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[Dungeon Master For Dummies] [Author: Wyatt, James] [November, 2008]
Whether you’ve been a Dungeon Master (DM) before and want to fine-tune your skills or want to get ready and take the plunge, this is the book for you. It gives you the basics on running a great game, info for more advanced dungeon mastering, guidelines for creating adventures, and tips for building a campaign. It shows you how to: Handle all the expressions of DMing: moderator, narrator, a cast of thousands (the nonplayer characters or NPCs), player, social director, and creator Use published adventures and existing campaign worlds or create adventures and campaign worlds of your own Conjure up exciting combat encounters Handle the three types of encounters: challenge, roleplaying, and combat Create your own adventure: The Dungeon Adventure, The Wilderness Adventure. The Event-Based adventure (including how to use flowcharts and timelines), The Randomly Generated Adventure, and the High-Level adventure Create memorable master villains, with nine archetypes ranging from agent provocateur to zealot
To get you off to a fast start, Dungeon Master For Dummies includes:
A sample dungeon for practice Ten ready-to-use encounters and ten challenging traps A list of simple adventure premises Mapping tips, including common scales, symbols, and conventions, complete with tablesAuthors Bill Slavicsek and Richard Baker wrote the hugely popular Dungeons and Dragons For Dummies. Bill has been a game designer since 1986 and leads the D&D creative team at Wizards of the Coast. Richard is a game developer and the author of the fantasy bestseller Condemnation. They give you the scoop on:
Using a DM binder to keep records such as an adventure log, PCs’ character sheets, NPC logs/character sheets, treasure logs, and more Knowing player styles (role players and power games) and common subgroups: hack’n’slasher, wargamer, thinker, impulsive adventurer, explorer, character actor, and watcher Recognizing your style: action movie director, storyteller, worldbuilder, puzzlemaker, or connector Using miniatures, maps, and other game aids Using 21st century technology, such as a Web site or blog, to enhance your gameThe book includes a sample adventure, The Necromancer’s Apprentice, that’s the perfect way to foray into DMing. It includes everything you need for a great adventure—except your players. What are you waiting for? There are chambers to be explored, dragons to be slain, maidens to be rescued, gangs of gnoll warriors to be annihilated, worgs to be wiped out, treasures to be discovered, worlds to be conquered….
Paperback
First published April 1, 2006
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About the author
James Wyatt
101 books146 followersJames Wyatt is an award-winning game designer at Wizards of the Coast, and now holds the position of Design Manager for Dungeons & Dragons. He was one of the lead designers for D&D 4th Edition and one of the original designers of the Eberron Campaign Setting, and has written and co-authored dozens of game supplements. He grew up in Ithaca, New York, and now lives in Washington State with his wife and son.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
February 29, 2020
The biggest issue with this book is that it focuses attention on the 4th edition, which is likely the least accomplished edition of D&D to come out in some time. Admittedly, when I picked this book off the shelf at my local library I was in a very big hurry and had about five minutes before closing time so I was not being particularly choosy but rather looking for something that I could read quickly and that I figured I would at least modestly enjoy, being fond of the Dummies series in general [1]. So it is that I can say that much of this book is still worthwhile for the superior 5th edition (as well as the superior earlier 3.5 edition as well) when it comes to being a good Dungeon Master and that only a few elements of this book are specifically focused on the 4th edition itself. This is for the best because while being a good dungeon master is certainly a skill that can carry one far beyond specific games or specific editions, and that is something that this book captures well.
This book is a fairly sizable one at more than 350 pages in length and 26 chapters in five parts. The book begins with a foreword and introduction that seek to establish the credentials of the authors in writing about their chosen subject. After that the book discusses how to run a great game (I) by discussing the role of a dungeon master (1), preparing for playing (2), running the game (3), narrating the adventure (4), dealing with players (5) in a fair-minded fashion, teaching the game (6) to those who are not as adept at it, and providing an introductory adventure in Kobold Hall (7). After that the authors provide some insight on advanced dungeon mastering (II) by talking about how to run an on-going game (8), choosing one's game style (9), creating excitement at the game table (10), growing your game (11), and using every available resource (12) to make the experience more enjoyable for everyone. The authors discuss how one can create adventures (III) by using some tools of the trade (13), and making adventures using dungeons (14), wilderness (15), event-based methods (16), randomly generated (17) elements, as well as paragon and epic adventures for more advanced characters (18), including another sample dungeon with the necromancer's apprentice (19). After this the authors provide some tips on building a campaign (IV) through building a continuous story (20), creating memorable villains (21), and bringing the world to life (22). Finally, the book ends with the part of tens (V) that includes ten heroic (23) and paragon (24) encounters as well as ten things to avoid when dungeonmastering (25) and ten things to always do when dungeonmastering (26), followed by an index.
