Dungeon Master's Design Kit (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Accessory) [Paperback]

Harold Johnson (Author), Aaron Allston (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast; 2nd Edition AD&D Accessory edition (October 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0880385995
• ISBN-13: 978-0880385992
• Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 8.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,539,707 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars One great section out of three, June 25, 2003

By 

J. Tarpley "ivan_sidorov" (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dungeon Master's Design Kit (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Accessory) (Paperback)

This is a nice little tool, and remarkably useful even for D&D products several generations down the road. Easily the most relevant section today is "Book III: Adventure Cookbook," which is a fun brainstorming tool for getting adventure and campaign ideas flowing. The DM rolls dice for theme, setting, villain and various plot points, and the results, although random, often amount to the beginnings of a promising adventure. The charts and forms in the first two books are a little overcomplicated for my taste, but they could still generally be used with third-generation-era D&D. Note that there is basically nothing here on overall world-design. Included is a module with some fun ideas.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ingenious!, November 17, 2002

By 

Stein Llanos (Bergen, Norway) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dungeon Master's Design Kit (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Accessory) (Paperback)

I stumbled upon this thing years ago in the bargain bin of a gaming store in Oslo, Norway and it has scince been THE single most used TSR product I've ever owned.

I've been among the organizers of a local gaming Con, RegnCon, for 10 years, and this baby has enabled me to make and run adventures when there just didn't seem to be enough time to get it done. The strength of the product lies in that it formalizes a lot of the things a good DM/module designer is aware of, or should be aware of if he/she wasn't organizing 1000 other things at the same time.

It's also easy to adapt to any other system, and I've used it for Cyberpunk, WoD and Warhammer FRP as well as for DnD. Just remember not to feel too restricted by your initial results. Buy this, roll the dice and feel the ideas flowing!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ideal time-saver for DMs in need of organization, May 1, 2000

By 

Kent David Kelly "Author & Anthologist" (Denver, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dungeon Master's Design Kit (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Accessory) (Paperback)

This is one of the best products ever put out by TSR. Harold Johnson and Aaron Allston created a near-perfect system to streamline the adventure creating process. Starting with just a few ideas, you can turn out a quick, dramatic, original and uniquely detailed adventure, incorporating ideas you never thought of before, using an ultra-fast layout system that's very similar to planning out a complicated novel. If you write your own adventures, or just modify modules to fit perfectly into your own campaign, you need this set! Includes a long-forgotten module, laid out in the format so you can see how it's done. Perfect!