
Shadrhar |

Yes, if you are not a GM looking for general advice (the first half of the book) or if you're not a GM who likes statblocks and writer's-block tables (the second half), this book probably isn't for you. As far as precedent, I think that's what most DM books have been.Statblocks and writer's-block tables are my bread and butter, so I'm having a hard time grasping your response. I can only imagine your style of GMing is radically different from my own. Paging through this book gives me the desperate urge to GM.
You've probably best grasped the situation - I'm not a GM looking for general advice. I've been playing for 32 years now, and I end up as GM roughly 80% of the time, so I really only need plot/story arc ideas, game mechanics, setting info, etc. General advice, while always welcome, is not something I need in print - print items are things I need to refer to on a regular basis, while advice I will read once/year as a refresher.

Evil Lincoln |

Evil Lincoln wrote:stuffYou've probably best grasped the situation - I'm not a GM looking for general advice. I've been playing for 32 years now, and I end up as GM roughly 80% of the time, so I really only need plot/story arc ideas, game mechanics, setting info, etc. General advice, while always welcome, is not something I need in print - print items are things I need to refer to on a regular basis, while advice I will read once/year as a refresher.
Well, since you now own the book, I recommend that you look at those tables in the adventure section again. Actually rolling on those tables during a game seems... amateur. But if you're looking for "plot/story arc ideas" I find that kind of tool is phenomenal for getting you to break out of ruts and write things that neither you nor your player was expecting.
I hope that helps you get the most out of this book.

Richard Pett Contributor |

Turns out that handling over the "words every GM should know" chapter to a hairy, half-mad British genius was a brilliant move. Well played Paizo, please hire Mr. Pett more often. His madness is most pleasant to behold.
Ah, too kind, and I'm always happy to do any task those lovely Paizo chaps and chapesses wish me to as they know. But at least half the credit should go to that charming, quite totally mad Mr Maclean, who shared half those infernal lists with me and was a joy to work with:)
The Listtheliststhelists.
I'm over them now.

Ice Titan |

I got to flip through this book and I was ecstatic at the amount of humor and pop-culture references rife through the book. It revitalized my thought process and got me kicked into writing an adventure I was excited to write.
The advice column stuff? Not so much. But the ideas... the ideas are great!

DeathQuaker RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8 |

Quite honestly, I think the book is very well done, and the only things I don't care for are ones that I still think should be in the book.
There are long sections about how to plot a game, types of player personality types and how to deal with them, styles of games, etc. With almost thirty years of GMing experience under my belt, these sections are of little use to me, but they would have been amazingly useful to me thirty years back, and they need to be in the book because for many GMs, this will be their first book and the advice is necessary and useful.
Everything else is neatly laid out and is something I will use all the time. I've lost track of the number of times I've needed the stats for the unstatted barmaid, but right there in the book are the stats for the barmaid along with a couple other tavern denizens. And then there's just plain fun stuff like the incredible page of fine point words that every DM should know. I'm a sucker for new vocabulary and I'm going to be perusing that page a great deal, combing through for the words that are unfamiliar to me or that I only faintly know.
I am in total agreement with this. I love what I've read of this book so far, but I could have used far less verbosity in the advice sections and even more concrete tools (which is not to say the "tools" are minimal).
I understand why they have the advice in there, and I hope it's useful to someone. But I don't know if even a new GM wants to read THAT much (especially since ultimately a GM likes to develop her own style). I may well of course be proven wrong, and I heartily welcome it.
That said, it's an incredibly well written book and I am certain I will use a great deal of it; certainly worth getting IMO.
Unrelated (to the above) Question: I noticed a slight error in one of the tables. Should that be reported here or should I create a new thread in the RPG products subforum?

Demiurge 1138 RPG Superstar 2013 Top 8 |

Can someone give me an idea of what they give on the following topics?
* Airships
* Extraterrestrials
* Parallel Worlds
* Space Travel
* Steam Power
* Planets/Moons
Is it rules and/or advice, and how much (approximately) do they give on each?
No rules for any of them, alas. Some of them get about a paragraph, but parallel worlds gets about a full page.

