D&D Question, geared more towards the DMs.

Sail

Today I waddled off to Barnes and Noble to get some RPG books to start this geekery off. I was planning on getting the Dungeon Master's Guide so that I could run games for my friends. I was a bit bewildered when the DM guide that I saw on Amazon for $20 was in the book store for $30. So, I decided not to purchase it there, and to just get it online instead.

But then I started flipping through it. All I saw was a bunch of arbitrary rules that didn't seem to have any use. Even the dungeon mat the came with it looked low-quality. It was just a large piece of paper with some grids drawn on it. It seemed worthless next to the nice, laminated dry-erase mats that I had seen online for 6 bucks.

The conclusion I came to was that, unless I became hardcore into D&D, that book was fairly useless and I could run a perfectly decent game without it.

The trip wasn't a total waste, though. I did, after all, pick up the "Extra Deluxe Edition" of Kobolds Ate My Baby!

But did I make the right decision? I mean, I feel that I have a pretty darn good idea of what a DM is supposed to do, and nothing in that book seemed to add anything except arbitrariness. So, do I really need the Dungeon Master's Guide?

Apreche

No. The Dungeon Master's Guide has almost always been a scam to make more money.

Neito

It's my understanding that The SRD is basically a generic d20 system, so you could use that rather than the big DnD books.
Or use a lighter free system like TriStat dX.

But I'll admit i have more experience reading and collecting rulebooks than playing games.
EDIT: Note to self. does not close < a>.

TheWhaleShark

Eh, I've found the DMG to be handy for my games. It contains some references and material that I wind up using.

I do, however, encourage either pirating or using the SRD. No sense in paying a lot for these books.

Sail

I do, however, encourage either pirating...

Heh, I've already done so for the core book. I just figured that having this particular book on hand instead of in a pfd would be helpful.

HMTKSteve

The only DMG worth buying is the First Edition AD&D DMG written by Gygax himself. That book is a treasure trove of useful information. The GMG for HackMaster comes in a close second.

Alex

Useful things in the DMG:

1. Advice on running/designing adventures and campaigns. May or may not be useful, depending on the style of your game and your experience with RPGs. The good parts of this I'm sure can be found in various online forums if you look hard enough.
2. The XP table. If you hand out experience according to the normal system of CRs, you'll need this
3. Poison, fatigue, and various other afflictions which are often mentioned but not fully detailed in the other core books.
4. Oddball special case rules. Weather, environmental stuff, falling, drowning, etc. All stuff that it is very useful to have existing rules for, but which comes up relatively rarely.
5. Treasure tables (useful only if you're generating random treasure, which is sometimes handy) and magic items lists (useful regardless).

There are other things, but if you do need to buy it, those are the things that you'll want it for. While it is not a total waste of money, you'll only ever need one per gaming group, and much of what is useful in it is also contained in the SRD. The chief exception seems to be that bloody XP table.

TheWhaleShark

Well, you don't really need the XP table if you know how the XP on it is calculated. It's designed so that it would take 13.33 encounters at a CR equal to that of the party (a party being 4 charactes) in order for everyone to get a level.

In other words, the XP that a monster of a CR equal to the party's level generates is equal to (CR x 1000/13.33) x 4, rounding down. If a party defeats a monster of a CR higher than their own level, just remember that a CR 2 levels above that of the party generates twice the experience of a CR at the party's level, and a CR 2 below the party's level generates half XP. A CR difference of +/- 1 generates +50%/-33% XP respectively. These calculations generally only work perfectly at levels 5 and above, though you can still do a pretty good job of it at lower levels.

Example:

Average party level: 5
XP from a CR 5 encounter: (5000/13.33) x 4 = 1500 XP
XP from a CR 7 encounter: 3000 XP
XP from a CR 6 encounter: 2250 XP
XP from a CR 3 encounter: 750 XP
XP from a CR 4 encounter: 1000 XP

If you raise the CR by 2 twice (raise the CR by 4), then you double the XP twice. If you lower by 2 twice, you halve the XP twice. Pretty simple. As long as you remember how to figure the XP of a CR equal to the party level and how to manipulate the numbers, you're fine. No need for an XP table.