Dungeon Master's Guide II

Running a table-top roleplaying game is, to put it mildly, a challenge. A prospective Game Master (or Dungeon Master) has to utilize interpersonal communications, mathematics, creative writing, acting, and endless stores of patience in order to successfully draw a group of players into a gaming experience. With that in mind, most wise DMs use every tool they can lay their hands on to make the job easier. Wizards of the Coast's sequel to the Dungeon Master's Guide may just be the toolkit you've been looking for. Read on for my impressions of WotC's Dungeon Master's Guide II.

Dungeon Master's Guide II
author	Jesse Decker, David Noonan, Chris Thomasson, James Jacobs, Robin D. Laws
pages	288
publisher	Wizards of the Coast
rating	8
reviewer	Zonk
ISBN	0786936878
summary	A worthy successor to the D&D core book with advice for the starting DM.

Like all gaming communities, the table-top community is filled to the brim with nit-picking critics. WotC has gotten a lot of flack for churning out books that are filled with prestige classes, feats, and spells ... and not much else. While I think they're doing much better of late on that front, if you've found this to be your experience this book will convince you there is more than just numbers to the west coast wizards.

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.

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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.

Nethack

Running a tabletop role playing game easy enough. Just take your laptop, run "nethack", and it takes care of itself. That is, until you get a message like

"You fall into a pit! You land on a set of sharp iron spikes!--more--
The spikes were poisoned! The poison was deadly...--more--

Do you want your possessions identified?"

Laptop D&D

"Running a tabletop role playing game easy enough. Just take your laptop, run "nethack", and it takes care of itself..... "

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!"

Re:Nethack

Oh, come on, you have to love a game that takes so much attention to detail that there's code like this in it (god_zaps_you function). This function would be quite simple in most games - a god wants to zap you, it zaps you, you die. Not in nethack: [google.com]

* The god sends down a bolt of lightning at you. Normally, you can only evade the lightning by having reflection or shock resistance (caused by several possible means); otherwise you're dead. However, if you were engulfed by a monster trying to eat you, the lightning strikes the monster instead, and if it's not resistance, the game kills it and gives you the experience (since it really takes guts to get your god to kill a monster for you ;) )

* The god is undeterred if you survive. It zaps you with a wide-angle disintigration ray. Again, your god can kill something that is trying to eat you with the ray, or you can use an intrinsic disintigration resistance to survive (prompting your god, shocked by your basking in the black glow, to exclaim "I believe it not!"

* The God gives up trying to kill you themself. If you're near ascention, he gives one last ditch effort, and summons three powerful creatures to kill you (which, if you've survived all of this, you probably have plenty of tricks left to take care of them)

Gotta love a game in which you not only can outsmart a deity's instadeath attack, but can get experience for doing so. ;)

Re:Nethack

Gotta love the comments too:

364 | /* "I am sometimes shocked by... the nuns who never take a bath without
365 | * wearing a bathrobe all the time. When asked why, since no man can see them,
366 | * they reply 'Oh, but you forget the good God'. Apparently they conceive of
367 | * the Deity as a Peeping Tom, whose omnipotence enables Him to see through
368 | * bathroom walls, but who is foiled by bathrobes." --Bertrand Russell, 1943
369 | * Divine wrath, dungeon walls, and armor follow the same principle.
370 | */

Favorite bumper sticker:

Jesus saves...everyone else takes 2d20 crushing damage

But really, the best rules were the totally incoherent 2nd edition rules for AD&D. Yes, I loved that it was a pain in ass and led to so many arguments. That was part of the game! Now everything is too sterile.

But the 2nd edition rules also pushed me and my friends into different game systems. Anybody remember "Fantasy Hero"? or "Danger International"? Probably not. We were some of the few that actually played that system on a regular basis. It was fun.

But nothing topped "Call of Cthulhu". Going back to AD&D after that was painful...so we rarely did.

Re:Favorite bumper sticker:

Jesus saves...everyone else takes 2d20 crushing damage

Jesus is not immune to piercing damage, however.

Rejuvenated Social Life

I know what I'll be reading next Friday night.

