Tuesday, August 31, 2010

The Original LoreMasters

This article is not meant to infringe upon an IP that may currently exist using the phrase.

That out of the way, a seldom seen but welcome to any game session in the early '80's was the role of Lore Master. Now more often referred to as an assistant GM, the Lore Master was a walking organic library. There were those who had a deep love of the game but who had no desire to GM and with their knowledge proved a fast way to unbalance a game as a PC. You couldn't really blame a person for this when you usually knew in advance that the person is more than versed in the subject. They were more like a Mentat from Frank Herbert's Dune. A walking human computer and library. From the history of the Dark Ages to being fluent in Elvish from Tolkien (and I mean they could write and speak in it fluently and at will) every monster stat and what they didn't have memorized they had well marked in the books they carried with them.

Almost freakish in nature, rules lawyers melted like a candle in the desert at high noon in their presence. They understood above all that the GM was the final word on all outcomes. They remained impartial and simply imparted information to the GM and in some cases to the PCs themselves.

Today it would almost be unimaginable to think of someone existing like that. With so much material in the hobby now they would truly be a super genius.

Do you know some like this? Or maybe in the past? Relate their story if you like. I've always wondered how widespread this concept was.