Review: D&D 4e Pt 9 - DMG 2 - "Running the Game"

Book Two: Dungeon Master's Guide
Part the Second: Running the Game

1. I'd heard before about the "Preparation Guide", which is the first part of this section. It gives you tips on how to prepare for a game if you have Four hours, Three, Two, One or No Time to prepare for your game. I thought it sounded great! I often go into games with little time to prepare, and having tips for when I don't have a lot of time sounded pretty sweet.

But the preparation guide assumes that, unless you have four or more hours, you'll be using a published adventure. True, it gives you a short side-bar about "If you don't want to use a published adventure...", but doesn't tell you how that changes based on preparation time - just that you should choose a dungeon map, and use the sample encounter groups from the MM. Sometime I should explain how much better my adventures are when they aren't published. (Although we did have an awful lot of fun with the Iron Kingdoms' published adventures a while back.)

2. Most of this chapter is for beginners, but it is good advice for the most part. The GM/Player relationship is a wee bit conventional for my taste, but things like Delegation and the afore-mentioned ability for players to suggest Quests does help out.

3. The Information Imperative is wonderful: Essentially, it states that if the characters need a piece of information for the adventure to continue, the DM should not hide it behind a skill roll or otherwise make it possible for them to not acquire the information.

4. Passive skill checks are cool, but a lot of paperwork for the DM.

5. The section on Improvising -- pure gold! From "Saying Yes" to the "Tips from the Pros" sidebar in which the writer learns that letting players have authority can be cool, this is one of the best parts of the book so far.

6. The troubleshooting section reads like a condensed version of the best advice one sees on the rpg.net forums for problem groups. Good stuff here.