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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[mouselim]

Indeed. I've been wondering about weighting reviews by time, making more recent reviews weigh more.

But Morrus, if the review is merely a one sentence followed by a 5/5 score? Isn't that what I'm harping about?! I did ask for weighted average in my earlier post...

 

[Umbran]

Take another example: Chapter 1: A world of your own. Will anyone use this when creating a world? How many of you folks had already designed or custom-made your own world? Will anything in the 27 odd pages revolutionise the way that you go about your task?! Or like, "hey! That's new and amazing! Why I never thought of that?!" It structures it but that's all. Will this chapter give it a rating 5/5?

Are you reviewing it from the point of view of "How useful is this to me, personally?" or "How good is this product for the overall task for which is it designed?"

None of these books were written for *you*, as an individual. They were written for all gamers, including newbies. Stuff that has appeared in earlier editions means nothing to a new player. New players have not built their own world, or even their own adventure. Are you planning to give a poor review for the product serving an audience that isn't *YOU*?.

 

[mouselim]

Indeed so. I hadn't realised how much I missed the traditional approach to D&D magic items, even as a fan of 4E. I soaked in that chapter for hours.

I'm old-school too (which is why I totally don't dig D&D 4e) and I love the handling on magical items but I'm reviewing the book as it is - what it contains and how it is presented.

By the way, in D&D 3.5 DMG (I just checked), there are altogether 82 pages on magical items.

Or else, go check out Encyclopedia Magica 1-4. If any book about magical item on D&D system is to get a perfect, this set of books will be it.

 

[Imaro]

Anyway, I'm not saying that DMG is that bad but it is definitely not that good to be in the league with books like (PHB, Calidar, 13th Truer ways) or better than The Strange, Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition, 13th Age core book, Fate Core system(!?!), DCC, PF core.

Take another example: Chapter 1: A world of your own. Will anyone use this when creating a world? How many of you folks had already designed or custom-made your own world? Will anything in the 27 odd pages revolutionise the way that you go about your task?! Or like, "hey! That's new and amazing! Why I never thought of that?!" It structures it but that's all. Will this chapter give it a rating 5/5?

Chapter 2: Creating a Multiverse. This is very D&D specific and I do agree that its good but yet again, how much of these materials are rehashed from previous editions? Anyone who owns all the incarnation of D&D will know almost 80% of the materials therein. There are interesting aspects (e.g. optional rules for Mount Celestia for good alignment characters, etc) but that's it. Will this give the book a rating 5/5?

Chapter 3: Creating Adventures. How many of us here had already created home-made adventures, publish adventures or modify adventures? How much of the materials here are like "WoW!! Mind blowing?!" Will this give it a rating 5/5?

Chapter 4: Creating Nonplayer characters. I don't even want to talk about this chapter...it contain table entries like 10 - Draw beautifully, 11 - Paints beautifully, 12 - Sings beautifully...sigh.

Chapter 5: Adventure Environments. This is ok. Not groundbreaking but ok and to a certain extent quite good. Yet again, this is not totally specific to D&D 5e. Most of these can also be found in far more detail books produced by...WOTC themselves.

Chapter 6: A much better chapter. More relevant to D&D 5e and expands on what the PHB had not covered. Yet again, much more should have been covered here. Guess what? Only 7 pages.

Chapter 7: Argh! 99 pages of it! Except for the first few pages that covered some optional rules on treasures, the rest are list and tables and the description of it. Deck of Many Things? Found in previous edition. Dwarven Plate. Done before. Figurine of Wondrous Power. Done before. Potion of climbing, flying, healing...etc! Rings! Robes! Staves (striking, healing, power, magi)!
In my review, I gave it 3/5. It's not bad but not good enough. Most of the materials are rehashed from previous books.

Chapter 8 : Running the Game and Chapter 9: Dungeon Master's Workshop. These are pretty good chapters. I think I gave them both 4/5 each. Yet again, I felt more could have been covered. Several materials are skimmed. E.g. Want grittier gameplay? Short rests before 8 hours and long rests 1 week...uh...*palmface*

Overall, I used the monster creation and NPC creation and my findings are: monster creation is pretty good. I've yet to use the created monster in a gameplay and determine if the CR alignment is good. NPC creation? I gave up halfway. I have many other references and better methods.

As for the arrangement of content, we have a (small) section on siege equipments tugged between chase and diseases in chapter 8. Good detail on siege equipment but...where are the rules for playing siege? Wall, portcullis or tower strengths? Oh, they have a small section too on objects, tugged between Social Interaction and Combat. It coves object AC and hit points.

Anyway, to play D&D 5e, this is one of the triad of books to buy. I will rank them (in necessity and material) as PHB followed by MM followed by the DMG.

I've done my part. I didn't start the argument on dissent nor use that word. I'm not saying that DMG is bad but just not that good.

Wait... so your issue with the DMG is originality and innovation and you cite Call of Cthulhu 7th edition as an example of better in this area... that's kind of ironic isn't it? I think a better way of looking at it is how well the book fulfilled it's purpose as a DMG and the 3rd part of the D&D 5e core rules.

