72 thoughts on “Should Players Read the Dungeon Master’s Guide?”

1. At first, I wanted to say yes, a player should read the DMG. What harm does it do for an average player to learn a little bit about the procedure of making a game, after all? It’s not like they’re reading monster stats or the next part of the module they’re playing. But what if they start reading through the Magic Items? What if they see stuff that they had no clue existed previously? What if they read the rules for creating Magic Items, and in doing so it sucks the magic out of finding a new one, because they already will have an idea of what to expect? What if the player asks if they can find such and such magic item in the world?

   And that’s not the only thing, either. There’s critical setting details on Greyhawk and its Cosmology in the 2024e DMG that aren’t in the PHB, or aren’t elaborated on in detail. There are a lot of things in the DMG that can ruin surprises or potentially suck all the magic out of the world. In a way, it’s almost like reading an author’s notes on the story they’re writing before they read the story itself.

   But I think the real question here isn’t “Should players read the DMG?” It’s “does it benefit the game if the players read the DMG?” And the answer, I think, is no. Even if we assume they don’t ever read anything that could spoil a surprise, there’s not really much benefit to the player knowing how a GM is going to string adventures together to form a campaign. What’s a player supposed to do with that sort of information, anyway? Without access to the GM’s campaign bible or the module they’re running, it doesn’t change their decision making. The player is still in the scenario the GM laid out, they’re still limited by the tools they have at their disposal and their decision making.

   In short: no, players should not read the DMG. It’s too much work for almost no benefit.

2. Nothing but adventure modules needs to try to be for GM’s only.

   Even the sample adventure in the basic rules is likely to be a better explanation of how the game actually plays than anything else in the rulebook. I’m fine with players reading it, even if I’m planning to run it (the intro adventure should be a “how does this work thing”, more information is helpful for some people in following what’s going on and learning how it works) and the first intro adventure shouldn’t be a shock about the basics of what’s happening.

3. First, from a design perspective I think a line of demarcation between GM and player content is mandatory for one reason: it lowers the barrier to entry for new players. To be frank, I think there could/should be a lot less in the PHB and maybe even draw another line, “this is what you need to start playing” (even as little as a few pages), and “this is player facing content”. When I ran some sessions of Monster of the Week on our off nights, I actually took my purchased pdf copy and reduced it to about 30 pages of what they needed to play. It was pretty much the only way I could get people willing to step out of their comfort and try it. Increasing the mental barrier to start playing just doesn’t work for most people (there’s a place for Twilight Imperium, but try getting your family to give that a shot on game night). And the differences of these lines are the difference between a pick-up soccer game, club level with a ref, and the pro level.

   I think those who are interested should be encouraged to read the rest, including GM sections. And it should be in a single book. But I also think that being a GM, even for a one shot, makes better players. It takes some with passion and interest to take that next step of reading that extra material. Should a player read that there’s multiple ways to dole out XP? They don’t need to, but if they have the interest they should. It gives a greater insight into how the system is constructed, appreciation for the work that goes into running a game, and confidence that there is fairness on both sides of the screen.

   However, the most important portion of the player AND GM section is this: the table implementation of any content is at the GMs discretion. Just like you can’t assume that you can use a sourcebook, you can’t assume that the crafting or downtime rules will be run exactly as is presented here.

   All of the information that would spoil a player should be contained in adventure material rather than “how to run a game” with one exception that Angry has touched on before. I don’t think you can have an effective GM section without touching on adventure design. Knowing how the sausage is made from a design perspective can spoil the magic for some people. If you’re the movie critic whose industry knowledge spoils the art of watching a movie, you’ve taken away that pleasure and enjoyment. Seeing the threadbare suits over the animatronics can hamper your ability to engage with the ride. Not everyone is like this, but some people are. I’ve been a player in two campaigns since the one I GM’d and I’ve had to remind myself of Angry’s Hat Theory more than once; keeping a player hat on while playing is just as important as separating the GM hat from the adventure designer hat.

   On the other hand, there’s one additional benefit for keeping soft lines: exposing players to what’s involved behind the scenes inspires some of them (raises hand) to become GMs. And the TTRPG hobby is better and healthier when there are more GMs and potential GMs in the system. It shouldn’t be a terrifying pseudo-priesthood, it should be an open club to run games and get better at running games. FWIW, grawlixes aside, this blog is the perfect encapsulation of that and Angry and this community is an incredible help for all of us who want to run the best games we can.

   A tangential question: Is it mandatory for the GM to read the DMG? All of it? And if not, where does that fit in the design and publishing space? While I was thinking through this from the players’ side, I kept wondering about default assumptions between tables, house rules, “rulings not rules”, and whether any of that actually matters.

   • Angry, I just want to say that this whole experiment was very fun. It’s been fascinating to read some of the other commenters’ answers.

4. I think the simple answer is: no, the players shouldn’t read the dungeon master’s guide. Why are they reading a book thatt’s not written for them when they won’t even read the book that WAS written for them. Show me you’ll read the PHB and then we can talk about whether you can read the DMG…

   Joking aside, I wonder whether the point is that while D&D has a clear split between “books for players” and “books for DMs”, in actual fact, the content of those books isn’t properly split. I don’t think that anyone would argue that players should be reading adventure modules, but then, why do most adventure modules have player facing element, like character options? Why is there a list of magic items in the DMG, but the list of mundane equipment is in the PHB?

   I think the argument that there’s a clear difference between players and DMs is, at this point, well established, at least on this site. Players play the game, so they only need to know things that relate to how to play the game. They don’t need to know how the game works, only how to interact with the various bits of the game tha they can… well… interact with.

   So, in simple terms, and to cut a long story short, players shouldn’t read content that is only for DMs, because they don’t need to. They have poor soft little player brains and we should protect them from complicated things. But they should have full access to everything player facing. RPG makers shouldn’t release books for DMs that contain player facing stuff.

5. No, the players should NOT read the dungeon master’s guide. One of my favorite ideas of yours was being able to have secret rewards and goodies in store, such as feats, spells, patrons, weapons, and anything else! I want to be able to be trusted as a Game Master to have my own personal vault and library that is distinct from what players can see.

   • That stuff is mostly in the players handbook, though.

6. > I’m pretty sure you’re legally allowed to player them unconscious in most American states.

   I, for one, appreciate the use of “player” as a euphemism!

   I also like the idea of identifying the set of information that the players should be expected to have readily available, and organizing the content to make that actually happen.

   • “…this ain’t about whether monsters should be allowed to ruin adventure modules by reading ahead or…”

     I also appreciate straight-up acknowledgment that players are monsters!

7. I think reading the DMG and learning its secrets is a one-way door that irrevocably changes the way the game’s going to feel for that player. Some players can still be good players and have fun, and even be helpful to the GM after lifting the veil, and some will probably be disillusioned by it and become problems at the table. It’s like the difference between somebody who can’t watch a movie any more after seeing the “how it was made” special vs somebody who still enjoys it just as much afterward, but for a different reason.

   I’m a GM, and I’ve read the GM-only stuff for maybe a dozen systems and skimmed it for loads more than that, and sometimes I do wish I could shut that all off and just be a player when I’m in another GM’s game. I can see the structure underneath, and I have the vocabulary to criticize things I would do differently, and it affects my experience even though I’m careful to never actually let it out. I try to take that as an opportunity to do better at my player-job of being engaged and declaring good actions, and mostly it tends to work out and we all have a good time.

   So I think that mostly, players shouldn’t read the GM material unless they think that the GM’s mental models are cool and fun in their own right and they can keep their ideas about how *they* would do things to themselves. I haven’t personally run into a player who I think would try to weaponize the knowledge in order to break the tools and prove the GM isn’t really “simulating a complete universe in his head,” but I know they exist. Those types would definitely ruin the game for everyone else involved, and that by itself is a good enough reason to say secrets should stay secret.

   The game master’s mental models are the shortcuts and approximations that let the players make choices within the game’s rules to overcome challenges in the best way we can manage. They’re not perfect, the game’s rules can never be complete, and when you know that and see the imperfections, I think it makes it harder to get fully engaged and actually play the game as it’s intended.

