Your Experiences with DMGs? Forked Thread: 4e Has Less Raw Content: Fact!

[Voadam]

Forked from: 4e Has Less Raw Content: Fact!

Despite fewer pages, I WILL make the heretical statement that 4e may have the best DMG created since 1979, if not the best DMG to date, in that it's the best one I've ever seen for giving a DM the advice and practical examples on what he needs to RUN THE GAME.

Page for page, the advice on types of players, how to keep the table interested, how to encourage players to get 'into' the game more, how to 'say yes' more often, how to do more with less prep time, create entertaining skill challenges, traps, and puzzles, how to build monsters and NPCs from scratch, how to make memorable NPCs, and even the return of the Random Dungeon Charts and Dungeon Dressing tables (Gygax hallelujah!!!!) make it a VERY good edition of the DMG, in my opinion the best one in a long time. If it had a wandering prostitute table too, I'd have called it the Holy Grail of DMGs.

I've read a number of comments lately similar to this one praising the 4e DMG.
I've seen a number slagging the 3e DMGs in comparison as well.

I was given the 4e DMG as a birthday present from my brother who thought I might like a glimpse into 4e and that it might have some applicable advice for the 3e games I run. I'm currently reading it straight through cover to cover.

I DM 3.5 and own a 3.0 DMG but have not read through it cover to cover. I use it constantly as a reference book for PC starting wealth, NPC loot, xp, traps, disease, and (by far the most common reference) the magic items. These reference issues are why it is a core book I use.

The 4e DMG is the only 4e book I own but I'm interested in the new system (just not enough to buy the new system myself at the current price point). I'm currently in the middle of the artifacts and looking forward to the DM toolbox section which is next for the monster and NPC creation rules.

I've been DMing since the early 80s. I started with the old red book basic set (not the later red box set) and that is where I learned to DM. I read that book fully. Later I got the follow up blue expert set and the three core books for AD&D 1e. I read the whole DMG (though not cover to cover straight) and it changed how I DMd. I DMd for years in 1e and was happy with how I was doing so.

When 2e rolled around I got the PH but kept using my 1e DMG and monster books. I borrowed a copy of the 2e DMG and copied the new demihuman limit charts and the new xp section. The magic items from 1e and basic were compatible so I was fine using my existing books until the end of 2e when I got the CD with all the core and complete books on it (and that was more for the completes and having electronic references to core stuff rather than wanting to read any new core DMG stuff).

With 3e I used the 3.0 DMG as a reference for the new mechanics (xp, wealth charts, magic items) but did not worry about world building advice and most everything else. I use the srd all the time for the mechanics in there and switched to 3.5 that way.

I got the 3e Ravenloft DMG but returned it fairly quickly as it was mostly DMing advice I did not feel I wanted.

I've gone back and fourth on whether I like the 4e DMG.

I like most of the art and the large easy to read print.

The 4e DMG focuses a lot on providing DM advice. It has a few chapters on the mechanics of games dealing with skill challenges and random task DCs(immediately erratad for target numbers) xp, traps, poisons, artefacts, and monster/NPC creation. The majority is on advice however.

There seems a concerted effort to have individual topics covered in a two page dungeon delve style spread which is convenient for isolated reading but sometimes constrains what is actually put in there. Often I felt it was simply telling people to do things instead of explaining how to do them. "Make the campaign story engaging for your players" type of summary advice instead of providing suggestions on how to do so. More aspirational in places than instructional.

Other times it has what I consider great gaming insights and game design advances. I love the concept of monster roles and the encounter templates for providing mixed monster role encounters to create different combat dynamics.

I'm really looking forward to reading in depth the monster/NPC creation and quick adjustment rules, they look like a huge DM prep improvement in game mechanics.

For all the open math aspect of 4e and particularly monster design I was surprised not to see formulae or guidelines for poison or trap or disease design, just samples to use or to model new ones from. I was also surprised in their first sample skill challenge to see the intimidate = failure adjudication which was not provided for in the skill challenge rules.