 

[delericho]

@ delericho: I'm not saying that its bad materials (I gave this chapter a 3/5) but most of it (I will gauge it at nearly 60-70%) are rehashed from other previous books.

Bear in mind that every edition is someone's first edition. So the core books need to provide a core set of magic items, the vast majority of which will be repeats. 99 pages might be a bit much, or maybe not - I guess that's a matter of taste.

(Of course, note that the PHB 'rehashes' all the classes and hundreds of spells; the MM 'rehashes' the vast majority of its monsters. For the same reason - a new edition needs new versions of these things.)

Of course most definitely, WOTC will produce a book containing all these magical items. When that happens and if you buy that book, these 99 pages are naught useless.

Actually, the 3.5e Magic Item Compendium specifically did not include the DMG items for exactly this reason - the DMG was assumed to be a book that every DM had access to.

(The 2nd Ed compendium did, but it was before the WotC buyout. Also, the 2nd Ed compendium was, at that time, comprehensive - it included every magic item published to that point, a claim the 3e version didn't make.)

I'm not reviewing the D&D 5e system nor gameplay or the overall ecology of the system but on the DMG itself. If its new materials, yes! If its new groundbreaking materials, YES! If its useful for the game, ok. If its useful for the game but borrowed from previous editions, I'll skim through it. Shadowrun had gone through five editions too. Tunnels and Trolls had went through 7.5 editions...etc. How many reviews had be given to them and skim through sections that are total rehash from previous editions? DMG did that. It's not bad stuff but it is definitely not worth a perfect score.

All of this is fair enough. I don't currently own the 5e DMG (getting it for Christmas), so can't make any comment on its actual quality. I just wanted to note that my past experience was that those pages of magic items do at least leave me confident I'll get some lasting use from the book.

 

[mouselim]

Are you reviewing it from the point of view of "How useful is this to me, personally?" or "How good is this product for the overall task for which is it designed?"

None of these books were written for *you*, as an individual. They were written for all gamers, including newbies. Stuff that has appeared in earlier editions means nothing to a new player. New players have not built their own world, or even their own adventure. Are you planning to give a poor review for the product serving an audience that isn't *YOU*?.

No. It's not just me. Since you directed it at me, let me return the question. Are you an experienced DM? Have you created worlds, campaigns, adventures? If so, will you use it?

Are you an inexperienced DM? If so, if you have a full book on world building and a chapter of this in the DMG, what will you use? The former or latter? Both? None? How much materials and help will you get from the one chapter in DMG or from the entire book on world building? By the way, I'm not going to name any of such books as there are many good books on world building in the market now.

So, if you're to rate that particular book on world building as 3/5 or 4/5, will you rate this one chapter (world building) as 5/5?

 

[SilverfireSage]

And WoTC claimed that much other materials (eg. Mass combat) had to be taken out after weighting the importance and they included 99 pages of content on magical items?! Read through this section and tell me if not more than 50% of the material can be found in 4e, 3e and 2e...this is merely a rehash. Not just this section but many others.

What were they supposed to do, point people to the old DMs guides and say "hey, here's a pamphlet for the changes, you can sort them out yourself"? Of course the majority of a dungeon masters guide is going to be rehash, there's only so much you can say about world building and encounter design that hasn't already been said a hundred different times already.

 

[Boarstorm]

This thread is actually making me want to go post positive reviews of things out of spite.

I won't of course, but the need to lash out with five stars is strong.

 

[Imaro]

No. It's not just me. Since you directed it at me, let me return the question. Are you an experienced DM? Have you created worlds, campaigns, adventures? If so, will you use it?

Are you an inexperienced DM? If so, if you have a full book on world building and a chapter of this in the DMG, what will you use? The former or latter? Both? None? How much materials and help will you get from the one chapter in DMG or from the entire book on world building? By the way, I'm not going to name any of such books as there are many good books on world building in the market now.

So, if you're to rate that particular book on world building as 3/5 or 4/5, will you rate this one chapter (world building) as 5/5?

But the DMG isn't billed as a worldbuilding guide... how would you rate one of those worldbuilding guides on magic items? or creating new classes or designing monsters? I'm having a hard time understanding your logic in rating these products?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I like the DMG and would have hoped it to be a lot bigger, to have everything inside. The Ideas I get from that book are great however. Even though I disagree on some parts, it is a good Book.
I would have liked rules to be a little bit different...
... a saving throw for lingering wounds
... cleaving worded as: "if you deal enough damage to reduce a creature from max to 0 hp..." so a injured crature does not suddenly become immune to being cleaced through (counter-intuitive)

But as you see: such minor are my gripes with that edition. I can easily adjust those rules a little bit, combine some optional rules to get the desired effect in my game. The DMG is written in a way that makes it clear, that you may take bits and pieces here, change a bit there. It is a real dungeon master´s GUIDE. It guides at least a somewhat experienced DM to make good rulings in his game.
Thus I would rate the DMG as a 90% or higher hit. (No critical hit though, as it has no expanded critical range in it.)

I am really looking forward to the new blogs, maybe the DUNGEON magazine, where some of the chapters in the DMG might be expanded with more options. Traps, diseases and so on could be early articles.