Customer Reviews

XDM X-Treme Dungeon Mastery

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Questions for you RPG players:
1. How long does it take you to roll up a new character in your current RPG? In Advanced XDM it takes sixty seconds.
2. How long is a character sheet in your game? Does it resemble a tax return? An XDM sheet has 4 stats.

Questions for you DMs out there:
1. How long does it take for you to write down the stats for say, ten monster encounters? In XDM it takes 5-10 minutes.

Look at the index of any other RPG "Core Rulebook" and your going to see it break down like this: rule mechanics 90%, storytelling/ scenario design 10%. Here, the opposite is true. Most of the book is about how to manage players and design scenarios. The game "rules" are about 10 total pages in length. I particularly like the entire magic system and all spells....it takes one page of text. Furthermore, the system is completely adaptable to any genre of RPGs

The system works like this: You have 4 stats which cover your physical ability, mental ability, luck, and health. You tell the XDM what you want to do, he uses his/her best judgement and tells you what you need to roll on a 20 sided die, taking your stats and level into consideration. If you roll the number or higher you succeed and roll a second time if neccessary for damage. If you don't roll the number you fail.

Magic, Hickman points out, should work the same way. The wizard describes the effect he wants to create and the XDM assigns a difficulty number. No looking up casting times, note-taking about componants, memorizing , re-memorizing, proficieny slots. No more snivelling in the background and hiding behind fighters...a 1st level wizard is just as powerful as a beginning fighter.

Experience and advancement are handled brilliantly too. You get experience and your character can change careers and advance in levels but that doesn't change your stats. It just allows you to say to the XDM, "I'm a third level fighter. Shouldn't I be able to hit that orc easier than that 1st level guy?" No more complicated record keeping every time the character gains a level.

I know, I know, some of you are freaking. "That's too simple!" and "My group won't go for that!" Hickman quite brilliantly points out that the reason one rolls dice in an RPG is to find out only two things:
1. Did the charcter succeed or fail?
2. How well/badly did the character succeed or fail?

In order to do this, you roll dice and....and this is key....EVERY ROLL COMES DOWN TO ONLY TWENTY NUMBERS. That's it. Even a percentile based game can be broken down into a d20. If you want to make your RPG "more realistic" you'll have to add lots of rules, charts and stats. You may gain in terms of realism but the combat will take longer to adjudicate. But even the most realistic system still boils down if character succeeds or fails and there are only twenty possibilities.

The best part about XDM: since there are no "rules" there can be no "rules lawyers" and there are no charts of any kind to look up. This keeps combat fast and exciting.

I recently converted my 15 year old Warhammer fantasy RPG campaign to XDM. After a brief period of skepticism my players embraced XDM, noting that combat was far swifter, equally deadly, just as gory, and even more fun. Even the younger guys (in their 20s) who play the new 3rd Edition Warhammer say XDM is as good or better.

The only downside that XDM relies heavily on the prudence and quick thinking of the XDM. And the players need to be mature enough accept the XDM's decision making.

Another reviewer called this book "the best RPG book you never knew you needed". I've played and DMed since 1981 and thought I knew everything about RPGs. I was wrong.

Buy this book today. Your players will thank you.

Wanting to improve the story aspect of my game, I picked up The Writer's Complete Fantasy Reference a few months ago. While it was a great source for creating an interesting fantasy setting, it had nothing about creating an interesting fantasy story. XDM X-treme Dungeon Mastery filled that gap nicely.

The book was funny throughout, in that unique blend of humor only roleplaying gamers can appreciate: one part cerebral inside jokes, one part puerile enjoyment of shiny destructive things.

There was also some great advice packed between the humor about making your storytelling more interesting. The authors view dungeon mastering first and foremost as a performance. Like most ingenious innovations, that perspective is blindingly obvious in hindsight, and leads to some great insights. They don't disappoint in the follow up, either. XDM was literally game changing for me, and I highly recommend it for any DM who has felt too much like a referee lately.

I received this a week ago and it has been great! So many incredible ideas, tips and hints.
It is written using D&D type games for most of the references, but by no means is limited to them. This would be a great reference for any type of RPG.
And it is truly hilarious! The comments and drawing are over the top. The rest of the family kept looking at me funny as I would break out giggling every few minutes.

