Black Friday was a big day in the D&D world. The 5th edition Dungeon Masters Guide, last of the core rule books to be released, found its way to shelves of select gaming stores (10 days before big box retailers are allowed to sell it). Many stores had events to celebrate this release (I ran a very successful “How to DM” seminar at my own favorite local gaming store). And while it wasn’t technically a “new” product, the various games distributors managed to ship out more of the GaleForce 9 DM screens specific to the Tyranny of Dragons D&D adventure path. While the DMG is one of the best books that has been published for any edition of D&D, the GF9 screen is the karmic balance to that… one of the least useful products I have ever purchased.
But let’s start with the good. Holy crap is this DMG awesom e. Taking cues from seemingly every good part of every previous “how to run a game” book ever published, the 5e DMG makes you feel like a true master of the games you run (the section ti tles, Master of Worlds, Master of Adventures, and Master of Rules, help with that). Many others have done chapter-by-chapter and page-by-page reviews, so I’ll instead talk less about the specifics of what this book says, and more about what it does.
In short, this book does everything I was waiting for 5th edition to do. It gives me the tools to alter monster challenge rating. It gives me random treasure tables. It gives me magic items (about a third of the book, page-wise). It has artwork that is noticeably noticeable (like the Tarrasque casually walking through a city, picking up houses while adventurers try in vain to get it to notice them). It addresses the areas that previous books have missed (like the monsters-by-challenge-rating list for the Monster Manual). It talks about creating new races, subraces, spells, magic items, and other things that we’ve had to just guess at prior to this. It gives some guidelines about including magic items in treasures. It even gives me random maps and rules for building a keep. Heck, it’s even got guidelines for square and hex-based map usage, if you choose to use either and go for a more 3/4e, tactical style of play. And while some of the material wasn’t stuff I was specifically asking for (like renaissance weapons, or laserguns), this book successfully covers most everything you might want to ever put into a D&D game, and if it doesn’t hit your topic directly, it gives you enough guidelines that you can easily create it on your own while staying within the relative rules of the game (no Warforged, for instance, but plenty of guidelines on building new races). And there are enough numbers and tables to back up otherwise potentially vague ideas like increasing the number of magic items in a campaign or changing the way healing works in your world.
More importantly, though, the DMG captures the wonder that I felt opening my first D&D book back in high school. The pictures of magic items are interesting looking and evocative, making you wonder about the creator of such an item, or making you imagine your character wielding such an item in combat (the toad-tied-to-a-stick for the Wand of Polymorphing is a particular favorite). When I read through the various tables for random dungeon creation, my mind starts buzzing with more ideas that I could stick into dungeons. When I look at the different options for tweaking monsters, I ask myself what that would mean if, for example, a kobold suddenly had a frightening presence that terrified those near it. When I read about the Oathbreaker Paladin (one of several NPC classes that some DMs might allow PCs to take, in certain situations), I want to tell the story of a paladin who has fallen into darkness, and who maybe has a chance of earning his way back to redemption (Final Fantasy 4, anyone?).
While some may balk at the $49.99 price tag, this is one book that is absolutely worth every penny. It hits on every topic I wanted, several I didn’t know I wanted, and fills in so many gaps that up until now had made me hesitant to say that I fully enjoyed playing/running 5th edition D&D.
In contrast, the GaleForce 9 Tyranny of Dragons DM screen, which actually was released last September but just hit shelves in my region this weekend, is not at all a worthy investment. For $14.99, you get a 4-panel DM screen with a copy of the conditions from the PHB (poisoned, charmed, etc), a brief summary of some of the encounters in one adventure book (the hardcover Hoard of the Dragon Queen), and a bunch of pictures of NPCs from that same adventure. It’s almost nothing that I wanted in a DM screen, and a lot of the fluff that I really disliked about the early releases in 5th edition. This is especially sad, because I’ve really liked a lot of GF9’s D&D products, like the spell cards for 5th edition or the condition tokens & DM Box from 4th edition. This product just falls flat, and while it might seem like a great stocking stuffer for the D&D fanatic in your family, I’d avoid it like a troglodyte.
As we move into the holiday buying season, I have no doubt the DMG will sell incredibly well. It’s the sort of high-quality product that you wish all gaming books could be. It ranks right up there with the 4e Underdark book, or the 2nd ed Drow of the Underdark, or the AD&D Unearthed Arcana. If you’ve been on the fence about 5th edition D&D, buy the DMG. This is the book we’ve been waiting for. Oh, and if you need something to tape all your own charts to the back of, consider picking up a used copy of that GF9 DM Screen.