Re:Rejuvenated Social Life

I know what I'll be reading next Friday night.

Masturbating to anime porn?

Wow, they've got guides for everything these days...

How's your social life?

You know...I find this hilarious. Everyone who barely has a life away from their computer is bashing the people who play Table Top RPG's for having no life.

Meanwhile, let's ignore the fact that a table top rpg requires you to socialize face to face with other people normally.

A significant portion of these "other people" are gamer, geek females. A subculture of geeks that 90% of you would cream yourself to just meet...and I hang out with 3 of them, all single, on a weekly basis. The last 10 girlfriends I've had over numerous years, including the most recent, my current wife, have all been gamers.

News flash, bashing rpg's for being too geeky went out of style in the late 1980's..when something more geeky came along, the PC.

Re:How's your social life?

Have you seen the new WotC ads? It has a some guy sitting infront of a comptuer lit only by light from the monitor and says "If you're going to sit around and pretend to be an elf all night long, you might as well do it with friends."

Re:Socializing normally?????

"knome"

Is that the unholy offspring of a codebase merger between KDE and Gnome?

ummmm

ahhh yes the pinnacle of geek discussions...debating the usefulness of a dungeon master book. I can hear weezer playing now....

also so does every reply in this forum decrease one's chances of ever having sex?

Re:ummmm

Actually it does. It's more of a limit to zero.

And there goes mine...

Re:ummmm

Hopefully it won't take back the sex already had...

That could be a bit messy and uncomfortable for all parties involved...

Re:ummmm

I think the book should include some of the less popular spells [rcn.com]. For example:

21: Badly Programmed Illusion
44: Charm Friends
84: Deny Reality
99: Differentiate Without Error
109: Drawmij's Instant Coffee (components: hot water and cup)
153: Get Life
178: Impress Plants
187: Irritate Self
205: Lightning Blot
220: Magic Missal
260: Nystul's Undetectible Aura
279: Power Word, Pun
292: Protection From Weevil
304: Remove Hand (yours)
326: Speak With Boring Monsters
348: Teleport With Lots Of Errors

I've seen a page with lots more... like "Summon Insect Swarm (range: 3"), but I can't find it offhand. I always thought it might be amusing to play a game with the voluntary restriction of only having access to the "unpopular" spells.

Here's a link to the full list

Full list [duke.edu]

Re:ummmm

It's not a case that the odds are good.

It's a case that the goods are odd.

Re:ummmm

also so does every reply in this forum decrease one's chances of ever having sex?

I could respond that not only am I a happily married uber-RPG geek (The "writes his own RPGs" type), or that not a single one of my players, past or present, remains a virgin, or that a suprising number of women play RPGs and, thus, make them actually a way to be MORE likely to get laid.

But, instead, I'll simply point out that Wizards of the Coast is famous for Magic and buying TSR, and INfamous for the swining orgies and wife-swapping that were rampant in the company in years gone by.

Re:ummmm

But, instead, I'll simply point out that Wizards of the Coast is famous for Magic and buying TSR, and INfamous for the swining orgies and wife-swapping that were rampant in the company in years gone by.

Squeal like a piggy, boy.

Re:ummmm

I could respond that not only am I a happily married uber-RPG geek (The "writes his own RPGs" type), or that not a single one of my players, past or present, remains a virgin, or that a suprising number of women play RPGs and, thus, make them actually a way to be MORE likely to get laid.

Look, I was drafted into a few DnD games recently. Yes, there were girls there. However, they were all grotesque and scary looking. So um, count me out.

Interpersonal communications???

If they were truly skilled at this would they be a dungeon master????

Re:I want the REAL POWER

That's not exactly what I expected from a site called "chick.com". :-)

Keep [wikipedia.org] reading [rotten.com] ...

Re:Interpersonal communications???

Interesting. Personally I just find RPGs as another reason to get together with people and *have something to do*. I never got into the go to a bar, or let's all get together and drink till we pass out. I mean, what do you do there? Stand around, try some small talk, hope there's some interesting conversation.

