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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KirayaTiDrekan" data-source="post: 6566600" data-attributes="member: 6755061">Dungeon Masters Guide - Part 4Originally published August, 1979Version being read and reviewed: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Dungeons-Dragons-Dungeon-Masters/dp/0786962410/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1416628500&sr=8-12&keywords=Dungeon+Masters+Guide" target="_blank">Dungeon Masters Guide 1st Edition Premium Reprint</a> (July, 2012) This book is seriously kicking my butt.  Onward we go...There's been a lot written about creating a campaign world over the years.  Here, Gary advises taking the "start small" approach - a village and a dungeon and detailing the world from there as player characters get powerful to explore those simple starting points.  I have created homebrew worlds with the "start small" approach and the top-down approach and generally prefer a mix of both.  I like to have an idea of the broader aspects of the setting (an outline of its history, the cosmology, and an idea of the nations and empires existing in the world) and then focus in on a village and adventure location.  The sort of organic development Gary describes is something I've only experienced a couple of times, however, as most of my campaigns don't last long enough to hit higher levels.Gary seems to be a bit critical of hyper-realists (those DMs who insist on excruciating levels of realism and detail on things like weather patterns, climate, and ecology).  I wonder if such DMs were ever really common, however, as I've never heard of anyone being that painstaking.  Moving on to Typical Inhabitants (of a campaign, I'm assuming) we have a nice little chart to approximate combat ability and hit points of typical commoners...with females having lower ability than males.  We also have another personal note on the subject of the terms freemen and gentlemen - "Note that the masculine/human usage is generic; I do not like the terms freecreatures or gentlebeings!"  Another indication that Gygax was fully aware of gender issues of the time and consciously chose the less equal path.  I know, I know, 1979 was a different era.  Let's just say I'm happy the game managed to evolve out of this sort of thing with later editions.The accumulation of wealth by the player characters is always a point of debate.  How much is too much?  Too little?  What's available for them to spend their money on?  Gygax suggests using the logistics of getting treasure hoards home as a means of controlling wealth acquisition.  The dragon may have a huge hoard, but the PCs will only be able to carry a small portion of it.  By the time they get back to loot the rest, other monsters, bandits, etc will have plucked the place clean.  Its been my experience that a lot of players get rather bored dealing with things like encumbrance and such, however - they want to play Dungeons & Dragons, not Accounting & Logistics.On page 95 we have a sample dungeon map that's quite familiar.  It makes its first appearance here but also shows up in the 3E, 3.5, and 5E DMGs.  We have an example of play utilizing this map, similar to the one found in 3rd Edition (though, here, the lead character does most of the interacting with the DM, which, as I noted earlier in this thread, seems like a titanically boring way to play for the other players).  I intend to power through the rest of this book in the next installment as the magic items are coming up soon and, as with spells and monsters, I have no intention of reviewing every last one of them, only touching on the highlights.  That's all for now, though.  Until next time.Next up: Dungeon Master's Guide (1st Edition) (Part 5)</blockquote>

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