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D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide (Dungeons & Dragons Core Rulebook)

4.9 4.9 out of 5 stars 29,837 ratings
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  • Learn how to run a thrilling game of Dungeons & Dragons (5th edition)
  • Magic items—a treasure trove of items for your players to discover
  • Advice for creating your own world, monsters, spells, and magic items
  • Guide to balancing encounters—make combat as easy or deadly as you want it to be
  • A Dungeon-Masters-only tour of each plane of the D&D multiverse—from the Feywild to the Shadowfell
  • 1 of 3 D&D Core Rulebooks—the Player’s Handbook (rules for playing the game), the Dungeon Master’s Guide (how to run the game), and Monster Manual (creatures to encounter in your game)

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D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide (Dungeons & Dragons Core Rulebook)

D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide (Dungeons & Dragons Core Rulebook)

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Product Description

“The DMG is a dungeon master's best friend. It's the one book to rule them all, the most comprehensive and powerful set of resources needed to run a game of D&D.”—Charlie Hall, Polygon

Weave legendary stories in the world’s greatest roleplaying game.

The Dungeon Master’s Guide provides the inspiration and guidance you need to spark your imagination and create worlds of adventure for your players to explore and enjoy.

Inside you’ll find world-building advice, tips and tricks for creating memorable dungeons and adventures, optional game rules, hundreds of classic D&D magic items, and many other tools to help you be a great Dungeon Master.

From the manufacturer

DMG

Entertain and Inspire Your Players

“The DMG is a dungeon master's best friend. It's the one book to rule them all, the most comprehensive and powerful set of resources needed to run a game of D&D.” —Charlie Hall, Polygon

In a game of Dungeons & Dragons, the Dungeon Master (DM) serves as narrator—creating a world full of wonders and challenges for the other players’ characters to encounter.

Whether you're running a D&D game already or you think it's something you want to try, this book is for you.

Tell a Good Story

Kick off your campaign with a thrilling introduction, complicate matters with moral quandaries, and end it all in an epic finale.

This book will teach you how to craft compelling plots and create balanced combat encounters that are as easy or deadly as you want them to be—from fresh level 1 characters picking a bar fight to a level 20 party battling a dragon god.

Dungeon Master's Guide

Build Your World

From city maps to magical systems—the Dungeon Master’s Guide is full of worldbuilding advice to help you color in a rich, engaging world for adventurers to explore.

Create Unforgettable Characters

Inventing characters on the fly is a tricky task. This book includes tables for quickly creating distinctive non-player characters with memorable quirks, personal ideals, and intriguing family secrets.

Create the Perfect Villain

Get tips for designing the perfect villain—with ideas for dark schemes, key weaknesses, and even spe­cial class options.

Create Your Own Monsters

Try out blueprints for creating your own monsters, spells, magic items, and more.

DMG

Discover Legendary Treasures

Some adventurers seek more than just glory.

The Dungeon Master’s Guide is where you’ll discover D&D’s most coveted items—sentient weapons and bags of holding lie amongst glittering jewels and magic rings in a treasure horde spanning almost 100 pages.

DMG

Helpful Tools & Optional Rules

While the Player’s Handbook contains all the rules you need to play, the Dungeon Master’s Guide gives DMs advice and additional tools for running all three pillars of a D&D game—exploration, social interaction, and combat.

Optional rules are also included for DMs looking to add a few twists to their campaign, with rules for coping with horrors, using firearms, figuring out alien technology, and more.