As is frequently the case in this series, those who read the book are generally by definition not dummies despite the title of the series. After all, desiring to be better at something, even something as arcane as running campaigns of a tabletop role playing game, is something by definition makes someone not a dummy. The fact that one seeks information and insight in getting better puts one more than a step ahead of the vast majority of people, many of whom never bother to read any book for enjoyment or instruction at all, even when it comes to something as silly as games. It is very likely that those who read this book are well aware of that fact, which is why there are so many books that are so popular in this series, because those people who seek after knowledge are demonstrating by that search that they are anything but dumb. And though some people might wonder what ways a book like this can prove itself to be worthwhile outside of a subculture of gamers, there are truly some skills here about being fair-minded and consistent and understanding the motivations of others that are useful in many worthwhile endeavors.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2020...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2020...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2019...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2019...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
This book is a fairly sizable one at more than 350 pages in length and 26 chapters in five parts. The book begins with a foreword and introduction that seek to establish the credentials of the authors in writing about their chosen subject. After that the book discusses how to run a great game (I) by discussing the role of a dungeon master (1), preparing for playing (2), running the game (3), narrating the adventure (4), dealing with players (5) in a fair-minded fashion, teaching the game (6) to those who are not as adept at it, and providing an introductory adventure in Kobold Hall (7). After that the authors provide some insight on advanced dungeon mastering (II) by talking about how to run an on-going game (8), choosing one's game style (9), creating excitement at the game table (10), growing your game (11), and using every available resource (12) to make the experience more enjoyable for everyone. The authors discuss how one can create adventures (III) by using some tools of the trade (13), and making adventures using dungeons (14), wilderness (15), event-based methods (16), randomly generated (17) elements, as well as paragon and epic adventures for more advanced characters (18), including another sample dungeon with the necromancer's apprentice (19). After this the authors provide some tips on building a campaign (IV) through building a continuous story (20), creating memorable villains (21), and bringing the world to life (22). Finally, the book ends with the part of tens (V) that includes ten heroic (23) and paragon (24) encounters as well as ten things to avoid when dungeonmastering (25) and ten things to always do when dungeonmastering (26), followed by an index.
As is frequently the case in this series, those who read the book are generally by definition not dummies despite the title of the series. After all, desiring to be better at something, even something as arcane as running campaigns of a tabletop role playing game, is something by definition makes someone not a dummy. The fact that one seeks information and insight in getting better puts one more than a step ahead of the vast majority of people, many of whom never bother to read any book for enjoyment or instruction at all, even when it comes to something as silly as games. It is very likely that those who read this book are well aware of that fact, which is why there are so many books that are so popular in this series, because those people who seek after knowledge are demonstrating by that search that they are anything but dumb. And though some people might wonder what ways a book like this can prove itself to be worthwhile outside of a subculture of gamers, there are truly some skills here about being fair-minded and consistent and understanding the motivations of others that are useful in many worthwhile endeavors.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2020...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2020...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2019...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2019...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
March 23, 2023
I found this book at a swap meet, so I probably paid no more than $1 for it. I have often believed that being a Gamemaster for a role-playing game was an unappreciated art-form I have ALWAYS been a snob against both Dungeons & Dragons and running “Dungeons” in the first place.
What can I say, my experience with role-playing very quickly grew out of the ‘deep-hole-filled-with-monsters’ stage and went on to much more interesting varieties.
However I was definitely interested in what they would say about the art of running a game and was pleasantly surprised at how good the advice and material was.
Especially since I came from the dark ages when the only way to learn how to do it was to just keep doing it.
The book is a 370 page paperback in the usual “Dummies” style which I have appreciated in various other (mostly software) related disciplines.