Some parts like the monster role concept have crystalized some ways of thinking about the game for me as a DM. Others were just eh for me. So there are parts I like and don't like in the 4e DMG.

So what are your experiences with and views of DMGs, 4e and past editions?

 

[kmdietri]

In my experience the 3.5 was more useful then the 4.0 one. I'm basing that on one simple fact. In all honesty, I'm not exagerating, I have not opened my 4E DMG since I finished reading it in May.

That could be because I've been running solely purchased modules so far, but at the end of 3.5 we were doing the same and seemed to be using the DMG far more often.

 

[justanobody]

Creative Campaigning was the best DMG I ever read, and it was just a DMG supplement.

 

[Hammerhead]

Probably because the 3.X DMGs had magic items in them?

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

I only use the 4E DMG for experience point tables, normal damage expressions and encounter building. Otherwise, I have no use for the majority of the material therein. All the little cool tables of the 1st and 2nd edition versions of the DMG aren't included.

 

[Ulrick]

Creative Campaigning was the best DMG I ever read, and it was just a DMG supplement.

That is a damn good book. It's companion, Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb guide is also a good book, even though a lot of the information is recycled from 1e Wilderness and Dungeoneer's survival guides.

Up until 4e, the best DMG was the 1e DMG, followed by the 3.5e DMG. Each was chalked full of crunchy bits. The 1e DMG, however, contained Gygaxian prose that inspired me to be a DM (despite the book's horrible prose by today's standards). The 2e DMG sucked. The 3.5e DMG read like an instruction manual.

The 4e DMG is by far the best, despite it having less content than its predecessors. It guides a DM through adventure and encounter creation. It has a pre-designed village in the back! And the language is very envocative and inspiring. Everytime I read the 4e DMG, I want to sit down and design an adventure. It is a damn good book.

 

[el-remmen]

I still look through my 1E DMG with some regularity, while the 2E and 3E DMGs are basically useless, even as doorstops. The 2E one is definitely the worst, and the 3.0 one I never found reason to look at very much (I run a magic item scarce campaign). I do not own the 3.5 one even though we ostensibly play 3.5 - I just use the SRD for stuff I might need.

As for the 4E one, I own it and have looked through it and thought it was pretty good. I have not given it a detailed read (being in grad school and having 2 jobs will do that to you), but based on Henry's recommendation, I plan to do so when I have time.

 

[Jack Colby]

The AD&D DMG by Gygax is one of the best RPG books ever written. It's got everything in it. You might say it doesn't address some of the very modern playstyles that have emerged since then, but obviously, there's a reason for that.

The 2nd Edition AD&D DMG was almost useless, but I do find some slight inspiration in it. I think it was badly written, in addition to not having much useful content.

The 3E DMG I find to be totally useless. Bland garbage.

The 4th Edition DMG is better than I expected it to be. I find some inspiration, and some useful content. It's not even in the same league as the original AD&D book, but it is ok, and a pretty good guide for running 4E. They got some things right that surprised me when I saw them, regarding the way the game is meant to be played. Good advice that some modern gamers may need to hear and have explained to them.

 

[justanobody]

Go ahead and shoot me for being different,but the 2E revised DMG was of great use in that it had all the tables in the back of the book so you really only needed to look on those pages for anything table related. I have yet to see or remember another that did this to make the DM job easier except for a DM screen.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Go ahead and shoot me for being different,but the 2E revised DMG was of great use in that it had all the tables in the back of the book so you really only needed to look on those pages for anything table related. I have yet to see or remember another that did this to make the DM job easier except for a DM screen.

*BANG*

You said shoot....

The 4E DMG is possibly my favourite DMG to read for pleasure with only Gygax's DMG topping it. It may not have the chaotic rambling tone of Gygax but the 4E DMG still rocks.