Critical Role’s Matt Mercer and other pro DMs consulted on the new DMG

The revised Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master’s Guide (2024) will begin trickling out to fans around the world soon thanks to Wizards of the Coast’s aggressively tiered digital pre-release schedule. However, the community that enjoys the world’s most popular tabletop role-playing game is in a very different place than it was just a decade ago, when the original 5th edition DMG (2014) made its way into the world. The biggest change by far is the rise in actual play, with troupes like Critical Role, The Adventure Zone, and Dimension 20 bringing their passion for D&D to a much wider audience online. Turns out that actual play performers also had a hand in how the new DMG was written as well.

In a special press briefing held last week, co-lead designer James Wyatt explained that the new DMG will begin with a longer preamble featuring lots of good guidance on how to prepare for your first game. It’s the same sort of step-by-step, open-ended instruction that won fans over in the new Player’s Handbook (2024).

“We repeat that approach at the beginning of the Dungeon Master’s Guide while pulling the camera a little bit more into the Dungeon Master’s head,” said Wyatt. “We cover just the very basics of: What is the DM’s job? What do you need to do to get started? How do you find players to play with? What do you do to prepare a session? And then the nitty-gritty of how running a session goes.

“We also really want to encourage DMs to learn from others, but not feel they have to imitate others,” Wyatt continued. “Because every Dungeon Master is unique. Everyone has their own style. […] Your job is to facilitate the enjoyment of everybody at the table, and that’s going to look different for different groups and different individuals.”

Following that section, and for the first time in a DMG, is a segment about learning while watching — arguably one of the most common ways that newbies get introduced to D&D today. But developers didn’t stop there.

“We also worked with four outside consultants,” said co-lead designer Chris Perkins. “One of their goals as they were reviewing material was to help ensure not only was the advice that we were giving to DMs sensical, but that we were delivering ways to make the DM’s job easier.”

Consultants included star DM Matt Mercer, co-creator of the Critical Role streaming series and the Vox Machina animated series; actor Deborah Ann Woll, an experienced DM who recently made headlines playing D&D on Jon Bernthal’s podcast; bestselling designer and game master Alyssa Visscher; and musician and educator Zac Clay.

“[They each have] their own styles and their own ways of doing things,” Perkins said, “[and] all contributed to reviewing the DM advice chapters to make sure that the advice we were giving was actually making the DM’s job easier, not harder.”

Of course, it was Perkins himself who helped to popularize the medium of actual play in the first place. His work with Penny Arcade co-founders Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik gave birth to the Acquisitions Inc. podcasts that launched alongside 4th edition D&D in the mid-2000s, which is widely credited with inspiring many of the most popular modern-day troupes.

Fitting, then, that this new Dungeon Master’s Guide (2024) will also be Perkins’ last effort as a lead designer at Wizards of the Coast. The man who helped bring D&D as a form of entertainment to millions of people around the world is putting all of his wisdom and experience into one final guidebook.

“Although I made substantial contributions to the Monster Manual (2025) and the next D&D starter set, the Dungeon Master’s Guide (2024) is the last official D&D book in which I’m credited as a product lead,” Perkins revealed to Polygon in an email. “Knowing that, I tried to stuff as much of my DM brain into […] that book as would fit. Whether that’s a gift to the community or not, I’ll let the users decide.”

The Dungeon Master’s Guide (2024) will be available widely beginning Nov. 12.