After the first chapter which tells you that the reason to DM is to ‘just have fun’ it goes on to the second chapter about gathering a game group, with the pretty typical advice of gathering players at work (ha!) game stores, conversions and of course, the official RPGA and Wizards of the Coasts web-site.
Well, I can hardly be cynical or surprised about those types of recommendations. After all, there whole idea is that role-playing consists entirely of Dungeons and Dragons and sadly, they don’t appear to be all that wrong about it.
It talks about using published adventures and creating your own, then having a place to play, bring food and the ‘table-manner’ rules of social behavior everyone needs to agree on.
The included adventure examples are good however, and the advice is also good.
I particularly like the advice about building a DM’s notebook.
The advice her is actually pretty good - and no one is more surprised than I am.
But it honestly doesn’t do much to dissuade you of the idea that Dungeons & Dragons is all about combat-combat and more combat.
And that if you do decide to build your own world, it should be a place that is all your own - and yet will resemble most other D&D worlds as a place where the conventions of all the other D&D worlds will still work. In other words, plenty of opportunities for combat.
So it’s kind of like…. Okay, I can build my own world. But I’d better not make it different than any other D&D world! Thus, why I haven’t played D&D since the 70’s….
All in all I actually would recommend this to any beginning Dungeon Master. You have to pay attention to get all of the good advice buried in here, but it is pretty good advice.
Of course, you’re campaign will be pretty generic - there is NOTHING in here that deviates from any product produced for D&D. Nothing about making your world uniquely yours. That’s not what they’re teaching.
I find it pretty funny that they recommend not really building a world yourself, but using one of the two ongoing campaign settings for the game. Forgotten Realms or Eberron. So you have two choices - Generic D&D Fantasy world or Generic D&D Fantasy world with Steampunk.
Chapter 97 is a list of traps. Yawn. They’re good traps, but that’s just not a thing that rings my bell. But once again, there are no traps you can think you’re way out of. Only roll and fight.
Truthfully though they are pretty clever. Movie-level traps. I guess that’s a modern benefit. The old style traps were pretty boring contraptions that just hurt you or killed you - that’s why you hired so many henchmen. These modern traps are rather works of evil art. The are designed to scare you and hurt you and maybe kill you.
And good use of the word ‘cerements’.
It’s a little weird that one of the traps is a dragon encounter. Presumably this book will be for beginning GMs. Using that dragon encounter pretty much assures a Total Party Kill.
The second to last chapter is “Ten Things to Avoid When DMing” and so far it seems like good advice. But under “Don’t Try to Kill the PCs” it states that “Clever, vicious or evil monsters may certainly do so within the constraints of a fair and balanced encounter, but you shouldn’t.” Just from my experience a ‘fair and balanced encounter’ is boring enough that’d I’d never come back to that game.
This is a bigger discussion (google ‘Combat as Sport Combat as War’) but it seems the ‘modern’ idea of gaming is that every encounter should be as perfectly balanced as possible against the party. This seems incredibly lame to me and one of the reasons I’d never play D&D again.
Under “Don’t Let the Players Become Too Frustrated” it gives the advice that you should help the players out if they get stuck. But it’s pretty dumb to have a situation in which if they cannot solve a puzzle the game grinds to a halt in the first place.
The actual last chapter is “Ten Things to Do All The Time When DMing” and the first is “Be Prepared”. I would dearly hope this would put the stake in the heart of that cult of “Lazy DMs” who swear that you can just show up and wing it and run a great game with no preparation whatsoever. The only one who ever believes that horseshit is the GMs saying it. Their players NEVER do.
The other 9 are also excellent advice and honestly the last two chapters earned an extra star all by itself.
I read this book as part of a project to read and review all the GMing advice books I can as a way to encourage Gamemasters and wanna-be Gamemasters to learn how to be a GOOD GM.
The world is too filled with crappy GMs which is why the hobby is still considered a pretty geeky hobby. I mean, it is geeky but it’s also why it’s so disappointing to so many people (especially females) that try it.
Unfortunately I’ve had to end that project so while I’ll probably still read new GMing books I find, I don’t really feel any obligation to share my thoughts.
This particular book about being a ‘Dungeon Master’ still leaves out a lot of stuff. Like how to create and talk to NPCs. The actual ‘roleplaying’ part gets a pretty short shift. But it’s hard to judge it for what it isn’t because truthfully I’ve never been in a D&D game that had much roleplaying anyway.
