Chapter Ten: Introduction to Gamemastering

Up to now the rules have largely dealt with game content, in particular the features and abilities of characters, vehicles and capital ships, how to make them move and how to make them fight. What's missing is the mechanism for giving all of these rules and regulations meaning. After all, a character is just an average person until they have some motivation that hurls them to fame and greatness. A vehicle is a vehicle, until something happens to make it famous (like being in a television show, or dropping the first atomic bomb). Capital ships are fictional in the modern world; without something to bring them to life, they're nothing more than words and numbers on a sheet of paper. Something else is required for the game to function. That something is a special player, a person whose job is to weave stories, direct the all of the game's aspects, organize the physical environment in which the game is played, interpret the rules and solve all disputes. There's a name for this player: the gamemaster.
This Chapter and the ones that follow comprise the gamemastering section of the Core Rules, and are meant for those few players who have the time, energy and skill necessary to put together adventures and/or campaigns and conduct a group of players through the stories they tell. This first Chapter in this section is designed to be a primer for new or relatively inexperienced GMs and includes some general guidelines on how to conduct a gaming session and what the functions of the gamemaster are (including an example of how to play the game). For more experienced GMs, this Chapter includes instructions on how to create additional materials that may be necessary for specific adventures. This Chapter will not discuss the specific components or types of adventures, nor will it include guidelines on how to build an adventure from scratch; those topics will be covered in the next Chapter.
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