I mean I just find that unless there's some planned activity, all gatherings sputter out in about an hour - after you've either ran out of small talk with people you don't know well, or ran out of updtates for friends. Then what? Hope you're drunk by then? (A lot of this outlook may have to do with where I grew up and the fact I just graduated college - maybe in big cities outside the college lifestyle things are very different)

Aside from that there are a few reasons I prefer RPGs to say computer games. One is how limited computer games feel - it always seems to come down to one way (or if you are really lucky 2 ways) to solve that puzzle. That might be OK if it's the way to activate the gods scepter, but if it's how to get past a guard - in most situations - it's ludicrous. I mean, why can't I try climing to the roof and crawling by him? Why can't I hang off the cliffedge and see if he walks by me? etc...

Anyway - my main point is that there are lots of things you can do at a party - but one of them is play an RPG. You could also play poker, but to me it seems like after one or two games, it would get pretty repetitive.

Re:Interpersonal communications???

Or, maybe - like in the recent story about Doom 3 - after the 10,000 full house or two pair, the damn game is repetitive, and boring. For me, it's like twiddling my thumbs - marginally better than watching the paint dry, but not something I'd plan on for any amount of entertainment.

I really fail to see why it's "normal" to sit around a table playing poker, maybe losing or winning money - but somehow childish to sit around the same table playing an RPG...

As nice as this may be

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.

Re:As nice as this may be

Good point.

However, between the job and the family, anything that cuts down on my prep time is good. Particularly if I wind up running an iconic 3.5 campaign with the Eberron setting, which seems to be where player demand is going.

I also wouldn't mind suggestions on simplifying D&D further, as my 4-year old now has an interest in playing. Looks like I'll have to write most of "pre-D&D" myself, though. (Maybe basing this on Basic D&D would work better.)

I think I'll wait and see if this shows up as a birthday present before I decide whether or not to buy it. And yeah, I miss the old school too.

Optional literature?

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.

Re:Optional literature?

You had a ten-sided die? Luxury!

Why, when I was young we used to game sitting the swamp water up to our waists. If we needed to leave something to chance one of us would stand up, and we would count the leeches hanging off their legs. Less than 4 and you had made your saving throw.

Dice. Geez....

This should be titled...

"Guide to Never Getting Laid. Ever."

Re:This should be titled...

Golly, I've been roleplaying for nearly twenty five years, and I've got a wife and kids. Just imagine the fun you missed out on because you had some silly, inaccurate view of roleplayers. That's alright, you probably would have made a crappy roleplayer anyways.

Re:This should be titled...

How about the apparently overwhelming popularity of the "Guide to Posting Inane, Unfunny, and Downright Mean AC Comments"
(even if they are true)

not really, though. many nerds grow up to at least have sex with other nerds. some even get lucky and have sex with very attractive people
(and not have to pay for it... nice try, dude.)

D&D

I may likely get Trolled for this, but I wish people would realize how poor a system strict adherance to D&D rules produces. Philosophically, the purpose of these games is to be given freedom to pretend you are a person in a world that we could never really have (and likely wound not want) so why is it that D&D must tabularize everything? A game founded on imagination tries to eliminate almost every shred of it and instead replaces creativity with canned cities/NPCs/damage-amounts-for-falling-on-hard-sur faces etc. When I have played/DMed something somewhat D&D related, all I use are books cataloging spells and equipment. Damage amounts, loot etc. I create based upon judgement, or as a player allow the DM to control. People are so nitpicky and so concerned with getting something that is "+4" than actually having a fun and challanging experiance that they refuse to trust the DM, and instead make him into a sort of catch all LUT/Name generator. The game is about imagination, why stifile with with a million dice rolls and the demand that damage be down according to a table, not according to what the DM judges makes the game the most enjoyable.

Re:D&D

There is a whole spectrum between 'strict system games' and 'system-less' games (where all decisions about the game world are determined soley by the GM with no reference to any other source of structure.

