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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 3311701" data-attributes="member: 22424">Yeah. My comment about Jack Chick was a poor attempt at humour. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I wouldn't say 'too many', since it's an almost purely amateur field filled with people engaged in a fun hobby. However, I do agree that the standard of DMs generally is shockingly poor.In piping, there is a grading system for bands and individuals, with younger players being in a 'Novice/Juvenile' grade, and adults being in one of five grades: 4B, 4A, 3, 2 and 1, with 1 being the best. Where the system breaks down, though, is that it relies entirely on your entry into competitions, and so the vast majority of pipers are ungraded (officially, this places them in grade 4B). This means that while "Grade 1 piper" is a mark of quality, in general you don't have that sort of assurance - you're getting an ungraded piper who could range in quality from shocking to excellent.As far as I can see, any organised grading of DMs would fall into the same trap - the only way to grade would be at conventions (since one's home group is a poor guide), but the vast majority of DMs don't attend cons, and don't run enough games at cons to get an accurate grading.You can't do this over the internet, since any sort of test will only cover the 'tangibles' (primarily rules knowledge), when it is my contention that the 'intangibles' have a far greater impact on the enjoyment of the group at the table. And even being able to explain how and why you should do things a certain way is very different from actually doing it. If the market were large enough, all that would really be required would be some sort of central review site. Then, market forces would drive out the bad DMs. As it is, I think the best that could be done would be to have game stores host game days, and for prospective customers to see the DMs at work there (and also at conventions). Even if we did have some rating scheme for DMs, the layman is not going to be sufficiently aware of it (in most cases) to make an informed choice. And, of course, there's no way to make it mandatory for semi-pro DMs anyway.</blockquote>

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