For those whom being a game master is one of their favorite activities and desire a REAL challenge, Read Chapter 13: Killer Breakfast To Go. I have been a GM for over 10 years and played for 7 more. I don't know if I could pull one of these off. But oh, would I love to try sometime!

I rate this a strong "Must Have" for any GM.

This book instantly became my favorite book from at least the last year, if not longer. Packed with brilliant humor, brilliant advice, and a wry bit of self-deprecation, XDM is the book that many, many GMs out there have been wishing for without even knowing it. Combining entertaining illustrations, witty quips and anecdotes, and plain good advice on making your game - or any story, for that matter - a better experience, it more than delivers quality for the cost; every last cent of it is expressed in useful material, rather than the glossy magazine paper and absurdly overpriced illustrations that have become the benchmark for so much of the gaming industry.

Even better, for the experienced Game Master, is the inclusion of the 'XD20 System', a marvelously simple rule system for handling any gaming experience you could imagine. Rather than relying on a massive block of rules to script out every possible situation, the system cuts down to the core of it all: you are at the table to have fun. You are not at the table to spend an hour calculating all the bonuses and penalties involved in a simple attack or spellcasting. Everything is cut down to, at most, one or two die rolls, and the judgment of the XDM running the game. It could be catstrophic, in the hands of an inexperienced or 'player killer' kind of DM - but in the hands of anyone who understands the idea of making it fun over anything else, it does away with the need for all those massive piles of rules that dictate the rolls needed to do anything, with things not covered being 'impossible'.

This is the game book of the year. If you play RPGs, you owe /yourself/ this book. Get it. Sign up to the website. Remember what it was that drew you to gaming in the first place, laugh, and get ready to join the revolution.

Disclaimer: I should say up front that I have known Tracy Hickman for many years. Despite that, I shall endeavor to give this book a fair review.

XDM: X-Treme Dungeon Mastery is written by New York Times bestselling author and game designer Tracy Hickman and his son Curtis Hickman, with illustrations by Howard Tayler. According to editor Sandra Tayler, Tracy and Curtis "wanted to find a way to help role playing gamers remember to enjoy their games rather than get caught up in the mechanics of systems." This book does just that.

Throughout XDM, one theme is clear: ditch the rules, the fiddly bits, and anything that gets in the way of having a good time at the gaming table. XDM explores making the game the best it can be, both from the player's standpoint and from the XDM's. Yet the book does so with the right touch of humor to set the tone.

I should probably mention that several of the chapters in this book are based on seminars that Tracy Hickman has given over the years. Much of this is familiar to me from the GenCon I spent stalking Tracy at his various seminars.

After the obligatory introductions, the book begins with the "Secret History of XDMs." This chapter is an account of the "history" of XDMs, from ancient Babylonian times up to the modern day. This chapter is just for fun, but it gets into the mood of the book.

We move on from there to Getting Started as an XDM. This section deals some with some fun initiation material, but has a really good page on what an XDM does and what he doesn't do. This is an invaluable tool for understanding the content of the book.

The next section is on the theory of XDMing. There is a good section on the types of players an XDM may have at his table. While not as detailed as what we've seen from Robin Laws or in the 4th edition Dungeon Master's Guide, the three archetypes presented here are a fairly accurate summary of the types of gamers.

We move on from here to a section on storytelling, which is one of the gems of this book. This includes a variant of the Campbellian Monomyth, designed for use for storytelling. I've been using the monomyth in my current game, and the results have been great!

We move on to designing games for story, which takes the premise of story and moves it to practical gaming application. The next few chapters adds on to the foundations of the prior chapters.

From there, we move on to a section where we go beyond normal game mastery to the realm of the Ultimate XDM. Imagine adding sound, lights, lasers, holograms, and fog to your game! And yes, there's even a bit of pyrotechnics.

What throws the book off, though, is the next chapter, on magic. This chapter talks a lot about various magic tricks, but doesn't really explain much about how magic tricks deal with a role-playing game. This chapter really felt like it disrupted the flow of the book, and was hard to get through.

However, the book is saved once again with the next chapter on Killer Breakfast, a fun event that Tracy runs at GenCon. I've played in Killer Breakfast for several years, and this is a nice behind-the-scenes on how to do it. I'm not certain this is something you can do with friends, but it would be great for a game at a convention.