   • the mind’s eye is far more detailed in creating horror the player when they don’t know something. Hitchcock kept stuff hidden off screen for a reason. Players should always feel threatened, even if they aren’t. They shouldn’t know how lethal their enemies are until they have figured it out a bit, certainly no AC class, or HPs. If they impulsively waste high level spells on mooks, without reconing the situation…that’s bad play.

     For years, i never even used the D&D monsters’ proper names or bothered much with RAW stats for any creature. If the players faced a goblin, orc or troll…they all got called “Unseelie” or some such. Players dealing with MM orcs might only hear the locals speak of them as “dem evil fair ie folk, trolls and trollocs”. Undead might all be called “Ghouls and Blood suckers” or simply “Undead”, be it a vampire or a zombie. Let the players figure out what the powers are by discover.

     As for magic:
     Sword +2, flaming. is not nearly as evocative as Anduril, Flame of the West. My players didn’t know a found sword was anything but a “magic sword” until they used it a bit, or saw it used…or did the old identification spell…which might just give only the swords name and reputation, maybe some legendary qualities. I also keep magic items very, very rare., and only the greatest of NPC’s can make magic items other than consumables like a scroll or potion, never a player. It gets too mundane.

     Vagueness is the ultimate tool for a game master.. Let the players peel off the layers of the mystery for everything not just plot. It’s one reason i never ever want to game master a game of “Call of Cthulhu”. I never want to know the stats of the Mi-Go, ghoul or a Deep One if i am a player. i want to be terrified by the unknown.

8. They shouldn’t *have* to, but I don’t think it should matter if they *do*.

   Recognising that some of the mechanics you need to run a system effectively are things players don’t need to know because they’re not running the game is useful. Putting the “how to run” rules in a different book to the “how to play” rules makes the distinction very clear. For people who sometimes GM and sometimes play, it’s a nice cognitive load reduction to know the things you can forget about as a player is “anything in the DMG”; for people who are only playing it’s a simple “you don’t need to think about these”. If players know those mechanics it doesn’t change anything.

   IMO the knowledge that should be withheld from players in a “you knowing this without being told is actively bad” way is the subset of content that goes beyond “basic facts and common knowledge”. The stats of a basic sword? Sure. That magic swords exist? Maybe, depends on the setting. How exactly a fire sword +1 works? Probably not, but again depends on the setting. Which things are known and which aren’t are the GM and module builder’s job to define, and players shouldn’t go reading the bits that are meant to be learned and experienced as part of the game.

9. My first impulse when reading the question was “why the f**k ever not”. Then I read the 1700 words and the more clarified question at the end. Twice. My answer is still pretty much in line with my first impulse – I see no problem for players reading the DMG, the Monster Manual or Campaign Settings. Pretty much anything besides actual adventure modules. Unless they want to GM them – of course, then, they are not players anymore, are they?

   But then I started thinking…

   …maybe this opinion comes from my background? I am from Germany and I started playing TTRPG with “Das Schwarze Auge” (DSA, published in English as “The Dark Eye”), which is to this day the most popular TTRPG in Germany. Back in the nineties and the first decade of the 21st century, DSA did not have a Game Masters Manual. All content besides actual adventure modules were facing everyone. Character creation, combat, magic, setting, bestiary, cosmology, creation of magical artifacts – there was no boundary, everyone was allowed to read it. The “how to run a game” part was maybe a few pages in the very back and very barebones – and also not restricted to GMs. It was “hey, if anyone wants to run a game as GM, consider these few points for structure, NPC presentation, adjudication. Have fun, go nuts.”

   The second system I played, was Call of Cthulhu. Here a clear delineation between Player content and GM content always made perfect sense to me – it increases the horror feeling that is pretty much the goal of the game, if you as a player know as little about arcane books, monsters and artifacts as the investigator you are playing. So here I definitely see a benefit.

   Two systems in, and I already have two totally different answers. Damn.

   In my D&D games, I do not restrict my players from reading the DMG or MM. I actually encourage them to read the MM and supporting literature as “The Monsters Know What They Are Doing” – the author of the latter explicitly states that it is not GM only. Knowing Monsters and likely Monster tactics makes for better Player Tactics and Gameplay.
   And neither the 2014 nor the 2024 DMG has any content, that makes the game any better, if the players do not now it. In fact, there is plenty stuff in there, players should know (i.e. the concept of the adventuring day, the rules for mixing potions).
   Reading informs the players about options that are there, but finally the GM decides what to use how. If anything, they can make a better appreciation of my work as GM in regards of how I run the game, created adventures, encounters and whole settings.

   So after two readings of the question and some thinking I would like to modify my answer:

   “Except for some Mystery/Horror Settings, where immersion can actually be increased for the players by not knowing about the Mystery behind the scenes, I don’t see why players should not read the DMG if they should wish to do so.”

   Holy s**t, this got long winded. Are you really going to read all those answers here, Angry?

10. Apologies beforehand for potentially excessive essaying, I need to write myself through my own thoughts here. I’ve also made sure to not read any of the other replies here so I could formulate an answer that is properly *mine*. Also when I use terms like “factual” in the answer, that should be read a “factual consequence of my opinion and personal experiences”. That way of writing helps me organise my thoughts.

    The first issue that comes to mind is that the player/GM split being posited is a false dichotomy. You can be a player in one game and a GM in another. Thus any answer must take into account that there can never be a strict line where player knowledge ends; any player may have been inducted in the mysterious arts of GMing and thus have access to all game materials (which, as an aside, also necessarily puts me in the Angrican camp on the issue of metagaming).

    Editing this paragraph in halfway: This also immediately invalidates the dichotomy in the question and answers the first half “Should the players have access to all game materials”: Yes, the players should *have access* to all game materials. It is a factual and unchangeable part of gaming that a player may also be a GM, and thus a player cannot *not* have access to all game materials. That is, any published game materials, which is just about all game materials that are in use in the real world.

    A second thing to consider is what happens when a player *does* read the current “GM-targeted” content. Personally, when I moved on to start GMing, I suddenly learned a lot about the game. Maybe I was just slow on the uptake as a player, since I had a lot of stuff click that I really could have picked up on beforehand, but the moment I looked at the game, in my case D&D, though a GM lens, it was a massive look behind the veil of the game. My understanding went from knowing abstract islands of mechanics to understanding the underlying logic behind them. I went from having to control 1 character for months or years on end to controlling multiple characters each combat scene, only for them to be gone by the end, and that is *supposed to happen*. As a player, that made it far easier to play the game. “How does X ability work” basically stopped coming up as a question.

    But that isn’t because I read the GM-targeted content, it was because I had to *be* a GM. And although I was a good GM and did read the DMG, I don’t think whether I did and whether a player does really matters. I could have GM’d a perfectly acceptable first few games without the DMG, and the DMG itself contains little to prepare you for GMing a real game. I think the only thing that truly breaks that barrier is to GM an actual game and being forced to turn the gears of the game’s mechanics in your head.

    And with that, I think I can give a satisfying answer (as in, satisfying to myself): Game content should be labeled as GM-only when it adds no value to what the player can understand about the game. Taking the D&D 2024 DMG as an example, a player gets little value out of knowing how to prepare a session. Or how to create a monster or trap. Or how to set up a satisfying ending to a game. Or how the optional renown system, that their GM likely doesn’t use, works. Reading most of the DMG would, or should, largely be a waste of time for the player. And it is only respectful to players to clearly indicate that.

11. I don’t think ttrpg rules can be presented in the same way as board game rules – that is, treating all participants as equals. The inherent asymmetry between participants must be embraced. If the GM functions as a special game mechanic, he should be treated as such. Players really only need to know what an RPG is and how to make choices for their characters. Furthermore, the less the rules clutter the players’ minds, the less their in-game choices will rely on them.

    The rules should address the player as the decision-maker and the GM as the adjudicator of decisions. In this regard, perhaps the goal isn’t so much to draw a line of demarcation as to offer two different sets of explanations – with some overlap, of course.

