Dungeon Master's Guide
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The Dungeon Master's Guide ("DMG" or "DM's Guide"; in earlier editions, the Dungeon Masters Guide or Dungeon Master Guide) is a book of rules for the seminal role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. The Dungeon Master's Guide contains rules concerning the arbitration and administration of a game, and is intended for use primarily or only by the game's Dungeon Master.
It is intended as a companion book to the Player's Handbook, which contains all of the basic rules of gameplay, and the Monster Manual, which is a reference book giving statistics and characteristics to various animals and monsters. The Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and the Monster Manual are collectively referred to as the "core rules" of the Dungeons & Dragons game.
While all players, including the Dungeon Master, are expected to have to be able to refer to a copy of the Player's Handbook, only the Dungeon Master is expected to refer to the Dungeon Master's Guide or Monster Manual during gameplay.
Like other volumes of Dungeons & Dragons handbooks, the Dungeon Master's Guide has gone through several versions through the years.
The Dungeon Master's Guide contains scores of tables and charts for figuring damage and resolving encounters in a typical adventure, tables and rules for creating characters, and lists of the various abilities of the different classes of characters.
For many players, the three core rulebooks were referred to so often that some dungeon masters wore out one or more copies of each book over the years. This led to the development of the Dungeon Master's Screen: two heavy-duty boards with the most oft-used tables printed on them for easy reference. The screen could be stood on-end to shield notes, rolls and other adventure bookkeeping from players' eyes. The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Second Edition screen came packaged with a brief adventure; later editions of that screen, and screens produced for later editions, have instead included character sheets and general reference booklets.
A useful features of the first two versions of the Guide was the Random Dungeon Generator (RDG). The generator allowed, by the rolling of dice, to generate a dungeon adventure "on the fly." A dungeon complete with passageways, rooms, treasure, monsters and other encounters could easily and randomly be constructed as the player progressed. It could be used with several people or a single player. This was a useful tool to play the game when others weren't available to play or to have an adventure without preparing an campaign beforehand. The RDG was not included in the subsequent versions of the Dungeon Master's Guide past the second.
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[edit] Other editions of the book
| Dungeons & Dragons Core Rule Books |
|---|
| Player's Handbook | Dungeon Master's Guide | Monster Manual |
| 3.5 Dungeons & Dragons Supplemental Source Books |
| Book of Exalted Deeds | Cityscape | Complete Adventurer | Complete Arcane | Complete Divine | Complete Mage | Complete Psionic | Complete Warrior | Dragon Magic | Dungeon Master's Guide II | Expanded Psionics Handbook | Fiendish Codex I II | Frostburn | Heroes of Battle | Heroes of Horror | Libris Mortis | Lords of Madness | Magic of Incarnum | Monster Manual III IV | Planar Handbook | Player's Handbook II | Races of Destiny | Races of the Dragon | Races of Stone | Races of the Wild | Sandstorm | Spell Compendium | Stormwrack | Tome of Battle | Tome of Magic | Unearthed Arcana | Weapons of Legacy |
| 3.0 Dungeons & Dragons Supplemental Source Books |
| Arms and Equipment Guide | Book of Challenges | Book of Vile Darkness | Defenders of the Faith | Deities and Demigods | Draconomicon | Enemies and Allies | Epic Level Handbook | Fiend Folio | Hero Builders Guidebook | Manual of the Planes | Masters of the Wild | Miniatures Handbook | Monster Manual II | Psionics Handbook | Savage Species | Song and Silence | Stronghold Builders Guidebook | Sword and Fist | Tome and Blood |
| 3.0/3.5 Dungeons & Dragons Campaign Setting-Specific Source Books |
| Dragonlance: Dragonlance Campaign Setting • Eberron: Dragonmarked | Eberron Campaign Setting | Explorer's Handbook | Faiths of Eberron | Five Nations | Magic of Eberron | Player's Guide to Eberron | Races of Eberron | Secrets of Xen'drik | Sharn • Forgotten Realms: Champions of Ruin | Champions of Valor | City of Splendors | Dragons of Faerûn | Faiths and Pantheons | Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting | Lords of Darkness | Lost Empires of Faerûn | Magic of Faerûn |Mysteries of the Moonsea | Player's Guide to Faerûn | Power of Faerûn | Races of Faerûn | Serpent Kingdoms | Shining South | Silver Marches | Unapproachable East | Underdark • Ghostwalk: Ghostwalk • Greyhawk: D&D Gazetteer | Living Greyhawk Gazetteer • Oriental Adventures: Oriental Adventures |
| Other 3.0/3.5 Dungeons & Dragons Material |
| Dragon Compendium Vol. 1 | Dragon Magazine | Dungeon Magazine | 3E/3.5 adventure modules |