Dungeon Master's Guide Core Rulebooks Essentials Kit Starter Set Reincarnated Dungeon Master's Screen
Dungeon Master’s Guide Core Rulebook Gift Set Essentials Kit Starter Set Reincarnated DM Screen
Customer Reviews
4.9 out of 5 stars
29,837
4.9 out of 5 stars
18,747
4.8 out of 5 stars
22,112
4.7 out of 5 stars
21,647
4.8 out of 5 stars
8,997
Price $44.95 $145.32 $20.49 $25.08 $14.95
What it is: 1 of the 3 D&D Core Rulebooks All 3 D&D Core Rulebooks + DM Screen Beginners Adventure Kit Beginners Adventure Kit Dungeon Master’s Screen
Get this to: Learn how to run a D&D game Get the full core set or give as a gift Run your first D&D adventure Run your first D&D adventure Quickly reference rules while hiding notes and die rolls from players
Features: Tools and tips for Dungeon Masters Special Edition Foil Covers Exclusive Foil DM Screen Includes character creation guide Ready-to-play set Interior content refreshed based on fan feedback
Contents: Worldbuilding guide Magic items Optional rules Guide to balancing encounters and custom content Player’s Handbook Dungeon Master’s Guide Monster Manual + Dungeon Master’s Screen Short adventure + 64-page rulebook DM Screen 6 blank character sheets 11 dice Poster map, cards for magic items, and more Short adventure + 32-page rulebook 5 ready-to-play character sheets 6 dice Rules for conditions, roll difficulty levels, object hit points, and more
Experience Level: All experience levels All experience levels Beginners Beginners All experience levels
Best for: Dungeon Masters Dungeon Masters New Dungeon Masters New Dungeon Masters Dungeon Masters

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Customer reviews

4.9 out of 5 stars
4.9 out of 5
29,837 global ratings
Absolute Gem!
5 Stars
Absolute Gem!
So I bought this dungeon master’s guide, at essentially, the lowest cost I could find and with the damage insinuated. I wasn’t expecting an almost unused copy with the only damage being one small (fairly unnoticeable) tear and a dot of red at the bottom page line.This was an absolute steal for me and I’ll be happily buying from again
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Top reviews from the United States

Christopher Pitts
5.0 out of 5 stars The book you need when you move beyond playing and start creating!
Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2024
Style: Physical BookVerified Purchase
This is the book you need when you want to move beyond playing Dungeons and Dragons and begin to run games, or even create them. This book contain all the material that you need to start building adventures instead of just playing them. Includes all the rules to run a Dungeons and Dragons adventure for friends and family and who knows, maybe even beyond that. As with all of the 5th edition books this is full of great content and amazing pictures. Along with the Player’s Handbook and the Monster Manual this is part of the must have trilogy of books for playing this amazing role playing game.
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Kevin
5.0 out of 5 stars D&D dungeon masters guide
Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2024
Style: Physical BookVerified Purchase
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 The Dungeon Masters Guide is a must have for a DM of any level. Whether you are a new inexperienced story teller or a battle hardened veteran to table top role playing, this book is a great tool for you. In this book it explains how to create scenarios as well as world building, character creation, and even give advice on magic weapons that can be handed out to the players. With over 300 pages of tips, it's great to have in any session. The illustrations are incredibly detailed and worth the purchase if even just for collecting art books.
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BW
5.0 out of 5 stars Everything a newbie DM could ever want to know about being a DM
Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2020
Style: Physical BookVerified Purchase
Previously, I wrote a review for the 3.5 edition of the Dungeon Master's Guide for Dungeons and Dragons, and I useful I found it for writing novels. All of that applies to the 5th edition too, but more so. I much prefer this edition as a writing aid. Oh yes, I also find it useful for running a Dungeons and Dragons campaign.

This book is split into three main sections, each describing the responsibility of the Dungeon Master in the game. They are "Master of Worlds", "Master of Adventures" and "Master of Rules". The first is for creating the campaign world, the second is for creating the adventure, and the third is a list of rules to help the DM run the scenario, tweak situations to fit the campaign, and a section with advice on homebrewing elements.

As a Dungeon Master, I find this book extremely helpful. I have several areas of it bookmarked for easier and quicker reference. One of them is the area for building encounters and managing random encounters. This helped break my previous conception of random encounters, which I picked up from video games.