    In an ideal world, only the game master reads the rules, while the players learn the ropes as they play and retain essential information from one session to the next – much like in the best video games. This means the rules must not only teach the GM how to adjudicate player choices but also how to guide players through the process of making those choices, in one big book.

    But in a slightly more realistic ideal world, players have access to a tailored, evolving document – kept as concise as possible. So, if such a document is to be implemented, it should be guided by practical considerations : what do players needs to make choices ?
    For example this document could :
    * introduces the RPG to complete beginners;
    * outlines the rules, specifically the resolution system and the necessary dices;
    * recaps the campaign setting and the characters roles within it;
    * lists the options (feats, skills, spells) and equipment available during character creation (or list pregen characters).
    * The document would also detail how to declare an action, as well as the “mental models” explaining how to play (covering aspects like exploration, social interaction, city shopping, camping, gathering, crafting, and so on). It wouldn’t go into the nitty-gritty of the rules the GM uses to adjudicate these situations of course.
    * And in this ideal world, those lists (characters options, equipment, mental models) would be updated as the campaign progress.
    * However, without being exhaustive, it should detail rules that function like heavy mini-games – such as combat – where pacing is crucial and players need to know the exact procedures to make quick decisions and contextualize their choices regarding their character’s options.
    * Finally, as with any good board game, the main playing aid (the character sheet) is organized so that the mechanics available to players are immediately apparent : inventory, spells, combat options, conditions, health statut, and so on.

    Of course, it’s difficult to separate this issue from editorial and commercial considerations. Structuring a single rulebook around this distinction can be a headache (and no reader is going to buy a book if they’re only going to read 20% of it). Yet, the ideal solution (creating two separate rules documents, one for the GM and one for the players) entails extra development work.

12. I don’t think players should read the dmg, generally. It bypasses them learning how to play to a certain extent. Let’s say you read the dmg and read about the encounter balance and adventuring day.

    “ah, I don’t need to worry about getting my character killed, it’s highly unlikely to happen.” I think that negatively influences the play experience.

    That said, some people will do it, so a dmg should be written such that when they do it’s OK. So no setting spoilers.

    • Is learning this information through play actually necessary? This is real, capital-M Metagame knowledge: “The DMG recommends about 6-8 encounters per day, we’re only at 2 and we’re pretty taxed. Better play a bit more cautiously if we’re planning on making it through the content we should to make progress.”

      Setting aside that GMs have their own table preferences for tweaking the adventuring day (because that doesn’t really matter), what’s the benefit to emperically learning that over time as opposed to having it handed to players? There’s definitely a difference between “learning about playing” and “learning through playing”, I think that’s what you mean by “bypassing”, but my gut feeling is that the gap is smaller than larger. Maybe mechanical mastery better lends itself to “learning about playing” since it’s primarily self-improvement where role-playing relies on “learning through play” because its inherently co-operative.

13. So my first thought is that there is information that is not of interest to players at all. Like how to structure an adventure.

    There’s information that is of interest but they shouldn’t really look at it. Like the module itself. And I extend that to stat blocks like monsters and traps and such that become part of modules. I can’t stop people from looking at it, but their experience will likely be better if they don’t. And if they’re actively studying it to get an edge, or at the table, that’s like the D&D equivalent of taking PEDs and I frown upon it. The default for any player with that kind of info should be to try to know as little as possible.

    I would put both of those into the same book and call it the Adventure Builder’s Handbook or whatever. It implies it’s for a non-player audience. I might even put a note in there about who should read what’s inside, but maybe not because no one reads those things.

    Then there is information that is for GMs who need to know the rules to run the game at the table. That kind of rulebook is an expectation on the GM, not the players, but I don’t care if the players read it.

    And there’s information that is actively for players.

    Those two I probably put in separate materials. So I think I still end up with a core three piles of information, but they’re organized differently. It’s like a small player handbook that just shows you how to make a character and pick your character options. A rulebook that’s like a reference tome or the very nice glossary in D&D 2024. And a chonky pile for scenario designers with stat blocks, adventure building advice, and so forth.

14. My gut instinct was to say “No, the players shouldn’t read the DMG, but it’s not going to ruin anything if they do,” but of course the challenge then became how to justify that.
    So I cracked open the DMG (the 2014 one) to see what’s in it. I didn’t reread the whole thing cover to cover, just checked the table of contents.
    Advice about building a world and campaign – I don’t see much of a problem with players reading this.
    The multiverse and outer planes… Leaving aside my dislike for 5e’s handling of those topics, I don’t think players should know this stuff in advance – it takes much of the magic and mystery out of creatures from other planes.
    How to create adventures – I don’t think it’s a huge problem for reasonable players to know the encounter balance/adventuring day math, but maybe it could be if they really don’t like the fact that it’s very hard for them to lose.
    Creating NPCs and villainous class options. Again, shrug to creating NPCs. On the other hand, I think players absolutely should not know the villainous classes, if mostly to prevent them from wanting to play as them (something I have had to deal with in the past)
    Adventure environments – wilderness, dungeons, etc. Another shrug. Knowing the effects of conditions like extreme weather, quicksand, and how traps work isn’t going to break anything if those come up.
    Between adventures and downtime – I would say that downtime activities might need to be restricted, so players don’t get ideas about running a business instead of adventuring. But not a big deal.
    Treasure – Should probably be restricted from the players. It’s way cooler to discover a fancy magic item if you don’t know that item exists before you find it. The price list of gems and art might need to be restricted as well to prevent players from bypassing appraisals, if that’s something you’re doing in your game.
    Variant rules – definitely should be restricted, if only to keep the players from trying to “well akshually” the gm about some variant rule or other that the gm might not be using. Again I don’t think it’s game breaking.
    Custom stuff building rules – should probably be restricted? But unlike the others “player wanting to build a custom thing” is not a problem I’ve ever run into except for entire homebrew classes, which aren’t in the DMG guidance anyway.

    So I think that roughly supports my belief but I don’t think it’s all that strong of a support.

15. Personally, I think players shouldn’t even read the player’s handbook.

    So, no splitting of information. Only one side (and one book) —the “GM’s handbook”.

    • Hear hear!

    • I’m currently playing a game simple enough that all the information the player’s need (including the cool shit we can look forward to as we level up) is on one double-sided character sheet. It’s awesome.

16. I think their are actually two questions here – “Should players be allowed to read the DMG?” and “Is it worth players reading the DMG?”.
    I think that there is no reason players should be banned from reading more detailed rules and processes of the game, but they do not need them to play. This is why the DMG exists as a seperate book.
    Anything related to the game world should be off limits however. This includes modules monsters, and I would go as far as to say magic items and possibly even spells. In the old red BECMI basic books you got spells up to level 3 in the players guide (the basic players manual only covered levels 1-3), but the DMG gave you higher level spells for your baddies. This helped preserve a sense of wonder.
    Of course you can’t enforce this on grown ups anyway and experienced players will absorb a lot of this detail over time in any event.

17. I don’t think I want my players reading the DMG.

    I especially don’t want them reading the Treasure chapter. A magic item or other doodad should come as a delightful surprise. And comparison is the enemy of delight; I never want a player to think, “Oh well, a Horn of Silent Alarm is all very well, but I really would rather have had Boots of Elvenkind.”

    I also don’t want players reading the Creating Adventures chapter. I want them thinking about the fiction, not about how many XPs they should expect in an adventuring day, or why I might issue an XP reward that’s different from what they read in the DMG.

18. I’m firmly in the camp that knowledge of scenarios and challenges shouldn’t be available to players: no dungeon maps, no NPC secrets, and for me, that extends to monster stat blocks, traps, and hazards. So, I would explicitly forbid my players from reading the Monster Manual, the section about traps, and maybe some of the stuff about wilderness other planes if those includes hazards and their solutions. But I was leafing through my DMG, and I don’t see much else that would cause my game problems if a player knew it. I see plenty of material that I would consider spoilers, like magic items, details of the setting, or tables the GM might use to make spells or classes or whatever. So, I would discourage players from reading that if they don’t want to spoil themselves, and I expect that to be most players. But I know some people who like to read the end of a novel first so they know what to expect. People be weird sometimes, and if that’s how they enjoy content, it’s not a problem for me. TL;DR: scenarios and their ingredients are the only thing I would explicitly forbid players from reading; I would just slap a spoiler tag on the rest and let the player decide.

