You don’t agree, but, your statement is exactly what #5 stated – only in a different way.

My bad, guess I didn’t elaborate enough.

I was merely pointing out the fine line between a DM and a GM. Story-wise, the dev(DM in this case) is able to dictate what happens to the story, say in RF for example, the Cora Wins the war and takes permanent control of the game world, then certain game-world-wide changes will occur. You can’t get a GM to do the same unless he’s a dev too.

Check out this part:

Someone must see to the story arc, flesh the milieu and generate/populate it with interesting and unique Non-Player Characters. It used to be a single guy’s job. Now, that tasked is shared by a development team hard at work trying to make the next World of Warcraft.

It basically equates the DM to a GM in all cases. Now I’m not saying that’s wrong since some games are still manned by the development team, case in point WoW, merely pointing out that the generalization is wrong.

sylv3rblade said
am March 25 2008 @ 5:59 pm

I agree on everything except number 5:

I think the most of the job of the Dungeon Master is still in the Developer’s hands. They’re the ones that have their hand on how the MMO will go.

Just slightly confused about this statement…even re-read #5 3 times…

You don’t agree, but, your statement is exactly what #5 stated – only in a different way.

Dev’s design the game and control the gameplay aspect – but GMs/DMs are still used to keep order (sometimes)

Gygax (D&D) = Dev
Blizzard (WoW) = Dev
Players = DM/NPC/PC/GM

It’s been that way since D&D 1st Ed.

Just thinking out-loud now because #5 is on point…

I just hate that I read about Gygax’s passing then a week later – read that 4th Edition is being released…

~ Time to break out the old Char Sheets and create a new Char ~

GM T

Don’t forget that it was Gary and the rest of the guys at TSR who came up with the terms for the classes people use such as clerics, paladins, barbarians, et. al. Every time you hear those terms being used in WoW or some other RPG, you know where they came from.

PS. You didn’t text me back. What happened to you?

I think the most of the job of the Dungeon Master is still in the Developer’s hands. They’re the ones that have their hand on how the MMO will go.

What Game Masters have however are plot hooks (oh yes only people who have DM’d before will understand what a plot hook is) which are usually in the form of in-game events that spice up the experience.

Hehe.. I was writing up a post in-line with this.