So You Want To Be a Game Master

I. Dear Reader,

I was reading Justin Alexander’s book So You Want To Be a Game Master this week and something very obvious sneaked up on me. When someone says a book is for “new GMs”, they’re going to have to imagine some kind of person when they say that. When you say “new GMs”, what do you imagine to be their past experiences, their wants, their needs?

Now this book has an answer to that question. But it’s answer that is inherited, rather than made. Because the book is essentially a kind of transmutation of the Alexandrian blog, from pixel to print, the intended reader of the book has to be pretty close to the blog’s primary readership. Which turns out to be primarily, people running D&D 5e, secondarily, people running similar trad games, and tertiaririrally, anyone else.

But the model of the GM that D&D 5e and similar-ish trad games propose is a specific one. You know the model but it’s worth expanding: world-creator, NPC-actor, story-starter, story-ender, rules-teacher, player-manager, pseudo-computer, and so on, and so on. I’m not a fan of this model. For one thing, I think it is too much. I don’t think anyone dreams of doing this much labour.

Ever since the hobby began, people have been trying to solve it. The two broad solutions have been: adventure modules and highly specific games. Adventure modules say, “We got you, boss. Here’s a bunch of work done already. Focus on the other stuff.” Highly specific games say, “We’re world, scenario, rules, everything, all wound up and ready to go. Just follow instructions. Add salt to taste.”

Even as the Alexandrian has a lot of content about “fixing” D&D modules like Descent into Avernus, neither of these two solutions are to be found in So You Want To Be A Game Master. Instead, the book primarily gives you two things: techniques and procedures for running specific modes of play (dungeons have a dungeon turn, raids have raid turns, mysteries have the node structure and the three clue rule) and advice on how to write and create your own play materials (creating dungeons, hexcrawls, and so on). I have no doubt a need is being met here. But focusing on these things presupposes that our conceptual new GM won’t be using the previously mentioned two solutions – modules or specific games. Why?

Maybe it’s because this imagined new GM really wants to write their own adventure material. Fair enough. I’m one of those people. Or I was, when I played 5e a lot. (Nowadays, I’ll do anything to avoid doing anything.) But this isn’t a book about writing per se – as in, it’s not about the act of imagination where your mind goes away and comes back with words. It’s mostly about how to structure the results of that creative act. It’s mostly giving you formats to follow.

So I think we come to the answer finally: This book imagines a new GM is someone who is running D&D 5e or some other un-opinionated game and wants structures to follow when they write their own adventures. There is other good stuff in there for other people but it’s limited: this is who will get the most out of this book.

Yours reviewly?

Thomas

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II. Media of the Week

• Not RPGs but a video essay about city levels in games that focuses on music that captures the feeling of being there.

• I forgot how much I loved Ironsworn’s Theme oracles but this video reminded me. I should definitely use them more in my games.

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• Somehow we’re 1$ away from 300$ on Patreon! So if you can support the newsletter on patreon and get me over that milestone, that would be amazing!
• If you’ve released a new game on itch.io this month, let me know through this form so I can potentially include it in the end of the month round-up.

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III. Links of the Week

• On Gnomestew, a review of the wonderful game of magical girls, Girl by Moonlight.
• On the Indie Game Reading Club, Paul Beakley lists out Ten Unanswerable Evergreen Discourses. It’s a good list! What are the rules for? Are the players more important to a successful game than the system? Are RPGs art?
• On the Dice Exploder blog, Sam D argues that PbtA games have too many principles, agendas, moves, things. And in an interesting update, writes, “There are actually two kinds of principles, and we shouldn’t call them both principles.”
• On Cannibal Halfling, Seamus Conneely reviews World Ending Game, a game to epilogue a grand campaign.
• Ben Robbins floats a change to how scenes work in his much-loved game, Microscope, since lots of people don’t use that part of the game at all.
• Dr Emily Friedman is doing a big anonymous survey about TTRPGs and Actual Plays and labour and ownership that you can participate in.
• On Age of Ravens, another list of great RPG mechanics with a very meta theme. I specifically like the call for more Ludographies – yes, add your list of inspirations, ancestors, sources, etc in your game!

From the archive:

• Screenrant recommends three games about community and togetherness: Quiet Year, Flotsam, and Songs for the Dusk (Issue #24, January 2021)

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IV. Small Ads

All links in the newsletter are completely based on my own interest. But to help support my work, this section contains sponsored links and advertisements. If you’d like your products to appear here, read the submission form.

• 21: High Stakes Heists is rules-lite, played with a standard deck of cards, quick to learn, has great art, and comes with everything you need to get started.
• Eureka, an investigative TTRPG for any time period between about 1850 and the present day, with a supernatural twist. Check out the kickstarter launching April 10th 2024!

This newsletter is currently sponsored by the Bundle of Holding.

• Ever wanted to read the early GURPS-powered Discworld RPG? Yes, you probably did.
• The 13th Age megabundle is back with corebooks, supplements and the megadungeon Eyes of the Stone Thief + more!

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Hello, dear readers. This newsletter is written by me, Thomas Manuel. If you’d like to support this newsletter, share it with a friend or buy one of my games from my itch store. If you’d like to say something to me, you can reply to this email or click below!