19. I know how a sunset/sunrise/rainbow/X is created (from science). It doesn’t stop the awe I feel when seeing one.
    The argument that “players shouldn’t know” also implies players are only allowed to play X once and there is no variation in DM gameplay. Much like the sunset/sunrise/rainbow/X, it is the specifics of any of those that create the awe. Sure, my notes etc, protect those but even then… if they know and I spin out a gameplay experience who cares that they knew? Published basics (aka the “science” behind the world)? Why not? That isn’t what creates the gameplay experience. I know what causes most events, but I still stop to watch them.

    • Oh, and as for the divide? In our world that is science. Not impossible to know, it just takes investment, say about the “cost” (time and materials?) of a DM Guide… more or less.

20. Considering this is a question about behavior, I am kind of unsure how you control and enforce it no matter what the actual answer is. And if a gentleman’s agreement is required for the intended behavior, it will axiomatically not affect the people who wouldn’t have been a problem in the first place, and not matter to the people who the agreement is supposed to be controlling for to defy it.

    So my answer to your question is “It doesn’t matter. You cannot get what behavior you want no matter what you do.”

    The only remaining reason, then, to separate GM material from player material, is to simplify indexing and reference processes, which is theoretically helpful still. Gentleman players will know when to stop, because it is no longer immediately relevant to getting to play. @%$!hole players won’t care.

21. On a personal level, I think players should read the DMG. Not only does it give them a better picture to how certain mechanics typically work (traps, magic items, etc.), but it also empowers them to be able to make educated decisions on how they want to play the game. While anyone can say “what do you want your character to do?”, a lot of people don’t know what their character can “mechanically” do. It may not be necessary for players to play the game, but reading the DMG can be extremely helpful to allow players to know what their actions could be capable of doing.

22. But if they should not read the DMG, should they also not come here?

    Is this not the true DMG?

23. The 2-books system is good for D&D. The PHB allows players to create characters without spoiling surprises, and the existence of a DMG establishes that some parts of the game will be behind the screen, which is the core mechanic of a roleplaying game.

    If you’re not designing a rulebook for D&D, however, you should consider making it GM-facing. GMs are the ones interested in new settings and new systems. GMs are the ones who will be buying and reading your book. If your game is not D&D, it’s unrealistic to expect that every time a GM runs your game, 5 players will buy your player handbook.

    Player-facing material is important, but you can’t hide it in a rulebook and expect people to buy it. The GM needs an easy way to make character-creation information available to players. Character sheets should be downloadable. If skill lists or spell lists are necessary, they should be accessible online. (Put them in the GM’s book, too, of course, but don’t expect the players to pay for them.)

    The player’s handbook for an indie RPG should be a webpage. Not a site, just a page. You want a player to be able to learn everything they need to know in less time than it takes to read an Angry GM article. Then give them links to any special ability descriptions they might need.

    Commercially, the goal is to sell more books. So think about your audience. It’s GMs.

    Artistically, the goal is to have more people play your game. So write a rulebook that convinces GMs they want to run it, then make it easy for GMs to recruit players.

24. Lots of really detailed answers here, and all worth reading. Mine probably isn’t because whatever the players do or dont, it’s my job to deal with it either way, up to and including disincluding troublesome players from my table. My experience is largely D&D, advanced through 3rd edition, and i have almost always modified everything but the basic system, anyway. Listed monsters and treasures are just examples and ideas, maybe included but probably modified enough that the book description could be treated in-game as a legend grown with retelling, baseless speculation, or the wild eyed ranting of a local kook. Reading it, dont read it, I’ll make it work.

25. I’m of the opinion that players tend to play better when they have a small cheat sheet or two on how to play the game, and a few other rules that the GM presents as necessary. Like in my latest campaign, everyone rolls for initiative at the beginning of each round. I like that rule and think it’s fun, it’s an actual factual rule in the system that I am playing. BUT as I am playing the system and trying to run it as intended, I am running into ideas that slightly don’t work the way that I want it to for my own campaign. So I am inevitably going to run into houseruling.
    I am not sure how “the greatest roleplaying game” even explains houseruling anymore. I remember a time when most games had a section that said, “If you don’t like a rule, you (the GM) can tweak it or remove it.” But I feel like that section has gotten smaller and smaller. When I first started playing TTRPGs in D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder, I remember how my co-players would challenge the GM’s authority on rules and rulings and both of them would look up rules during play.
    That was not fun, and I don’t understand how it could be fun. While I understand that they can get enjoyment out of it, here’s another take.
    Paranoia XP’s rule for this is “GM Rule #1. You are IN CHARGE. You are ALWAYS RIGHT.” This is something that I think players should understand, but also not try to challenge. Paranoia XP is something that I personally believe that every single GM should read at least once because it helps you to understand how much power you as a GM truly have, and how to use that power. Paranoia XP uses that power to help create the setting and tone of Paranoia, because otherwise the system can and will fall apart.
    Paranoia XP sections off its GM section, and I think it does it for a good reason and a good cause. I think that there needs to be a good reason and a good cause for saying that “hey, you need to read this” because players don’t want to read, they want to play.

26. I (as mostly a player) have read some of the DMG stuff, but it always felt to me like a how the sausage is made sort of stuff. Like a theses are the prefabs in game building systems, and while a DM can build their own there are rules for balancing those as well.

    The other thing I will note on my end is mindset, namely the things you need to be a better player are rarely found in the DMG and even if you extrapolate the things that make it easier to interreact with the DM (ore easier for the DM to adjudicate), you have the other players to consider as well. D&D is a social activity and the interplay of the entire table is more important than the ability to push the games levers to affect the DM.

27. The players should read as much as they can be bothered to, which as you say varies wildly. They should not be expected to read anything, as that’s a barrier to getting started.
    Personally I’ve had a player who only knew the basic role playing gist and he was awesome, we slowly taught him everything he needed as we played. I’ve also got great players who know the books better than me. I welcome both approaches, and everything in between.
    Now, ideally, it would be great to see more people reading the DM-facing materials, if only because the world needs more Game Masters especially for complex systems like D&D. So making that stuff accessible has great benefits. That’s what I loved about the old Red Box, it had a general overview of how to be a player as well as DM, it’s what got me interested in getting my own group together from scratch, but I never even forced my players to read or own anything, it was optional.

28. Absolutely yes, DMing for DMs is the best. They’re way more invested in the game, speak the game language so you basically never have to tell them they can’t do something, and know that playing safe is boring.

    You lose the ability to use the basic example stuff, but when you have players invested enough to want to read the DMG they deserve better than default treasure table.

    I struggle to see a reason to be against it other than lack of time to plan stuff properly, and even then that’s kind of what adventure modules are there for (reading ahead of an adventure module you’re playing is a bit unethical, but that wasn’t the question asked).

    I wouldn’t ask a player to read the DMG (I wouldn’t even ask them to know the names of the dice), but I struggle to remember any situation where having a player that did led to anything bad.

29. I think the separation of player stuff and gamemaster stuff is aimed at preserving some of the mystery for the players. So from a design standpoint … Maybe the best way to design something is to create ambiguity. “The GM should build in additions/subtractions/differences/other mind-warping changes from the following list of ideas, or come up with your own.” Then players who also run games can read whatever they want. I’m other words – design in this conversation:

    “Wait, you said this was an orc! Orcs don’t have breath weapons!”

    “I never said I was using orcs *as written*.”

30. I grew up playing, then running “Advanced” dnd, 3, 3.5. But not 4. And not 5e until recently. I have one player who knows the mechanics much better than I do, and I appreciate the help.

    All of my adventures, magic items, and most monsters are home brew anyway, so there’s no danger of them learning anything critical.

