I voted best of them all.
I like the change in emphasis from wargaming to fun. I like the ideas about using skills and making sure if you players are finding something too hard, like a puzzle or a riddle, that you help them out. Again, if it detracts from the fun, try something else!
I like that it gives the DM an area to use if they have nothing else. Here is a starting world for a DM to use with lots of ideas behind it. (Coupled with the adventures, it really gives a good starting area that a new DM can use.)
I love how treasure works now! I like that you set up parcels and give them out after appropriate encounters. The point being that it makes no sense that an ankheg, or similar, had treasure, and the orc tribe has enough to make up for the previous lack of treasure.
I like how easy it is to make an encounter and that they have ideas behind the make up of an encounter. Having a range attacker, with a front line attacker and a leader makes sense. That (the game) further gives those roles the powers they need to do those things is also a great part of the game.
This had great advice for a long time DM and to me finally has the emphasis I like to see in a game. Whether or not it's used for 4E, 3E, 2E, 1E or OE, this was a good book of advice for any DM.
In these terms, pretty much it goes backward from 3E to OE in terms of how good the DMG was for me. I had no idea how to run a game after reading the 1E DMG. It took a module or trying to "convert" a book to do that. It has a lot of great ideas but it's a terrible DMG. The 2E isn't much better, being an updated version of the 1E. The 3E books had better tools, such as the NPCs and some okay adventure ideas but I still think the emphasis of fun is missing.
edg
