Dungeon Master For Dummies (for the Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game) [Paperback]

Bill Slavicsek (Author), Richard Baker (Author), Jeff Grubb (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 24, 2006

Whether you’ve been a Dungeon Master (DM) before and want to fine-tune your skills or want to get ready and take the plunge, this is the book for you. It gives you the basics on running a great game, info for more advanced dungeon mastering, guidelines for creating adventures, and tips for building a campaign. It shows you how to:

• Handle all the expressions of DMing: moderator, narrator, a cast of thousands (the nonplayer characters or NPCs), player, social director, and creator
• Use published adventures and existing campaign worlds or create adventures and campaign worlds of your own
• Conjure up exciting combat encounters
• Handle the three types of encounters: challenge, roleplaying, and combat
• Create your own adventure: The Dungeon Adventure, The Wilderness Adventure. The Event-Based adventure (including how to use flowcharts and timelines), The Randomly Generated Adventure, and the High-Level adventure
• Create memorable master villains, with nine archetypes ranging from agent provocateur to zealot

To get you off to a fast start, Dungeon Master For Dummies includes:

• A sample dungeon for practice
• Ten ready-to-use encounters and ten challenging traps
• A list of simple adventure premises
• Mapping tips, including common scales, symbols, and conventions, complete with tables

Authors Bill Slavicsek and Richard Baker wrote the hugely popular Dungeons and Dragons For Dummies. Bill has been a game designer since 1986 and leads the D&D creative team at Wizards of the Coast. Richard is a game developer and the author of the fantasy bestseller Condemnation. They give you the scoop on:

• Using a DM binder to keep records such as an adventure log, PCs’ character sheets, NPC logs/character sheets, treasure logs, and more
• Knowing player styles (role players and power games) and common subgroups: hack’n’slasher, wargamer, thinker, impulsive adventurer, explorer, character actor, and watcher
• Recognizing your style: action movie director, storyteller, worldbuilder, puzzlemaker, or connector
• Using miniatures, maps, and other game aids
• Using 21st century technology, such as a Web site or blog, to enhance your game

The book includes a sample adventure, The Necromancer’s Apprentice, that’s the perfect way to foray into DMing. It includes everything you need for a great adventure—except your players. What are you waiting for? There are chambers to be explored, dragons to be slain, maidens to be rescued, gangs of gnoll warriors to be annihilated, worgs to be wiped out, treasures to be discovered, worlds to be conquered….

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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!

Look inside scenes from Dungeon Master 4th Edition For Dummies (Click on images to enlarge)

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Back Cover

See what it takes to host a game and plan adventures

Sharpen your DM skills, practice storytelling, and get to know your players

Whether you're just considering venturing into the world of the Dungeon Master or you want to hone a fledgling skill, here's the place to start. Not only do our experts give you the full scoop on running and improving a game, creating adventures, crafting plots, and building campaigns, they even include some sample dungeons for practice!

Discover how to

• Use prepared adventures or create your own
• Host the game
• Manage ongoing games and campaigns
• Explore various types of adventures
• Create memorable villains
• Develop plots and story lines

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 408 pages
• Publisher: For Dummies; 1 edition (April 24, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471783307
• ISBN-13: 978-0471783305
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #202,848 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #60 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Gaming > Dungeons & Dragons

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Terrific Companion For Novice Dungeon Masters, May 17, 2006

By 

Doc Holiday "Dark Sorcerer & Mad Genius" (The Old West, US) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dungeon Master For Dummies (for the Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game) (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!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice, but the constant ads for WOTC were annoying, December 25, 2008

By 

Stephen Brennan - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dungeon Master 4th Edition For Dummies (Paperback)

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.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book for beginner and intermediate DMs, January 24, 2008

By 

Kira M. Santucci "Kira" (Pittsburgh, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dungeon Master For Dummies (for the Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game) (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.