Posted by Fleet Captain Matt Evans (Assistant Gamemaster Director/Full Gamemaster) in Proposal: An Alternate to Completing the GM Exam
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I’ll attempt to address the suggestions brought up while in-lining the sections for easier reference.

I think some clarity in this section would be useful - there’s no actual assignment of who grades the plan if the GMDir is not the Trainer. Perhaps something as simple as
-Nathan
A member of the GMD who is not the Trainer will receive the written sim plan and pass or reject it.

This is a good suggestion for clarity. The intent was that the GMDir or AGMDir could be facilitating as the Trainer and as the GMDir cannot evaluate a GMT review while being their GMM, so was the idea with this.

My only suggestion would be to perhaps consider making the Trainer the GMM for the Trainee’s first Sim? The Trainer would already be familiar with the Sim and have an established working relationship with the GMT. So maybe have a que of trainers as well as trainees. When one gets matched, the next is line is ready to go. I don’t know if that would be necessary, but it was a thought that popped in my head.

James

My main hesitation for this is that the appointed Trainer would then be indisposed during the rest of the GMT process. If each Trainee takes the maximum of 6 weeks to finish the alternative process, then during the appointed term that the Trainer follows they can only take on a maximum of 5 people. This does not account for any of the allowed breaks either. Similar to how the exam proctor doesn’t follow-up with being the GMM, I don’t think that having the Trainer do so is the best use of their time.

I really like this idea. I have wanted to GM for many years but have been intimidated by the current process. I learn best by actually doing a job instead of having it explained to me, so not having a visual sample of how to set up a sim is what has stopped me. I have plenty of ideas, but I don’t know how to set them up so they will work as a sim. I would be the first in line to be taught how to do it. In my head, it feels like it would look something like an outline with bullet points, but I’m sure there is more to it than that. Last week I even printed out the GM course to read through again to see if I could get myself psyched up to try and pass it in its current form. I’ll be following this thread to see how it all shakes out.

D Grisham…

I’m glad this idea appeals to you. This was exactly why I came up with this alternative because I know that exams as a format do not work for everyone.

Hi. I like this. There’s no one writing style, there’s no one roleplay style and there’s no one-size fit all GM style. I think having an option for people who either don’t need or whose creative process does not fit into the traditional GM exam path can really benefit from this. Are there people who would really like the traditional GM path? Yeah, but having another option for people is also really nice. I’ve been tempted by the idea of being a GM but I know that the original exam path just does not fit with my schedule nor my creative writing style. I also think I’d be happiest being what I guess I would call a substitute gm lol. Where I can hop in, run a small-scale sim in between a ship’s main sims. I think I’d also like to run some player-focused sims that utilize the backgrounds and histories of the ship’s cast, again on a smaller B-plot style scale. I think that kind of thing would suit me best.

Abigail G

That could be something you could potentially work alongside on with another GM. There have been plenty of instances where two GMs tag-team a sim together.

Fantastic idea! I agree with James too, so that you all wouldn’t need additional resources (i.e. GMM, trainer, trainee), it’ll just be the trainer/trainee.

-Ray

I do appreciate the thought of conserving resources and we’ll look into the feasibility of this. I replied above to James why I think this may not work, however I’m open to ideas on how to effectively utilize the Trainer’s time.

Thanks for the feedback so far everyone.

Matt

Some thoughts here ..

Yeah, totally has merit for this alternate plan. Thoughts on it ..

It may not hurt to have a series of ‘Be sure to consider’ items when doing up the sim plan to help guide one on things to be sure to include or consider.

I don’t see any reason why a person can’t work their sim plan prior to announcing their wish to do it and then be limited to 3-6 weeks to work it. Sometimes it can take 3 weeks to tweak it much less design it from scratch.

Pass/Fail on the submission to the GMDir .. I don’t like that. I’m more on the Pass or ‘Send back for Editing’ with proper comments on things to do to fix it to be ready. Really, if the person has worked on the sim plan with the proper criteria in mind, worked it over with another GM, there shouldn’t be any critical errors that can’t be done on a ‘let’s work on this part of the sim’ before getting it going.

Gene/Wookiee