FireLance
Legend
I was going to post this over at the "Should magic items be in the PH" thread, but decided it wasn't really on-topic and decided to start a new thread instead.
The "traditional" 3-book model is one Player's Handbook, one Dungeon Master's Guide (which also contains traps, hazards and magic items) and one Monster Manual.
I wonder if a better approach might be to take out the information on traps, hazards, magic items, etc. and put it together with the information on monsters into a separate "Homebrewer's Guide" (there may be a better name). Into that book would also go the advice on encounter design, adventure design (including allocation of treasure and magic items), campaign design and world design.
What would be left in the DMG would be generic DM advice on running the game and engaging and interacting with the players, and maybe a sample dungeon which a beginning DM could use to practice his game-running skills. (So there would be a small number of monsters and treasure in the DMG - those in the sample dungeon.)
The real advantage to this approach (from my perspective) is that we slash the size of the DMG so that it doesn't look so intimidating for a beginning DM - it actually looks possible to sit down, read through and absorb the information inside within a reasonable period of time. A second advantage is that we separate the role of the DM as designer from the role of the DM as referee. A DM who plans on just running modules will have all the information he needs in the DMG. Should he decide to come up with his own adventures in the future, he just needs to pick up the third book.
For everyone else, it doesn't make a difference since you'll still get the same content, just distributed differently. In fact, it might even make adventure preparation easier since you only need one book to do it.
Thoughts?
The "traditional" 3-book model is one Player's Handbook, one Dungeon Master's Guide (which also contains traps, hazards and magic items) and one Monster Manual.
I wonder if a better approach might be to take out the information on traps, hazards, magic items, etc. and put it together with the information on monsters into a separate "Homebrewer's Guide" (there may be a better name). Into that book would also go the advice on encounter design, adventure design (including allocation of treasure and magic items), campaign design and world design.
What would be left in the DMG would be generic DM advice on running the game and engaging and interacting with the players, and maybe a sample dungeon which a beginning DM could use to practice his game-running skills. (So there would be a small number of monsters and treasure in the DMG - those in the sample dungeon.)
The real advantage to this approach (from my perspective) is that we slash the size of the DMG so that it doesn't look so intimidating for a beginning DM - it actually looks possible to sit down, read through and absorb the information inside within a reasonable period of time. A second advantage is that we separate the role of the DM as designer from the role of the DM as referee. A DM who plans on just running modules will have all the information he needs in the DMG. Should he decide to come up with his own adventures in the future, he just needs to pick up the third book.
For everyone else, it doesn't make a difference since you'll still get the same content, just distributed differently. In fact, it might even make adventure preparation easier since you only need one book to do it.
Thoughts?