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Dungeon Master's Guide II
DMG II is a deeper mirror of the first Dungeon Master's Guide. Each chapter in the first book is reflected in the sequel, providing more explanation and a deeper look at the subject matter showcased in the original. In addition to mechanics, which was the primary focus of the first Guide, the DMG II examines the process of running a Dungeons and Dragons game by breaking it into discrete elements.
The first few chapters of the second Guide are entirely devoted to the experience of the game from the Dungeon Master's side of the screen. Like another good book on the subject, Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering , DMG II goes into the psychology of the rules arbiter by laying out what will likely be required from you in your role as DM. The Guide also goes inside the heads of players to offer up to the reader possible motivations for a player coming to the gaming table.
From the broad scope of running a game, the book focuses in on the campaign and adventure specific levels. An examination of campaigns covers a large amount of terrain, starting with game styles and character creation suggestions, and ending up in a discussion of the medieval-renaissance flavor of the default Dungeons and Dragons setting. Adventures as discrete entities get something of a short shrift in the book, with heavy discussion of iconic adventure settings taking up most of that chapter. If you've ever wanted to run a battle in the sky, this tome has what you need. The adventure chapter does have a few worthwhile tips on incorporating material from outside sources into your own campaigns, making a Dungeon Magazine subscription more tempting than it might otherwise be.
Beyond the basics, the mission of the second DMG seems to be to allow DMs with a limited amount of time maximum flexibility. Where the original title had pre-generated NPC statistics to utilize, the second book has chapters on making NPCs more interesting, ways to integrate your players more fully into the campaign world, and an entire mapped out and catalogued city for you to insert into your game. The character chapter includes a system for allowing players to run their own businesses. It abstracts out a good number of factors, keeping the focus of the game on fun and adventure while allowing players to put down roots and make some money. While more realistic campaigns may not find it worthwhile, the average dungeon-crawl will benefit from a small business run using these rules. Similarly impressive is the canned city, Saltmarsh. Saltmarsh is a good-sized town, with plots aplenty and several interesting adventure opportunities spread throughout the different districts. Like the campaign chapter, the city of Saltmarsh gives a window into the standard setting that a first time DM might not otherwise have available.
For a veteran Dungeon Master, there are a few gems that stand out as making this book worthwhile. The sections on Saltmarsh, the business system, and the various tips on tweaking your gameworld (including suggestions for creating prestige classes) would all be handy to have at your fingertips. Newer Dungeon Masters should not miss the opportunity to take a look at this book. The chapters on pacing, performance, and campaign preparation are very well written and will provide some much needed advice for someone just cutting their teeth. Players need not apply. The information a Player would get from this book is simply not worth the money to pick up, unless you're planning on getting into the DM gig.
Wizards of the Coast has created a worthy successor to the original Dungeon Master's Guide. Providing a deeper examination of the original tome's content and a reflection on the performance art that is DMing, to new DMs the DMG II is definitely worth the price-tag.
You can purchase Dungeon Master's Guide II from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
I know what I'll be reading next Friday night.
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
also so does every reply in this forum decrease one's chances of ever having sex?
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
I will likely stick with the original manuals and my creativity and leave it at that. Besides by burning hatred for WotC, I feel AD&D has been mismanaged to the hilt ever since Gygax left and I'd rather play old-school with plain blue dice from the D&D boxed set than electronic doo-dads, manuals taking all the creativity out of everything down to the smallest thing, and AD&D being made more like M:tG than the trippy blaze your own trail thing it used to be.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
The best RPG campaign I remember is one where the DM had no books, no maps, no rules. He had just a ten-sided die. It beat just about all campaigns where there are books and graph paper scattered all over the table.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
"Guide to Never Getting Laid. Ever."
When I ordered it, I got a free copy of 101 Ways To Keep Your Virginity
OK, I cheated. That last one was professional acting rather than something from a D&D game.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
The original Palladium Beyond the Supernatural game had a very good chapter on creating suspense and atmosphere in a game. For example don't say "You hear someone's guts being torn out in the room next door." Instead say "You hear tearing, then a squishy sound followed by a scream. It happened nearby." You can also freak your players out by asking them questions which cause them to think about potential scary consequences (even when there aren't any): "So, are you going to turn that doorknob with your right hand, or your left had?"
Ideas like these are applicable to almost any Role Playing Game, not just horror games. Creating tension and atmosphere makes role playing much more enjoyable. Personally, I find this kind of advice much more valuable than pregenerated NPC tables.
KTHXBYE
Let's listen in for a couple of minutes while the DM runs the game using Nethack for his source:
"Blue screen of death? I make a saving throw!"
"What do you mean, I am attacked by a Bonzi Buddy?" "Donno. It just appeared on the screen."
"This is interesting. Did you know that if you give this guy in Nigeria 13,000 gold pieces, he will pay you back 30,000,000 gold pieces and bump you up to a tenth-level character?"
"What do you mean, my sword's damage was not increased +20? I used C1ALiS on it!"
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
As a player I don't want to be told a story, nor do I want to play one out.
I want to *be* the story.
And rules can be a nice way to put structure that make it feel that way. It depends on your GM really, some can be objective that it feels like you're running around in a universe.
But some GM's have trouble evaluating the actions of their players in the absence of rules. While the GM should have some input in how decisions go, his personal biases, likes and dislikes of certain kind of actions shouldn't completely rule the day. When they do, the players become largely irrelevant and that's no fun for anyone but the GM.
I bought DMG2, and I'm a new DM so I suppose I'm reasonably qualified to comment.
