Dungeon Masters Guide

[IronWolf]

updated on 22-NOV-02

I am a Dungeon Master at heart. For several years, I played other games (I could not stand D&D2/e and I still feel that I have out-grown D&D1/e) and so I have been called a Game Master, a Storyteller and a host of other things. But, at heart, I am still a Dungeon Master.

So this is my book. And it is a good one. As the guide to running the game, it covers about every base you can imagine. From using monsters as Player Characters to how to create magical items of wondrous power.

The only thing I miss is the Invulnerable Coat of Arnd... god did I love that item... Still, despite the same layout problems that plague the MM and PHB, this is a good solid buy. And it stands the test of time. I find myself reading it for pleasure sometimes. A really great book. Kudos to Monte Cook.

In the end, however, I have to dock it one point. And it has nothing to do with the book itself. It has to do with the fact that WotC never took this book seriously.

Consider the notes on the how and why of Prestige Classes. Yet we have an absolute glut of Prestige Classes that do not follow the simple guidelines for how and why they should be created. Even the Player's Handbook has a class that does fit this description, but is not treated as a Prestige Class! Yes, I mean the Paladin. WotC has produced book after book after book filled with many, many examples of Prestige Classes that all boil down to the bag-'o-ultimate powers concept rather than filling a role or simulating a specific organization. There are other examples of this book being seen as an un-needed component. So... I give it a 4.

5 for content, -1 for a complete lack of respect from the publisher.

 

[bramadan]

Altrough a very sattisfactory book DM's guide does not rise to the excellence that is Player's Handbook.

First section describes in great detail the basics of Dungeon Mastering and, had I followed it, would have saved me from many mistakes I have made over the years. this section is geared towards novices but in what it sets out to do, it does an excelent job.

Section on characters introduces NPC classes - a novel and very usefull addition to the DnD, as welkl as prestige classes which, at first, I thought a great idea but am getting slightly disenchanted with after two servings of class rulebooks. It discusses shortly the changes you can make to existing classes but fails to provide, even as the guideline, some sort of measuring stick for various class powers. Of the two great dissapointment of this chapter first is very short rules on Leadership - I was very excited when I read about this feat in PHB as I like idea of player characters in charge of military and other groups. what is given instead is just repackaged followers rules from 2ed. Second disapointment is nine pages of NPC statistics. I am sure that there are people who find this usefull but to me, custom creating an NPC, even in the spur of the moment is faster and more elegant then trying to fit one of this fellows to an encounter in a campaign.

"Runing the Game" is a needed section, yet one that can be very boring to read unless you have extraordinary interest in rules minutae. It desribes effects of anyything imaginable to game play. Sadly, in most cases gameplay in this chapter equals combat. The fact that 3ed uses smooth d20 mechanics makes the section predictable and altrough it is necessary read for the first time d20 DM it is not something you reference often despite the first appearances.

Adventures section is another geared towards the novices but is not nearly as helpfull as the introductory one. It focuses very heavily onto dungeons, which, while fun, are by no means alpha and omega of the DnD game in ths day and age and even within that frame it gives 17 pages to physical features of the dungeon "...the pungent stench of mildew..." and one and a half to dungeon ecologies and rationals. Traps, which are one aspect of the physical layout of the dungeon of great potential use to most DMs are given relatively little treatment compared with decriptions of the walls, flors and assorted furnishings which are in general so adventure campaign dependant that their inclusion into DM's guide in a first place is of questionable utility. Encounters and CR levels , both rather crude qauntification mechanisms are also parts of this chapter.

Campaigns section is pitifully short and again geared at total novices. it fails to discuss at any length the issues like game time passage and character developent and the inpact of the characters on their surrounding - devoting only oner and a hlaf page to the entire subject of transition from low level to high level play.

World buliding is somewhat useful but too short. With 11 pages total it has less space then physical furnishings of a dungeon. Altrough attempt is made to adress such important issues as demographics and economy (covered better in this eddition then ever before in DnD) horrible space limitations make it of little use to anyone, especialy novice world builders to whome it appears to be geared.

Next cemes the Rewards chapter and there are two possible attitudes one can have towards it. If one likes new 13 encounters per level XP system than je is to be sattisfied with this chapter that lays it out clearly and concisely. I happend to find this system a single greatest flaw of the new DnD game. Objections to it have been elaborated by many people elsewhere but the most important ones are that it lays the emphasis on combat as ther main veichle for accumulating experience and that it provides for linear progression through levels. something thought by many to ssriously hamper character dvelopment as well as limit the epic scale of the campaigns. (With entire gamut of DnD game, from a novice to the godlike hero 1-20 level covered in 260 encounters). lack of a serious alternative XP system is serious drawback of this chapter.

