Who needs a DMG?

[Hoplite]

I always saw the DMG as the least useful book. Sure, it gives information on how to create a campaign as such, but'if you already have one of the edition I barely see the need for it. At least in 3.5 edition you had the experience points table, but that is also gone now.

Am I missing something? I checked each chapter of the 4th edition DMG and no where did I find something really important except for maybe advice on how fighting goes in special situation such as underwater or in the air or how to make NPCs.

What is your experience with this? Was this different in past editions and did you actually need the DMG in AD&D 2nd edtion to DM?

[UglyPanda]

In 3.5, it also had the core magic items, more combat rules, core prestige classes, and epic level progressions.

The thing is, nobody needs any book. If you can remember the rules off-hand or if you have another source for them, like the SRD or your buddies, you don't really need to buy anything. Some books are entirely unnecessary just because of the way you may be running the campaign. If you're running an urban campaign, you might not touch your Monster Manual. They're nice to have when you have a rule dispute or something though.

[Dentarthur]

I've made several badguys using the templates in the 4e DMG. There are poisons and diseases, there are skill challenges. There's the almighty Page 42. Some rules are explained in more detail than they are in the PHb. There's the treasure tables, the quick NPC-building guidelines, and artifacts. A lot of what's in the DMG can also be used as a reference when creating my own stuff - new artifacts, new diseases, world-building.

[Edited to specify that I haven't DM'd for anything but 4e, due to being a newbie.]

[Zocelot]

The DM's toolbox section of the 4e DMG is the single most useful section in all of 4e. There are other useful sections in it, but there is also a lot of needless filler.
3.5e DMG had magic items, and prestige classes, but it also had a lot of needless filler.

In my experience, 10% of DMGs is 90% of the reason to buy the book.

[Kurald Galain]

I always saw the DMG as the least useful book.

I tend to agree - at least, for experienced DMs. Most of the DMG contains advice for beginning DMs.

[Saph]

From my experience of running a 4e game, I'd rate the core books on a 1 to 10 usefulness scale like this:

PHB: 10 (all the rules, can't play without it)
MM: 7 (it's not great, but homebrewing monsters takes too long)
DMG: 2

Apart from a few bits of info on XP which you can pretty much memorise/copy in 5 minutes, there's nothing all that important there, and much of the crunch has since been errata-d (including the entire skill challenge chapter and every skill DC in the book). Even if I was given it for free, I don't think it's worth the extra weight of carrying to the session.

- Saph

[Matthew]

The first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide is absolutely indispensible. Much of what was contained in that text was migrated over to the Player's Handbook in later editions. In the case of second edition, much of the material was printed in both books, which has been roundly criticised for various reasons. The D20/3e and D20/4e DMG/PHB extended this divide by sharing the game rules between books.

The upcoming OSRIC document will be a single volume rulebook.

[TheCountAlucard]

The page I use most out of the DMG? Page 135. Everything else generally gets looked up on the SRD.

[bosssmiley]

I'll hop on the AD&D 1E DMG lovefest bandwagon.

You really can let that book flop open at any page and it'll spark inspiration for you. Heck, I was using mine earlier this evening, and I ain't played AD&D for over a decade.

The 3E one was (IMO) nearly as good, although the explanations of CR and XP in the 3.5 revision left much to be desired in the clarity department.

[erikun]

D&D is a bit odd, as it's the only system I can think of that has more than a single "core" rulebook, much less three. Everything else I've seen - d20 Modern, World of Darkness, Shadowrun, Star Wars RPG - has only a single core rulebook. Sure, most World of Darkness games will involve a second sourcebook (Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Changeling), but the Forgotten Realms material wasn't exactly included in D&D's core ruleset, either.

While you can probably manage without the 4e DMG, I really don't see why you would want to. While a lot of the book is devoted to helping the DM create better games, there are a couple of useful tools included - DCs for skill checks, traps, building monsters, templates, and level appropriate rewards. Sure you could reverse-engineer the numbers at each level to get basically the same information, but then again, you could also build most of the MM with just a half-dozen pages from the DMG. The point of including it all is to save time for the DM, giving them a convienent source for the numbers appropriate at each level.

Besides, do you really think that the only point of the DMG is for a list of magical items? There's the Adventure's Vault for that.

