Wish Me Luck: I'm Reading the DM Guide Cover To Cover!

[francisca]

I read the 3.0 PHB and DMG cover to cover in 2001. It was difficult to force myself to complete it, the writing being so bland, in my opinion.

 

[Gentlegamer]

I read the 3.0 PHB and DMG cover to cover in 2001. It was difficult to force myself to complete it, the writing being so bland, in my opinion.

Ditto. They are like stereo instuctions.

 

[diaglo]

Ditto. They are like stereo instuctions.

in a language i don't speak nor read.

 

[ShrinkyLink]

I actually found reading the PMB more of a slog than this current trek through the DMG. Bloody hell, it can be dry, but Dear Monte does inject life into what could be the equivalent of reading about your dryer.

Oooh....wilderness campaigns! Maybe there will be squirrels! Who like Tennyson!

The Dreaded Tennyson Squirrels! Stat block! Stat!

 

[Mark]

I actually found reading the PMB more of a slog than this current trek through the DMG. Bloody hell, it can be dry, but Dear Monte does inject life into what could be the equivalent of reading about your dryer.

Oooh....wilderness campaigns! Maybe there will be squirrels! Who like Tennyson!

The Dreaded Tennyson Squirrels! Stat block! Stat!

"Trying to read the DMG straight through, cover to cover, has obviously driven him mad." - Mark Clover (CreativeMountaingames.com)

 

[Sargon the Kassadian]

I quit after 3 chapters in 3.0 and haven't read the 3.5 DMG - Julius Bonaparte

 

[Falkus]

I really ought to buy a copy of the 3.5 rules sometime. I've the 3.0 books, and when 3.5 came out, I just downloaded the SRD since I wasn't playing any games at the time, and then just relied on my friends' books when I got back into some games.

 

[ShrinkyLink]

"Trying to read the DMG straight through, cover to cover, has obviously driven him mad." - Mark Clover (CreativeMountaingames.com)

Well, it was a short drive. I think it was the Cartoon Character RPG whose title has been burned from my memory courtesy of medication and electroshock that actually did it.

 

[Celebrim]

Well, I guess I need to buy the 3.5 rules. I took that Herald level test, and so many of them were trick questions for things that were true in 3.0, but not in 3.5.

I like the term 'partial action', thank you very much.

Anyway, I read the 3.0 PH cover to cover with great delight. Halfway through, I bought it. The signifigance of this was that I was a convert to GURPS that had given up D&D as being simply to unworkable for serious gaming. But, when the DMG came out I flipped through it and decided that I didn't need it. For one thing, it was vaccuous. For another, I found 'prestige classes' revolting. Lastly, the rules in 3rd edition are alot clearer, better thought out, and better organized than they were in 1st edition, but for the shear charm of the writing, 3.0 doesn't hold a candle to the 1st edition books.

The 1st edition DMG is filled with (looking back) startling bad advice delivered in such a colorful and eclectic manner that you don't notice. Reading it now I wonder how the game hung together for so long. But on the other hand I remember reading the 1st edition DMG for the first time and finding it to be a trove of mysterious secrets and power. Bad advice notwithstanding, the true measure of the value of the 1st edition DMG is that I feel perfectly free to forgo the 3rd edition one with its 'useless' lists of treasures (as if my own imagination could not more than suffice by this point) and such, but I would never give up my 1st edition one.

 

[Grazzt]

Glad I'm not the only one.

You are not alone. No way I could sit and read a gaming book cover to cover like that. Ive tried...its not my cup of tea. (The closest Ive probably ever come would be the 1e DMG.)