Quote Originally Posted by Gemini Lupus View Post
Gary Gygax himself also wrote a book on Role Playing: Role-Playing Mastery, which is an excellent resource for the principles of generic role playing games. I'd give it a quick look and it may be a good source to cite. Having other books on the same topic does not detract from what you are doing, as you may be going about it in a different way, and a properly researched and cited book carries a lot more weight than a book that is just about your own thoughts and ideas about the hobby.

Good luck in your endeavor!
I have seen it before. It seems excellent! I've added it to the list. I'm certainly aiming at a different direction here, but you're absolutely right; it is an excellent source. Thank you very much!

Quote Originally Posted by Airk View Post
I think you lost me with this bit. I'm not sure if you're explaining clearly; It seems to me like most games at this point contain the 'how' in some capacity, or maybe I've just spoiled by the huge section in TBZ on this stuff, I dunno. The mechanical "how" of "someone is the GM and they will do X, while you with your character do Y" seems like it's already in most game books.
Calen's put it excellently. Back when I was a new player I was always frustrated about this, because I felt that no matter how much technical knowledge I read from the D&D books, I'd still need my DM to walk me through it, up to a point, of course. Granted, I was only about 8 at the time, but that's still a need I see in anyone I ever teach how to play roleplaying games.

If to build up on the stew metaphor, even if I did have a recipe, I still had no idea what a pot is or how to use it. I didn't even recognize most of the vegetables, and the meats were all from weird animals I've never heard of.

...I didn't confuse you even more, did I?