OK, first of all: as was the case with the Monster Manual, Rory and my names are in the Dungeon Masters Guide! We’re credited as “Additional feedback provied by”. It’s notable that I didn’t review the acknowledgements section, or that particular spelling error would have never gotten through. In fact, since I saw early drafts of DMG sections, a third or more of the book is completely new to me.
Of the core books, the DMG benefits the most from close readings: things that were explained fully in previous DMGs are often presented in complete but compressed form. I’ll probably find things to unpack in this DMG for a few weeks.
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Today I’ll be talking about page 14 of the DMG. In the 3e DMG we got, like, a chapter on worldbuilding, demographics, and settlement generation. In 5e we get page 14. This contains the outdoor campaign mapping rules, into which is encoded a lot of world demographics information. From this page, what can we learn about the D&D world? Is it more like a medieval dark age, or the early Renaissance, or is it totally ahistorical?
Page 14 recommends getting hex paper with five hexes to the inch (so about 2000 hexes per sheet, more or less.) Following in the footsteps of BECMI, the DMG recommends maps at three different scales. This time it’s Province (1 mile hex), Kingdom (6 mile hex) and Continent scale (60 mile hex).
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First of all, there’s a major error in the section about combining scales: it says that at continent scale, “1 hex represents the same area as 10 kingdom scale hexes.” Wrong. 1 continent hex is 100x times the area. Similarly, a kingdom hex is the area of 30 province hexes, not 6 as claimed. It looks like this was simply an error of saying “area” when they meant “length”, and, with that substitution, the rest of the math on the page works out fine. Still, that will confuse some poor saps when they get around to making new campaign maps.
OK, on to those sweet demographics!
On a province-scale 8 1/2 x 11 map, which takes about two days of travel to traverse, the DMG says that you’d expect to find one town (population generally around 4000, based on settlement size ranges) and 10 villages (population around 500 each), which works out to about 5 people per square mile in settled lands, about the same population density as the Western Sahara. Wow! Fantasy medieval Europe is empty!
5e Dmg Must Read Sections Online
The kingdom scale of 6 miles per hex is just about standard for D&D outdoor hex scales (5 to 8 miles per hex, depending on edition). A kingdom map of a settled area will have 10 notable cities or towns; villages are not shown at this scale. Considering that a kingdom map contains 30 province maps, each of which is likely to contain a town, it’s probable that small towns aren’t shown on the map either.
Continent scale is huge. At 60 miles to the hex, you could fit Europe on one sheet of hex paper, plus about a third of Russia. If your continent fills the map, it has the same area as 3000 province maps, and it takes three months to traverse at 25 miles per day. That’d give you a population of 30 million people if the entire continent were settled, but probably it’s half wild. Apparently this matches the demographics of Europe in 650, right after the Plague of Justinian wiped out 50% of the world population.
OK, so D&D demographics match a) 650 AD, one of the worst post-apocalyptic times in world history and b) Western Sahara, a current nearly-uninhabited strip of desert.
We don’t have to do anything with this information. We can run a jolly D&D campaign with dragons, kings, and quest givers without wondering about the number of peasants in a square mile. But we can also find inspiration in the game’s parallels with Earth demographics. Here’s what the numbers suggest to me.
a) There was a recent event, probably within the last 100 years (because population recovers over a few hundred years), that killed a lot of people. Everybody still remembers it and it terrified of its return. What was it?
b) There are a lot of deserted villages. Furthermore, in every village, town, and city, there are a lot of empty houses. Land is cheap.
d) The king is happy to give you a parcel of land and a border fort when you hit name level. Why not? That border fort is sitting empty right now.
e) A lot of abandoned dungeon locations were probably thriving civilized structures within the last 100 or 200 years. For instance, that border fort the king just gave you.
These speculations are borne out by other parts of the DMG.
-Standard city size caps at about 25,000: larger metropolises, like Waterdeep and Greyhawk (or Toulouse!) are rare. These city populations are fairly low for medieval city population, but make sense in the wake of a plague that wiped out half the population.
-In the Wilderness section, a wilderness province contains “ruined villages and towns that are either abandoned or serve as lairs for marauding bandits and monsters.” Wilderness doesn’t have to mean old-growth forest or untamed mountains: it might also mean farms and villages given over to chaos.
From D&D Wiki
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- 2Creature Name
Introduction
Monsters and NPCs are easy to make once you understand what they're made of. The down side is that having a solid grasp of what makes a creature requires a lot of reading, followed by a fair amount of experimentation and play testing. Please be sure you are familiar with the Help:Precedent for this content in fifth edition. This precedent is set by the monster appendix in the PHB, the entire Monster Manual, and the monster design and encounter building sections of the DMG on p.273-279.
If the creature is also an NPC, you should read all of the sections relevant to creating a player character in the PHB, and all of the sections on creating NPCs in the DMG, on p.279-283.
This content is subject to The Three Pillars of Adventure (5e Guideline) in the sense that creatures are used to interfere with or support the PCs. Understanding how a creature can be used in a variety of situations is important.
This content is subject to Understanding Bounded Accuracy (5e Guideline).
