I said this over in the "You're in Charge of D&D" thread, and no one commented on it, so I wasn't sure whether anyone agreed. I'll say it again: The DMG is the worst and most useless corebook. I think this is especially true of 3rd edition, though I wasn't too fond of it in previous editions either.

You need the PHB to generate new characters. It also contains the combat rules, the skill rules and the spell lists. The latter three are consulted pretty much whenever a character wants to do something that doesn't automatically succeed - they either want to attack something, to cast a spell at it, or to use a skill.

You need the MM for monster stats. You consult it whenever the PCs encounter a monster, usually multiple times a fight. Depending upon the number of fights per session, you may end up consulting it almost as much as the PHB.

The DMG, on the other hand, has the XP tables, the magic item lists, and status effects. It also has a bunch of filler, like alternate character generation rules, advice on gold for characters starting above 1st level, some tables for generating random adventurers that I've never actually heard of anyone using more than once, some terrible advice on building settings to game in, and some alternate PrCs. It's a grab bag of various rules that didn't fit the page count of the other books (status effects should be in the MM, magic items in the PHB) with some extra cruft thrown in.

I've never found the need to consult it more than a handful of times in a campaign, let alone per session like the other two. I don't think I'm alone in this, since most of the DMs I've played 3.x with also don't seem to consult it. Nor have I ever seen a piece of advice for quick preparation on the internet that suggests "use your DMG".

So, has anyone ever found the 3.x DMG particularly useful or worthwhile?

...but Dude, - its got the table for generating adventures and campaigns.

 That and a couple of ten siders and I'll happily kill some time with a notebookand some pens..


- Ed C.

when i ran 3.x i used it constantly, but for only a few things:

--CR table
--XP table
--magic item tables

the rest of the book was meh IMO.  occasionally i used the "example NPCs by level" stuff, too.

The 1e AD&D DMG is an amazing book.  Possibly the greatest hardcover RPG book ever written.

However, the later DMGs have been pretty useless.  When I DM'ed 3e I rarely consulted the 3e DMG, as I preferred to make up my own magic items as appropriate (not that hard), and used my own experience system.

Ya know, I haven't looked at the 2e DMG in a while. I do recall that it was poorly organized IMHO.

The first edition DMG is absolutely necessary.  It's not like in 3e at all, where the PHB has, essentially, everything you need to play in a combat sequence. I don't recall the combat tables in the 1e PHB (the equivalent of the BAB table in 3rd edition).

Regardless, the 1e DMG seemed to have a lot more about running campaigns, but with less rules - more advice and so forth than CR's and EL's.

I'd say, in general terms only, that the later the edition, the less necessary the DMG.

IMHO:
1e DMG>3e DMG>>>>2e DMG
The last was not only useless, much of its advice was actively harmful. :mad:

Have I ever mentioned that I think taking out the cartoons from the DMG was the worst choice ever made in the history of gaming (this including FATAL and Galloway's Fantasy Wargaming).

Now here's my list of what should be in the DMG

DM Advice (a short section on group dynamics and social niceties like bathing (illustrated so they're sure to notice))
Information on expanding the range of the game to non-eurocentric locales
World building discussion

Character Creation Options (The DM choses options not players)
Monster Creation Guidelines
Spell Creation Guidelines

Optional Combat Rules (again, The DM choses options not players)
Mass Combat
Siege Combat
Naval Combat
Combat in Unusual Environments

Treasure (including a section on economics)
Magic Items (and a big section on appropriate placement)
Random Treasure Tables (on which magic is scarce as hell)

Random Dungeon generator / game
Random Encounter tables

Ultimate three book index

Acutally, I don't think DMG should contain new rules, it is Guide not Rulebook, so it should guide you through the process of DMing. The book has some interesting bits, but overall does quite a poor job. I guess that in combination with DMG2 and some articles from Dragon/Dungeon after serious recombination it could be quite useful book. In its current incarnation it is a bit well... lame.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineSo, has anyone ever found the 3.x DMG particularly useful or worthwhile?

Magic gear.

Er, that's pretty much the big one.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineI said this over in the "You're in Charge of D&D" thread, and no one commented on it, so I wasn't sure whether anyone agreed. I'll say it again: The DMG is the worst and most useless corebook. I think this is especially true of 3rd edition, though I wasn't too fond of it in previous editions either.

The DMG is most definitly the worst of the corebooks in 3.x. It's one of the least useful but still useful enough.

But the execution? Sucks hairy balls and has Monte Cook written all over it.

I actually like the 3.x DMG quite a bit. Most of what is called "filler" is stuff I enjoy having access to, and I see it as being akin to the various good bits the old 1e DMG is praised for. It's a good toolbox for a DM, giving him a lot of advice and options for personalizing his campaign - optional rules and ways to modify the game to taste without reinventing the wheel are precisely the kind of material I want in such a book. I think that 1e had it right by making the DMG the thickest book of the core; 3.x could have made a spectacular DMG if they'd had the material from Unearthed Arcana available to put in it. A combined DMG/UA would be, in my opinion, just about perfect.

Hmmm, don't think I've ever bothered to read a 3.*ed D&D DMG. Never really saw the need, everything I needed was in the SRD pretty much...

The 3.x DMG does have a nice and thorough overview of the Great Wheel planar cosmology.

Edit for more substance: I do think the DMG is probably the least useful as an immediate, at the table resource, but with all the stuff you mentioned in the first post, stuff that's absolutely vital to a game, I wouldn't call it crappy by any measure.

Add the few charts mentioned to the PHB and I'd only need the one book.  I don't really like the MM, but it is handy when you are getting started or for surprises.  After a while, I just never needed it again.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineSo, has anyone ever found the 3.x DMG particularly useful or worthwhile?

As others have mentioned, I used the 3.5 DMG for the CR and XP tables and for the magic generation rules.  I also used it for traps and poisons.  But there is also some advice in there that I think could be very useful to a person who has never GMed before, which won't have much value to an experienced GM, so I'm not sure it's has the same worth to an experienced player as a beginner.