- Hardcover: 285 pages
- Publisher: Wizards of the Coast (July 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0786936878
- ISBN-13: 978-0786936878
- Product Dimensions: 28 x 21.4 x 1.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
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Product Description
Product Description
A follow-up to the Dungeon Master’s Guide, designed to aid Dungeon Masters and reduce game preparation time.
The Dungeon Master’s Guide II builds upon existing materials in the
Dungeon Master’s Guide. It is specifically designed to facilitate play, especially
when the Dungeon Master has a limited amount of preparation time. Chapters include discussion on running a game, designing adventures, building and using prestige classes, and creating campaign settings. Ready-made game elements include instant traps, pre-generated locations, treasures, and a fully realized and rendered town.
JESSE DECKER is the development manager for Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
whose recent roleplaying game design credits include Complete Adventurer™,
Races of Stone™, and Unearthed Arcana™.
DAVID NOONAN is an RPG designer/developer at Wizards of the Coast, Inc. Recent credits include authoring Complete Divine™ and co-authoring
Races of Stone and Unearthed Arcana.
CHRIS THOMASSON previously served as Editor-in-Chief of Dungeon®
Magazine. His design credits include Fiend Folio™ and Monster Manual™
III, as well as Bow and Blade for Green Ronin Publishing.
JAMES JACOBS is the associate editor of Dungeon® Magazine and has published numerous articles in Dragon® Magazine. His most recent credits with Wizards of the Coast, Inc. include co-authoring The Book of Aberrations, Races of Faerûn™, and Frostburn™.
ROBIN D. LAWS, game designer and novelist, is best known for the roleplaying
games Feng Shui, Heroquest, and Dying Earth, along with, Robin’s Laws of
Good Gamemastering.
The Dungeon Master’s Guide II builds upon existing materials in the
Dungeon Master’s Guide. It is specifically designed to facilitate play, especially
when the Dungeon Master has a limited amount of preparation time. Chapters include discussion on running a game, designing adventures, building and using prestige classes, and creating campaign settings. Ready-made game elements include instant traps, pre-generated locations, treasures, and a fully realized and rendered town.
JESSE DECKER is the development manager for Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
whose recent roleplaying game design credits include Complete Adventurer™,
Races of Stone™, and Unearthed Arcana™.
DAVID NOONAN is an RPG designer/developer at Wizards of the Coast, Inc. Recent credits include authoring Complete Divine™ and co-authoring
Races of Stone and Unearthed Arcana.
CHRIS THOMASSON previously served as Editor-in-Chief of Dungeon®
Magazine. His design credits include Fiend Folio™ and Monster Manual™
III, as well as Bow and Blade for Green Ronin Publishing.
JAMES JACOBS is the associate editor of Dungeon® Magazine and has published numerous articles in Dragon® Magazine. His most recent credits with Wizards of the Coast, Inc. include co-authoring The Book of Aberrations, Races of Faerûn™, and Frostburn™.
ROBIN D. LAWS, game designer and novelist, is best known for the roleplaying
games Feng Shui, Heroquest, and Dying Earth, along with, Robin’s Laws of
Good Gamemastering.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
64 of 65 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The DMG2 contains a collection of information from the depressingly banal to the actually quite useful. Unsurprisingly given the title, it's written very much for the DM, but there are a few sections that players could find relevant covering such things as optional rules covering for example teamwork benefits and PC organisations amongst others.
For DMs there are a number of ideas of things to add into adventures they are running from adjudicating attacks by mobs, to odd locations for encounters with suggestions how to run them: flooding tunnels... burning buildings... lava flows... as well as rules for magic nexus points which may grant abilities to people who access them. There is a considerable amount of extra stuff for magic items such as signature traits, weapon and armour synergy abilities, and yet more additions to the ever growing lists of magic rings, wondrous items etc. Perhaps of more interest are templates relating to the origins of items, granting minor specific traits depending on the group that created them: feycrafted, hellforged, githcraft etc. A fair sized, mostly generic town is written up in useful detail including a few sub plots and adventure hooks. And finally they have got around to writing down a few pages on designing and, more importantly, balancing prestige classes.
Unfortunately alongside this is a fair amount of padding with many pages going through how to recognise various styles of play, categorising types of players and offering hints on communications skills for DMs. Of slightly more use is a broad brush interpretation of the functioning of medieval society but very much edited for D&D purposes.
In short, the DMG2 contains a number of useful aspects and ideas, but is a long way from being vital.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I found this book to be Disappointing.
Out of all of the chapters there are only two that I found to be of any use. and they were Chapter 3: The Campaign and Chapter 7: Magic items. Of those two chapters, I have come to expect magic items in a Wizards book and Chapter 3 is only useful when creating your own world.
As for the rest of the book, the first two chapters revist the dungeon masters guidebook, as is to be expected, and give advice, but this advice is rambling and often not needed as a DM will generally know his party and how he wants to set his adventure.
The remaining three chapter include yet another example of a city, some NPC archetypes and some random advice on characters.
Most of the book gives advice on almost instinctual matters
What I was expecting was either an advanced Dungeon Masters Guide, or some usable in game mechanics.