31. A key question I suggest someone designing a game to ask him/her self is:

    If the GM changes this, do I want to encourage or discourage the GM to tell the players about the change?

    If the answer is ‘encourage’, it should probably go into the player section.

    If the answer is ‘discourage’, it should probably go into the GM section.

32. “Do roleplaying games need to separate player-facing materials and GM-only materials at all?”
    Strictly speaking, I would say no. Having and using the DMG to run games has not made it any harder for me to enjoy games when I’m a player. That goes for modules too. Anyone with a modicum of decency wouldn’t ruin it for everyone else, and unless the whole conflict can be resolved by knowing a handful of facts there are still gameplay challenges to be overcome.

    What are the benefits?
    I would say the main benefit is for people who are just going to be players. It can give them the basics of what playing looks like without overloading them with rules for things they will never actually handle.

    Are there downsides?
    First one I can think of is the extra $100+ I had to spend to get the DMG and MM… But that’s not true of all TTRPGs. The second one that comes to mind is the fact that when I was trying to design a dungeon and I was trying to figure out how far the PCs could swim through some caves without suffocating (surprisingly far, btw) I think I had to look at two different entries in the PHB and one in the DMG. It’s a lot of cross-referencing.

33. I believe that players should have access to all of the core rulebooks. There’s nothing in there that a player should not be *allowed* to see. I’m excluding adventure modules from the category of “game materials”, as that was explicitly removed from the context in the main article.

    Do the players need to read or know all of the material? Certainly not.

    My reasoning is this – will the game be spoiled or will the gameplay quality suffer if a player reads the DMG or MM? No, it shouldn’t.

    The caveat would be that players should be made aware that the stat blocks, magic items, planes of existence, god pantheon, traps, challenges, etc. that are in those books are subject to change in an adventure. They are NOT set in stone, so don’t rely on that knowledge when playing. All of the information in the DMG and MM should be labelled as a *guide* for the game master. It’s all about managing expectations.

    Having said all that, I don’t think there’s any need for players to read any of that material. The players just need to understand the core gameplay loop; Describe -> Declare -> Adjudicate -> Repeat.

34. Players shouldn’t have to read GM stuff, but it also doesn’t matter if they do.

    To say otherwise would be to say that GMs aren’t as good players.

    As for people who say they want to keep certain mechanics and stuff a surprise, well, it can only be a surprise once, and TTRPGs are designed to be played over and over again through different modules and campaigns.

    Hope things are going better for you, Angry.

35. I think the DMG and MM and any other material are just tools from which to build the actual gameplay. The gameplay is never really inside those books as the GM comes up with the surrounding story and the challenges for the adventure. The players want to look at my tool box? Sure go ahead. Knowing the tools doesn’t make you understand how to use them and what will come next. Or does anyone know what all the hooks, pincers and whatever tools in a dentists toolbox really are meant for and when to use them properly?

    My recent DnD campaign is about dream anchors that if misplaced start sucking dream energy and destabilizing reality. Part of the job is for players to figure out how this works and how to reanchor them. Nothing about that or how to build the rules for that is in the books.

    Only line that I draw for the players would be published adventures, modules and my own notes. I mean where’s the fun in knowing this stuff ahead? It’s like having one of those huge 400h board games like Aeon Trespass Odyssey and reading the story books. Then it’s just mechanics and finding out , how good your luck (and your memory of what you read) are.

    So players, go ahead, read the DMG, I can still build a fun game for us to play.

    P.S.: Even knowing magic items in advance is ok for me. Yes it takes out a bit the wonder, but I place items with a thought on how they will become usefull for the characters, not just stat boosters (unless this is what a charcter needs). Ok, some stuff is random, but I found very good fun with items that no one would ever pick on their own (robe of many things vs gauntlets of ogre power? Players 90% choose the gamplay-wise boring gauntlets, such a waste…). whatbI mean: the fun of the items comes from using them smartly, not knowing them.

36. Players who havent played much D&D shouldn’t yet read the DMG because, like life, certain experiences can only be had for the first time once, and a passionate GM is the best way to share it with them. Once a player has been around the block a few times, it’s time for them to shepherd other players, and by reading the DMG, they gain either the necessary inspiration or knowledge to do so.

    • Yeah I think this gets it, there’s something about the wonder and discovery that new players may lose by reading the DMG, but an older player may already intuit, if they don’t know for sure, many of the things in the book.

      Overall I don’t think it matters that much there’s not really a big reason to go either way on this question for me.

37. This feels like Angry getting back at the readers for years of long “ask Angry” emails. “This is what it feels like to answer a long winded question, and my ramblings are relevant compared to your dumbass prose!”.

    I’ll use the worst argument possible. Games have been separating the GM stuff and player stuff for years, so I would hope it has been proven by playtesting to be a good idea.

    Being taught is the best way to learn most games, so “one person reads, then teaches” sidesteps the issues.

38. I think it’s fine for stuff to be labeled “Game Masters only”.

    Some players will read the GM material for fun, or will try their hand at GMing but mostly fill the ‘player’ role. And it’s obviously fine for someone who has read the Monster Manual to be a player.

    So for the most part it’s less about keeping players out and guiding them — stuff should be explicitly labeled GM-Only just so that new players who **aren’t** jumping into the pilot’s seat can easily figure out what they should read and avoid wasting time reading stuff they don’t need to know or that will confuse them.

    As to what stuff should be labeled that way and how, that’s harder to say.

    Anything related to running the game — basically all of the DMG’24, less the chapter on Bastions — can be safely labeled GM-Only, I think. I’m not a big fan of putting it all in a separate book, but my job isn’t to sell books. Putting it in the back half of your Core Rules Book and styling those chapters differently is probably a nice way to handle it.

    Lore and Monster books are technically GM-Only, but that’s a bit more of a grey area. If your system has summon spells or shapechanging, players are gonna need to crack open the Monster Book unless you (re)print the player-relevant stat blocks in the Player-Relevant section.

    Lore is again probably GM-Only, and depending on the contents could be fine for players to read or could be very much Spoiler territory. Or it could be not relevant at all, which could also be bad for players to read.

    In either case, since Monsters and Lore often end up being printed in books that also include Player-Relevant content, some kind of editorial delineation is probably in order.

    Modules are basically the only things that should be GM-Only AND Players Keep Out!. So you shouldn’t print player options or other player-relevant information in the same book as your adventures. Obviously.

39. I’m gonna be honest, the answer seems irrelevant either way.
    “Should players read the DMG?”
    No, because any information critical to being a player should be available in a player-focused source or taught to them at the table.
    “Should players NOT read the DMG?”
    Also no, because if a player is dedicated enough to read the DMG they probably have a good reason (like being a GM themself or just passionate about the game).

    Like Angry himself pointed out, if someone’s being an ass at the table then you address it as best you can, but reading the DMG or not won’t be the root cause of that player’s behavior. It’s not the bloody Necronomicon. The main things players shouldn’t have access to are your prep materials, but that feels so obvious I shouldn’t even have to say it.

40. As a recently GM-turned-player, I initially thought “no problem!” But then I remembered our first session when the GM started talking about crit success on ability checks and declared a crit fumble on an attack roll (which ended up being mostly flavor text, but still…), and I had to resist the urge to shout “No! Crits are only for 20s on attack rolls!” Because it was *his* game and he rules crits on all 1s and 20s, so crits happen on all 1s and 20s.

    So I think it’s good to reserve stuff for a DMG and for players to not read it for their own good: even a well-intentioned player could find themselves internally trying to “correct” every house rule the GM introduces.

    Another case I’ll add (even if it dilutes my comment): my eye twitches every time I see the sidebar in the PHB that says you can identify a spell with a DC 15 Arcana check… almost anything to do with DC setting should be GM discretion since most GMs are not going to remember an obscure sidebar and have their own generic DC guidance, and having that be player facing is asking for trouble when a GM requires proficiency, uses a different DC, or has any other number of other responses.

41. The question seems to imply a false premise – that the DMG contains “secrets”, that is, things that are true (about the fictional world) that the PH doesn’t include, and/or hard and fast rules that DMs use without telling players what they are. To my eye, anyway, the DMG is just a bunch of suggestions and advice for the DM. As such, it makes perfectly good sense to segregate it; it is a completely different kind of content than what is in the PH.