When designing a creature, the very first thing you should do is start with a concept. Everything in the game is supposed to represent something as though it were a real thing. The game rules and creature traits are simply a means to that end. Once you know what you want to represent, the next thing you should do is hit the Monster Manual or the 5e Monsters Reimagined page. Browse through and look for similar creatures. Don't just look for creatures which are conceptually similar either, look also for creatures with mechanical properties which sound like something your creature would do. You might find a creature which is almost exactly what you're trying to do mechanically! If your creature would ultimately be best represented by a reimagining of a creature, or just a slight tweak to a creature's mechanics, there's no reason to upload it here as a whole new page. However, if you find that your creation will require a great deal of invention, or will involve the patchwork-combining of different creature's statblocks, then by all means, add it to the wiki! We just don't need a million reskins of the wolf (for example) floating around.
Some good guides exist for creating creatures on the internet.
- If you want a good perspective other than the DMG's for creating a creature, the Blog of Holding has posted a monster manual on a business card.
Creature Name
When coming up with a creature's name, try to think of something snappy or that relates to the concept of the creature. The name should be capitalised, but only in the title, nowhere else.
, Armor Class This is the AC of your creature. (If your creature wears armor or uses a shield, list so here. Natural armor should be called 'natural armor' and not 'natural'. The base AC granted by a creature's Dexterity modifier isn't natural armor.)
Damage Vulnerabilities These are the creature's damage vulnerabilities. A creature vulnerable to a certain type of damage takes double the damage when subjected to that type of damage. Creatures are rarely vulnerable to more than one type of damage. Certain vulnerabilities have more impact on a creature than others. For example, a creature vulnerable to force damage would likely only have that weakness come into play if it were attacked by a magic missile spamming wizard, while a creature vulnerable to slashing damage would likely be torn apart very quickly by the barbarian with a greataxe. If a creature doesn't have any damage vulnerabilities, leave this space unchanged or blank. Special traits and features that the monster shows are listed here. Common traits include Spellcasting, Innate Spellcasting, and Keen Senses. Feature Name. Feature description Spellcasting. If a creature has the Spellcasting or Innate Spellcasting feature (or both), it can cast spells. Spell names shouldn't be capitalised but should be in italics. Try and insert a link for convenience (if the spell is homebrew or in the SRD). Swarm. If your creature is a swarm, it should have the following trait. ACTIONSAction Name.Melee Weapon Attack: +X to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: X (1dX + X) damtype damage. REACTIONSIf the creature can use its reaction for something special (standard uses for reactions — like the opportunity attack (not attack of opportunity, which is a 3.5ism) — don't need to be listed here. It is assumed the creature can do those anyway), list them here. A common example is Parry. Parry. The X adds its proficiency modifier to its AC against one melee attack that would hit it. To do so, the X must see the attacker and be wielding a melee weapon. LEGENDARY ACTIONSThe can take 3 legendary actions, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action option can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature's turn. The regains spent legendary actions at the start of its turn. | Description. This is the description of the creature. Important things to consider include what the creature looks/sounds/smells/feels/tastes (if applicable) like, some typical behaviors, some lore or culture (if applicable, a race of forest-dwelling fey would obviously have more culture than a type of construct, for example) and some battle tactics that the usual specimen might follow (such as if it prefers to charge into the melee or whether it prefers to cast spells from a distance). Does it keep other creatures as mounts or companions? Does it usually form groups, or is it solitary? What is its preferred diet (if it does eat)? What is its usual habitat (temperate forests, deserts etc.)? What does the creature make/wear? What is it known for doing? |
General
- Hit points should always be listed as such, and never be called 'HP' or 'health'.
- 'Attack of opportunity' is a 3.5ism. They should be called 'opportunity attacks'.
- Feet should always be listed as ft. (in movement, range of telepathy and special senses, and the reach or range of attacks), or foot or feet (where appropriate) everywhere else. Don't use an apostrophe at the end of the number!
- All references to ability scores should have the score's name listed in full (except for saving throw bonuses, as detailed in the section above). Only the first letter should be capitalised (i.e. Intelligence, not INT). References to ability scores should also be linked using Template:5a.
- Nothing has 'an advantage' or 'a disadvantage'. It has 'advantage' or 'disadvantage'. Similarly, nothing has 'a vulnerability', 'a resistance', or 'an immunity'. It has 'vulnerability', 'resistance', or 'immunity'.
- DC should always be listed in capitals, not 'dc'. The DC of a saving throw should come before the relative ability score, and not in brackets (except when detailing the escape DC for a grapple). For example, DC X {ability} saving throw/check, not {ability} saving throw/check (DC X). Similarly, AC should also always be in capitals, never 'ac'.
- Don't remove parts of the preload unless you know what you're doing! Removing bits of the preload makes the resultant page look messy.
- A creature can be immune to conditions, but it can't resist them. Instead, give it a trait that grants it advantage on saving throws against that condition. Sometimes, it might be more appropriate to grant advantage on certain saving throws against that condition, such as the Sure-Footed trait of the goat.
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