The closer you get to systemless the more arbeitrary the game becomes. Some players perceive this as good, they trust the GM to not bias outcomes against them without good reason, but this can also lead to a sense of betrayal among the players if things go against them and they do not accept/understand the GMs reasoning (greater good, narrative reasons)

Some players prefer strict rules based systems, where the world may be inherently inconsistent in some ways, the issues are transparent and in the hands of the fates, GM biases do not direct the final outcome.

The reality of tabletop gaming is that most games sit somewhere between the two extremes, GMs choose when to force a roll - or not. They may decide to conceal rolls and change the result. They may do some sections of the game as a cinematic, and others as miniatures and probability math.

The trick is to find a gaming group where you are all happy with the degree of strict vs. arbeitrary

The First rule of RPGs

I believe it was the first DMG by EGG who wrote that all rules were optional. Too many rules and books get in the way of the true goal of RPGs: telling a good story.

Re:The First rule of RPGs

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.

harder than DM'ing

Much harder than DM'ing is trying to teach a new player how to play. Trying to get across that a new character isnt rolled each session (most love the character creation, but suck at roll playing) Does anyone have suggestions on reading material for a new D&D player that goes over the basics from a higher level?? I tried to get my wife to read parts of the Players guide, and she got a bit glossed over at all the statistical tables.

Re:harder than DM'ing

I just did a D&D day for my son's birthday party. I created 7 different characters complete with character sheets, minature, and a set of dice each. I described the advantages and disadvantages of each character and let the highest die role pick their character first.

After each adventure I gave them a new character sheet with their new leveled up character.

Sort of like the Basic Game box but with more characters and real adventures (rescue the kidnapped kid, raid an evil temple and cleanse it, fight a young dragon etc.)

This way worked *really* well, they were up and playing in 10 minutes and everybody had a real blast.

How come the bonus book wasn't reviewed?

When I ordered it, I got a free copy of 101 Ways To Keep Your Virginity

Re:How come the bonus book wasn't reviewed?

Uhmmm.... I am pretty sure there's only one way to keep your virginity.

O! The skill required to play D&D!

interpersonal communications

Players have to talk.

mathematics

I rolled a 2 and a 3. That makes 5.

creative writing

You enter a dark and smoky tavern. Everyone turns to look at you as you enter. Then a wizened old man in a dark cloak comes up to you and asks "Are you brave adventurers?".

acting

I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating, and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything's soft... and [touching her skin] smooth...

OK, I cheated. That last one was professional acting rather than something from a D&D game.

creating atmosphere

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.

pen and paper

As a veteran gamer and more often DM, I always chuckle when people quip at gamers about not having a life. The game is all about social interaction and without a group there is no game, only a dream.

One of the many drawbacks of D&D is that it trivializes day to day activities and only focuses on the "fun" stuff. Fun here is a relative term and left to the definition of the players and DM of any game. Because of this one of the most common complaints by players is a lack of realism. If this book can help me/them establish realism for players who want realism while maintaining the fantasy element for the escapists in all gamers then I'm all for it.

Many of WotC recent books have been virtually useless to me and many gamers I know, simply because the deluge of material is not anything I will be able to incorporate into my worlds soon. But at least it is there for those who want it.

D&D was the first MMORG (oops MMRG).

For the lame and lazy

Bah, this is for the lame and lazy who don't have enough imagination or creativity to actually play the bloody game. I mean, the whole point of this versus sitting down at a computer and playing nethack is supposed to be making the stuff up yourself, right? This is crap and a half. I can see players wanting to get some of the supplement books to trick out their characters using some official criteria, but this isn't a book about tricking out character stats, skills, etc, it's about tricking out a world. If you need that kind of help, you probably don't need to be running your own game or making your own campaign setting to begin with.

Skim it.

The book has some good ideas to toss around the table but for a seasoned DM it's a fairly unecessary purchase, but worthy of a skim or two.

Well, this review was of some use to someone!

I have to admit I'd been wondering about buying the product. Let's just say I own every preceding generation of the product and was wondering what they'd offer me now that might be worthy of prying some more gold from my purse.

It seems that this is a little less mechanistic and a bit more process oriented. That's a good thing, for many folks.

