D&D 3E/3.5 The DMG: A CRITICAL HIT at 93.5%!

The 5th Edition Dungeon Master's Guide is still pulling in rave reviews, and is trending at 93.5%. io9 says its "like a Hacker's Manual for D&D", and Geekdad reports that "this 5e ruleset has completely won me back!" There are dissenters, of course - 5 Minute Workday feels its "a whole lot of appetizers but no real main course" - but these are outweighed by reviews from the likes of boingboing who called it "gorgeous, evocative, hefty, organized, and readable".

So, clearly the Dungeon Master's Guide has garnered critical praise. You can look at the list of critical reviews from outlets around the web. The critics have given it an aggregate score of 85%; but fans have shown more support and weigh in with a whopping 93.5%!

Fun with stats: D&D 5th Edition Dungeon Master's Guide is ranked #3 out of 24 products with 10 or more reviews, placing it in the 92% percentile. It is rated 15.1 points higher than the overall average product rating of 78.4%. With 43 reviews, this is the #3 most reviewed product.

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[MerricB]

Cool and thanks for digging that up, it's funny after reading through that it seems like all the specifics he cited as being in the DMG were actually in there...

My impression is that Mike wanted the DMG to be more of a "hacker's guide" than it ended up being, with the chief culprit being space. (They already took a hit for the MM; I don't think they could justify one for the DMG, especially for material that is really, really optional). After all, the DMG does need to actually help you play the game first, before it tells you how to alter it... The DMG gives some of the hacking stuff, but not as much as I think they'd like.

Cheers!

 

[lutecius]

Even if it wasn't announced to be in the DMG specifically, we were told 5e would be very modular and could reasonably expect to find said modularity in the last core book. But the actual optional rules in there are just underwhelming.
So, yeah, it may do a good job as a DMG for the default ruIeset but I can't help but feel disappointed.
With the book and, ultimately, with 5e because I was counting on some of these modules.

I'm sure more fleshed out options will be coming down the line (not just untested tweaks or guidelines thrown in some online article) but I don't know how they'll fit balance-wise if they weren't taken into account in the core rules.

 

[MechaPilot]

Cool and thanks for digging that up, it's funny after reading through that it seems like all the specifics he cited as being in the DMG were actually in there...

I haven't read the DMG cover to cover yet, just finished finals week, but I still haven't found the THAC0 sidebar. I also haven't seen the create your own skills thing, though that sounds relatively straightforward.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Feel a little bit like a monster, as my blog/webcomic was the review called out as a "dissenter". Oh well, the traffic is good and I stand by my review.

I appreciate your review. While I think I'll like the DMG in general (my copy hasn't arrived yet), it is nice to be forewarned about the absences and issues that are going to bug me, so I can be surprised by positive rather than negative aspects.

As far as the Domains of Dread issue, that's good to know ahead of time so I can houserule it. I'll probably make the Feywild and Shadowfell similar to the Ethereal Plane. Ravenloft is actually in the "Deep Shadowfell", but domains of dread often border (or appear to border) the material planes they originated from. The good thing about that take is that it doesn't actually change anything--it just provides an alternate metaphysical explanation for the behind the scenes and difficult to prove truths of the multiverse. I tend to, as the DM, have an interpretation that is true in my campaigns, but the various characters in the worlds may or may not know the truth, and might have varying theories. I generally say that just about anything the core rules say about magic, the planes, the deities, etc, is *believed* by some significant faction of people. They may or may not actually be right.

I think one thing in the background of the minds of those (like me) who aren't in the camp of thinking the DMG is absolutely awesomely amazing, is that we know about what we were expecting (based on design intent) and so we know how awesome *that* would have been if implemented.* For someone coming into it with less expectations, it would probably seem like a much bigger win. That having been said, I'm expecting to get most of the things I wanted most through the Unearthed Arcana articles over the course of the next several months. My annoyance is over how many of those months it is going to take to get exactly the materials I'm looking for and was hoping I would get this month.

So for me, the core rulebooks aren't actually complete. The DMG has been split into the hardbound volume and trickling out web articles. It won't be complete for me until all of the content they were actually working on or intending to put in it up to a few months ago actually sees the light of day.

