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Results for Rating Form #3: Dungeon Master's References
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Compiled by: brooks@odie.ee.wits.ac.za (Goth)
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Points Ratings
==============
In order for a product to appear on the points rating table, it must
have at least five votes. Products are listed in points order, from
highest to lowest.
/-------------------------------------------------------\
| - Key - |
| |
| Score = the product's average rating |
| Low = the lowest rating anyone gave this product |
| High = the highest rating anyone gave this product |
| Voters = the number of people who rated the product |
\-------------------------------------------------------/
Product Score Low High Voters
------- ----- --- ---- ------
Monster Mythology (DMGR4) 6.5 2 10 34
The Castle Guide (DMGR2) 6.4 3 10 31
Arms and Equipment Guide (DMGR3) 6.2 2 10 34
Campaign Sourcebook/Catacomb Guide (DMGR1) 6.0 0 10 31
The Complete Book of Villains 5.8 2 9 23
Creative Campaigning (DMGR5) 4.3 0 9 23
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Comments
========
This next bit is a selection of comments people have sent in. I've
removed some remarks which were very similar, especially for products
which provoked large quantities of comment and I've done some minor
editing for grammar and spelling. Other than that, this is how they
were sent in.
General Comment on the DM's References
--------------------------------------
I haven't used any of these, and have no intention of doing so. Let
those with less than 10 years FRP experience buy them.
The Castle Guide and the Arms and Equipment Guide are my favourite
things from TSR.
I really like most of the DMGR series.
Recycled Dragon. All of this stuff is highly unessential. OK, but
unnecessary.
Campaign Sourcebook & Catacomb Guide (DMGR1)
--------------------------------------------
The sample dungeons are bland and unimaginative, but the hints on
staging the game can be worthwhile.
The Campaign book gives a lot of general info about designing
campaigns, encouraging good role-playing, different campaign themes,
and of course how to design dungeons that are more than just a hole
in the ground. I found all of this info to be immensely useful for
both enhancing adventures and also to help get the creative juices
flowing. The only problem (if you could call it one :) was that there
was *so* much info, it can be hard to remember the good stuff...
I recommend this for all novice GMs.
This is by far the best of this series. It's one of the few of TSR's
leatherette handbooks that is actually really, really good. This book
would be great for turning beginning DM's into journeymen. It seems
to me that this book is like one huge Dragon Magazine article, but in
my opinion, that's a good thing. We could, however, have done without
the "empty dungeons", which are too abbreviated to be useful.
No DM should start without this book. The best I ever bought from
TSR.
The Castle Guide (DMGR2)
------------------------
The Castle Guide was very useful, plus I got more than I expected
after looking through it. Of course it goes into much detail about
building castles, but it also goes into a lot of useful information
about knighthood, life in a medieval castle and its surrounding
village, and even how to have jousting and archery competitions.
I give this manual high marks, with only a few negative comments. For
one thing, some of the formulas used for computing the cost of
building a castle and the time it takes were a little confusing (this
coming from someone who has taken calculus for about 5 years now...).
Plus I think it was unrealistic in assuming that everything from a
simple hut to a multi-walled concentric castle has the same time base
for construction. I think they should have added a few scaling
factors to reflect upon the size of the project... According to the
descriptions of the materials used to build a castle, a 10x15 section
of wooden wall takes 2 man/years to build (if memory serves). [The
construction time of a 10x15 section of wooden wall is actually
listed as one man week, but the information on page 60 of the CG
would indeed seem to suggest that the minimum time for building
- anything* is half a year. Would anyone who has used these rules like
to comment on this? - Goth]
I had tons of fun with the Castle Guide... planning hideous things to
happen to people who wanted to build castles. Only thing was, all 2nd
Edition games I ran or played were low-level or Spelljammer.
This book is useful for those who want to plot out an entire castle
which is going to see some battle. Also, some of the notes on
feudalism and taxation might be useful. But basically this is a book
that you could live without.
Arms and Equipment Guide (DMGR3)
--------------------------------
[This gets mentioned a couple of times below, so I thought I'd be a nice
Goth and clarify the mistakes here. Several errors from the 1st print of
the PHB are reprinted on pages 108-109 of the AaEG. The corrections are:
Weapon sizes:
- Composite long bow, L
- Flight arrow, S
- Sheaf arrow, S
- Light quarrel, S
- Light crossbow, M
- Javelin, M
- Short sword, S
and the Club damage vs L is 1d6 (not 1d3). - Goth]
The Arms and Equipment guide, although useful just to see what the
weapons (or at least one particular version) looks like, doesn't
contain _any_ new material. It's the only place (except for Oriental
Adventures) where I've seen a picture of a mancatcher, but
Palladium's various weapon books are much more useful, and contain
_much_ more information. Even in the AD&D product line, "Aurora's
Whole Realms Catalogue" (about the most useful supplement TSR has yet
put out), although not about weaponry, is much more useful as a
reference guide to equipment, or anything else that the PCs might
conceivably want.
I liked the Arms and Equipment Guide. It described well those
millions of swords that were in the middle ages, and really helped
designing different clothes to my characters. Also I like the partial
AC system for horse barding.
The Arms and Equipment Guide makes some of the same mistakes that
were in the first printing of the 2nd Edition Player's Handbooks.
DMRG3 is a decent supplement.
Get the Palladium product instead. It's got tons more detail, and has
weapons from all cultures.
