Dungeon Master's Guide 2: Roleplaying Game Supplement (4th Edition D\u0026D) by Mike Mearls

Dungeon Master's Guide 2: Roleplaying Game Supplement (4th Edition D\u0026D) Reviews

• 
  Michael Burnam-Fink

  The Great Edition Wars have begun, and because of that, I've been going back and looking at some 4e classics. The first DMG was a really solid book, covering playing psychology and the elements of adventure design. In fact, I thought that it was praiseworthy because it was the first DMG that I'd seen where somebody who had never played an RPG before could pick it up, read it, follow the steps, and run a semi-competent adventure.
  
  DMG2 continues the trend, but focuses on designing more complex Paragon Tier adventures. The strongest parts of the book concern how the build an adventure out of encounters, how to make interesting combats and skill challenges, fixing one of the major problems in the original 4e rules (the example diplomacy skill challenge is brilliant). DMG2 has great advice on how to build organizations, how to reskin and modify game rules, and how to solicit player input to improve your game.
  
  The most interesting parts of the book where the parts devoted to explaining the 4e philosophy. More than anything else, 4e is actually inspired by television. Action occurs in encounters/scenes, 4 or 5 encounters make an adventure/episode, and about 10 adventures makes for a tier/season. The book advises that a scene that doesn't move the adventure forward in some way is essentially wasted, and also proposes using flashbacks, guest characters, dream sequences, and other TV tricks to spice up the adventure. Really, all those people say that 4e is like and MMO haven't read the books, let alone played the game. On the other hand, episodic TV is a very different narrative than the old Gygaxian dungeon crawl. Maybe that's why people don't like 4e.
  
  What I didn't like was the space devoted to traps (I hate traps. 4e had an interesting idea with making them a combination of monster and terrain that can be used by friend or foe), not significantly improving the 4e treasure system, which I still don't understand how to make fun, and finally the lengthy chapter devoted to Sigil. If you like Sigil, you probably already know all about it. If you don't care for Sigil, this section is useless. I'd rather have seen a blurb for the Manual of the Planes, and more ideas for alternate planar hubs or tools to build cities, in the same way that they gave tools to build NPCs, artifacts, and organizations.
• 
  Randy Lander

  Despite a host of good GM-ing advice from luminaries like James Wyatt and Robin Laws, and the usual high production values and solid editorial content from Wizards, I believe that the Dungeon Master's Guide continues to be the weak link in the D&D 4E line.
  
  It's not that this is a bad book. I'm certain I'll get some use out of the traps, and the notions for a collaborative, semi-improvisational campaign are quite interesting, and more the province of work in the indie RPG community, which thrives a bit more on weirder rules and player-GM interaction.
  
  It's just... none of it feels *necessary* to me. I'm not a huge fan of Sigil, and it doesn't fit in the campaign I'm running, so I won't be using it. None of the artifacts really fit there either. And while the divine boon and grandmaster abilities are neat ideas, there's too little meat on the skeletal bones, and if I wanted to use them in my Eberron campaign, I'd have to basically create new powers from scratch, which makes the actual articles here little more than brain kick-starters.
  
  And that's what I feel like I've got here. It's good for getting the DM thinking in different directions, from opening the game up to player input to how to deal with various player types to new obstacles and rewards. It's just that, as a DM for many, many years, and one who really only has the time to run one game, I don't need to be thinking of a hundred new directions or potential additions to the campaign.
  
  A solid book, as good for beginning DMs as the first DMG was, but when stacked up alongside the Player's Handbooks, Monster Manuals and "---" Power series, not really a must-buy.
• 
  C.D. Gallant-King

  One of my favourite D&D books by WotC. Full of useful tips, great advice and helpful ideas, instead of bloated rules crunch like most 4E books.