This fall we'll get our first real look at the Dungeons & Dragons Essentials line. These Essentials will provide a good place for new players to start while giving experienced players expanded options like new class builds, powers, and feats. The Dungeon Master's Kitis the Essentials product that is most likely to become the DMs best friend.
In last weeks Ampersand article, Bill described the basic components of the DM Kit:
For Dungoen Masters, the boxed Dungeons Master's Kit expands the DMing material presented in the "Red Box," as well as two adventures, two poster maps, a DM's screen and monster tokens to help a DM take a campaign from 1st to 30th level.
Let's go ahead and get a bit more specfic on that "DMing Material" part with some information stollen directly from Andy Collins' brain.
The DM Kit includes a 256-page book (6"x9") full of information useful to the Dungeon Master who's graduating from the Red Box to a full-fledged game of D&D. This book also has the basic rules you'll need to run a game of D&D, and some tips and tricks that veteran players will recognize from the Dungeon Masters Guide and Dungeon Masters Guide 2. Naturally, the book in the DM Kit focuses on DM topics, not player topics (which are instead handled by the Player Essentials books: Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms and Heroes of the Fallen Lands).
At one point, we thought we would be able to fit the entire Rules Compendium into this 256-page book. In the end we didn't feel we could do the Rules Compendium justice with such limited trappings, so we made the call to have the DM Kit only handle DM-related rules issues. We were still hammering out these details in the weeks leading up to D&D Experience, which led to some out-dated information being shared at the convention.
So there you have it. The book that comes in the Dungeon Master's Kit is most definitely not the Rules Compendium, though it will to be a helpful tool for DMs. That along with the adventures, maps, DM screen and monster tokens look to be everything a DM needs to get his game rolling.