And I have to admit, I loved the original Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh (Module U1) as a starter adventure. My current 15-16 year old campaign ran the series U1 to U3 about 14 years ago as part of the starting game. It took many of the PCs through a couple of levels and the fight vs. the Shahuagin is well remembered. So to see Saltmarsh reprised as a town with some detail is quite a fun idea!

So, thanks for the review, even if the slashgeeks do take an opportunity to poke at the rpggeeks (where the two won't admit to crossing over). :)

This is talking about the original?

I'm sorry, but the original DM guide [acaeum.com] was from 1979.

awesome!

Now I can proudly hold my Dungeon Master's Guide II as I drive my Segway while wearing my Kopin CyberDisplay video eyewear.

Look out chicks, here I come!

WotC didn't start the churn

WotC has gotten a lot of flack for churning out books that are filled with prestige classes, feats, and spells ... and not much else.

To be fair, this started a long time ago, under TSR's watch. After 2nd Edition came out it was one "Complete ____ Handbook" after another, and IMHO they were full of stuff that used to make for good articles in The Dragon magazine. But Dragon turned into a Supplement-of-the-Month ad, and TSR churned out so much crap... ah well, we all know where that lead.

On the upside, I was able to sell my "Core Rules II" cds on eBay for a damnsight more than I paid for them originally. Who knew those would appreciate in value!

Too much fargin' work!

I DM'd late 1970's to early 1980's.

I quit because, it be came work and was not fun any more. I had to spend hours getting game together, adventures, random monster tables, etc.

I wanted a game where this could all be generated so I could actually "have fun", which is how it used to be when I first started to play.

Now, with the adult restraints on my time, I do occasionally play an MMORPG, I have fun and do not have to "work at it".

Just hope that the people that still play the "table" version have fun doing so!

If Zonk himself writes the article...

How is he going to explain the dupe? Schizophrenia?

RPGs have missed the point

Its always seem to me that all these new fangled computer games like Doom and Diablio took the wrong bit of D&D. The lifted all the rules, dice roling, Hit Points, Strength points, lots of wapons, magic and monsters, but missed the heart of D&D. What made D&D was the fact that you could spend three hours talking to a Dragon, or with a sutibally lenient dungon master you could add a bit of imagination, say take one clock of flying and two wands of fire and pretend to be the red barron. Computer gamres have so far to go if they are ever going to match D&D for the posibilities. GTA getting closer in the fredom aspect but still so limiting. Computer RPGs don't deserve the title Role Playing.

First Impression

My first impression of the Dungeon Masters Guide II is the sound of a Dungeon Master's sex life shriveling into a withered husk and crumbling into so many insignificant particles: SCHCCHHCHCHCHCHCHHRRRCKCKCKCKKCCRCK.

Good ole D'n'D Advanced

While i unfortunately feel as if i've 'outgrown' such games (at the age of 30)....

I'm glad to see that people are still playing them and that they're still alive. My friends and I put in a lot of hours to D'n'D and similar, creating and playing our worlds and characters. And this was back in the late 1980s/early 1990s when video games still rawked!

Oddly, i feel the same way about a lot of video games as i do about tabeltop games.... Strange predicament- I feel "too old" to get interested in them, but rationally I can't figure out why my age would matter at all.

-hopeless....

The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh

If you do go out and pick up the new DMG2 and decide to add Saltmarsh to your campaign, it would be worthwhile to go pick up the old module "The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh". It is actually the first of a three part series that leads to some pirate ship adventure and more. The first one actually begins with the exploration of a haunted house (or is it?) just outside of town and proceeds onto the high seas of adventure in the following two modules. Well worth seeking out and fairly easy to run, but you'll have to do some conversion for the new rules.

Paying to avoid thinking...

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.

Chaosium had it right

RuneQuest's 2nd and 3rd edition rules were brilliant in their simplicity. Mechanics were skill-based, combat had a realistic feel but proceeded rapidly, and the system was so flexible and easy to use that GMs could adapt on the fly. The system encouraged creativity and never had a dogmatic feel. The RQ rules were modified slightly for Call of Cthulhu, which ultimately became a far more popular and long-lived game.