    As to whether players should be “allowed” to read the DMG, well, why not? The only hazards, it seems to me, is that a player might take some things in the DMG as obligatory rules, or (if the player is a real jerk) that they would use it as a basis for critiquing their DM. As long as they understand that the DMG is suggestions and advice that any particular DM may or may not use, I don’t see any harm in it.

    IDK, am I missing something?

42. Honestly the “players who read the book are a problem” take only holds if the DM treats the book as a secret. My group has always shared the core books and it just pushed our DM to get better at improvising. Random tables and unexpected encounter rolls help a lot here too — when players know every published statblock by heart, an encounter they couldn’t have predicted keeps the table honest. The real divide isn’t rules knowledge, it’s players who use it to argue versus players who use it to play better.

43. Having now reread your clarifications, and thus refraining form commenting about whether players should or shouldn’t, and some players also being GMs and metagaming and such stuff that immediately pops to mind when faced withthe blog title, I think I can answer – and the question I think I’m being asked to answer is: should there be a separation between player and GM material.

    I think it is convenient if there is a separation of rules. Some players will want to read the rules and will only be interested in what is relevant to them. If it is separate, then it can be given to them easily without having to say, “Prob best if you don’t look at this stuff over here… for reasons.” It can be helpful at the table if a player has a good grasp of the rules as it can reduce some GM cognitive load, and they can help other players along. I don’t expect players to have read ‘their’ rules (long given up on that idle fantasy), teaching can come at the table, but if I’m repeating or prompting for the same basic stuff ad infinitum I’ll be sore frustrated.

    When setting material is involved, I’d like to have something I can give to players that is safe for them to ‘read’, a brief overview – not that many of them will, but some will, and some a will actively want to (usually me when I play as I’m a sucker for an interesting world). Again, it can a bit of burden off the GM. Other than that, I treat setting lore as dropping in facts as they arise: “In this situation your characters know x about y.” A couple of years ago, running Runequest, I had one Gloranthaphile and another who knew the setting, and they were useful back-ups for me, and could add colour when needed (and credit to them they didn’t take advantage of their meta-knowledge or dispute matters when I varied).

    So yes please, separate out information and rules relevant to players and GMs, it makes my life easier.

44. Players and GMs have different roles at the table, so I would say of course it makes sense for them to be separate when that’s the premise of the game. I have read systems where that wasn’t the case, I think one was called Microcosm, or something like that, and the aim was a collaborative creation with a bunch of yes ands and other similar hippie stuff without dice and the actual game part.

    And I think that, what makes the game fun for players, is not knowing how the sausage is made, there are probably plenty of players who show up at the table and genuinely believe that we have created and prepped every nook and cranny of the world already and it’s just for them to find out about it, and it’s the GM’s job to BS their players into keeping up that illusion. And they kind of need to believe that for the world to feel real, so even if they do know better, even if they’ve been GMs themselves, they most likely don’t want to run into those invisible walls, to use a video game term, they don’t want that illusion to break, they want to forget that truth long enough to enjoy themselves. And it’s probably harder for a GM to be a player, and enjoy themselves in the same way, we might appreciate the craftmanship, but we’re likely not going to marvel at things the same way.

    I don’t think there are any secrets in the DM’s guide, at least not these days, but I think what is written there might deromanticize the whole thing. And as is true with the player’s handbook, it might create expectations that we’re not willing to cater to in our game.

    So my answer is: if the game is designed that way, which in D&D it is, then yes, they should be separated. And I would say all of it really, if it’s not player facing, then they’re doing themselves a disservice if they read it.

    • Microscope is the game you are looking for. A cunning little system for cooperative world history creation. Yeah, no dice, but then it’s an exercise in imagination and creativity. with the right people it’s a fun way to spend an evening. It’s supposed to be about creating the history of a world, in a non-linear fashion, but I’ve noticed that people seem to miss the that and point and tend to compress it down to plot and story, e.g. ending up with a film script rather than an epic history. Anyway, it’s an interesting exercise and I recommend it to anyone who likes the sound of it.

      • I may be remembering it wrong, but I don’t like the idea of coming up with something and then having someone else modify my idea without me having the right to veto it, or even having neighboring ideas that don’t fit with my vision. It could probably work if you’re sitting down to create one person’s specific world, and that person gets to lay down some ground rules and veto the process, otherwise it just seems too arbitrary to me. But I can see the appeal of a brainstorming session as such, as long as it’s structured.

        Full disclosure though, I haven’t had the opportunity to try it out myself, so those are only my impressions from reading it, which was quite a while ago.

        • Your worries are exactly the elements that make it an entertaining game, for an evening or two’s entertainment – you end up with something that none of you would have thought of on your own, a meld of imaginations born from different inspirations. It’s not designed as a tool to build a world to use for an RPG, though you can do that. If you want to do so, yes, your impositions on it make sense, or even just do it on your own as it gives a loosely structured way of developing your thoughts and fancies.

          • Honestly, I agree with you, Scrumper, that Microscope isn’t a roleplaying game and should not be judged as one or treated as one. It can be a tool for one, just like any game can provide an add-on tool for an RPG, but Microscope is explicitly a collaborative world-building activity.

            The only mistake it makes, in my opinion, is that it does include the phrase “roleplaying game” in it’s blurb. Which is absolutely shouldn’t. But since the blurb also describes the product as it is, that oversight can be ignored.

            • Dunno what blurb you’re referring to, but it does say roleplaying-game right on the cover: “a fractal role-playing game of epic histories”. Though I agree with the sentiment, it probably shouldn’t.

45. Firstly, to “Should the players read the DMG?” I am inclined to say no. I do not think that there is much in the DMG that provides any benefit to players or their experience from reading it. Furthermore, I think that if anything *is* beneficial for the players to read in that way is in the DMG, that is a marker that maybe it should be in the player facing materials. I am skeptical that there is much of that sort, however, especially as I think that the PHB suffers a bit from the opposite problem. There is much in the PHB that would be better off in the DMG, or whatever the GM rather than player facing materials are in a system. Honestly, Players should not need to even read the PHB necessarily, even if that marks what they can if they want to, or what the GM should freely tell them. Perhaps that is again a mark of what maybe does not need to be in the PHB, if the expectation is that the players would read it? More appropriate I think would be to modify assumptions. Here is what the players *should* read, which is maybe a short few pages if anything at all. Here is what the players *should be able to read as needed*, which marks some of the starting option. Then lastly, here is what *the GM should read*, and the player do not have any good reason to read it as a player. Reading the PHB as is and certainly reading the DMG is a larger commitment than necessary for players which has maybe too little in the first and ideally no benefit in the second benefit for that cost.

    So, without worthwhile benefit, I again state my answer to “Should the players read the DMG?” as no.

    Which I would also like to distinguish from the second part to this, which is, “Should the players NOT read the DMG?” to which I say yes. Acknowledging that it will happen and that in some cases it needs to happen, players should not read the DMG.

    Some of that, to me, is about the understanding of the underlying systems. Some of that is about expectations. Building up a sense of, “oh, this is probably safe because I have a good understanding of the general numbers”, or more than numbers and chances, merely understanding how things are structured and using that, rather than pure player facing knowledge, to make decisions.

    And that is not a *big* problem. In fact, to a degree, that is a good thing, but as learned from experience. Wisdom learned over playing across time, not from reading it once in the DMG. Maybe there is not a huge difference, but I think that there is one.

    There is also a sense of stripping back the scenery to a detriment. When you find out just how some parts of the world work mechanically, how they are represented and managed and abstracted on a technical level, it can make the world seem less alive. Less real. Even if you, as a player (and thinking to me, when I play occasionally being also a GM) try to push that away and suppress that. You cannot turn off what you know, not completely. Related to the earlier point about changing how you make decision, it can lead also lead to engaging with the mechanics rather than engaging with the world, even subconsciously.