But for what it is, I give it a strong 3 stars.
What can I say, my experience with role-playing very quickly grew out of the ‘deep-hole-filled-with-monsters’ stage and went on to much more interesting varieties.
However I was definitely interested in what they would say about the art of running a game and was pleasantly surprised at how good the advice and material was.
Especially since I came from the dark ages when the only way to learn how to do it was to just keep doing it.
The book is a 370 page paperback in the usual “Dummies” style which I have appreciated in various other (mostly software) related disciplines.
After the first chapter which tells you that the reason to DM is to ‘just have fun’ it goes on to the second chapter about gathering a game group, with the pretty typical advice of gathering players at work (ha!) game stores, conversions and of course, the official RPGA and Wizards of the Coasts web-site.
Well, I can hardly be cynical or surprised about those types of recommendations. After all, there whole idea is that role-playing consists entirely of Dungeons and Dragons and sadly, they don’t appear to be all that wrong about it.
It talks about using published adventures and creating your own, then having a place to play, bring food and the ‘table-manner’ rules of social behavior everyone needs to agree on.
The included adventure examples are good however, and the advice is also good.
I particularly like the advice about building a DM’s notebook.
The advice her is actually pretty good - and no one is more surprised than I am.
But it honestly doesn’t do much to dissuade you of the idea that Dungeons & Dragons is all about combat-combat and more combat.
And that if you do decide to build your own world, it should be a place that is all your own - and yet will resemble most other D&D worlds as a place where the conventions of all the other D&D worlds will still work. In other words, plenty of opportunities for combat.
So it’s kind of like…. Okay, I can build my own world. But I’d better not make it different than any other D&D world! Thus, why I haven’t played D&D since the 70’s….
All in all I actually would recommend this to any beginning Dungeon Master. You have to pay attention to get all of the good advice buried in here, but it is pretty good advice.
Of course, you’re campaign will be pretty generic - there is NOTHING in here that deviates from any product produced for D&D. Nothing about making your world uniquely yours. That’s not what they’re teaching.
I find it pretty funny that they recommend not really building a world yourself, but using one of the two ongoing campaign settings for the game. Forgotten Realms or Eberron. So you have two choices - Generic D&D Fantasy world or Generic D&D Fantasy world with Steampunk.
Chapter 97 is a list of traps. Yawn. They’re good traps, but that’s just not a thing that rings my bell. But once again, there are no traps you can think you’re way out of. Only roll and fight.
Truthfully though they are pretty clever. Movie-level traps. I guess that’s a modern benefit. The old style traps were pretty boring contraptions that just hurt you or killed you - that’s why you hired so many henchmen. These modern traps are rather works of evil art. The are designed to scare you and hurt you and maybe kill you.
And good use of the word ‘cerements’.
It’s a little weird that one of the traps is a dragon encounter. Presumably this book will be for beginning GMs. Using that dragon encounter pretty much assures a Total Party Kill.
The second to last chapter is “Ten Things to Avoid When DMing” and so far it seems like good advice. But under “Don’t Try to Kill the PCs” it states that “Clever, vicious or evil monsters may certainly do so within the constraints of a fair and balanced encounter, but you shouldn’t.” Just from my experience a ‘fair and balanced encounter’ is boring enough that’d I’d never come back to that game.
This is a bigger discussion (google ‘Combat as Sport Combat as War’) but it seems the ‘modern’ idea of gaming is that every encounter should be as perfectly balanced as possible against the party. This seems incredibly lame to me and one of the reasons I’d never play D&D again.
Under “Don’t Let the Players Become Too Frustrated” it gives the advice that you should help the players out if they get stuck. But it’s pretty dumb to have a situation in which if they cannot solve a puzzle the game grinds to a halt in the first place.
The actual last chapter is “Ten Things to Do All The Time When DMing” and the first is “Be Prepared”. I would dearly hope this would put the stake in the heart of that cult of “Lazy DMs” who swear that you can just show up and wing it and run a great game with no preparation whatsoever. The only one who ever believes that horseshit is the GMs saying it. Their players NEVER do.
The other 9 are also excellent advice and honestly the last two chapters earned an extra star all by itself.
