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Summary: Good news D&D fans . . .
Review: Good news, The new DMG is back and better than ever. With tons of great magical items and a great new experience awarding system with a "Challenge Rating", a novice can learn the lay of the land very easily. It even looks better . . .The bottom line in 3rd Edition has made the DMG so much better, while not changing it too much for old fans.
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Summary: A very good book for a very good system
Review: The new Dungeons and Dragons system is a great to play, and they have simplified a lot from 2nd edition (THACO, Mulitclassing, etc.) This book is the least necessary of the three core books, but it is good to have because of the magic item list. I think that it would have been more convienent to release the Monster Manual before this one... oh well. This book will become much more helpful with the October release of Monster Manual. In the meantime, it is a great way to begin creating your campaign
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Summary: New Dungeons and Dragons for New Players
Review: This is a great refrence for the Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition Game. Its layout is easy to follow for new Dungeon Masters and should be an easy conversion for experienced Dungeon Masters.
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Summary: Worthy addition to any Game master's shelf
Review: Unlike previous editions of the Dungeon Master's Guide, the Third Edition DMG is not just a compilation of obscure rules and magic items. It has quality information on how to run and judge a D&D game. That's not to say that it doesn't have its share of obscure rules and magic items. It has rules for many situations that D&D adventurers find themselves in from drowning to politics, and the new rules for all the magic items you know and love. Beyond the rules and charts it's a tome about how to run a role-playing game, including advice on structuring adventures, creating campaigns, and designing worlds. Although much of the information is old hat to me as a long time GM, I still found new ideas and practical advice that I can start using right away. I think that more inexperienced GMs will find a wealth of information and ideas that will make GMing easier and more fun. I was especially pleased to see a series of sidebar-like entries called 'Behind the Curtain' which discuss how the design team came up with some of the rules, and why they decided to make the system the way they did. This is both a useful and entertaining look into the structure of the game. The writing style is very accessible, and avoids the overly dry flavor that plagues GM books for many games. Many of the rules include examples that I found to be both useful and entertaining. As with the Player's Handbook the production value is very high, and I found the DMG to be easier to read than the highly stylized font used in the PHB. The art is similar to the PHB in both style and high quality. What didn't I like about the DMG? The theme of Third Edition D&D is DUNGEONS, a fact for which the author makes no apologies and states loud and clear. I'm a fan of a classic dungeon hack now and again, but I would have appreciated more attention to non-dungeon and combat related activities. For example, all the rules for non-medieval games (including advanced tech are for weapons and combat. Overall my impression of the book is that although it seems a little slim, it has both style and substance to support the monolith that is D&D.
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Summary: An essential but flawed book
Review: If you plan on having a 3rd Edition campaign, then you are going to need this book, warts and all. There are some high points here: The exhaustive and clearly written section detailing monster special abilities and their effects on the game is worth the price of admission alone. Your PCs are going to fear incorporeal undead like never before! There is a lot of good advice in regards to creating house rules, and how they are going to affect the game balance, and a very thorough section on environmental hazards. If you wanted to know what happens to characters who are stupid or unlucky enough to blunder into a tornado, here it is. The advice for adjucating DCs is servicable but could have used more detail, perhaps on a skill-by-skill basis. Prestige classes are a cool concept, but it remains to be seen if the inevitable onslaught of new prestige classes will not provide "broken", overpowered or super min-maxed characters. On the downside, far too much time is spent on dungeon (as in the old-school room-by-room underground complex)creation, dressing, and exploration. Didn't the hobby move past this kind of thing about twenty years ago? Dungeon crawling can undeniably be fun, but this material belonged in a seperate, optional book. Worst of all are the random generation tables and random encounter tables. Advice for creating these rather than pages of explicit tables would have been better. And what's up with the ones that are provided? Dragons as 1st level monsters? Do yourself a favor and create your own tables. The rules for rewarding XP are wonky, too. Under the standard rules, you only get XP for defeating monsters, period. Story rewards are an optional variant rule, and have to be carefully guessed at lest you give far too much. This type of reward system was considered outdated by 2nd edition; why is it here in 3rd? Overall this feels like an attempt to recreate the masterful 1st edition DMG that falls short of the mark. If you just want to be a casual player, skip this and save twenty bucks; but if you have any interest in the full rules set or if you're running the game, cough up the dough because you really need this book.