    I think for example back to some of the articles here towards the end of the True Game Mastery Series on social interactions, and the stern warning in it that you should never, ever present the underlying system of classifying social action declarations to the players explicitly. That if you do that, the people, the characters, the world fade into the background as one of the most real and engaging aspects of the game fades into a mechanical minigame, a social combat system trying to simulate what TTRPGs already can do well.
    Not only that, but I think even to the advice for the GM that if you are able, you should not even write down your social statblocks explicitly, or at least refer to them as little as possible in play. As important as having that mental model to resolve things is, and as important as it is to intentionally design with and around that, looking at it too hard diminishes the experience.

    Then there is the last argument I have around discovery, the one that I think gets applied to monsters and to traps but most of all as “maybe players shouldn’t get to see magic items”. Whether it is items or monsters or feats or class options, those things are best left only to be discovered in play. The, “I didn’t even know that existed,” “I had no idea that I would be able to do that”. I think to one older article on secrets which strongly influenced my thinking on this, that argued that only those options available when starting play (classes, feats, spells, formulae for crafting, even the nonstandard races as options to only be learned about or become available at later GM designation) or not much more than those should be found in the PHB. Sure, there is fun in creating a fancy character build, but for the players who do not go searching for that, the ability to hold everything else and more as both rewards for adventures, research, and similar, and as discoveries about what is the world and what is possible, is an important tool to have.

    So too is there world lore and underlying narrative systems of the world. Whether or not the setting a GM is using diverges from those published, learning about the history of a world or place, the nature of the divine, even how death works (thinking back to that one article on it in the Angryverse, which I have mostly adopted myself), these are a best revealed, piece by piece, during the game. Players are able to discover, and then to build that knowledge up over time as experience. If the players read the DMG, it won’t ruin the game, not for everyone and not for them, but it may diminish certain aspects of the experience.

    So yes, I believe that generally speaking, players should not read the DMG.

46. I come late to the party and all has been said at this point. I’m on the «  it doesn’t matter « opinion because I have no way to prevent it anyway, so they might as well read it if they want to know more about the game. All the important things like adventures, items or monsters are either homebrewed or lost within a huge pile of data, as long as they don’t search for it during the game it’s ok. If they’ve read it and remember it can help them or not, there are ways to get the information in game anyway so it’s not going to break it. I’m also pretty good at fishing lore from small factions or back water places so they’re not likely to read these parts and if they do they won’t find much more that 3 lines of description that I probably handed them in the first place. I’ve actually homebrewed some systems and tried both approaches, it didn’t make a différence.

47. I’m going to give two half-answers, because fuck it.

    First half answer: Before any DM answers this question, they should re-read the DM’s Handbook themselves. Not leaf to the tables they need for the adventure they’re running next week. Not look up the recommendations for Magic Item generation cos the party killed a Big Bad last session. I mean cover-to-cover re-read the whole book. Because a lot of us don’t do that, so giving an answer as to whether a player should or should not read the book cover-to-cover requires you to have done so yourself, and understand what it does and does not contain.

    Second half answer: IMO there’s a significant difference between “reading the book” and “memorizing the book”. I can tell you the overall plot of the last novel I read, but I couldn’t tell you the names of more than a few characters or their specific lines of dialogue. Likewise, if a player says “I’ve read the DM’s guide” then my expectation would be that they’re passingly familiar with the basic tenets and methodologies – not that they can instantly recall every facet of every process, or every statistic of every item. Bearing that in mind, I have no strong feelings either way of a player ‘reading’ the DM’s Handbook. That’s their call, and if they do, maybe they’ll decide to DM in the future, and that’s gotta be a win, right? We definitely want to encourage people to try DMing more.

    But if a player has read the book and starts whining about how I’m ‘not doing it right’ then in the first instance they get the Pirates of the Caribbean quote, and if they mention it again or get shitty about it then it’s a conversation outside which they will not enjoy.

48. I don’t have a problem with players reading the DMG, but they shouldn’t have to. I’d prefer if my players read the Player’s Handbook, but they shouldn’t have to, either.

    As has already been noted, it’s not too likely to find a group of seasoned players, none of whom have ever DM’d. If some of your players have read the DMG, there’s no reason why they all couldn’t. Same thing for other core rulebooks like the Monster Manual, the various Volo/Tasha/Xanathar/Mordenkainen books, etc. Some people like reading D&D materials.

    DMing is made easier when your players know some stuff about the mechanics of the game. Am I always going to remember that Spirit Guardians requires concentration and creates difficult terrain? No. Is it helpful when my player who just took Spirit Guardians as her go-to melee spell reminds me of how it works? Yes. Same thing when a PC has a Ring of Swimming. The game goes more smoothly when I don’t have to either memorize every single thing each PC can or might do, or look it up.

    Thanks to coming here, I have gotten better at reminding my players of things they can do (“You may have forgotten that you have a javelin of lightning, which you could also use instead of your bow” or “If the rogue holds his action until the ranger gets up to melee range with the giant, the rogue can get sneak attack damage on the giant if he hits with his bow”) and allowing them to make decisions based on those reminders. Players who don’t read sourcebooks need more of those reminders, generally.

    Of course, as has been noted, players shouldn’t read the module the DM is running ahead of the game. I’m probably not articulating this well, but I think there’s a difference between players having knowledge of general application (“An ogre has about 60 hp and smashes once with a club doing about 13 damage per hit”) and specific knowledge acquired out-of-game that would allow them to bypass an ingame challenge (“in the temple antechamber, there is a secret door hiding three ogres that will emerge and attack you if you try to breach the doors to the temple”).

49. I have read the D&D 5th edition Dungeon Master’s Guide cover to cover and honestly ? I find it really underwhelming anyway.
    The magic item list is good for inspiration, I’ve stolen a few ideas from the traps page, and the XP budget and encounter building sections are useful, but other than that, I found it was mostly mid-tier advice on GM-ing and self-gratifying worldbuilding stuff.
    None of that particularly needs to be hidden from the players, but they also really don’t need to read it. I don’t particularly think the delineation needs to be made, because players don’t need to be told to stop reading, they can simply skip chapters they aren’t interested in (or at least they could if the stuff was well-organised and indexed).

50. The reasons for gating information are two-fold, the first is reducing the cognitive load on the players compared to the DM. The DM benefits from some understanding of all player facing rules but the player does not need to have any understanding of most of the DM facing rules, so the DM can read both sets whereas the player can benefit from just reading a book tailored to their specific needs. E.g. players don’t need to know how to calculate xp/cr, so their book can be more readable by omitting it.

    The second is that a split rule set helps reinforce the delineation of responsibilities between both player and DM. For instance, newer players might have the misunderstanding that controlling enemies, plot elements, etc. are part of their “job” if they were to read those rules. Giving them a tome of player only info reinforces that they are solely inhabiting the world through their character.

    It’s less about expecting them to know all player facing rules, and more about giving them implicit permission to give their input on game adjudication when -and only when- their rules come into play. Basically, as implied by the split rule set, a player can tell the DM what their fireball is supposed to do, but doesn’t have the permission to tell them what a Goblin does. This gives players a sense of empowerment via certainty and responsibility when it comes to their character, and also enables more strategic decision making.

    In a rules light game which was easy to learn, or a game with less of a split between player and DM responsibilities, then the benefit of splitting the rules isn’t as relevant. If you wanted players to also have less of a sense of power and confidence in their characters (maybe for a horror TTRPG) then making access to the relevant rules info more difficult would reinforce that.

51. I mean, I care less about whether a player of mine reads the DMG than what they do with it. Do they use that knowledge to rules lawyer me in the middle of a game? Do they try to insist on certain interpretations of the rules?

    If they’re not doing that, then it doesn’t bother me at all if a player reads it. In fact, it can often be helpful to have another player at the table with a more detailed understanding of the rules than what they can get from the PHB. However, if a player is doing the above, I don’t care if they got the information from the DMG, the PHB, random Jeremy Crawford tweets, or just their own butt. I don’t care how they got the information or even what information they have, but they need to be able to use it responsibly.