We then move on to another gem in the book - How You Play the Game. Tracy's GenCon seminar on this very topic has been quite inspirational to me. One story in particular regarding a barbarian Tracy once played really set the mood.

From here, we go into the next chapter on the XD20 role-playing system. It exemplifies XDM principles in its simplicity. Despite knowing what the authors had in mind, it just wasn't engaging to me. In a way, having a game system may run counter-intuitive to what this book does best - giving advice on making your game great.

The book finally ends with an afterword called "Waiting for Gygax." Truthfully, this section should have been the forward. It sets the tone perfectly, and would have been a great place to start. In fact, many of the ideas in this book would have been better served if organized differently. I think some editorial reorganizing would have helped tremendously.

The illustrations helped to make the book what it is. Each one was fun and funny, and I had a good time going through them. It's too bad that the book wasn't in full glorious color.

Overall, this book has a lot of great ideas. Yet it has a few flaws, too. The biggest flaw of the book is the excessive amount of typos. It is my understanding that the book was produced in five weeks. It shows. Grammar mistakes run rampant throughout the book, making it distracting. Likewise, the book comes with footnotes. A few here and there would have added just the right spice to the book, but I felt that there was so many footnotes that we were drowning in flavor. Plus, the paper stock reminded me of the type of paper used in the 1st edition AD&D books.

The book seems to be designed for players and GMs who have played RPGs for a while. It's also a great resource if you're a Tracy Hickman fan, or a fan of adventure writing.

This book is a masterful resource, one that every GM should have. However, the book is in need of some editing to make it shine. Certainly, for the information inside, it is a valuable and indispensible resource. Yet the book comes across as a bit of a diamond in the rough.

Myself, I thought this was too jokey. Some of the puzzles in one section were okay, and the art was well done. Various pieces of advice on how to run a game were well done.

But I've seen most of this before. The GM guides for Pathfinder and D&D (any version) will be more generally useful than the material in here, which almost purely deals with how to tell a story.

There is an extended section on magic tricks, which seemed like overkill.

A player wouldn't get anything out of this. There are pretty much no mechanics in here. The actual XDM system itself is only a few pages long. Most of the advice, I knew.

I didn't care for it overall, but there is some good advice scattered in with the jokes.

I know all of the current reviews read 'a bit over the top', but if you read this book, you will be more than happy to join us in praising this book in the same, gushing manner. I have been playing AD&D since 1981. I started DM'ing just six months into my gaming career, and I learned much of what this book espouses over the years, the hard way. If I had read this book during my first year of GM'ing, I would have benefited so very much, I laugh thinking about how much fun I, and my players, would be having today...

This book is full of cartoons which tie directly in with the text. It truly is hilarious gamer humor, which had me laughing out loud with nearly every page. My family wondered if I was losing my mind, in a laughing, cajoling way. The humor is poignant, and it helps gamers to not take themselves too seriously.

While I do not follow the XDM rules (I still play 2nd Ed. AD&D, and I really like it, in spite of the author's suggestions), the concepts, and ideas, are applicable, even if you choose to follow a different set of rules for your games.

The price seemed a little steep, before I got it. I was genuinely concerned with what I was buying for my money, but now, I would not hesitate to fork over the cash again, should I lose my copy. It is sooo good, and sooo funny! I shared this with a friend who is a Star Wars RPG game master... He was thrilled with it, and the suggestions it has. The rules you play, do not matter. The ideas, and suggestions within this book, are applicable to any RPG rules: the rules mechanics may vary, but the story-telling principles remain the same. If I could recommend only one single GM'ing book, this would be it, without question. Buy it -- you won't regret it!!! Cheers!

If you are a GM or a person interested in the conventions of narrative storytelling, this book is for you.
Breaking many of the conventions that hold the genre back, XDM lets you know its intentions in its first page; to show you how to throw a game that nobody will forget. Running the gamut of pyrotechnics, laser shows, methods of storytelling, Campbellian epics, and even combining live action role play with pen and paper, XDM sets out to turn the traditions of backlogged rules-posturing on its head, simplifying the game once and for all.
I heartily endorse this book, and nominate it for the next great American novel.

Great fun read, great resource for the fledgeling or even experienced DM. I was kind of depressed by the fact that the firebomb chapter was so edited, whether it be by a third party (homeland) or just as a joke on behalf of the authors, but that was just a pyro in me.

Great book, definitely suggest it!