In video games, there is no point to a random encounter other to beatdown on the monsters for some droppable resource (Experience points, money, some form of loot). Then you move on. Not so in a Dungeons and Dragons session, where some groups play for 2-3 hours a week or even less. That can become tedious (as it sometimes happens in video games as well). This area of the book taught me how to make a random encounter more meaningful. There is a "Sylvan Forest" encounter table in here that I merged with another table in the Monster Manual to create the one for the area that my party is currently adventuring in. These "random" encounters provided the seed necessary to create events that are relevant to the here and now of the session.

I also bookmarked the area that explains how to create maps for dungeons, settlements and wilderness, as well as adjudicating and describing what your players do in each. Because each area is different, different methods are used for each one. For instance, a dungeon is likely to be traversed room-by-room, as the player-characters check for traps and treasure. The wilderness, by contrast, is more likely to be a more general environment that does not involve the player-characters checking behind each tree or the top of each hill. Unless, of course, they are in a particular section of wilderness that doubles as a dungeon.
Also, my players have done a lot of foraging recently so it is useful to have a table that enables me to quickly determine if they find something and how much they find.

A third bookmark, of which I currently have seven in total, is a rule variant for chases. In Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, all creatures have a set movement speed, which makes chases deterministic and therefore less interesting. This area lists certain rules that can be used to add randomness to this otherwise pre-determined scenario, basically obstacles that both the pursuer and the quarry can run into, which can slow them down. There are also rules for determining when the chase begins, ends, or turns around and makes the hunter the hunted.

Oh, I wish I had read this book cover-to-cover when I first started DMing. I thought I knew the rules well enough as a player and that I would do fine by imitating what our group's original DM did, but I didn't do fine. Not in the least. I have several embarrassing sessions under my belt, and this book could have prevented several of them. Particularly the Chase section; especially the Chase section.

On another note, there is gorgeous art in this book. This review is mainly about the usefulness of the book for a Dungeon Master (and therefore also a novelist) but I have to mention the gorgeous art. You can see landscapes of everything from mountains and meadows to the Shadowfell or the Elemental Plane of Fire. You get portraits of an adventuring party consulting/drawing a map or in combat with a dragon. Most of the magic items listed in the treasure also get their own images along with their listing.

Trickster Eric Novels gives "The Dungeon Master's Guide for D&D 5E" an A+
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Joseph Marino
5.0 out of 5 stars Worth the buy
Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2024
Style: Physical BookVerified Purchase
As a beginner D&D player I was skeptical to spending money on this book. After purchasing it and upon reading its contents I found that it has a wealth of knowledge for beginning players and aspiring Dungeon Master's (DM's). The quality of the book is great as well with vibrant pictures and super detailed descriptions. I would recommend buying this book only for the aspiring DM's out there, you can buy it if you want to have it and learn a little more as a player but, this is more geared towards the DM's of the world.
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Joseph Marino
5.0 out of 5 stars Worth the buy
Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2024
As a beginner D&D player I was skeptical to spending money on this book. After purchasing it and upon reading its contents I found that it has a wealth of knowledge for beginning players and aspiring Dungeon Master's (DM's). The quality of the book is great as well with vibrant pictures and super detailed descriptions. I would recommend buying this book only for the aspiring DM's out there, you can buy it if you want to have it and learn a little more as a player but, this is more geared towards the DM's of the world.
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Aaron M. Litz
5.0 out of 5 stars I can now truly say that 5th Edition is the best edition yet
Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2015
Style: Physical BookVerified Purchase
With the release of the new DMG completing the core rulebooks of D&D 5th Edition, I can now truly say that 5th Edition is the best edition yet. A real return to looser 1st Edition (and even OD&D) sensibilities after the extreme bureaucratization and accounting fetishization of 3rd Edition, and the extremely overly-gamized 4th Edition (I liked 3rd, but truly HATED 4th.)