I used to role-play, back 20 years go, during the days of 1st Ed. Then I fell out of it. Now, a friend and I play again, using 3.5e rules. He's massively more experienced than I am. He's great at presenting material to me smoothly, and as a player, I quite like 3.5e ("we" started with 3.0) However, when I try to spin the table around and run a campaign trying to challenge and engage him, an experienced player, it's really not an easy task. The original DMG helps in terms of providing quick & dirty sample NPCs and tables, but the DMG2 covers more important matters: when and how to use those things. It's not so much a rulebook as a style book. And having read the thing, I found myself repeatedly saying "hey, I do that" or "hey, I SHOULD do that". DMG2 provides content that is valuable to me, the newbie DM. And I, surprisingly, am the target market. Go figure.
As an aside, on the topic of a moneygrab, I think you're missing the point. Those people who own 3.0e manuals don't HAVE to purchase 3.5e materials. There's enough similarity that adventures and other supplemental materials make complete sense to someone using 3.0e core rules. To people who don't already have 3.0e manuals, given that 3.5e offers more content at the same price-point, how can this possibly be construed as a moneygrab?
My point: if you, an experienced RPG player feel the compulsion to buy manuals you don't like or feel give you value, you've got a sickness, just like the guy who has to pick up the copy of Dark Side of the Moon with "new" cover-art, just because it exists.
"Oh no... he found the
Has anyone besides myself noticed that at some point, the games became less about roleplaying and more about the rules? When did the rules lawyers become the new priesthood? People collect D&D3 books like they were stamps or baseball cards.
I can name a dozen RPGs that have rules so simple you can learn them in five minutes. The only thing they have in common is that they are usually superior in imagination and quality to the popular games, as well as unknown and ignored by the majority of roleplayers, as you can see simply by glancing at the games being run at conventions like GenCon. Page after page, and nothing but D20 and derivatives.
The rules aren't optional for the players. For this new breed of gamer, if it's written, it's the law. They've paid their thirty dollars for Tips and Tricks of Thievery Volume 7 Version 5 and by god, that book is the final word. How many games have you been in where one of the players tries to use these rules to push the GM around, and gets angry if they are denied?
Watching two rules lawyers at odds is like watching some perverse mental fencing match, and for fifteen minutes nothing gets done while the sacred rules of the game are read from dusty tomes in voices of hused awe and righteous fury. I used to laugh at it, but now it's just getting old.
D20 strikes me as one of the worst things to ever happen to the industry, and I mean that very sincerely. The unique, creative rules for each individual game used to be part of that game's atmosphere. Learning the new rules and seeing the new ways of doing things was part of the fun of playing a new game. It was not work. I can still remember how pleased I was when I first picked up Deadlands (a wild west RPG) and found the designers had worked in poker chips and playing cards as part of the system.
Now everything new just slaps D20 on because it's easy instead of getting creative, or because if they don't they'll be ignored by gamers who can't be bothered to learn a different paradigm for a change. D20 became the mindshare monopoly that GURPS always wanted to become.
If you like your D20, that's fine, but don't laugh when I tell you that you simply don't know what you're missing. There are games where the game is about what happens in the game, not about the rules defining the way the game works.
I can take one of these simple games, walk into a convention, pick up a half dozen gamers, and usually give them a session better than anything they've had in the last couple of years, all on a game they didn't even know how to play ten minutes ago. I am not that good at GMing, either. I much prefer to play. The reason they enjoy it is because it is unknown. They don't know the setting, they don't know all the rules or all the details, they can't predict every nuance of the game in their heads, and they know there's no arguing with the GM... things are just too simple. All that's left is story and roleplaying. That's where most of the fun is.
Sorry for the rant, but I was laughing at the idea of needing another revised expanded edition of the Dungeon Master's Guide. A stack of all of WoTC's D20 books over the last couple of years could probably build a bridge over the Mississippi river.
Hell is being intelligent in a world full of idiots.
The problem I have with d20 is not that it creates standardized rules. In theory a standardized set of core rules could lead to more creative individual game suppliments and worlds. But that's only if the game system itself is open-ended and flexible enough to allow for wide variety without necessitating endless reams of additional world-specific rules.
One of the worst things about D&D and the d20 system is its emphasis on classes. Sure, characters can multiclass, but that only adds to the confusion. I find it much more interesting when characters are not identifiable as being of a certain class. Classes are essentially templates, and even when you modify them by creating many options within the class, you're still creating an artificial and needlessly confusing system.
I heartily concur with you that story and roleplaying are at the heart of truly satisfying roleplaying. Rules facilitate great games, but too many rules bury the game in the overhead of excessive die rolls and rules consultations.
I'm part of group of friends who have known each other since high school, when we spent a lot of time gaming. We are now all approaching our 40s, and for many years we have only been able to get together infrequently at best for gaming sessions. But when we do get together, usually I GM a game. Recently we have experimented with games in which the players don't even have standard character sheets.
They know their relative strengths and weaknesses, and have a list of what things they're good at and to what relative degree. The game mechanics are invisible to the players. I let them know when they have to make a good roll, and what it is for, but other than that, the certainty of numbers is removed from the equation altogether.
When your character is hit and bleeding, feeling woozy and impaired in his ability to fight; but you as a player don't know how many hit points the character has left (or even how many he had when healthy), it puts the uncertainty back into the game and forces a player to think like a character.
This approach doesn't work all the time, and I don't recommend it as the be all, end all of pencil and paper gaming, but to me it's a reminder that roleplaying games are about letting your imagination take charge.
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dork = pointing out minute distinctions between 'geek' and 'nerd'
Jesus saves...everyone else takes 2d20 crushing damage
Jesus is not immune to piercing damage, however.