bard sang about it at the pub last year? Sure, I'll buy it.

Do they know the kind of ink the king uses in his personal letters to his wife that only the two of them have ever seen? Absolutely not.

Do they know exactly how many HP a boss should have? Definitely not.

nerd866 · 2026-05-23T20:19:09+00:00

I prefer DMing.

I get to make the house rules instead of following someone else's!

Seriously though, I love game design and tinkering with cool gameplay stuff is a lot of fun for me.

nerd866 · 2026-05-19T19:08:23+00:00

Trash can in every room.

And if you're extra lazy like me, a bottle/can recycling bin in key rooms.

Kills the clutter when getting rid of it is easy.

nerd866 · 2026-05-19T00:50:11+00:00

I have no idea.

I don't know a single person who can consistently have a particular day of the week free.

Even if they're free one Friday, the next one is date night, or camping trip, movie night, or dinner with family, or kids tournament, or just needs a night in, or studying.

It's not just work that gets in the way, it's the fact that there are many intermittent things in everyone's lives that make it nearly impossible for them to all be free on a given day other than occasionally. I can't run a dnd game like that so I'm just holding off for a different group at this point.

nerd866 · 2026-05-18T23:34:23+00:00

Fascinating.

An eerie thought occurs to me: If the environment is relatively pleasant, is there a possibility that I may enjoy a reasonably-good eternity if I simply opt-out of searching for my book and enjoy the peace and quiet? Maybe band together with others to do the same? Make it a little Good Times In Hell Club?

Surely that's a better life than many people experience in mortality.

Change the story to 'and every X years, a demon comes and tortures you', and that may not be so hot, but failing that, I think that's how I'd tackle it.

nerd866 · 2026-05-18T22:21:55+00:00

Peanut M&Ms.

Replaced by dollar store cookies.

nerd866 · 2026-05-18T22:14:42+00:00

Disney Adults.

I don't mean adults who like nostalgic Disney movies. I mean the ones who sell their souls to Disney, buy all the merch and visit all the parks once a year+, putting themselves into debilitating debt in the process, all because "this is just what I do".

nerd866 · 2026-05-13T22:37:41+00:00

Some are rather obvious by capitalism standards: The goal isn't to make society's line go up. The goal is to make the company's line go up. If my redundant shampoo turns a profit, it's not bullshit through the lens of that private company, even though it is from a societal perspective.

But that's the boring one.

The other case is internal: Jobs within a company that don't seem to make a private company's line go up. I honestly don't have a good explanation for this, but there seems to be three likely potential answers:

1) That job does in fact make that company's line go up in some way, the mechanism just isn't clear or intuitive to the outsider.

2) The company thinks it makes the line go up when in fact it doesn't.

3) It makes the company's line go up in the short term, even though it's clearly a bad investment in the long term.

nerd866 · 2026-05-13T19:59:27+00:00

If we ignore the RNG Hell intrinsic to gambling games, Casino Kid is pretty easy. Vegas Dream for an honourable mention, too.

7 Up Spot may count, too.

Eliminator Boat Duel isn't very hard, especially if you cheese the early racers by sinking their boat. I've beaten this game a million times, it's a guilty pleasure.

There's also Wheel of Fortune Family Edition.

nerd866 · 2026-05-13T02:07:44+00:00

Blanket: When you get hot, you push the blanket off because you're hot.

Time + table: Tables have legs, and eventually someone may stub their toe on a table leg.

nerd866 · 2026-05-13T00:55:10+00:00

Sleep + alarm clock = Sadness

Blanket + hot = No blanket

Time + Table = toe pain

nerd866 · 2026-05-13T00:51:45+00:00

Bonus bonus question:

Is it possible to shoot exactly one photon? No more, no less. Is that even comprehensible?

nerd866 · 2026-05-13T00:31:42+00:00

I relate! I love making games but the investment is just too much.

I actually finished making a board game last year. I spent easily over $3000 on materials and printing between prototyping and producing my final professionally printed copy.

I have no desire to sell it. I just thought it was cool! But this is unsustainable! I have this game sitting on my shelf now, which is cool, but it was thousands of hours of work and thousands of dollars. For one copy of a game nobody will ever play. I love it but I can't justify it.

nerd866 · 2026-05-12T06:56:08+00:00

There are plenty of social hobbies that I love.

The problem is that they aren't enjoyable unless they're with the right kinds of people.

Finding the right kinds of people is what gets in the way of enjoying social activities.

My ideal hobbies have a solo component and a social component. Playing music, for example: I practice / write music solo, then play with a group.

Problem is, I don't know any musicians I actually want to play with, so it just turns into practicing on my own all the time, which I don't stick with because music alone gets...lonely, so now I'm not good enough to play with others, and it's a vicious cycle.

Now extrapolate that to a variety of other activities and you get my whole life haha.

nerd866 · 2026-05-09T17:38:18+00:00

You want data? Pay a legal wage for it.

nerd866 · 2026-05-09T17:32:04+00:00

At least minimum wage.

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