A neat little book with a very Eighties artwork cover (could come straight from any Heavy Metal album cover) based heavily around the Dungeons and Dragons style games.
Gygax divides the book into three main areas: Player mastery, GM Mastery and Grand Mastery. The way he sees it is that to be the best you need to work your way through each of the levels to attain the Grand Mastery of the hobby. He compares the community to a pyramid structure: the wide base is made up of those who put in their individual effort and player mastery, which makes up the bulk of those who participate in the hobby. The next, smaller tier is made of those seeking play group excellence and mastery of the role of game mastery and above this, smaller still in numbers are those whose contributions to and mastery of the chosen game system enable them to contribute in a formal, published way to the hobby and affect a broad audience of the hobby. The pinnacle oft the pyramid are those whose contributions to and activity within the greater gaming community separate themselves out from the crowd through designing their own games and publishing their thoughts on the hobby that contribute to increasing the enthusiasm and enjoyment of others to the hobby. In each of the chapters he expands on what he considers is needed to achieve each level of mastery and, although I do not agree totally with all he says, he does have some nuggets of ideas that are very useful in reflecting on play.
This is a very interesting way to look at the hobby and also stems from the leveling way that DnD actually works. I think there is also a lot mileage in this ranking of hobby but I don't believe that everyone should necessarily strive to reach the pinnacle. After all there are some fantastic players who master the systems they play and bring a lot of fun to the table but have little or no desire to GM. Equally there are some GMs who run superb campaigns, can pick up any game and create fun and exciting games but who do not put their ideas beyond their group. It could be argued that they are not helping their hobby and if they did put their ideas out there, others would benefit from their thoughts BUT it is only a past time which is not supposed to be onerous but fun and a way to spend some good time with friends.
However, being provided with such a hierarchy it is inevitable that people will place themselves upon it! So, in all honesty, I would say that I am on the second tier looking up at the next tier as my target. This is part of the learning experience and re-evaluation that is happening and part of the reason I have started this blog to try an get some of my thoughts out there.
5 comments:
Looking back from the enlightened 21st century and seeing GM's ranked above players is like reading some 'woman, know your place' tract from the 1920's lol.
The third tier is also somewhat made redundant by modern technology. Most rp-ers are online and most of them write about their thoughs on rp-ing, making most of us third tier by default. Unless I'm reading that wrong and it refers to some kind of evangelising of the hobby.
GMs ranked above players.
It is true that players and GM are equally responsible for determining a good game, as we see it. :)
However, many groups are still one GM running for a group of players [hence the resonance of the comic Knights of the Dinner Table]with the onus being on the GM to deliver up a game each week. We are rather spoilt by the number of GMs in our group.
Equally writing your thoughts online doesn't necessarily mean that you are contributing to the hobby in a positive way. Take the 'anti'story-game posts by certain individuals on RPGnet - the kind of 'if you don't play my way, you are doing it wrong' mentality. I think Gygax was arguing here (he also used a concentric circle model for this with the players in centre and each 'tier' forming a circle around it) that it is anyones duty to better their skills and pass this information on in a positive manner [such as the Sons of Kryos do in their podcast] than to use it as a means of spreading the person's own prejudices/insecurities onto other people. So I disagree that by simply posting you can achieve the third tier by default.
Although it could be argued that
(a) as there is no 'one true way' of gaming, one persons rpgpundit is another persons Sons of Kryos. The sharing of what you perceive to be good practice is going to probably help someone, somewhere, improve their game - although it might not necessarily help everyone, everywhere.
(b) Even asshat posting can be helpful as it acts as a catalyst for further, more reasoned debate. We've done this a lot on my blog, where we have picked up a topic from a forum and teased out the relevance to our game directly.
The posts that are abusive, antagonistic or downright crass aren't really posting about gaming. They are posting about the poster being an asshat.
Of course, in a couple of months, when I am first tier, I expect an appropriate level of humility from your proles!! *g*
Neil
I think three overlapping circles better represents how hobby has evolved from the three concentric circles of the eighties.
"there is no 'one true way' of gaming, one persons rpgpundit is another persons Sons of Kryos."
--Neil
Quite true, just look at Fear the Boot!
A fascinating show, if just for the hosts attempts to describe everything with a D&D or Battletech frame of reference.
Yet they are doing the whole podcast things. One persons enlightenment ain't anothers, etc.
Though some common elements / skills could probably be identified.
Ian.
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