Now that 4th edition is on the way, I may just burn mine.
Do Not Use
Out of all of the chapters there are only two that I found to be of any use. and they were Chapter 3: The Campaign and Chapter 7: Magic items. Of those two chapters, I have come to expect magic items in a Wizards book and Chapter 3 is only useful when creating your own world.
As for the rest of the book, the first two chapters revist the dungeon masters guidebook, as is to be expected, and give advice, but this advice is rambling and often not needed as a DM will generally know his party and how he wants to set his adventure.
The remaining three chapter include yet another example of a city, some NPC archetypes and some random advice on characters.
Most of the book gives advice on almost instinctual matters
What I was expecting was either an advanced Dungeon Masters Guide, or some usable in game mechanics.
Now that 4th edition is on the way, I may just burn mine.
Do Not Use
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
21 reviews
112 of 117 people found the following review helpful
very useful, not necessary
26 Jun 2005
Format:Hardcover
This is the latest book from WOC and I found it to be very useful. It is primarily for DM's but players will find things helpful.
Chapter one opens with particulars of running a campaign. There are discusions with the DM's responsibilities for running a campaign with various styles of gamers and your particular style of running campaigns. Most of it is basic like letting your players know before hand about any house rules you may have, ways of imparting information to the players about their environment and rough guidelines for preparing a game.
Chapter two deals with the particulars of running an adventure, both using published and your own materials. the third chapter deals with specifics of running a campaign. Things like guilds, law and order, and building a city are contained in this chapter. I felt this part was better than the information about cities in the complete adventurers guide.
Chapter four contains the city of Saltmarsh, was part of a series of modules years ago. It is expanded and really could be a useful part of a campaign. I will probably adopt it at some point myself.
chapter 5 deals with npcs and their care and feeding.
Chapter 6 deals with the characters themselves and introduces apprenticeships, mentors and teamwork options for the players. I have done similar things in the past and I feel that it is a good idea as it gives the players more continuity with the campaign and plot hooks. There is a section on designing your own prestige classes and pc organizations.
Chapter 7 is about magic items. A section on signature magic items and bonded magic items is discussed and rules for doing such things. There are new magic items and new templates like the hellforged template which allows a magic armor to have additional hardness, hit points, maximum dex bonus, arcane spell failure modificiations to it. it closes with a section on artifacts, their introduction and use in a campaign.
As I said in the title its a very useful but not necessary. I would recommend that new DM's, DM's who might be a little jaded and for players to check out the new options for the players. There is nothing amazing new but it has many things collected together for you to look and use.
Chapter one opens with particulars of running a campaign. There are discusions with the DM's responsibilities for running a campaign with various styles of gamers and your particular style of running campaigns. Most of it is basic like letting your players know before hand about any house rules you may have, ways of imparting information to the players about their environment and rough guidelines for preparing a game.
Chapter two deals with the particulars of running an adventure, both using published and your own materials. the third chapter deals with specifics of running a campaign. Things like guilds, law and order, and building a city are contained in this chapter. I felt this part was better than the information about cities in the complete adventurers guide.
Chapter four contains the city of Saltmarsh, was part of a series of modules years ago. It is expanded and really could be a useful part of a campaign. I will probably adopt it at some point myself.
chapter 5 deals with npcs and their care and feeding.
Chapter 6 deals with the characters themselves and introduces apprenticeships, mentors and teamwork options for the players. I have done similar things in the past and I feel that it is a good idea as it gives the players more continuity with the campaign and plot hooks. There is a section on designing your own prestige classes and pc organizations.
Chapter 7 is about magic items. A section on signature magic items and bonded magic items is discussed and rules for doing such things. There are new magic items and new templates like the hellforged template which allows a magic armor to have additional hardness, hit points, maximum dex bonus, arcane spell failure modificiations to it. it closes with a section on artifacts, their introduction and use in a campaign.
As I said in the title its a very useful but not necessary. I would recommend that new DM's, DM's who might be a little jaded and for players to check out the new options for the players. There is nothing amazing new but it has many things collected together for you to look and use.
49 of 52 people found the following review helpful
An Enjoyable Read
11 July 2005
Format:Hardcover
As the other two reviewers have stated, this book would be great for new or struggling DM's, however if you've been behind the screen for any length of time much of what is contained here will be common sense.
That's not to knock the book at all. I really enjoyed reading it from cover to cover and found several nuggets of information burried in it that will be making their way into my campaign. The archetyical and special encounters in chapter 2 come to mind right away for their interesting handling of the rules. The magic items section of the book was also an interesting read.
My biggest problem with the book was the "psychology of role playing" section in the beginning. This seems to be a recurring subject on the boards at WOTC and in their magazines, however they really love beating the dead horse... not everyone enjoys the same game, 'nuff said.
Presentation and artwork were all first rate, as was the writing for a sourcebook of this type. I reccomend it for all DM's, if not as a "every session reference," at least for a good read.
That's not to knock the book at all. I really enjoyed reading it from cover to cover and found several nuggets of information burried in it that will be making their way into my campaign. The archetyical and special encounters in chapter 2 come to mind right away for their interesting handling of the rules. The magic items section of the book was also an interesting read.
My biggest problem with the book was the "psychology of role playing" section in the beginning. This seems to be a recurring subject on the boards at WOTC and in their magazines, however they really love beating the dead horse... not everyone enjoys the same game, 'nuff said.
Presentation and artwork were all first rate, as was the writing for a sourcebook of this type. I reccomend it for all DM's, if not as a "every session reference," at least for a good read.
30 of 31 people found the following review helpful
THE CHERRY ON YOUR CHOCOLATE SUNDAY
12 Sep 2005
Format:Hardcover
The Dungeon Master's Guide II is not a replacement for the DM's Guide but rather a complementing supplement that adds much more additional information for the DM to use. In all there are seven chapters in the book covering the following topics:
1. Running the Game
2. Adventures
3. The Campaign
4. The Saltmarsh
5. NPC's
6. Characters
7. Magic Items
Running the game provides tips on knowing your players...their behaviors, their personalities and tendencies. Examples are given on how to add drama and developing a story in your games. Suggestions are provided for using house rules and laptops to assist the DM. While this information is nice, it's more geared towards inexperienced DMs.
The adventure chapter covers things such as many new traps, map and grid design, building encounter tables, and encounters for such areas as the Abyss and Infernal planes, graveyards, haunted buildings, lost ruins, and several other specific type locations.
The campaign section provides information if you want to develop your own campaign as opposed to buying an off the shelf product such as the Forgotten Realms. It provides all the information you need on setting up a medieval-type world including social and political structures, lifestyles and more. There are also 50 rumors/adventure hooks provided that the DM can use to flesh out adventures.
The Saltmarsh is recognizable to older fans of D&D as the name of an old module. The Saltmarsh is provided here as a kind of drop-in city for use in any campaign. It's ready made with all the information you need to run if you don't feel like making a city from scratch, providing maps, business locations, NPCs, guilds, adventure hooks and more. It's one of the best sections in the book.
The chapters on NPCs and characters are ok. The NPC section is short and fairly forgettable but the character section features information on designing prestige classes which is very well done. There's also info on working with other players as a team when attacking and combining spells for maximum effect.
The last chapter is on Magic Items and goes into customizing items with signature abilities or items that are bonded to their creator. A new type of magic item, sort of, are magic locations. These are ancient, and very powerful sights that can be found within a world which can imbue a character with certain abilities for up to one year. For example the Heart of Fire is a location that can imbue a spellcaster with magic that increases his casting level by +1 for one year when casting fire-based spells. There are a bunch of these locations as well as tons of new magic rings, rods, armor, weapons, and miscellaneous items.
The Dungeon Master II guide is kind of like the whipped cream and cherry on a sundae. It's not necessary and you can certainly live without it, but it does add a little flavor and certainly makes it more filling. Take what you want out of the book. I personally like the section on designing prestige classes and the inclusion of Saltmarsh is a great aid to the DM.
Reviewed by Tim Janson
1. Running the Game
2. Adventures
3. The Campaign
4. The Saltmarsh
5. NPC's
6. Characters
7. Magic Items
Running the game provides tips on knowing your players...their behaviors, their personalities and tendencies. Examples are given on how to add drama and developing a story in your games. Suggestions are provided for using house rules and laptops to assist the DM. While this information is nice, it's more geared towards inexperienced DMs.
The adventure chapter covers things such as many new traps, map and grid design, building encounter tables, and encounters for such areas as the Abyss and Infernal planes, graveyards, haunted buildings, lost ruins, and several other specific type locations.
The campaign section provides information if you want to develop your own campaign as opposed to buying an off the shelf product such as the Forgotten Realms. It provides all the information you need on setting up a medieval-type world including social and political structures, lifestyles and more. There are also 50 rumors/adventure hooks provided that the DM can use to flesh out adventures.
The Saltmarsh is recognizable to older fans of D&D as the name of an old module. The Saltmarsh is provided here as a kind of drop-in city for use in any campaign. It's ready made with all the information you need to run if you don't feel like making a city from scratch, providing maps, business locations, NPCs, guilds, adventure hooks and more. It's one of the best sections in the book.
The chapters on NPCs and characters are ok. The NPC section is short and fairly forgettable but the character section features information on designing prestige classes which is very well done. There's also info on working with other players as a team when attacking and combining spells for maximum effect.
The last chapter is on Magic Items and goes into customizing items with signature abilities or items that are bonded to their creator. A new type of magic item, sort of, are magic locations. These are ancient, and very powerful sights that can be found within a world which can imbue a character with certain abilities for up to one year. For example the Heart of Fire is a location that can imbue a spellcaster with magic that increases his casting level by +1 for one year when casting fire-based spells. There are a bunch of these locations as well as tons of new magic rings, rods, armor, weapons, and miscellaneous items.
The Dungeon Master II guide is kind of like the whipped cream and cherry on a sundae. It's not necessary and you can certainly live without it, but it does add a little flavor and certainly makes it more filling. Take what you want out of the book. I personally like the section on designing prestige classes and the inclusion of Saltmarsh is a great aid to the DM.
Reviewed by Tim Janson
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