Dungeon Master's Guide Quick Review

So life, family, and friends have been keeping me busy, but I have managed to skim though the DMG, and I wanted to go over a few things that caught my eye.

First off, the overall impression that I get from this tome is of a tinker's tool box. There is a clear understanding that there is a zero chance that DMs will run their games as written. House rules, often based on table rulings inevitably and quickly creep in, and no two DMs are going to make all the same decisions. The DMG seems to embrace that idea wholeheartedly.

The entire final chapter is based around changing parts of the game whole cloth! New magic items? Sure. New Spells? Definitely. New races and sub races? Totally covered. Alternate XP systems? Yup.

Want to add rules for more realistic healing? There's an entire sliding scale of suggested options. Tossing in some lovecraftian madness? It's in there. Need some old school hirelings? I saw that in there too.

Oh, and monster lists? Remember how we were all upset the MM didn't have a list of monsters by CR? It's in the DMG. How about monsters by terrain type? Think that'll be useful? It's sorted by CR!

Random dungeons? 12 pages of charts!

Like I said, it's only been a quick skim so far, but there'll be more... so much more, and I've already found a few things I'll be tweaking in my game with what's in here..

And the art? Solid. I really like all the magic item illustrations. And that redhead on 243? Well, you'll just have to check her out for yourself!