Talk:Dungeon Master's Guide

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[edit] Tense

Most of this article is in the past tense. This is because I am only familiar with the first edition DMG (for AD&D). I assumed some, most or all of the information would be stale. If it is still current, please change the tense to reflect its current use. Thanks!

I know Stan has an image for this manual, so I won't ask for it again here. :-) —Frecklefoot 22:09, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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[edit] Article Title

When I first created this article, I named it Dungeon Master's Guide (with an apostropher 's'). After researching it a bit, I discovered the correct title is Dungeon Masters Guide (no apostrophe). However Gtrmp moved it (and Players Handbook) back to the apostrophized version with no comment. Since I beleive that version is incorrect, I have moved it back.

If you think it should be the apostrophized version, please discuss why. The included scan shows it as the version without the apostrophe. —Frecklefoot 16:26, Mar 15, 2004 (UTC)

See Talk:Players_Handbook for a discussion taking place on this topic. —Frecklefoot 16:57, Mar 15, 2004 (UTC)

I have a third edition DMG in reasonably good nick. I just found out it was a 3rd edition by clicking on the external link. Someone told me once that it was probably worth a bit as it was a hardback edition and later edtions (at least in the UK) were all softback. So I just checked on that site and it's worth a staggering $8-$12. My Legends and Lore manual that's 5 years older is worth more! Thanks guys. Mintguy (T)

[edit] Criticism

It might be worth noting that one of the main problems with the original DMG (and PH as well) was the incredibly bad organisation it had. It was virtually written in a stream of consciousness and had very poor indexing. Topics that related to each other were fifty pages apart. There were also many sections that appeared incomplete or confusing (remember the shocking “grappling, pummelling and overbearing” rules for unarmed combat?) The reason players wore out copies of the book was from all the flipping backwards and forwards to find stuff.

And the random generator had some merits, but the dozens and dozens of tables were almost perverse in their detail. Did one really need to resort to tables to decide “In the (roll) wooden (roll) crate you find (roll) two (roll) gems. One is a (roll) rose pink (roll) square cut (roll) sapphire and the other is a (roll) cyan (roll) heart shaped (roll) tourmaline.

I’d say a lot of these tables were so detailed and extravagant that they were rarely ever used “on the fly”.

Of course many of these rules and so on were later sorted out in Dragon Magazine, but really, you could never carry round all the Dragons and all the core Manuals. I think the state of the early DMG really typifies the amateur nature of the venture and also to a large extent the autocratic nature of Gygax and a belief in his own infallibility.--Affentitten 01:17, 24 February 2006 (UTC)