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- Title: So You Want To Be A Game Master: Everything You Need To Start Your Tabletop Adventure for Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, and Other Systems
- Author: Alexander, Justin
- Year: 2023
- Genre: Nonfiction / Reference / Gaming
- Link: Amazon
Review
On a cursory glance at the headings, there is no chapter dedicated to either the social aspect of being a Game Master nor the temporal aspects in So You Want To Be A Game Master by Justin Alexander. All who are searching for a book covering these, turn back; you will not find it here.
While this book attempts to be exhaustive, it falls short in areas of player and time management. The social aspects of any tabletop role playing game are some of the most difficult to handle and I have personally seen games constructed by brilliant Game Masters fall apart because they did not know how to handle player conflict. The social part of being a Game Master doesn’t only cover player conflict, but also the lines and veils each player has when starting a game and how they are navigated over the course of a game. I hope that in another edition of this book, player and time management will be included. These are the less glamorous parts of being a Game Master, but oh-so-valuable to Game Master and player alike. A good Game Master can craft a world and, if relevant, dungeons; a great one will make everyone at the table feel welcome and safe.
The book is primarily written from the context of Dungeons and Dragons and other d20 games, so it is best to keep that in mind when it comes to the other aspects. Alexander does an excellent job exploring most facets of being a Game Master in his book. If you feel there is nothing left to learn about player or time management and what you need are the mechanics of Game Mastering, by all means, pick up this guide. There may be a book in the future that covers the social and time necessities, and I would say that such a book would be a required add-on to this text.
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