I read this book as part of a project to read and review all the GMing advice books I can as a way to encourage Gamemasters and wanna-be Gamemasters to learn how to be a GOOD GM.
The world is too filled with crappy GMs which is why the hobby is still considered a pretty geeky hobby. I mean, it is geeky but it’s also why it’s so disappointing to so many people (especially females) that try it.
Unfortunately I’ve had to end that project so while I’ll probably still read new GMing books I find, I don’t really feel any obligation to share my thoughts.
This particular book about being a ‘Dungeon Master’ still leaves out a lot of stuff. Like how to create and talk to NPCs. The actual ‘roleplaying’ part gets a pretty short shift. But it’s hard to judge it for what it isn’t because truthfully I’ve never been in a D&D game that had much roleplaying anyway.
But for what it is, I give it a strong 3 stars.
September 20, 2016
Looking to run a D&D program for your library but have no clue what you're doing? Maybe you played D&D in college, but never ran a game so you have a lot of knowledge to fill in? Is that just me?
Anyways, I found this book super helpful for getting a campaign going with the teens at my library. Thanks to awesome shows like Stranger Things , the teens all have a renewed interest in this '80s game. This book has a lot of useful help and hints in each chapter (like 7 and 20 were great for getting a game started).
This book even provides a section with a full campaign and monster rolls, which is perfect for me since I don't have a Monster Manual and this will be my first try at DMing. Definitely a great tool/resource!
Anyways, I found this book super helpful for getting a campaign going with the teens at my library. Thanks to awesome shows like Stranger Things , the teens all have a renewed interest in this '80s game. This book has a lot of useful help and hints in each chapter (like 7 and 20 were great for getting a game started).
This book even provides a section with a full campaign and monster rolls, which is perfect for me since I don't have a Monster Manual and this will be my first try at DMing. Definitely a great tool/resource!
July 13, 2023
Refreshing - covers the basics, but also reinforces some classic ideas:
- be the hero (avoid evil aligned parties)
- have evil villains (that need to be slain, avoid morally ambiguous villains)
- the DM should roll some of the dice
- great adventures of the 3.5 era and previous
- world design
- adventure types and design
Just refreshing! I would recommend this to anyone who needs new inspiration, renewal, or just needs to see if they're doing things correctly - there are enough ideas in here to inspire lots of adventures!
- be the hero (avoid evil aligned parties)
- have evil villains (that need to be slain, avoid morally ambiguous villains)
- the DM should roll some of the dice
- great adventures of the 3.5 era and previous
- world design
- adventure types and design
Just refreshing! I would recommend this to anyone who needs new inspiration, renewal, or just needs to see if they're doing things correctly - there are enough ideas in here to inspire lots of adventures!
January 6, 2024
This was a super fun read, and it was perfectly paced out for my ADHD as well, which is something that I have to keep in mind at all times, and the rulebooks can sometimes be a bit too much for me. Of course, most of the games now are in 5e, but this edition adds great ideas for storytelling and for preparation that many books skip over. If you prefer to read rather then watch video manuals, I recommend it highly. The end has maps and enemy statblocks that give you a really good idea on how to prepare your own homebrew.
March 7, 2022
An okay introduction to give a basic idea of what you're getting into as a potential DM.
October 7, 2024
Great advice compared to most other books offering advice on Dungeon Mastering.
March 8, 2013
As a newbie DM, I enjoyed reading this book. It is written for third edition; however, the material is generic enough for DMs of any edition. The writers really focus on the broad strokes (e.g., reminding folks that this is a social game and the complications that go with it) and on encouraging DMs to find inspiration all around them. This book is not being published anymore; however, there is Dungeon Master 4th Edition For Dummies (For Dummies. I have not looked through this book, but I would guess that it has a similar style (focus on the big picture not the math).
February 10, 2009
Helps to decipherthe DMG and make the idea of being a DM much less threatening. Sometimes all it takes is to simlify ideas to make them more accessible. Suggests great ideas for making worlds come to life and adventures to encounter. As a novice DM I found it very helpful and a source of great ideas.
September 7, 2010
An excellent book for people both new and experienced with DMing. It has great tips and reminds us of the little things we tend to loose track of. A great addition to any gamer's library.
August 11, 2011
It had some good tips, though it's about to become outdated....
April 30, 2014
This book is so awesome!
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews