This is a few years overdue but, inspired by
nothing in particular, I've finally decided to ponder a few different reference tomes written specifically for the guidance of Dungeon Masters, referees, Game masters, and their ilk. In addition to the original 1979
Dungeon Masters Guide, I've reviewed the Hackmaster
Game Masters Guide, C&C's
Castle Keepers Guide, as well as some non-DM specific works such as the
DCC RPG rulebook and
S&W Complete because they purport to include DMly--as well as playerly and monsterly--information all in one comprehensive tome.
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| Listen up Trollords. |
Without further ado, here are a few things that I think make for a good
DMG:
Tables, lists, charts and graphs.
I want easily digestible visual data. Information must be presented in the most visually consumable method possible. Text should be limited to a sentence or two whose purpose is to support a nearby table, graph, diagram, or illustration. Perhaps a paragraph or two here and there to introduce concepts and such, but the make the paragraphs short and keep them to a minimum. Anything more than ~5 or 6 sentences and you've lost me.
A few essential Types of tables to include:
- Random dungeon generation
- NPC generation -- including personality traits
- magic item generation -- as in creating magic items not listing pre-fab items
- spell generation -- ditto
- monster generation -- a la DCC RPG.
Though of course potential DMG authors should not limit their table-generating activities to this small sample.
Adventure narratives.
Every now and then you're going to want to write up an example of your game in action. The best way of doing this is a cool adventure narrative written up in easily digestible screenplay format, not as paragraphs of undifferentiated text. And they must be entertaining. Throw in a little table chatter among the sample PCs for good measure.
DM: As you round the corner your torchlight reveals a
generic dungeon corridor, 10' wide and high, with a poorly mortared flagstone floor continuing off into the darkness. Same marching order?
Gamer 1: Yes, Guthouse Barrelboy and Buttout the were-elf are in front with Blotto the monk and Bluetooth the wizard taking up the rear.
Gamer 2: [sotto voce] Just the way they like it.
DM: None of that, now. How do you proceed?
Guthouse Barrelboy: I tap the floor with my 10' pole.
Gamer 2: More like 10 inches.
DM: If that's a dick joke you might want to reconsider it. Gutboy, you tap around the floor, nothing happens.What next?
Buttout: I walk down the hall.
DM: You make it about 20 feet before you step on a flagstone that sinks slightly into the floor.
Buttout: Oops. Sorry gang.
DM: A fusillade of arrows comes whizzing at the party from behind. Everyone in the back row save vs. traps.
Bluetooth: Buttout you asshole, if you kill my character I'm gonna' -- 17! Nice!
Blotto: Fuck. I rolled a 2.
DM: Well done Bluetooth, you take no damage but Blotto, [Rolling dice] two arrows rip into your hindquarters--shut up Gamer 2--for... Oh dear, 11 points of damage.
Blotto: Cocksuckitall. I only had 8 hit points.
DM: Roll a save vs. rolling-up-a-new-character at -3.
Blotto: grumble grumble. I got a ... 20! Sweet Nelly, I'm alive!
DM: [Sighing] Blotto the monk is not quite dead, but he is incapacitated. Do the rest of you want to waste your healing on him so soon in the dungeon or would you rather go on without him?
Blotto: C'mon DM, what the hell did I ever do to you?
DM: You rolled up a monk, that's what you did. What kind of A-hole plays a friggin' monk?
and so forth.
Sample Dungeons
As with tables, the more of
these the merrier. Preferably they're short and sweet with, say, 20
encounters or so, maybe 4 or 5 pages of text and a map taking up ~half a
page. Also awesome if you can drop just enough background info--name a
nearby tavern or town for PC use, an intriguing NPC or two--to allow the
DM to use it as the basis for creating his own setting. Or, if you're
feeling particularly crafty, surreptitiously link it to a module you're
publishing concurrently.
And some things that doesn't make for a good DMG:
Essays, treatises and manifestos.
Let's face it, longwinded essays in RPG rulebooks are the equivalent of a comb-over for game designers futilely attempting to hide their lack of table-creation skills. Sure Gygax included some verbose essays in the original DMG but he gets a pass for a few reasons:
- back in '79 DMing was a fairly new occupation, one which he'd been doing for longer than anyone... who wasn't Dave Arneson.
- there was no internet, and therefore new gamers could not fall back on the accumulated wisdom of 721,846 bloggers to figure out how to run a campaign.
- he's Gary Gygax.
Nowadays, game designer folk need to stop pretending that their off-brand RPG is going to be anyone's first entree into the genre. Even if, by some tragedy of fate, your tome does wind up providing the medium for some poor slob's induction into advanced geekdom everyone who can buy a book can navigate the internet; direct those interested in your bizarre take on world creation (Rivers flow toward the equator(?) because of gravity(??)) to your freakin' blog and make with the tables already.
The good folks over at The Dungeon Rats asked me (and probably you as well, no?) to write up a piece on their DnD playin' podcast.* They record their gaming sessions as their posse of PCs quest through the Endless Dungeon. Highjinks, one hopes, ensue.