[Zocelot]

Besides, do you really think that the only point of the DMG is for a list of magical items? There's the Adventure's Vault for that.

The 3.5e DMG has magic items, while the 4e does not (The PHB does).

[erikun]

Hence the reason for the comment. I hear a lot that the 3.5e DMG is only useful for the Prestige Classes and Magical Items inside.

I think that the value of a DMG is to assist the GM, either through help with running a game, help modifying it, explaining the rules, or clarifying what should be an appropriate challange at various levels.

[Ravyn]

Iirc, the 3.5 DMG also had WBL guidelines, a coherent explanation of how point buy worked, a decent list of poisons and their Fort DCs, various random monster tables, a lot of sample NPCs, and suggestions for region- or tech-modifying a game.... and that's what I can think of without looking at the book itself. I found the poisons decently useful, and I refer to the silly thing every time someone mentions a point buy game.

It's all in how you look at it, isn't it?

[bosssmiley]

More useful stuff in the 3.5 DMG:

• Dressing ideas for dungeons
• Traps, poisons, diseases and hazards
• Environmental effects
• Population breakdown by class and level (b0rked, but a fun starting point)
• Urban encounter charts
• Cosmological information
• Leadership and cohorts
• Primitive and high tech equipment
• An introduction to the Epic landscape

It really is a proper DM's toolbox.

[Lappy9000]

More useful stuff in the 3.5 DMG:

• Dressing ideas for dungeons
• Traps, poisons, diseases and hazards
• Environmental effects
• Population breakdown by class and level (b0rked, but a fun starting point)
• Urban encounter charts
• Cosmological information
• Leadership and cohorts
• Primitive and high tech equipment
• An introduction to the Epic landscape

It really is a proper DM's toolbox.

In addition to all that, the big thing for me is the magic items, if only because I hate them so much (difficult to balance in, blah, blah).

[Lord Tataraus]

For experienced DMs you don't need the book.

Of course, I don't have a DMG nor ever looked at any of except the Magic Item section, like once even my first time DMing. In fact, the only books I did have the first time I DMed was the player's handbook and MM3 and that was the best campaign I ever ran. The Player's Handbook has all the rules you really need, except XP but I don't use XP anyway, it just gets in the way of playing and you run into the annoying "let's kill it for the xp" mindset.

[Yakk]

Page 42 (admittedly, it got errata'd)
Chapter 5 (noncombat encounters)
Chapter 10 (The DM's Toolbox)
Chapter 7 (Rewards)
Chapter 8 (Campaigns, esp pg 146)
Chapter 9 (pg 164 - 170 artifacts, pg 156, 159, 158, 160-163)
Chapter 4 (Building Encounters) -- this chapter, itself, is why 4e is an order of magnitude easier to run than 3e was.
Chapter 3 (Pg 43-50)
Page 26
Page 24

One of the things 4e attempted to do was to reduce the load on building interesting encounters for the DM. Much of the DMG contains mechanics and seeds that allow you to easily and quickly build content.

[Glyde]

Its good if you don't have access to the SRD. I had to use it last night to find what a certain item did. *shrug*

[DM Raven]

If you aren't planning to DM, you don't really need the DMG. If you are an experienced DM, you should at least read through the DMG. If you are an inexperienced DM, you should have the DMG with you at games.

This is my advice for anyone playing third or fourth editions.

For first and second you should own a DMG and a PHB.

The useful elements of the DMG have already been named so I won't repeat them.

[RebelRogue]

The page I use most out of the DMG? Page 135. Everything else generally gets looked up on the SRD.

Have I played this game too much if I immediately knew what's on that page?

Anyway, I agree that DMGs are mostly for beginning DMs, but even as a seasoned DM it's still inspirational to read through them once in a while. The great thing is, that in many cases one can get inspiration from them across editions. I found the 4th ed to be great in many ways, BTW.

[AslanCross]

I'm pretty sure everything that's in the 3.5 DMG is in the SRD, so I don't think it's really needed.

The 4E DMG seems much more useful due to its detailed steps for constructing encounters. Also, page 42. Of course, there isn't any usable SRD for 4E, so that may be why.

[monty]

I'm pretty sure everything that's in the 3.5 DMG is in the SRD, so I don't think it's really needed.

CR table, experience table, WBL table, red wizard. Probably some other stuff that I can't remember off the top of my head.