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Summary: Clean, Efficient, Seamless, Intuitive; in short Well Done
Review: Finally, the day has come. A 15 year RPG vet, I cut my teeth on the D&D basic set at age 10, moved to ADD and the World of Greyhawk by 12, switched to 2nd Edition when the time came, and enjoyed many years of gaming enjoyment in ADD. However, by the time I was 14, I started to branch out into other systems and settings and came to the realization that, while the settings for ADD were great, the system that supported it showed its age. Years of innovation on other games had left the once sufficient system in thier dust. In short I switched to other games which allowed greater freedom of character development and more seamless integration with role-playing and adventure. Eventually, I undertook a request from my group to convert ADD to the more flexible HERO System (Champions, et al) so that we could once again walk the World of Oerth, but with a cleaner mechanic to play by. This I did ( http://www.nestofthorns.com )and fun was had by all. However, with the advent of the 3d Edition, the need for a better system by which to play in our favorite world has dissapeared. The system laid out in the Players Handbook and the well illustrated and cleanly structured guidance laid out in the new DMG changes all of that. The fact that Greyhawk has once again resumed its rightful and preeminent position as the D&D default setting is simply extra icing on the cake. With Prestige Classes, a top down and classified organization of Magic Items, organized definitions of abilities for all varieties of creatures, objects, and items, the Challenge Rating system, and general vision laid out in the DMG, the system has the backbone needed to provide a solid framework for not only Dungeon and Dragons campaigns, but with as-needed additions any type of campaign regardless of genre. In my experience you can judge the overall quality of a thing by the length of the run-on sentences used to describe its various qualities. In the case of the new DMG, the run-on accolades are long indeed and the run-on complaints non-existant. Monte Cook has earned a place on the list of BIG NAMES in the industry with this brilliant and well-envisioned contribution to our hobby. In summary, dont deprive yourself of this breath of fresh air thru hallowed halls. If youve ever played D&D or AD&D or enjoyed the sword and sorcery genre but bemoaned the limitations of the D&D rules system, buy this book (and the Players Handbook). I dont think you will regret it.
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Summary: Entering a new era.
Review: I can't believe it. Finally we have a DM Handbook that does more than follow the player's handbook chapter by chapter with little to no additional information. In the 3E DM's guide you will find all of the information that it takes whether your a novice at the DM helm or a seasoned veteran. They tell you about the responsibilities of a DM and give idea's and examples on: 1. How to keep the players interested. 2. What type of campaign to run for different groups of players. 3. The importance of game flow. 4. Fighting of the hack and slash blues. 5. The meaning of a villian. 6. How to create a society and world and the importance of the NPCs in the towns. This book is a must for anyone bravely treading forward into the next age of D&D. If you are looking to move into a new set of rules and bring back the wonder that you had when you first started playing D&D then BUY THIS BOOK!!! :)
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Summary: Framework focus is a nice change for D&D
Review: If there was one term you used to describe the new 3rd edition DMG, it would be "framework". The rules are presented nicely and there are a few tips on how to run a campaign (nothing as robust as the old 2nd Edition Campaign Sourcebook, but what do you expect in the DMG?). The brightest point, however, are the framework rules and guidelines. There are framework rules and guidelines for creating new races, altering existing ones, creating new classes, creating new "prestige" classes, creating magic items, even for creating towns and dungeons. Also included are NPC classes and "templates", so you can quickly populate the world you build. This is the kind of information you expect in a core rulebook but was not really delivered in previous versions of the DMG...the tools to build your own world with it's own idiosyncricies. The rules get a bit complicated at times, such as the matrix for figuring out the proper encounter level for a party of player characters, but all in all, a significant improvement over the 1st and 2nd edition rules.
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Summary: Mastering DND3ed
Review: The book is a great tool to know exactly what to do under specific situations. You have rules for any exceptional, supernatural and spell-like abilities, and also rules for natural hazards. (chapter 3) One thing from the previous edition is cruelly missing, though. Morale. As a DM, I like to have rules to know if my encounters will attack the players and when the monsters will flee and surrender. Well, bluff, intimidate and diplomacy skills may help, but it's players actions- sometimes monsters react by themselves... Another thing, There are no tables to compare class abilities, skills, feats, etc. values to be able to customize a class (chapter 2). The DM is the referee, true, but tables and examples do help a lot. Power mungers will weak DMs will maximize their characters more than will strict rules applications (tables). You have help the run the game, campaigning, use DND3ed in modern settings; It's useful stuff. Magical items are interesting, but anyone with the Character generator CD had the list last month (there more explanations, that is).
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Summary: Better than 2nd Edition
Review: This book is a revolution! It is a must-read book for all DMs. The 2nd Ed. DMG was nothing more than a list of magic itens. To be honest with you, the DM and players don't really need 2nd Ed. DMG to play, they can do it without the book if they have some list of magic itens like Encyclopedia Magica. The 3rd Edition is much better! You can verify it in the chapters list below. While in the 2nd Ed. DMG, the chapters' structure was the same of the PHB, beeing only a different way to help DMs on HOW-TO-DO, the 3rd Ed. DMG has different chapters helping the DM on building creative campaigns. The Dungeon Master Guide is finally a reference book helping DMs on build their worlds. The information isn't repeated on this book, like was on the 2nd Edition. Chapter 1: Dungeon Mastering Chapter 2: Characters Chapter 3: Running the Game Chapter 4: Adventuring Chapter 5: Campaigns Chapter 6: World Building Chapter 7: Rewards Chapter 8: Magic Item
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