Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide: Roleplaying Game Core Rules, 4th Edition

Pretty much exactly what you would expect, a guide on how to run a 4e table, I dont know why people expected anything else. It always seemed silly to me to have the item creation tables in the DMG anyways; it forced players to buy the DMG if they wanted to create their own items. I perfer it this way, you no longer strictly need the DMG at the game table.

If you like WoW, go play WoW. Don't waste 100$ and another 100$ on the all important miniatures and on these craptastic books just so you can play world of warcraft on paper!

Notice how there are already used books available here and on ebay! Tell you something?

This edition of Dungeons and Dragons has been "simplified" to where it's basically nothing more than a slightly expanded version of the D&D Miniatures game.

The new rules are focused ONLY on running boardgame-style combat with miniature figures. After running three of four test sessions my players became VERY bored and insisted on going back and playing "real D&D."

If you want to play this kind of tabletop miniatures combat, you'd be better of just getting the D&D miniatures game. Or the game "Heroscape."

But if you REALLY want to play 4E, I suggest that you wait a month or two. The books will cost a lot less when they're on clearance.

The new dm guide has its pros and cons. It gives advice to dms on how to run a game and gives a town completely fleshed out and a short adventure to get a new dm started. It also gives a section on traps and hazards. This section and the one on experience rewards are really the only two that an experienced dm would need to run the new rules. However, that being said the book does what its supposed to do. It gives the dm advice on how to be an effective dm who creates a world and a story for his player characters to be heroes in. What i like about it is the fact you no longer need the dms guide at the game table. The magic items are now in the players handbook as well as all the other player options. The dms guide is for a dm designing a campaign and nothing more. I like not having to have it at the table during gameplay. The less books at the table the better.

This is a great book for the beginning DM. I already own DMG1 and DMG2 (from 3.5 edition) and had already been doing skill challenges (where was this initially introduced?) just as described in this book.

Its a fine book, but it only has a few rules that I might need to reference. The encounter building and the treasure are the only parts I'll probably need to reference, but that was only like 10% of the book.

I miss the DMG being this huge tome of knowledge that I could just kick back and enjoy on a rainy day, (1st edition DMG comes to mind).