I don't blame the designers, though. They had to make a lot hard choices about what to include, and had a lot more material they had worked on than would fit. Unlike in some editions and games, they actually intend to give us that material instead of letting it disappear into a desk of devouring somewhere. It's not really the Hacker's Guide it was originally intended to be. Frankly, I didn't think there would be enough space to do that and have the basic "how to be a DM" section, and they must have figured it out too and decided it needed to be a beginners guide rather than a guide for (already) expert DMs (as it was at one time envisioned).

I guess I actually can't review the DMG until the articles finish giving us the material, as my disappointment over what is missing can be assuaged given the right articles.

* Apologies for horrible sentence structure. I'm too lazy to rephrase it.

 

[mouselim]

I think you may miss the point of an old hand reading such a section.

The point of reading is to refocus yourself on things that you may already technically know, but may also have gotten out of the habit of applying. An old hand is at risk of falling into ruts, repeated behaviors and design choices that limit the creative space they work with regularly - the occasional re-education keeps your own design acumen on point. And, the designer's intent will be threaded throughout - it doesn't have to be "revolutionary" to tell me what they think the game is best at doing.

So, the chapter could be *full* of things I already know. That's fine. Refreshers are useful.

You're right, Umbran. I've said it in my detailed review that it is a good refresher and since it is well-structured in its presentation (at least for chapter 3), it does its job in being a tool/guideline.

However, over the years, I had already created something like what is found in chapter 3. Accumulated over the years of playing, reading and creating. I have sections on terrains, buildings, events, triggers, plots (twists, mystery, surprises), character references, game styles and even phrases and words to use! I glimpsed some useful information when I read Kobold's guide to World building but felt underwhelmed when I read chapter 3 of the DMG.

Hence, taking chapter 3 alone on its merits, being a "refresher" for old-hands, does it warrant an excellent or merely a good? I guess yours is the former but I'm reserving it for materials that are ground-breaking. Mainly, I believe chapter 3 could have been better.

 

[SilverfireSage]

I haven't read the DMG cover to cover yet, just finished finals week, but I still haven't found the THAC0 sidebar. I also haven't seen the create your own skills thing, though that sounds relatively straightforward.

Dear lord, people actually WANT THAC0???

 

[MechaPilot]

Dear lord, people actually WANT THAC0???

Some people might. I don't want it, but that's a different issue.

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

Dear lord, people actually WANT THAC0???

Yes. It's useful for punishing players who whine about doing math with the current AC system. One session of THAC0 and they never whine about modern AC again!

 

[aramis erak]

It's not a rating out of 1000, you get 5 choices. Statistically, 20% of all RPG books you read should get a 5. Logically, you're only going to read stuff you tend to enjoy, so that will go up, especially if one isn't a collector and only buys games with intent to play.

The rating for 5 is "Excellent." It goes down to Good, then Average, Poor and Awful. Those are the choices. 5 doesn't mean the best darn RPG book I've ever laid eyes upon, it just means it's a great book.

Finally, this is opinion-based, Arguing that someone else's opinion is flawed is...let's just go with, a waste of time.

No, statistically, in a 5 point scale, if it's a statistically standard distribution with σ=1, it should have about 60% of the responses be 3/5, 15% each 2/5 and 4/5, and 5% each 1/5 and 5/5. Almost nothing in the realm of people's opinions is a flat distribution; it's almost always an off-center standard distribution... and the rate of responses indicate a roughly standard distribution with mean 4.5 and mode 5...

 

[Argyle King]

I came away from the DMG with a feeling of shallowness. There's a lot of information, but somehow I'm not even sure I needed to buy the DMG. It's a good book, but the 90-something-percent rating is a bit baffling to me. It's a nice primer and intro to a lot of different topics, but it doesn't give me a lot of things I was hoping to get from the 5th Edition DMG. In the end, I feel like the DMG could have been a series of Dungeon articles. I'm not sure if that's a testament to the shallowness of the DMG or 5th Edition. In general, I like 5th edition, but I've purchased three books, and I'm already starting to feel burned out on the game.