| ||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Dungeon Master For Dummies for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Authors
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
Product Description
If you’re a Dungeons & Dragons fan, you’ve surely thought of becoming a Dungeon Master. Learning to be a DM isn’t as hard as you might think, especially if you have Dungeon Master 4th Edition For Dummies tucked into your bag of tricks!
From organizing your first D&D game to dealing with difficult players, this book covers everything a DM needs to know. Written for the newest edition of D&D by the experts at Wizards of the Coast, creators of the game, it shows you how to:
- Build challenging encounters, make reasonable rulings, and manage disagreements
- Recognize all the common codes, tables, and spells
- Understand the parts of a D&D adventure and how to create dungeon maps and craft monsters
- Shape storylines and write your own adventures
- Find your style as a DM and develop a game style that plays to your strengths
- Script an encounter, vary the terrain and challenges, and establish rewards (experience points and treasure)
- Decide whether to use published adventures
- Use and follow the official Dungeon Master’s Guide
- Develop a campaign with exciting themes, memorable villains, and plots that keep players entranced
If you’re getting the urge to lead the charge in a D&D game of your own, Dungeon Master 4th Edition For Dummies will introduce you to the DM’s many jobs. With the information you need to start your own game, craft exciting stories, and set up epic adventures, you’ll be on your way!
From the Back Cover
Want to be a Dungeon Master? Get started or ramp up your skills with this fun and easy guide!
Whether you′ve already run a few Dungeons & Dragons® games or you′ve decided to try Dungeon Mastering, this book′s for you. Here are all the basics of managing a game in the new 4th Edition plus everything that will take your skills to the next level: how to build a good story, design a great dungeon, craft a campaign, and so much more.
Keep it moving — learn to build challenging encounters, make reasonable rulings, and manage disagreements
Play in style — find your personal style and develop a game that plays to your strengths
Be adventurous — understand the parts of an adventure, how to create maps, and how to run monsters and villains
Risks and rewards — learn to keep the game in balance with level–appropriate rewards (experience points, treasure, and magic items)
Campaign — build a campaign with exciting themes, memorable villains, and plots that keep players entranced
Open the book and find:
A sample adventure
How to improve your narration
How to tailor adventures for various types of players
Tips for running published adventures
Advice on building a continuing storyline
How to draw dungeon maps and use D&D Dungeon Tiles
How to create a campaign world
How to keep adventures challenging through the paragon and epic tiers
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
For dummy books this is quite good. Of course, without the rule books this seems empty. There are some good tips. Not sure if you could find them elsewhere though.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
15 reviews
28 of 33 people found the following review helpful
A Terrific Companion For Novice Dungeon Masters
17 May 2006
Format:Paperback
Part of the fun of playing Dungeons and Dragons is being the story teller aka referee aka Dungeon Master. The idea is that other PC (Player Characters) are exploring your world and learning to overcome challenges that you create for them. The book is a good place to begin if you've never DM'd before since the authors are all skilled DM's and write from their own experiences.
You're given game etiquette and how to host a game session advice as well as PC styles of play whether it's the Rules Lawyer who invokes the rules at every opportunity or the Power Gamer who builds his character for ultimate power, you're given ideas on how to deal with these types of mind sets which has proved helpful to me.
I've DM'd in both 1st & 2nd edition of D&D and really felt lost in the new 3.0/3.5 editions. I have a lot of the rule books and supplements for 3.0 and I was kind of disappointed this was not covered in this book. I mean what does one do if they have a substantial investment in 3.0 edition books and all of a sudden, they're outdated?!?!?!?! I feel the authors could have discusses this a bit and given some ideas and ways around that setback.
For a Novice DM, the sample town given in the book is a great place to use as a backdrop for your first games. The book does a nice job of dichotomizing a campaign based series of adventures versus the single module type of ones and even mentioned that you can interconnect these modules to create an ongoing campaign. (FYI: A campaign is where the PC's use the same characters from start to finish whereas a module based style of play means the PC's can roll up new characters to play)
The Tens lists are helpful and many of the modules I'd never heard of before. (Used my own world primarily for 1st edition and Forgotten Realms for 2nd edition) Some of the modules I'm going to go out and get. In fact, Wizards of the Coast have graciously allowed many old 1st & 2nd edition modules & supplements to be downloaded free at their website.
Overall I think the book rates 4.5 stars but I was quite disappointed at no mention for how to reconcile 3.0 & 3.5 core rulebooks & supplements!
You're given game etiquette and how to host a game session advice as well as PC styles of play whether it's the Rules Lawyer who invokes the rules at every opportunity or the Power Gamer who builds his character for ultimate power, you're given ideas on how to deal with these types of mind sets which has proved helpful to me.
I've DM'd in both 1st & 2nd edition of D&D and really felt lost in the new 3.0/3.5 editions. I have a lot of the rule books and supplements for 3.0 and I was kind of disappointed this was not covered in this book. I mean what does one do if they have a substantial investment in 3.0 edition books and all of a sudden, they're outdated?!?!?!?! I feel the authors could have discusses this a bit and given some ideas and ways around that setback.
For a Novice DM, the sample town given in the book is a great place to use as a backdrop for your first games. The book does a nice job of dichotomizing a campaign based series of adventures versus the single module type of ones and even mentioned that you can interconnect these modules to create an ongoing campaign. (FYI: A campaign is where the PC's use the same characters from start to finish whereas a module based style of play means the PC's can roll up new characters to play)
The Tens lists are helpful and many of the modules I'd never heard of before. (Used my own world primarily for 1st edition and Forgotten Realms for 2nd edition) Some of the modules I'm going to go out and get. In fact, Wizards of the Coast have graciously allowed many old 1st & 2nd edition modules & supplements to be downloaded free at their website.
Overall I think the book rates 4.5 stars but I was quite disappointed at no mention for how to reconcile 3.0 & 3.5 core rulebooks & supplements!
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Nice, but the constant ads for WOTC were annoying
26 Dec 2008
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I picked this up based on reviews I've read about an earlier edition. As a relatively new dungeon master who is about to launch my own 4th Edition campaign I thought this book could be helpful.
To be positive, the book was helpful in a lot of places. However there were a number of places, such as the section where the book discusses creating adventures, where I felt the book could have gone into more detail.
However what turned me off this book was the constant advertising spam the authors inserted for other WOTC D&D products. This annoyed me for three reasons. Firstly, a lot of the promotions were out of context with regards the material being discussed. Secondly, at times they interrupted the flow of the topic the authors were writing about and lastly they pushed the same product over and over again.
All in all the book contains some good advice, but it is overshadowed by a large amount of unnecessary advertising.
To be positive, the book was helpful in a lot of places. However there were a number of places, such as the section where the book discusses creating adventures, where I felt the book could have gone into more detail.
However what turned me off this book was the constant advertising spam the authors inserted for other WOTC D&D products. This annoyed me for three reasons. Firstly, a lot of the promotions were out of context with regards the material being discussed. Secondly, at times they interrupted the flow of the topic the authors were writing about and lastly they pushed the same product over and over again.
All in all the book contains some good advice, but it is overshadowed by a large amount of unnecessary advertising.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
A great book for beginner and intermediate DMs
25 Jan 2008
Format:Paperback
As much as I hated the other book in this set, this one was wonderful. It provided a solid layout of what a DM might run into and what he'd have to handle. It gives detailed examples for not just adventures, but interplayer problems that often crop up as well. I've been DMing for years, but I've got my copy of this well tagged with sticky notes. Sure I technically have most of the info in my other books, but this one is far easier to referance when players are waiting for an answer. Anyone that wants to run a game would do well to buy this helpful book.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