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.

DMG II

I don't think it is worth it's cost. I've went through this book and opted out. At it's price point it certainly can't beat the effective utility of scores of existing netbooks with plot points, adventure hooks, and character concepts ready to roll with perhaps some tweaking for edition revision and suiting them to your own campaign. This book should be lower in priority than purchasing new monster manual books or even a campaign book that has much of the information the DMG II has but suited to a specific world. With the monster manual you can create endless possible organizations and societies and slowly introduce new elements by allowing monstrous races. It's ceiling is much higher than one offered by a DMG supplement. What I would find much more useful is better DM screens for groups of varied experience levels.

This is completely different from 3E -> 3.5E. My hesitation to convert was mostly monetary. Buying new books becomes very painful. For the money, an older book of plots and hooks are of greater value and utility. Besides, when you do digging like that, you have a greater chance of surprising a group of experienced players or bringing back feelings of nostalgia. A PC that reads the DMG II may not find the application of the things within the book as impactful as if one was to use old/net books that are distributed blisfully cheap-or-free. Besides... the internet is the best resource. WotC has a random tavern generator, there are a handful of random treasure/npc/town generators. I hope very much that this book doesn't do well. WotC is printing money every month. Accessory books for just about every class at $20+ price points seconds before pumping out new core books and rules is a slap in the face. This isn't a Pokemon card game that WotC is holding randsom, but it's fell into an enterprise structure that treats it like it is. New cards/rules/books = money for rehashing the same thing and enumerating possible ideas and elminating them from creativity. Thanks for CRAFTING a Ninja prestige class for a Medieval-fantasy game. I couldn't have possibly done it myself :|.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20010 223d [wizards.com] http://www.mathemagician.net/ [mathemagician.net] http://www.aarg.net/~minam/ [aarg.net] http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=dungeons+%26+ dragons+netbook&btnG=Google+Search [google.com]

Meta-system

I would probably buy it if it had some sort of meta-system for designing balanced core classes. One of my beefs with the D20 system is that it's too tied in with the established gaming worlds, and it's too hard to build your own campaign from the ground up if it's way different that the established worlds. Inclusion of the aforementioned meta-system would go far to alleviate that problem.

Wrong DMG!

Curses! I thought this was a followup to Dieselboy's brilliant 2004 mixtape entitled "The Dungeonmasters' Guide". Not that super-evil drum & bass fits with D&D that well...

Exciting new opportunities available now...

A prospective Game Master (or Dungeon Master) has to utilize interpersonal communications, mathematics, creative writing, acting, and endless stores of patience in order to successfully draw a group of players into a gaming experience.

That's why I'm going to Devry.

No picture?

I noticed right away no associated picture with the news story. Any reason why?

Ahh, Nostalgia

You know, some of my fondest game playing memories are from AD&D, esp. DM'ing adventures. I've played a lot of RPG video games since, everything from Wizardry to Bard's Tale and everything afterward, and not one of them comes even close to D&D.

Sure, some of the video games are great, and the networked games are a step in the right direction, but nothing beats a room full of people rolling dice, hamming it up, and generally having a great time.

At the end of the day, there's really no substitute for good ol' fashioned human interaction.

Strict vs Fun

It's hard to be both. Whenever I DM (which, granted, hasn't been for a long time), I use stats and such more as a guide, rather than strict rules, which makes the game a lot more fun for the people in the game (and for me.. no rules lawyering).

Basically, I have a base story in mind, a guideline, and I wing-it. I keep the game challenging, but not impossible. I keep it fun. Someone says "I want to bash down this door".. I look at his strength (16), and say.. "ok.. roll a D20", and just make up a DC relative to how strong the door probly is, and that 16 strength. I do the same thing with people trying To Hit, no exact numbers (and I never tell the guys the numbers), I modify things on the fly if the opponents are too hard and everyone's about to die.. I make up exp points and treasure based on how thrashed the party got.. it really makes for a fun time for everyone, and keeps the game moving.

Aren't games supposed to be fun?

