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<blockquote data-quote="Orius" data-source="post: 8258790" data-attributes="member: 8863">I mostly DM and the 4e DMG is the only one I've never read in any way.&nbsp; I've read everything in the 2e and 3.0 DMGs at some point, and I have enough familiarity with the 1e and 5e DMGs to find what I'm looking for most of the time.The 1e DMG has a lot of good material, but it's badly organized and some of the material is dated.&nbsp; Dated in the sense that it is an early work, and later DMGs have more experience to draw upon.&nbsp; It's not bad advice for the time, and in most cases, layer editions offer better advice because people found better ways of doing things.&nbsp; I've never bothered looking at the combat rules because I have no interest in using 1e's combat rules, and I don't usually bother with the magic items because that stuff was nearly all cut and pasted right into 2e anyway.2e has the weakest guide of all.&nbsp; It's more commentary on the rules in the PHB than actual advice or rules for the DM.&nbsp; There's a good number of places where the book tells a DM that he's got the freedom to run the game at his discretion, but then gives no real advice on how to do that.&nbsp; It's a really bad DMG for a new DM, and I entered the game at the same time that 2e was all that was really available.3e has a good balance of rules and advice for a DM.&nbsp; It's not as useful as the 1e guide, but it's still a solid DMG.&nbsp; At least that's the case for the 3.0 DMG, the 3.5 dropped some useful bits like the NPC tables to add material that was in other 3.0 books, and in my case I found it a useless addition when I had those books already.5e is another DMG with good balance between rules and advice.&nbsp; I think it does a decent job of teaching new DMs how to run the game while still being useful for more experienced DMs.&nbsp; There's material in there that's useful enough for a non-5e DM as well.&nbsp; I haven't really looked closely at the magic items though since once again, they're mostly the same magic items that appear in every edition of the game.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Orius, post: 8258790, member: 8863"] I mostly DM and the 4e DMG is the only one I've never read in any way. I've read everything in the 2e and 3.0 DMGs at some point, and I have enough familiarity with the 1e and 5e DMGs to find what I'm looking for most of the time. The 1e DMG has a lot of good material, but it's badly organized and some of the material is dated. Dated in the sense that it is an early work, and later DMGs have more experience to draw upon. It's not bad advice for the time, and in most cases, layer editions offer better advice because people found better ways of doing things. I've never bothered looking at the combat rules because I have no interest in using 1e's combat rules, and I don't usually bother with the magic items because that stuff was nearly all cut and pasted right into 2e anyway. 2e has the weakest guide of all. It's more commentary on the rules in the PHB than actual advice or rules for the DM. There's a good number of places where the book tells a DM that he's got the freedom to run the game at his discretion, but then gives no real advice on how to do that. It's a really bad DMG for a new DM, and I entered the game at the same time that 2e was all that was really available. 3e has a good balance of rules and advice for a DM. It's not as useful as the 1e guide, but it's still a solid DMG. At least that's the case for the 3.0 DMG, the 3.5 dropped some useful bits like the NPC tables to add material that was in other 3.0 books, and in my case I found it a useless addition when I had those books already. 5e is another DMG with good balance between rules and advice. I think it does a decent job of teaching new DMs how to run the game while still being useful for more experienced DMs. There's material in there that's useful enough for a non-5e DM as well. I haven't really looked closely at the magic items though since once again, they're mostly the same magic items that appear in every edition of the game. [/QUOTE]

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