    As far as whether a player should be required to read it, I’d say “of course not”. I wouldn’t even require them to read the PHB. They’re responsible for their character and thinking about the game in front of them. At least at my table, I handle the rules and decide how actions are played out.

52. I think this probably depends how you’re dividing your content, because we know that there’s more than just players and DMs – there’s also scenario designers etc. – and if we split our books into 6 or so we could be more granular, and WotC could sell lots more $50 books… but no one would buy them…

    But assuming for the sake of the question that everything beyond player counts as DM –

    I think there stuff players are expected to know. That lives in the PHB. And should be as short as possible to make it easy for players to read and learn.

    There’s stuff that breaks the game (which chest is a mimic); that lives in modules.

    Then there’s stuff that players don’t need to know but doesn’t necessarily break anything. That lives in the DMG.

    Weird systems aside, we demand that knowing general DM stuff can’t break being a player, or you could never play after DMing.

    But that stuff may still reduce the enjoyment of being a player.

    If I’m playing a game, I want to enjoy it and be immersed in it.

    If I’m recognising DM techniques, scenario builder techniques, that risks spoiling my immersion – and I think that’s the case for many players. If I’m playing a game and I spot a structure I’m suddenly pulled out of player hat to scenario design hat, and I’m thinking about how the sausage is made.

    Not all players are like that, but I think you don’t necessarily realise until it’s too late.

    So – whilst it shouldn’t be verboten, it should generally be discouraged.

53. I agree with everyone who’s said that “GM vs. player” is a false dichotomy. IME, it’s normal for the players at a table to include someone who GMs another group, someone who’s previously GMed for *this* group, and someone who’s looked into GMing but decided it wasn’t for them.

    Even if this were not the case, you still couldn’t keep the lore of D&D’s cosmology or magic items or other DMG stuff hidden from the players. Players will inevitably learn more about the game just from playing more campaigns, where they get a Sentinel Shield or travel to the Astral Plane or whatever. That goes double if they participate in the wider community and see discussions on Reddit, this blog, rpg.net, etc. Or if they play Baldur’s Gate or read tie-in novels or whatever.

    I think the solution to this is similar to the solution to the “dumb/fake version of metagaming” question. If you’re running a game for newbies, figuring out the D&D troll regeneration thing for the first time can be legitimately fun for them. But if the GM wants to surprise experienced players, they’ll have to invent something new. Similarly, for new players, the magic items and cosmology will feel wondrous and new when played perfectly straight; if there’s a danger that the players will be bored with that, then maybe now is the time to run a peeling-the-onion campaign where the sun turns out to be a superweapon made by an evil wizard, and the PCs will need to destroy the astral plane to save the multiverse, or something equally crazy.

    Obviously having read the specific adventure is not good, especially if the GM doesn’t know. Communication is essential here: “I ran Jade Regent for another group a few years ago, maybe let’s pick another campaign where I don’t know all the spoilers.” And I agree that seeking out a module to read while you’re playing it is bad form and spoils your own fun anyway.

    I did once recognize a module that a GM had dropped into a campaign as a side quest. Since it was just a one-session thing, I stayed quiet and went along with the other players, to avoid being too disruptive. Not sure if I handled that right. If it had been a longer-term thing, of course, I’d have asked the GM privately between sessions: “Hey, is this Against the Cult of the Reptile God? I played that once with another group and this seems familiar.”

    I also think it’s a fine idea to have a labelling system of “this is the bare minimum you need to know to play the game”, “here are some more advanced options for PCs if you’d like them”, “here’s the bare minimum you need to *run* the game”, “here’s how to build an entire campaign”, and any other categories that might be useful. Like quickstart rules that you can pick up to get a taste for things if you’re new to playing or running the system.

54. Idk if the second part came out yet, but here’s my thoughts.

    I’m surprised so many people say players shouldn’t read the DMG. They shouldn’t have to, obviously, but we gotta remember why we’re here: to run the best pretend elf games we can. And another critical point: you don’t run games for the abstract “player”. You run for Ana, Belle and Clara. If they are the type of person who likes to know how the sausage is made, by all means. If it reduces their engagement, maybe don’t, but in that case they probably also won’t go looking for the material. Of course if it bothers you, then have a talk with them about it and explain your reasoning: communication is key.

    To give an example if your next adventure is set in a fire temple, maybe ask Ana if she’s okay with having a bit less combat power if she brings a fire mage. Similarly, if someone brings a fire-immune ice mage, you gotta work around that, potentially by asking the group if they’re ok with Belle having a bit more spotlight in fights, and adjusting the encounters so others can meaningfully participate.

    This framework gives a nice cutoff point to what should, can, and shouldn’t the players read: they should read what’s important so they can meaningfully play the game. This doesn’t have to include character creation if the DM walks them through it. Probably an explanation of the core gameplay loop, and basic rules (here’s how you make an ability check. This is what your different abilities mean. That sort of thing). Couple pages long, for accessibility to new players.

    Players can read material that doesn’t meaningfully effect the enjoyment of all parties at the table. I’m including stuff like monster stat blocks, books set in universe (if there are any) and GM tools too. I’m primarily a player, but I happily read Angry and the monsters know what they’re doing. I’ll tell my DM “hey, this is what I read in the MM, would my character heard about this?” when applicable, and try to work around it (and ofc custom monsters are always on the table if it bothers the DM).

    Players shouldn’t read stuff to the detriment of the adventure: what is the backstory of the situation, secrets, or anything that makes the GM feel like they can’t run the best game they can.

    It comes down to trust: as a player, I trust my DM to not intentionally screw us over. They set challenges and difficult situations, but never to the point where the game is not enjoyable in the end. As a DM, I trust my players to not fuck the group over, try to play the game to the best of their ability, and tell me if something bothers them, so I can run the best pretend elf games I can.

55. I like to play with people who share the deep interest and love for the game that I have. I can’t require it, but it’s apprecciated. I think only positive things of people who read through the material, and, also, in general love to meet with people who like to read and study things.

    Problems like metagaming and backseating have absolutely zero connection with the mere act of reading the DMG. To say anything different would mean that no DM can also be a player, and I see no ground for even beginning such an argument.
    To impose such a ban would be like to ban alcoholic beverages from the whole country because some people, sometime, have car accidents while drunk: not only totally ineffective and even counter-productive, but a sign of narrow-mindness and, in the end, totally moronic.

56. My experience running rpgs for approximately 350 people is that every player who has gained more knowledge of the game rules during the time I was running games they played in, has also become a better player who makes more meaningful decisions. It is also my experience that the exact same argument about structuring information in adventure design in the article about Screwjobs applies if anything 10x as much to the mechanics of the game, and while there is great variance in personalities that has a larger effect on the play experience, the general correlation is that the more players know about the rules of the game, the better players they are.

57. I play in games where many players are also GMs in other games, and I also run games where my GMs from those games are now my players, so I can say with certainty what is wrong about players reading the GM stuff:

    Nothing.

    The reality is that every player can enjoy a different part of the game. I got a copy of Curse of Strahd. Does that mean I can never be a player? Why not? I may not get surprised by certain secrets, but I still don’t know who will live and who will die in Barovia, what kind of personal flavor my DM will put in the story of if they will use homebrew, modify what’s in the book or whatever. I don’t know about the other PCs. I don’t know what kind of drama will stir between our characters.

    As long as everyone involved is respectful with each other and don’t try to be an asshole, I promise you no matter what your players read it won’t be a problem.

58. I don’t know if this is correct, but I’m understanding the question to mostly refer to the “GM advice” stuff. And I’d say it’s not at all necessary for players to read it (like the whole book) but that if someone wants to, it won’t hurt and might improve their experience.

    I think about how much Penn and Teller say they love to watch magicians. They might not necessarily want to know the exact trick (which might be the equivalent of reading the module) but their knowledge of the types of tools magicians can use, enhances their ability to recognize really well executed tricks. I don’t think a peek behind the curtain at the means GM can use to BS their way to a great game will hurt anything if a player sees, and they might even enjoy a bit of understanding behind why the GM does what they do.

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