D&D Nostaligia Can't Be Banked Upon

One day I dug up all my old AD&D stuff, including first editions of all the original books, and tons of modules including some obscure ones. I thought since I wasn't using them I could put them up on eBay, but after perusing the auctions, even 30+ year old, mint versions of this vintage material, it's hard to sell them even for their original face value. Pretty depressing in more ways than one.

Home-made RPGs

When I was 14 or so, I had a friend once with too much time on his hands... He made this RPG once that we all played, but I'd never seen anything like it before. It was actually quite fun too (pehraps more because of the people not the rules)...

Anyway, instead of traditional formulas/modifiers and dice rolls, he made tables. He had tables for almost any event you could think of in the game. Some for attacking, some for defending, for lock-picking, even for love-making (sad indeed).

On one side of the table was a die roll--usually d20, but sometimes d100. The top was some other factor (like your skill or attribute related to the action in question or another modified die roll, perhaps). And inside the table when cross-referenced was the result of that action.

This guy had pages and pages of tables he had drawn up on graph paper. It was mind-blowing! He had written down sometimes very detailed results in these tables, many of which essentially role-played for you. Like one of the attack results might have been, "The attack does x 10 damage. If killed, the target is decapitated, launching its head into the nearest wall or ground" or [for picking locks] "Your pick breaks and cuts your finger (Failure)". He had written up by hand hundreds and hundreds of these results within an indexed binder (before computers were affordable).

It was mind-numbing how much time he had apparently spent on it. I mean, I had made some basic RPGs in my day, but nothing like that...

Unless you're creating a world, don't bother.

Our roleplaying group gave this a once-over this past Saturday, unless you're creating a world from scratch, don't bother. If you *are* creating a world, it may be worth a looksie.

McDonalds

AD&D is the McDonalds of roleplaying games. Sorry, that's not fair to McDonalds. Let me rephrase that. AD&D is the Windows of roleplaying games. People play AD&D (or d20) for the same reason people eat Big Macs or browse with Internet Explorer: they either don't know there's something better, or they're too lazy to switch.

Yes, I know AD&D is popular. But so Windows and McDonalds. The only d20 games that are in any way worthwhile are those that managed to sneak in a decent campaign to go with the crappy rules. So it still baffles me after twenty five years why people still play AD&D. Why? I gave second edition another chance, but it wasn't much of an improvement. I have third edition yet another chance, but it still lacks a fundamental quality.

Anyway, about the Review...

All the discussion about D&D is interesting, but what did you think of the review, guys? I thought this was a well written and well thought out review. The comments on Saltmarsh and the business system in particular make me want to at least page through the book.

One thing I'd like to know is what does the "II" in "Dungeon Master's Guide II" actually mean? I own a full set of the First Edition books, a few of the 2nd Edition and the 3rd Ed DMG and PH. I've lost interest in re-buying this stuff, but I hear it's up to 3.5 or something now. So when the reviewer calls the new book "a worthy successor to the original Dungeon Master's Guide" I sort of wonder which one he considers "original."

Catching up with Rolemaster?

Could it be that the AD&D world has just cottoned on to a book that the Rolemaster game has had for years?
For a good read on interesting topics for a GM, GM Law [ironcrown.com] really does the trick. It's not geared solely to Rolemaster either, but covers a whole range of topics and ways of running a story (fast and loose rules of thumb that are of interest, rather than hard rules).

Great review

The review is great. I completely agree, the new DM handbook is a good piece of work and will definitely cut down the start-up time for the casual or time-limited GM.

Re:even too geeky for /.

Okay, roll for geekdom :P

Re:even too geeky for /.

Me: I rolled a 1...

DM: A critical failure, you fumbled.
DM: "You dropped your linux mug full of coffee on yourself."

Me: Can I roll for a saving throw.

DM: No, coffee stains are irresistable, your charisma is 4 until 6pm.

So where do I get the official slashdot d20?

Re:even too geeky for /.

Blasphemy I say! Slashdot hordes, destroy the heathen! Cleanse the path for all that is good. Roll 2d10 for attack.

Re:even too geeky for /.

