The 5th original edition Dungeon Master’s Guide (2014) arrived on the market at a difficult time for its publisher, Wizards of the Coast. Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition had struggled to grow its audience for years, leading many to wonder whether the flagship tabletop role-playing game could maintain its waning relevance in the market. It turns out that 5th Edition was indeed a success, and D&D is now bigger than ever in its 50-plus year history. This is due in part to a solid mechanical foundation, but also to a vibrant gaming community that continually raises the bar on performance and storytelling.

Now, Wizards is once again attempting to revitalize the D&D brand with a revised, updated, and expanded 5th Edition. Dungeon Master’s Guide (2024). I’m happy to say that this is exactly what the game and its fans need right now. It would have been easy for developers to simply drive out the community, codifying the way modern gaming is played and the culture that surrounds it. And yes, they did to a very large extent. But the book also advances the game in important ways, adding exciting new tweaks to an already winning formula. DMG feels both essential and inspiring, making it a fantastic way to kick off the next half century of D&D.

Positive changes and additions to DMG (2014) are clear from the start. Rather than 70 pages of rigorous world-building and cosmology, DMG (2024) now kicks off with a gentle take, including a lengthy section on comfort and safety at the table. To borrow a phrase from the late Carl Saganrather than creating a world from scratch, he instead focuses on baking that apple pie to perfection. It’s only 20 pages long, but every slice is delicious.

Of course, this is also where the book’s curation efforts come in. The project’s lead art director, Kate Irwin, along with Wizards art lead Josh Herman, have refreshed the look and feel of the project . DMG with dozens of carefully placed new pieces. They show the incredible diversity of experiences offered by past adventures, inspiring readers to learn more about the game’s rich history without leading them too far into any particular setting. Bold full-page paintings brimming with Easter eggs and jokes, carefully depicted martial and magical items, incredibly useful multi-purpose cartography on the back – it all works hand in hand with the layout and graphic design to frame visually each element, creating a useful and memorable setting that is an absolute joy to navigate.

But it’s not all about pretty pictures. Or DMG (2024) really excels over its predecessor in how it gives Dungeon Masters the tools and inspiration to build their own world and campaign. The middle chapters of the book — chapter 3, “The DM Toolbox”; chapter 4, “Creating Adventures”; and Chapter 5, “Creating Campaigns” – are more logically ordered and clearly presented than the previous iteration. Thanks to this organization, as well as the density of random tables included in each chapter, DMG (2024) becomes much more useful for DMs on a session-by-session basis. It suddenly transforms into a resource that can bail you out in the blink of an eye with a clever puzzle or a curious non-player character, rather than a simple encyclopedia of rules that gets pulled off the shelf every now and then for ‘advocate of group rules.

But the usefulness of the book does not stop there. THE DMG (2024) is 60 pages longer than the 2014 version, although some of those pages are a bit more useful than others.

On the useful side, there’s the book within the book about Greyhawk, one of D&D’s earliest fictional settings dating back to the 1970s. The nearly 30-page section can easily serve as a step-by-step template for DMs interested in create their own world from scratch. Alongside the 15 pages of generic maps and the detachable double-sided color poster map, this section provides just enough scaffolding for players to hang their first campaign on. This is a great addition to the guide and a feature that will be very useful to newcomers for years to come.

The section on strongholds is the least useful, however. These are player-owned themed fortresses that can optionally be added to your game starting at level five. While I admire the desire to give players more ownership and action in the world they create together at the table, I’m not sure fantasy real estate is the best way to accomplish this. The section itself is incredibly boring and seems the most out of sync with the rest of the book when it comes to voice and intention. This is a cross between an optional ruleset and an early design document for a D&D themed release. The Sims 4making it more of a distraction than a nuisance and one that can easily be ignored.

And that of course brings me to the digital aspects of DMG (2024). Just like the Player’s Handbook (2024), all of this material is currently available under revocable license through D&D Beyond. Consumers can get it either as a single purchase or as part of a subscriptionand here it is the subscription which is clearly the best offer. Why pay extra for just the book when you can have monthly access to the entire online D&D library for a much more modest price?

However, much of the added value of the digital platform, notably the Maps function and the dating builder – is still in beta, so I highly recommend getting the physical book instead. Things like digital character sheets and a spell book with hyperlinks are nice and all, but in today’s fast-paced digital world, you can’t beat the permanence of an actual physical object.

Dungeon Master’s Guide to Dungeons & Dragons (2024) is available at local game stores and online. The book was reviewed using a retail product provided by Wizards of the Coast. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased through affiliate links. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.