Purging

I never really gamed a lot, outside of computer games. Got into Magic the Gathering long before I ever got into Dungeons and Dragons. But for a while, D&D was fun. One of my favorite things about it was being able to use my own mind and think up solutions beyond what a computer could be programmed to respond to. Weaponless in a dungeon? What about that handy tapestry on the wall, something's got to be holding it there... a pole you say? What do you know, an effective net and a quarterstaff with hardly any work, just using a little ingenuity.

Today, though, I've chosen to get rid of my D&D materials. All of them. I had a hard time quantifying why I felt it was time to do this, but in the end it came down to something about the Dungeons and Dragons mindset that had always somewhat bothered me: Game masters are not really supposed to let their players read the Dungeon Master's Guide. Me being the kind of person I am, I immediately bought this book the very first time I was invited to play a game of D&D with someone.

I don't like the attitude this represents. I don't like the idea that the Game Master has to have some kind of secret knowledge of the rules and methods by which the game works in order to make the game enjoyable for the players. It seems to work from the premise that the Game Master will never him or herself be a player at someone else's table, it relies on secrecy to keep the players from disbelieving the illusion of the Game. After all, it wouldn't do for players to know that sometimes the DM is just rolling dice for appearances sake, and is making up the results for the sake of the story. I don't like that attitude. I don't like the rift it creates between players and DM.

On the other hand, I look at the book for Shadowrun (2nd Edition) and am pleasantly surprised to note that it makes no attempt to separate itself into material for the DM alone and material for the players. It seems to start with the assumption that the players will sometimes DM and the DM will sometimes play. It draws no distinction between the two more permanent than the context of a single game.

Needless to say, I'm keeping that book, despite never EVER having gotten around to playing a game of Shadowrun with anyone.

I notice that the new gaming system Deleria that Ri has been talking about also seems to have a singular core volume, and not a text for players and another text for game masters and another text as source for monsters/npcs.... I like this trend.

This may become one of my criterion for becoming involved with a gaming system, from this point forward... the transparency/open-sourceness of it.