5th Edition takes the basic approach of OD&D and Basic D&D, combined with the feel of 1E and the character customization of 3E, streamlined and simplified, with numbers reduced across the board; no more +30-50 to rolls, which make the variable of a roll of a D20 almost trivial, and Armor Class and DCs mostly top out around the low to mid 20s. The only thing to increase is Hit Point totals, but with the lower ACs the amount of hits increases, and the streamlined combat rounds make fights much faster (no more accounting for every second of a six-second combat round; every character gets to move and attack, one Bonus Action and one Reaction, and it plays out swiftly.) One of my favorite additions is Saving Throws for every Ability Score; Strength, Intelligence, and Charisma saves! Great idea!

The optional rules ideas in this new DMG are great, from the Sanity Score (right up there alongside Strength and Intelligence, with a corresponding Sanity Saving Throw!) to rules for Injuries and slower healing, which helps deal with one of the few things I didn't like about 5E, the idea that everyone heals to full HP after a long rest (got a broken leg? a good night's sleep will take care of that!) The optional rules for injuries gives good spot rules for long term injuries like broken legs and lost limbs, and the core idea is easily expandable, and is essentially a system I was going to implement myself if the DMG hadn't included it!

Magic Items return to much more of a 1E ideal; instead of the Diablo-style menu system of 3E or the "point and click ability" nature of 4E (and the Sword of Sharpness is back!) with the only real difference being that weapon and armor bonuses are reduced to a max of +3 (to fit with the general reduction of modifiers) and magic items are ranked by rarity, from Uncommon to Legendary (Potions of Healing are Uncommon, a Staff of the Magi is Legendary.)

This is all in addition to general things required of a D&D DMG, such as rules for constructing buildings, a general tour of the other planes of existence and basic rules for them, and some nice discussions of the ideas behind D&D and the basic assumptions of different styles of campaign, such as a short talk about different subgenres of Fantasy, the general expectations inherent to them, and where the different D&D settings fit into each style (like the Sword & Sorcery genre of Greyhawk and Dark Sun, the Epic Fantasy of the Forgotten Realms, the High Fantasy of DragonLance, and the Dark Fantasy of Ravenloft.)

This new DMG, and the new Edition of D&D in total, is a wonderful return to the original looser, more free-wheeling style of D&D, with Dungeon Master judgement and interpretation more important than a specific rule for every tiny possible detail, but all built around a very solid framework. It fulfills every desire I have for a D&D ruleset.
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Bruno
5.0 out of 5 stars Perfeito! Uma das pontas levemente amassada, e só
Reviewed in Brazil on July 28, 2023
Style: Physical BookVerified Purchase
Chegou rápido e em ótimo estado, novo em folha, com apenas uma das pontas da capa levemente amassada, passa fácil! Sucesso!
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Carlos Cifer
5.0 out of 5 stars Solo para DMs
Reviewed in Mexico on August 30, 2022
Style: Physical BookVerified Purchase
La calidad del libro es muy buena. Una gran adición para quienes desean crear campañas nuevas. Si no eres DM, conviene más comprar el Player’s Handbook.
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Carlos Cifer
5.0 out of 5 stars Solo para DMs
Reviewed in Mexico on August 30, 2022
La calidad del libro es muy buena. Una gran adición para quienes desean crear campañas nuevas. Si no eres DM, conviene más comprar el Player’s Handbook.
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Leeway
4.0 out of 5 stars Info
Reviewed in Sweden on April 5, 2024
Style: Physical BookVerified Purchase
It gives a really good description of the world and a bunch of tips usefull to new DM's
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Lucca Giusti
5.0 out of 5 stars Very Nice Book
Reviewed in Germany on February 16, 2024
Style: Physical BookVerified Purchase
Delivery was fast, book was in great condition
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Mik
5.0 out of 5 stars Regalo per mio figlio
Reviewed in Italy on December 6, 2023
Style: Physical BookVerified Purchase
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