Chapter on magic items, description and creation is a saving grace of this book and is alone worth the cover price. The item creation mechanisms fill the long standing niche and inconsistency in DnD in a beautifuly elegant way. Descriptions of the items are better and their powes more interesting and more balanced then ever before. This is only section of DM's guide that i consult on regular basis and is truly an example of RPG sourcebook at its best - intersting to read and filled with elegant and useful information.

Art quality throughout the book is superb and altrough I have focused to major points - lots of them negative - there is a fair number of small items throughout the book that come rather usefull at times. All of this, together with its superb magic items section and its greater uttility for novices earns it 4/5

 

[Ron]

The Dungeon Master Guide is the second core book of the new Dungeons & Dragons game line. It follows the traditional Wizards of the Coast's high production standards, although I don't particularly like the 3rd edition graphic design (refer to my Player's Handbook review to a more detailed analysis). The cover shows some improvement from the first core book, although its still of average to good quality, as still retain a little bit of the toy look.

Unlike the Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Master guide provides some useful information to the novice Dungeon Master (DM). There are guidelines to apply classes to some monsters and customise the player?s classes. Prestige classes are introduced to help the DM to further customise his campaign. Although they are not a bad addition to the game, I fear that the main reason for its inclusion in the rules is to provide the publisher a device to provide numerous new supplements with new prestige classes. In fact, since the publishing of this book, Wizards of the Coast have introduced several new ones in Dragon magazine and D&D supplements. A nice addition is the new NPC classes, introduced to better describe non-adventurous NPCs. Finally, a long list example NPCs is provided, one for each level from each class, nothing that any DM could not prepare alone.

New rules are introduced to take care of special abilities available to some monsters, as well as the effects of the environment. As in the Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Master Guide partially assumes the use of miniatures, or at least a grid, to explain some of the effects. Guidelines are also available to determine difficulty classes to skills and handling some complicated magical effects, such as divinations.

An adventure tool kit is present, providing guidelines to create dungeons, including random ones. Wilderness adventures are not so fine detailed, although wilderness encounters lists are provided. Finally, rules for randomly generation of tows are introduced. I'm not sure of the value of all this. Random generators actually incentive a lazy DM not to prepare his adventures ahead. I would rather prefer guidelines about creating such adventures. The campaign and world building chapters are better in this regard. Curiously, Greyhawk's pantheon appears as an example, whereas most other examples are campaign independent.

The rewards chapter introduces guidelines to distributing experience points among the players. Following a D&D perhaps misguided tradition, there is a great incentive to killing. There are also tables to random generation of treasure. Also following another obnoxious tradition, there is a huge amount of money available as treasure (I guess that inflation is very high in D&D worlds? economies). With minor adjustments, the Dungeon Master Guide ends with the traditional tables for random generation of magic items treasures and their description.

The Dungeon Master Guide is a mixed bag of good and poor design choices. It greatly incentives random play, which I cannot recommend. Although I concede that randomness is a D&D tradition, this is one that I think that would be better dropped. Some of the contents, such as the standard NPC tables appears to be space fillers and the prestige classes appears to be more a commercial rather than a design necessity. I also missed guidelines to design monsters and new prestige classes. Still, there is some good advice to novice DMs and the rules regarding the monsters' special abilities are pretty good, although they are partially reprinted in the Monster Manual. Resuming, I'm not sure if the contends of this volume could not be bundled with the other volumes. Much of the new rules regarding monster are partially found in the Monster Manual, many of the tables could be dropped and the magical item list could be expanded in an accessory supplement. The remaining could be resumed in the Player's Handbook, as Wizards of the Coast have done in other d20 games, such as Star Wars and Wheel of Time.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

You can find this and all my other reviews at http://www.angelfire.com/realm2/darkcitadel/roleplay/rants.html

Introduction: This is where 3rd Edition began to loose its luster. After the brilliant triumph of The Player's Handbook in extoling the virtues of the D20 system, the Dungeon Master's Guide would greatly temper the excitement I would feel for the upcoming gaming revolution.

