Which Edition of D&D (or OSR Ruleset) Has the Best GMing Advice?

[SpaceOtter]

So, out of all of the editions of D&D and all of the OSR rulesets and NuSR spinoffs, which do folks feel have the absolute best GMing advice? As a related point, which have the best GMing tools as well (I'm imagining Crawford's 'Without Number" RPGs will probably claim the tools crown)? For dungeon creation? For hexcrawls?

Tell me which rulesets have had you read 'em and go, "Wow, that advice was actually really good."
Which have had you look at the tools, think, "Yeah, that's really useful." and then find yourself actually using them.

 

[payn]

Well, Id say PF1 with its gamemastery and campaign guides, but if I have to stick with D&D specifically, then 3.5 DMG II has given me the most mileage out of GM advice.

 

[Malmuria]

Classic:
1991 "black box" basic set - step by step instructions for a new DM
2e's Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide - Jennell Jaquays's DM advice

OSR:
Principia Apocrypha - distilled advice from the OSR
The Black Hack 2e - excellent and creative set of tools for quick and dirty dungeon and hex creation
Mausritter - appropriately compact procedures and principles for both players and GMs.
Maze Rats - versatile and creative tables in a succinct form
+ various online tools and generators that people have made. This one is one of my favorites

 

[MoutonRustique(Real)]

DMG2 of 4e is very highly praised.

 

[delericho]

The single best piece of advice I saw was in the BECMI Red Box: "Be fair." The single best book was that "Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide" @Malmuria mentioned.

In terms of sheer volume of good advice, either 1st or 2nd Ed probably wins, by virtue of Dragon magazine. The problem being that there was also a huge amount of bad advice mixed in there, too. Later editions did a better job of weeding out that negative advice, mostly - but I typically find that most of what's left falls into the category of being fairly obvious.

 

[Reynard]

Do you mean core books only? Because 2E's Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide is the best GM advice book for D&D any edition, hands down.

 

[overgeeked]

For modern, official D&D the 4E DMGs are hands down the best. If you want scene/encounter-focused action-adventure you can’t got wrong.

I’ll have to come back later with the old-school, OSR, and NSR stuff. There’s a lot.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide was great. I still think the 1E DMG is great if you are selective about how you incorporate the advice. The Moldvay boxed set has very good advice as well. For OSR stuff I like the GM advice in Lamentations of the Flame Princess' old box set. Of course I haven't sat down and read through everything back to back here, I am going mostly by memory. I may be overlooking something (I don't remember for example the advice in the Mentzer box set, but I do recall it having an impact)

 

[Bedrockgames]

Classic:
1991 "black box" basic set - step by step instructions for a new DM

I haven't read this one but had a guy in my group who swore by it

 

[Jacob Lewis]

4th Edition was the most DM-friendly edition of D&D ever made. It was intuitive by design to make it easy for DMs to build and run with minimal prep. More importantly, the designers and creators spoke directly and candidly about the design choices and directions made behind the mechanics and lore. It was the most transparent and honest edition that treated the system exactly for what it was: a tabletop game where everyone could enjoy equally regardless of what character or role they played.