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So who´s going to write the first review?
There's two up so far I think.
Personally I'm really curious on how good this book is going to be. A lot of GM stuff was crammed into the Core Rulebook which tipped the book to 600 pages with about 200 of it being GM material. Despite this they managed another 300 pages into this one. I think we'll see some rehashing of rules from their other books (which is a good thing) combined with a healthy dose of new rules and tons of advice for running games (which they emphasize.)
Paizo just posted that the PDF will be available for $9.99. They have been awesome with providing us with an excellent value on their core rulebooks. I know that I am not the only person who has turned around and purchased the hard covers after getting back into RPGs because of the PDF's pricing.

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Evil Lincoln wrote:You've probably best grasped the situation - I'm not a GM looking for general advice. I've been playing for 32 years now, and I end up as GM roughly 80% of the time, so I really only need plot/story arc ideas, game mechanics, setting info, etc. General advice, while always welcome, is not something I need in print - print items are things I need to refer to on a regular basis, while advice I will read once/year as a refresher.
Yes, if you are not a GM looking for general advice (the first half of the book) or if you're not a GM who likes statblocks and writer's-block tables (the second half), this book probably isn't for you. As far as precedent, I think that's what most DM books have been.Statblocks and writer's-block tables are my bread and butter, so I'm having a hard time grasping your response. I can only imagine your style of GMing is radically different from my own. Paging through this book gives me the desperate urge to GM.
One thing that I'm surprised of is how many times I hear this arguement. 'I've been playing for X years now...' Your post really isn't the typical one, you don't follow it with a 'I don't have anything left to learn' line.
We've always got more to learn, there isn't some magic ceiling of GMing where you are as good as anyone can ever get. Our hobby isn't even old enough to have the 'one true way' discovered, yet.
And of course as we all grow older, new people are born and joining the hobby, and our culture itself changes at a rapid pace... we're always going to have something to learn!
Whether this book has something in it for us is a different question. I felt that it had quite a bit of useful information for me, but other GM's milage may vary.
But don't dismiss the book entirely because advice was one of its major goals was advice.
---
To reference my quote above a bit more directly, though... Not every book is meant to be a table reference. Goodness, if they were how on earth would I cary everything to my games?! Books are meant to be read, and not everything is meant to be digital these days. Dead trees still have a place in the world.
Since so much of this book (about half) isn't game materials... I would really prefer having something I can curl up in the couch and read.
And for those that prefer a digital method for these... the PDF is a good alternative adn only $10!

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I noticed a slight error in one of the tables. Should that be reported here or should I create a new thread in the RPG products subforum?
We'll be launching a new errata/FAQ system in the coming weeks, so if you want to wait until then, that would be fine... but if you think you'll forget, go ahead and post in the Paizo RPG products subforum.

Ashanderai |

WOOT mine is shippping today. I can't wait. It was fast, I just ordered it. I did not pre order or subscribe.
Hey! Who let you jump in line? I ordered mine as a subscriber last week and it still hasn't shipped.

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DeathQuaker wrote:We'll be launching a new errata/FAQ system in the coming weeks, so if you want to wait until then, that would be fine... but if you think you'll forget, go ahead and post in the Paizo RPG products subforum.I noticed a slight error in one of the tables. Should that be reported here or should I create a new thread in the RPG products subforum?
Actually, since there's already an appropriate thread, you might as well go ahead and use that.

JeffreyT |
Still waiting to get a copy of the Gamemastery Guide. Although a lot of the stuff in the book sounds useful, I'm most curious about the new rule systems, especially for "Chases" and "Mysteries and Investigations". Just wondering if anyone with the book can share their opinion on this chapter of the Gamemastery Guide.
Thanks.
- Jeffrey

totoro |

I like this book. I really just bought it because I'm too lazy to take myself off the subscriber list, and I feel like Paizo provides enough value that a donation from time to time is OK. There isn't much in the first half of the book I can use, but it is well-written and a pleasure to read. I don't think it hurts to have random treasure tables, either, since every once in a while I might want to use them.
The section I really like is the NPCs. It cracks me up that the foot soldier gets his behind handed to him in a bar fight by, well, everyone from the drunkard to the beggar, the pickpocket, the prostitute, the shopkeep in there for a nightcap, shipmate, farmer, storyteller, vagabond. Yeah, pretty much everyone. Oh, but he can take the village idiot. :)
Oh, and the CN cannibal? Hunts and eats sentient beings, but not evil. Perhaps just misunderstood? :) Good stuff, though.