Cover: The blue leather appearance, with the intricate locking mechanism is symbolic that this is "off limits" to players, and contains secrets to the game that are for the eyes of the Dungeon Master only. Oooooo. Actually, I thought it was pretty cool when I first saw it, and it definitely made an impression. It was quite enticing, in fact, and after The Player's Handbook I was furiously eager to open it and tear through it like a wolverine on crack.

Writing Style: As with the Player's Handbook, this book was extremely well-written, and largely easy to understand. Although Spell Resistance took a moment or so to catch the drift of, there was no ambiguity. The book was written down to new Dungeon Masters (which is understandable), and not experienced Dungeon Masters who are converting over.
Actually, this surprised me, but, as mentioned before, I came to understand why they did this: because they are seeking more than just converts to 3rd Edition but looking to appeal to a wider range of people, to get more into gaming. They had whole chapters on how to run a campaign, world building, and other bits of advice, which is a far leap from the cold, mechanical formats of most previous Dungeon Master's Guides (especially the 1st edition one).

Artwork: The artwork was lackluster in comparison with the Player's Handbook. The book simply had an unfinished feel to it, almost as if they rushed to get it finished because of production demands. This sort of thing always irritates me, because I am always willing to wait a few extra months so that I can spend years using a top-notch product instead of one that is just below. Still, every here-and-there, you see great examples of artwork that will just blow your mind. Also, the sketchwork pictures are very good, as well. But most of the color illustrations leave something to be desired when compared with the Player's Handbook.

Mechanics: The first thing they introduce is prestige classes. A great idea! More than that, it is an incredible idea! It creates something for the characters to strive for, goals they can attain and work towards, and gifts that can be bestowed upon them by gods, kings, or organizations. However, they chose borderline crap for some of the featured classes. The assassin should have been a character class (hearkening back to 1st edition), alongside the (unbalanced) monk, the (equally unbalanced but unincluded) cavalier, and the barbarian. The arcane archer, dwarven defender, and shadowdancer were okay. The loremaster seemed honestly not really all that playable to me, though. The blackguard was an okay adversary, but the depiction of the blackguard in the book was pretty sad (hence, lackluster artwork), as well as way to cliche.

The Challenge Rating system is actually a great idea too. The fact that they leveled the playing field for all of the classes is great, especially if the monsters are leveled out as well. It makes calculating combat experience pretty efficient. But that is the problem with experience: it is all combat related. I miss the old system from 2nd Edition, the Optional Experience awards, because it made perfect sense. Although they advocate awarding arbitrary experience for accomplishments, it isn't quite the same. Thus, I have imported yet another mechanic from 2nd Edition into my 3rd Edition games.

My last gripe is that they killed too many magical items. Where are all the Elixirs of Health that were standard 2nd Edition AD&D fare? Just as the spells were cleaned out, so, it seems, were the magical items. Sadly, this seems to be the case with 3rd Edition D&D. They can add stuff, and they can cut stuff, but the worst thing they always do is cut off too much.

Overall: Honestly, if this was a book you could do without, I'd say do without it. Photocopy a few pages from a friend's copy of the book and use that. If you are an experienced Dungeon Master, you really need very little of what is in the 3rd Edition Dungeon Master's Guide. Many of us have been building our worlds since 2nd Edition got its start, we really don't need 3rd Edition advice. It is good if you are totally new to roleplaying, but if you have experience, borrow it from a friend, scan the prestige classes, the challenge rating systems, and only some of the magical items tables (because the 2nd Edition DMG is actually better for those).

 

[The Sigil]

The Dungeon Master's Guide is the second of the three Core Rulebooks for the D&D/d20 System, published by Wizards of the Coast.

Note: This review, along with the review on the PHB and MM is considerably shorter than usual and focused on my opinions and reactions because of the tremendous amount of reviews they have already received and the assumption that everyone is quite familiar with them by now.

Percent of OGC: 0%* (This deserves an asterisk because a great deal of the DMG was released as Open Game Content in the System Reference Document)

First Impressions: Just like the Player's Handbook, this book "wowed" me when I picked it up two years ago (a day early, thanks to Electronics Boutique). I sat in my car in the parking lot of the mall and flipped through page after page. The artwork is a step down from the PHB, but the writing was top-notch and there was plenty of stuff for even a grizzled DM (such as myself, in my 19th year of gaming). My favorite part in the whole book had to be page 130, the "example of play" in a dungeon - with a nod to the old 1st edition DMG. Awesome touch for the nostalgia factor, and did a great job of showing how the new rules actually handled some of the "DM Fiat" situations from the original.

