Simon Collins
Explorer
The Slayer's Guide To Games Masters is a humorous look at the interaction between players and GMs from Mongoose Publishing.
The Slayer's Guide To Games Masters is a 32-page mono softcover product costing $9.95. Space usage is pretty average - a wide right-hand and upper margin, average font size, single line space between paragraphs, and no chunks of white space. The inside covers are both used for advertisements. The art has a mixture of styles and quality, but none of it is appropriate to its textual context - merely humorous takes on the GM-player relationship. Though the product is "recommended for mature readers only", the writing style (and content) led me to believe it should have read "recommended for immature readers only". Editing seemed fine.
"Understand this. The Games Master is your enemy". The whole book takes the standpoint that it is funny to annoy, frustrate and laugh at your GM, as well as great fun to perform immature practical jokes at the GM's expense, some of which are beyond anti-social.
Chapter One: Psychology
Looks at different types of GMs.
Chapter Two: Habitat
Looks at furniture, GM screens, and venues.
Chapter Three: Society
Discusses games shops, message forums, GM notes, text messaging, and using dice to transmit secret messages.
Chapter Four: Methods Of Warfare
Discusses specific ways of winding up the GM, such as rules-lawyering, power-building, abusing player information, outright cheating, annoying method roleplaying, using unbalanced 3rd party splatbooks, and other such methods. It also deals with out-of-game methods such as bribery, insults, and some vicious methods of real-life retributive revenge against GMs.
Chapter Four: GM Character Class
A humorous take on the 'GM' prestige class, with class features such as 'mass catering'.
Chapter Five: Slayer's Guide To Convention Games Masters
Further ideas for making convention GMs cry, such as stealing the scenario, pretending to be disabled to gain an advantage, and cyber-stalking them pre-convention.
High Points:
Well, I guess if you like your humour coarse and black, this will probably have you rolling on the floor with laughter. Some of the more ludicrous ideas did have me smiling on occasion, until I remembered there are some really sick people out there.
Low Points:
It depends on your sense of humour, so this is purely a matter of personal taste. But I just don't find coarseness, for the sake of it, funny (though fine if it's mixed with 'real' humour). I also found that a lot of the suggestions for the physical, verbal and emotional attacks on GMs in the book to be so close to situations in real life, where real people were devastated by exactly this type of behaviour, that the humour went beyond black and into just plain sick. The frequent use of British slang and turn of phrase, though translated in places, does little to help the cause.
Conclusion:
The whole product comes off as cliquish, nasty, and immature, not to mention insulting to people with disabilities. There's a saying, "If you can't be a good example, you'll have to be a terrible warning". As far as I'm concerned, that is the only use this book has. Just because it masquerades as humour doesn't detract from the sickness of its underlying messages.
Sheesh! Maybe I'm just getting old.
The Slayer's Guide To Games Masters is a 32-page mono softcover product costing $9.95. Space usage is pretty average - a wide right-hand and upper margin, average font size, single line space between paragraphs, and no chunks of white space. The inside covers are both used for advertisements. The art has a mixture of styles and quality, but none of it is appropriate to its textual context - merely humorous takes on the GM-player relationship. Though the product is "recommended for mature readers only", the writing style (and content) led me to believe it should have read "recommended for immature readers only". Editing seemed fine.
"Understand this. The Games Master is your enemy". The whole book takes the standpoint that it is funny to annoy, frustrate and laugh at your GM, as well as great fun to perform immature practical jokes at the GM's expense, some of which are beyond anti-social.
Chapter One: Psychology
Looks at different types of GMs.
Chapter Two: Habitat
Looks at furniture, GM screens, and venues.
Chapter Three: Society
Discusses games shops, message forums, GM notes, text messaging, and using dice to transmit secret messages.
Chapter Four: Methods Of Warfare
Discusses specific ways of winding up the GM, such as rules-lawyering, power-building, abusing player information, outright cheating, annoying method roleplaying, using unbalanced 3rd party splatbooks, and other such methods. It also deals with out-of-game methods such as bribery, insults, and some vicious methods of real-life retributive revenge against GMs.
Chapter Four: GM Character Class
A humorous take on the 'GM' prestige class, with class features such as 'mass catering'.
Chapter Five: Slayer's Guide To Convention Games Masters
Further ideas for making convention GMs cry, such as stealing the scenario, pretending to be disabled to gain an advantage, and cyber-stalking them pre-convention.
High Points:
Well, I guess if you like your humour coarse and black, this will probably have you rolling on the floor with laughter. Some of the more ludicrous ideas did have me smiling on occasion, until I remembered there are some really sick people out there.
Low Points:
It depends on your sense of humour, so this is purely a matter of personal taste. But I just don't find coarseness, for the sake of it, funny (though fine if it's mixed with 'real' humour). I also found that a lot of the suggestions for the physical, verbal and emotional attacks on GMs in the book to be so close to situations in real life, where real people were devastated by exactly this type of behaviour, that the humour went beyond black and into just plain sick. The frequent use of British slang and turn of phrase, though translated in places, does little to help the cause.
Conclusion:
The whole product comes off as cliquish, nasty, and immature, not to mention insulting to people with disabilities. There's a saying, "If you can't be a good example, you'll have to be a terrible warning". As far as I'm concerned, that is the only use this book has. Just because it masquerades as humour doesn't detract from the sickness of its underlying messages.
Sheesh! Maybe I'm just getting old.
