Which Chapters of the DMG Do You Use?

[CanadienneBacon]

I'm curious to hear what edition DMG folks are using and which chapters of said version of the DMG you regularly use.

With regard to the 3.0 and 3.5 DMGs, I pretty much use only the XP table and the magic item chapter toward the end of both books. While I've read (okay, skimmed) through it, I've never ever used the chapter(s) on NPCS. Nor on adventures. I just recently used the random trap table in the 3.5 DMG--for the first time. With this in mind, I pretty much feel that the only sections I get any use out of at all are the XP table and magic item chapter.

How 'bout you?

 

[Angel Tarragon]

2 & 3.

I get heavy use out of Chapter 5, 6 & 7.

 

[CanadienneBacon]

2 & 3.

I get heavy use out of Chapter 5, 6 & 7.

Do you mean you're using the 2E and 3E DMG or that you regularly use Chapters 2 and 3 of the 3.5 DMG?

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Do you mean you're using the 2E and 3E DMG or that you regularly use Chapters 2 and 3 of the 3.5 DMG?

The latter.

 

[Starglim]

I had to look up what the chapters were, which possibly says something about either my familiarity with it or the organisation of the 3.5 DMG.

In brief, I'd use many parts of most of the chapters reasonably often (especially if you include their SRD equivalent), others occasionally, except for Chapter 1, which I think I've read twice: once in sequence and once when I had no idea what someone meant by styles of play.

I've kept and still use two sections from the 3.0 DMG: the NPCs and apprentice level rules.

I can't remember if I owned a 2e DMG and certainly have no reason to go back to it. I consult the 1e DMG slightly less often than 3.5e.

 

[CanadienneBacon]

I had to look up what the chapters were, which possibly says something about either my familiarity with it or the organisation of the 3.5 DMG.

I know what you mean; in fact, my own relative lack of familiarity is what stimulated me to put up this thread. For example, I'm pretty sure that the XP table in the 3.5 DMG falls on page 38. But even though I use it second only to the XP table, I couldn't for the life of you tell you what chapter number the magic item chapter at the back of the DMG falls under.

Kind of got me to thinking. And then I read the thread in the 4E forum about there being a city and setting in the 4E DMG...I suddenly found myself bemused when I realized I only ever one page and one chapter of the entire 3.5 DMG. The rest of it I could do entirely without and never miss. Not a knock on its content--more a reflection on the usability and what parts are more useful to what "kinds" of DM.

 

[blargney the second]

I use more and more of the DMG as time goes by. I think it's because I use increasingly elaborate environments and opponents as I become a more experienced DM.

 

[S'mon]

I use my 1e DMG a fair bit for all kinds of stuff, from the age tables, NPC followers for high level PCs, notes on The Adventure & The Campaign, Construction & Siege, Territory Development, random encounter tables, NPC party creation, sometimes the magic items, especially for artifacts and other stuff not in recent editions. It would be easier to list what I don't now use - the combat rules, basically, plus I rarely use the notes on herbs, dungeon dressing, or random NPC traits.

By contrast my 3e DMG never saw that much use even though I ran 3e Sept 2000 to end of 2006. My 3e & 3.5 PHBs saw heavy use, but DMG was just the CR/XP table and magic items, occasionally the settlement generation rules, but they always needed heavy tweaking as the demographics didn't fit my game well. I never even bought a 2e DMG as it didn't seem to have anything needfull, I ran 2e with 2e PHB and 1e DMG. Did the same with 3.5e - 3.5 PHB with 3e DMG.

 

[Creamsteak]

I use the exp table, the special materials table, and the table for NPC standard wealth... oh and the appendix that defines all of the terms obviously.

I would say I use the treasure generator or the magic items, but really I just use the SRD or a program that USES the SRD to generate information. I also use the chapter with lists of random monsters for different environs and the terrain, but they don't actually make it to the table often. It's very rare that I have the time to prepare a specific battle-site that uses the terrain rules, and then I have to spend 10 minutes explaining how that works to my players, etc. It's also very rare that I use random encounters because were pressed for time already.

However, none of this is to say that the DMG is a bad book. A lot of the content is nice, but I'm playing on a time budget (for both prep and play).

 

[Asmor]

My players use the DMG more than I do! I only use it for the XP table. I generate treasures ahead of time from the Magic Item Compendium; anything found in the DMG I'll take from the SRD instead. When I need to make NPCs (or PCs, for that matter), my first and usually only stop is the appendix of the PHB2, which is worth its weight in gold. Probably the single most used portion of any book in my entire D&D library.