The Ultimate RPG Game Master's Guide: Advice and Tools to Help You Run Your Best Game Ever! (Ultimate Role Playing Game Series)

Not annoying or difficult to read, I read the first half in a few hours. It’s got a lot of good reminders and tips. I’d say it’s definitely worth about $15, and it doesn’t feel like I wasted money on it. Pages have that kind of medium-budget feel, kind of like an old small novel from the 80s or 90s that’s been kicking around the library for a while. That’s a good thing; they’re easy to separate and flip through, they don’t easily crease like photo pages tend to do, and they bend well for folding one half of the book behind the other. The only thing that’s wrong is some of the purple ink on some pages seemed to have not dried quite right, leaving some purple ink on whatever page is adjacent to it (though it’s never enough to make it hard to read at all).

I've been a fan of James D'Amato's podcasts for years now, not least because of the Divination Deck he uses for his Skyjacks campaign. I've always wanted to learn the philosophy behind crafting these cards, and now with this book I finally can. It presents both the general thought process for building a Divination Deck, as well as a simple template that allows for both useful direction and plenty of room to explore. I've already started working on a homebrew deck for my own campaign.I'm sure the rest of the book is cool too.

Really insightful and wonderful resource for anyone interested in upping their storytelling game mastery

I've tried reading other GM guides or even watched video how-to's, but many of them have felt so dry and academic that I can't absorb a single thing I'm reading. This book is not that. The Ultimate RPG Game Master's Guide takes complex concepts and makes them simple enough that I, someone who is decidedly NOT an academic, can understand easily and then follow through with them in my own games.I'm new to GMing and it's a lot more difficult and uses a lot more brainpower than just entering a game as a player, but this book has helped me so much. I really admire James's GMing capabilities and getting to emulate even a fraction of his skill has proven invaluable to my games.

This book is billed as the ultimate guide but that clearly indicates that this will be the last book on the subject. This is an egregious misuse of the word ULTIMATE as there are two other books that are also labeled as the ULTIMATE in different categories! If you are going to do a three box set, at least have the decency to label one the PENULTIMATE and the other the ANTEPENULTIMATE text! RUDE!Oh, the content? Yeah the content is great, whatever. Solid advice to consolidate your thoughts and ensure that you communicate clearly with your players to have a good experience and all that. Yadda yadda RESPECT THE ENTYMOLOGY!

The front and back cover of the book has the print on a film and the film comes off easily.The content of the book was fine.

Having for a long time admired how expert game Masters really build a world with their players, I found a lot of value in this book's approach to GM'ing. The book of course has lots of excellent discussion of tips for how to think planned play but I also really liked the exercises and approaches to prep.Highly recommend this book. Clearly a lot of expertise went into it.

I bought this for my partner's birthday, as he's a new game master. We've both been enjoying reading through it. I'm a more experienced game master but there are sections in this book that I haven't thought about before! I really enjoy James D'Mato's GM style, so learning how to run ttrpgs more like him is fantastic.

Great product and value