Tough call but had to vote for the PHB over DMG. Though the DMG is a wonderful thing and I find something new or newly-understood every time I dig into it, the PHB is the core of the game for me.

Part of it has to be that for the first six months or so of my AD&D career, a PHB was all we had. I was voluntold to be the DM after our first session with an experienced AD&Der and basically made up my own monsters and combat system based on the things mentioned in the PHB. It was a wild ride and I constantly try to get back to that.

The Players Handbook is my "desert island" gaming item, so it has to get my vote in a poll of favorites.

Toric wrote:DMG for me.  In my opinion, this is the best RPG rulebook ever published.

Toric wrote:DMG for me.  In my opinion, this is the best RPG rulebook ever published.

Is it your favorite, also?

The MM is still my favorite by a long shot.
But now that I've staggered back into playing the game, I think the PHB may be the *best*.
That wasn't the case a few years ago.

gyg wrote:DMG for me all the way, I can still pick it up and seem to get something new out of it (perhaps suggests my attention span isn't that great though!)

2 questions about hard backs that have always been a low-grade niggle to me-

1 - why did TSR "present" the DDG
2 - why did the MM2 have stats for the squirrel?

answers on a postcard please........

Because they needed a rival for the housecat...which could easily kill a 0-level standard human.

For me, the greatest RPG rulebook ever written is the 1st Edition AD&D DMG. There is a warmth to the writing therein that has never been replicated -- full of personal anecdotes from Gygax. As an aside, I reread all of the core 1st Edition AD&D rulebooks -- DMG, PHB, MM -- every five years simply for pleasure.

--Alphonso Warden