You're no geek. Saying "too geeky for /." is clear proof that you had way too life a teen. You probably have sex on a regular basis, too.

re: saltmarsh

it absolutely does: it's part of the locale's background as written. of course, if you aren't playing in greyhawk, you can still utilize it as AFAICT, no plot hooks appear terribly dependent upon familiarity w/ that adventure.

ed

Your wife?

I guess the assumption that Dungeon Masters don't get laid is correct, then.

Re:Girlfriend?

Tell your mommy you're not allowed to use the computer anymore.

and while you're at it...

...we'd like Duran Duran back too. They should never have escaped.

- the 80's

Re:Worst. Moneygrab. Ever.

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.

Re:Worst. Moneygrab. Ever.

I haven't read DMG2, but with 3.5 - moneygrabbing scheme or not - they actually listened to players and made a bunch of revisions and clarifications that make the game more fun than 3.0. I have no problem with that.

Also, consider that you can get all the basic d20 system information for free online [d20srd.org], I think it's hard to accuse them of abusing their customers... That includes the player's handbook, the monster manual, and the DMG.

-If

Re:Girlfriend?

"I think my wife would have some words about that"

You've only been saying that ever since you plunked down the $20,000 to complete your robot..... your GIRL robot.

parent is a moronic referrer scheme bastard.

Thanks, Kaleidojewel! I wouldn't have any idea where to buy it if you hadn't put up your referring link! Who would have thought about buying it online at an online bookseller like Amazon. Good work! Too bad your referrer link isn't also "Anonymous Coward"!

Perhaps it is

the fool who deigns to comment on said fools. Or the fool who comments on the foolishness of the aforementioned fool. Or the fool who....STACK OVERFLOW

So what's the scenario?

I tuned in to this thread mostly for the inevitable +5 funnies, but I think it bears mentioning that Busta Rhymes name checks Dungeons and Dragons in A Tribe Called Quest's The Scenario. Not only was this one of the seminal songs of the era, but many would say that Busta's famous verse in that song is what catapulted his career to the level that it is now (his group, leaders of the new school was a floundering cutesey mess). While the verse is an exercise in non-sequiters and nonsense, his delivery and vocal style were innovative, fresh and imbued with an explosive energy, and he stole the stage right out from under the questers.

Watch, as I combine all the juice from the mind
Heel up, wheel up, bring it back, come rewind
Powerful impact BOOM! from the cannon
Not braggin, try to read my mind just imagine
Vo-cab-u-lary's necessary
When diggin into my library
Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!
Eating a toadstool like the one Peter Tosh-a
UH uh UH, all over the track, man
UH, pardon me, UH, as I come back
As I did it yo I had to beg your pardon
When I travel to the Sun I roll with the squadron
RRRRRROAW RRRRRRROAW like a dungeon dragon
Change your little drawers cause your pants are saggin

what were we talking about again? Oh yeah .. These dungeon masters NEVER get laid.

Re:even too geeky for /.

geek != nerd.

geek = obsessed with "in-character" socializing (chat/IM, DND, acting, funky clothing, Star Wars, etc)

nerd = obsessed with science, technology, numbers, Star Trek, etc.

Geeks tend to be conformist in their social circles and non-conformist with general society. (aka, the Artist). Nerds tend to be the opposite, conformist with society, and non-conformist in social circles (vi! no, idiot, its emacs!,etc)

You can be either, or neither, some funky combination of the two and I guess thats why people confuse the two. Perhaps I can tell easily because I'm a hard core nerd, completely uninterested in geeky things like DND. My brother is a hard core geek, uninterested in nerdy things like programming.

The best litmus test I can see is if you are into Star Trek, you are probably a nerd at heart and will be happier doing nerdy things. If you are more of a Star Wars fan, you are probably a geek at heart, and will be happier doing geeky things.

Re:even too geeky for /.

dork = pointing out minute distinctions between 'geek' and 'nerd'

Re:Finally?

Hey, I (female) met my boyfriend at a d&d campaign run by a mutual friend. Ya never know. ;-)

Re:Lame.

like most first posts.... lame or racist