Initial Annoyances: Again, the Artwork was a problem. The style (grim-n-gritty) was not my favorite and in general, I think it was a step down from the technical quality of art in the PHB. Still, it is full color and usually relevant. The only other complaint I had was that "why did I have to wait a month! Why couldn't this have been released concurrent with the PHB?!?"

The Good: The DMG does a surprisingly good job at explaining some of the "whys" in the game... especially with the rules. The "Behind the Curtain" features, which explain how to change rules and what implications those changes may have, should be required reading for anyone designing house rules. There should have been more of these. Also appreciated were the tables for "Instant NPCs" of any (single) class and/or level. The DMG also introduced us to Prestige Classes. While these have been beaten to death with a stick since, I think the concept is sound and well-executed in the DMG (with the possible exception of the Loremaster). The updated magic items - and the exponential costs for creation - sat well with me, too. Another plus was the section on Adventure Building, specifically the differentiating of "Site-Based" versus "Event-Based" adventures and the strengths and weaknesses of each type.

The Bad: No instant multiclass NPCs. Also, the XP system, with its CR vs. Average Party Level is a good idea that comes off as a little bit "ad hoc." I would have liked to see more encouragement given to DMs to "wing" XP awards since the CR system has taken away any hard-and-fast "ruler." Significantly missing from the DMG were "Behind the Curtain" sections on things like designing Feats, Prestige Classes, and Traps. Also, I would have liked to have seen a little more attention paid to elaborating on the "other" types of rewards than XP and money and magic (e.g., land, titles, societal honors, etc.).

The Ugly: The artwork (again) falls short. Other than that, it's hard to find anything really bad here.

Presentation: Very good. The table of contents is beyond comprehensive and the "tabs" in the pages help some too. Some of the sections seemed a little out of order (e.g., talking about rewards and then having the XP tables some 40 pages away) but for the most part, everything comes together nicely. In my mind it sets the benchmark for DM-focused (and crunchy-bits focused) supplements.

Conclusion: This is the second book that defines the d20 system, building on what is presented in the PHB. If you only buy two books ever for the d20 system, this should go along with the PHB, as you can create more stuff from this than nearly any other work, thanks to all the rules it covers.

--The Sigil
October 18, 2002

 

[MerricB]

The 3rd edition Dungeon Master's Guide is a hardcover book of attractive appearance; interior art is generally good and of excellent technical accomplishment. The font is attractive and readable, and in all it looks superb.

The Dungeon Master's Guide presents the reader with tips and advice on how to be a Dungeon Master (the referee/judge for a game of Dungeons and Dragons), material for the DM's eyes only such as the effects of magic items, as well as plenty of explanations of game rules, especially those related to combat.

The book fairly much focuses upon dungeon-crawling and running that style of adventure. Although there is some very useful advice for non-dungeon adventures, if you are not a fan of dungeons, then you may find a lot of this book to be not to your taste. However, in my view, Dungeons provide the most basic starting point and setting of most Dungeons & Dragons game, and the amount of space devoted to them in this book is fully justified.

The book gives plenty of advice for creating dungeons; it also gives many tips on running sessions, creating adventures (plots, running NPCs and suchlike), and customising your world. This last is especially important, for such guidelines are useful for the majority of DMs.

Without a doubt, it is a vastly superior product to the 2nd Edition DMG. It is hard to relate it to the 1st edition DMG, but I feel that they are similar products, both especially useful.

The one problem I have with this book is that the formatting and placement of the tables often leaves a lot to be desired. This is a minor quibble, however.

What the book does extremely well is describe Magic Items (and their creation), creating Dungeons, and special effects in Combat. Given that for many players, that's about 80% of D&D, this makes the book superb. For "roleplayers" and "storytellers", there are various tips, but this is not the best place to look - I feel that including much for that category of players (which I myself fall squarely into) would be a mistake, as they would detract from the rules focus of the book, and more importantly, are better learnt through experience anyway. Magazines like Dragon are great for this sort of advice if you need it.

All in all, a great product. Not quite as stunning as the Player's Handbook, but brilliant all the same. In all incarnations of D&D I've played - 1st edition, 2nd edition, Player's Option, Rules Cyclopedia - this is the best by far. With the revised edition on the horizon, my hopes are that it will fix the few problems that this edition has, whilst keeping the core of being a useful book for the Dungeon Master.