Ummm... Why is the mace not included in the "complete" weapon list?
Arms and Equipment is great! It should have been included in the
Player's Handbook. I would like to see more info and less fluff
though.
This is not a particularly useful book. The armor section is useless
except for the describtion of banded and splint mails, which should
have just been included in the PH. The only good aspect for the
weapon section is the re-introduction of the broad sword, and the
clothing decriptions could just as easily be looked up in
Merriam-Webster. Campaigns can live without this one. Also, I would
like to comment that this book, and portions of the Castle guide,
tend to stifle novice DM's by implying that no one should run a
campaign that resembles anything but pre-renaissance England with a
few Monstrous Compendium denizens bounding around Sherwood Forest.
The Arms and Equipment guide would have been a 10 had it not been so
screwy in such silly things, they did mistakes like say that L. xbow
is size S and the quarrel for it is size M. The armour doesn't have
the prices. The weapons in the CFHB weren't included, at least not
all of them.
Of these books, only the Arms and Equipment guide is really worth
owning, IMHO. Nevertheless, Aurora's Whole Realms catalog and the
Complete Fighter's Handbook almost makes the Arms and Equipment guide
superfluous.
Good artwork, nice stories to liven it up, and an exellent addition
for the non-historian. It could have been incorporated in PHB,
though!
Non-essential, but for anyone who needs to know that much about the
various pieces of equipment, it's a good reference. Sometimes the
detail comes in handy. The clothing section can add flavor to a
character or NPC.
I liked the Arms and Equipment guide simply because I enjoyed the
historical infomation provided regarding the various weapons. It was
not very helpful within the actual game.
Monster Mythology (DMGR4)
-------------------------
The Monster Mythology is a good expansion to Legends & Lore but
corresponds badly to the Priest's Handbook.
Pointless, and contradicts several other sourcebooks. If a race is
popular enough to demand its own sourcebook, then let its gods be
detailed there. Also, when PC races' gods vary from campaign world to
campaign world, how can a book of gods be generic, even if it is
mostly for monster races?
I love this book! I bought it 'cause the dwarves handbook had no
dwarf gods, and was pleasantly surprised to see the pantheons of all
the major non-human deities. And not just the PC races. Some great
stuff here for campaign building, and fleshing out boring orc
colonies. =)
DMGR4 is not worth the money unless you really want to expand
non-human gods.
I don't like the idea of generic priests and that is why I need
plenty of gods. This book provides perfect mixture of gods for every
important non-human race I am using. I have found (maybe thanks to my
rather bad English) no serious mistakes. Underlined and summarized --
the book is really O.K.
This is a good, solid supplement, and many of the priesthoods are
well thought out. TSR made the gaming populace wait too long for
demihuman specialist priests, and a few priests can help give
humanoids some teeth against higher-level characters. I'm pleased
with the re-introduction of some of the Demon Princes (and aren't
Sess'inek and Panzuriel both new?). However, I don't think that
_every _ monster species needs its own god/gods, and introducing a
deity without a priesthood simply infuriates me. There is a good
volume of information here, but like Legends and Lore, one DM can
probably use only about 10% of it. And where's Orcus?
Monster Mythology is a very comprehensive book: lots of information
that I have found useful in creating NPC non-human priests. One
problem is that these deities seem to "cross over" between the
Forgotten Realms, Oerth, and others. Another problem is the lack of
illustrations (it's not a very colorful book). Otherwise, I'd say its
a good buy if you run a lot of NPC non-human priests or want to
design a non-human temple around a specific deity.
Finally a summary of rules for non-PC, priests, spheres and all.
Imagine running into a shaman Kobold! Oooh, I like it!
This book should have been included with Legends & Lore, but since
it's not, it should be in your library. It's still too bad that the
lower planes greater powers from the first edition were mostly
removed. (i.e., demons and devils) They were a good source of deities
for monsters. (I still keep my first edition MM, MM2, & FF around)
Creative Campaigning (DMGR5)
----------------------------
Two parts in three of this book are useless, but I did like the
section on freestyle gaming (I REALLY liked the section on freestyle
gaming). The sample worlds, and sample adventures (illustrating
structure) that they give you are so much waste paper.
I am afraid the book has got wrong name -- Creative ha, ha, ha, may
be Campaigning, but only a little.
This useless book is just the perfect waste of a good $18 (plus tax).
It seems too confusing for novice DM's and just about any journeyman
DM could think up better ideas than this. Two long chapters are
basically advertisements, one where the authors plug the historical
references, and one "The Grand Tour" just hawks TSR's campaign
worlds. TSR should be _ashamed_ for printing this one.
Creative Campaigning had a few interesting ideas, but most of it was
pretty lame.
The Complete Book of Villains
-----------------------------
The Villains book is not too bad; it emphasises uniqueness and
characterization of antagonists over heavy firepower, and gives
examples of non-evil enemies.
The Complete Book of Villains does an excellent job on what it covers
but I think it's a little on the narrow side in that a DMG reference
IMO should cover a wider scope of things, a book covering more
recurring problems like monsters or even natural phenomena, instead
of concentrating on single individuals. What it covers, it covers
well.
This one's pretty good, but it's nothing special. They should have
left out the generic sample villains and the random tables, and spent
more time on telling you how to customize villains.
The Complete Book of Villains was good, however its application seems
limited. I would never go to all the trouble it suggests to create my
villain. But if you've got a lot of extra time on your hands... why
not?
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The End
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