Loopy |

I hope no one minds if I just keep posting things I love about this book, because I'm gonna.
...I love that maturity and sensitive topics are dealt with on page 10 and not in a separate book. There's drugs and even a drug dealer NPC. I'm not saying I'm obsessed with these topics or advocate real-life use of such things, I'm just glad Paizo is treating us like adults.

Hammerblade |

I have been going over my PDF copy and have a question that I have not found answered so far in the discussion. This actually has to do with the drugs in chapter 8 and specifically Shiver.
It appears that shiver is listed as 500gp a dose, however in the crimson throne path I believe it was listed at 50pg? Is this a type error or is it actual supposed to be a high end drug? Almost all of the rest run 15-50gp per dose.
If this is a type error it would also call into question the 500gp cost on the Elven Absinthe...but that sounds like it should be expensive!
Any official word on this?
Thank you.

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Worth the 10 bucks I paid for it, not a penny more. The only truly useful info was the community information (should've been in the core book) and the NPC write ups. The rest of the book is just an update of 3.5 material most of which is not rules specific anyway (player types, how to prepare for a game, handling problems during a game, etc.). So while I enjoyed reading the book (with some new art actually) it just isn't worth 40 dollars, maybe $27 from amazon, but even that is pushing it.

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You might want to consider that this book is supposed to be useful for both veteran GMs with three bookshelves of 3.5 material and new Pathfinder GMs who don't have such experience nor library. It's hard to do a good book for both those audiences, and I think that Paizo pulled it out perfectly.
A veteran will likely find some of the GMG material "old story", while a newbie will never use some of the advice on more advanced world building topics, but this book is useful for both.
Also, random tables. You can't have enough of these.

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I have been going over my PDF copy and have a question that I have not found answered so far in the discussion. This actually has to do with the drugs in chapter 8 and specifically Shiver.
It appears that shiver is listed as 500gp a dose, however in the crimson throne path I believe it was listed at 50pg? Is this a type error or is it actual supposed to be a high end drug? Almost all of the rest run 15-50gp per dose.
If this is a type error it would also call into question the 500gp cost on the Elven Absinthe...but that sounds like it should be expensive!
Any official word on this?
Thank you.
Shiver should indeed be only 50 gp a dose.

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Just to weigh in.
I was not very hot on this book from the time it was announced. Kind of felt it would be a throwaway book for me due to my subscription.
I love it and am very happy with it. There are things I wish I had years ago and are not as relevent for me after 30 years of playing but I will find this very useful and love the charts and the NPCs and the new rules, etc.
Thank you Paizo for being the best in the industry.

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Looking at some of the reviews I have an impression that some folks didn't bother to read the description of the book and bought it under the impression that it's gonna be "the perfect book for me and me only" ... Read the blurbs at the back guys, GMG was not meant to be a rulebook, nor it wasn't meant to be a pure advice book for beginners, nor it wasn't meant to be a book for advanced readers only. It wasn meant to be all this at once.

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Looking at some of the reviews I have an impression that some folks didn't bother to read the description of the book and bought it under the impression that it's gonna be "the perfect book for me and me only" ... Read the blurbs at the back guys, GMG was not meant to be a rulebook, nor it wasn't meant to be a pure advice book for beginners, nor it wasn't meant to be a book for advanced readers only. It wasn meant to be all this at once.
A few people also seem to think this is PFRPGs DMG....

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Looking at some of the reviews I have an impression that some folks didn't bother to read the description of the book and bought it under the impression that it's gonna be "the perfect book for me and me only" ... Read the blurbs at the back guys, GMG was not meant to be a rulebook, nor it wasn't meant to be a pure advice book for beginners, nor it wasn't meant to be a book for advanced readers only. It wasn meant to be all this at once.
Aye. It's pretty clear to me that what's in the product description is what's in the book. No more, no less. It seems to me that some of the reviewers haven't actually read the blurb on the product page.

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Rest assured that not even Paizo's vaunted editorial pit knew all of the words on that page. They were contributed by a Briton, so take that for what it's worth (a few shillings, at least).
And yes, I did force the editors to look up any words they didn't know, thank you. :)
Only a Brit could be that mean. I thought I knew lots of words! Now I am humbled. :(

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Ravenmantle wrote:Just one sample haunt (bleeding walls) and the rules to create your own haunts. No new traps.Yeah... I had a few more sample haunts in there but the format of that chapter kept us from being able to do more than one sample haunt.
Of course, that just tempts me to do a big book of haunts and traps and hazards...
I'd buy that ;)