Question to the Candidates - GM Issue

Posted March 7, 2021, 9:32 p.m. by Fleet Captain David Eads (Vice Presidential Candidate) (Dave Eads)

Posted by Fleet Captain Matt Evans (Presidential Candidate) in Question to the Candidates - GM Issue

Posted by Geoff Joosten in Question to the Candidates - GM Issue
I am just going to get this in here before someone else does because I have a very specific way I want this addressed:

We GMs are all stretched thin, and many of us are at the self imposed limit. A couple are even over the limit. What I want to hear from the candidates are how you would address the issue and encourage people to become GMs. HOWEVER, I would be pleased if your answer didn’t include one of the following traditional non-answers:

1) Changing the GMT program
2) Decommissioning Ships
3) Encouraging Self-Sim areas

Thanks,
Geoff

I have a serious and non-serious answer to this question but I want to be ambiguous on which is which as a sort of game. As a preface though both of my answers do not touch on the three traditional answers though one is related to the first tangentially.

So my first answer is that I believe establishing an incentive system to encourage people to explore the wonders of GMing. The current ‘rank’ system of GMs needs to be expanded on to allow a much longer path of achievement. Kind of like how some people think that the current Admiralty system doesn’t have enough ranks. So Senior GM should not be the limit but instead have more added to it at an exponentially scaling sim completion number. Whoever hits something like one thousand sims is bestowed the title of GM Emperor or some such. And the Emperor, or Empress, receives cookies yearly from Calé and we’ll do a crowdfunding thing to help pay for shipping and baking supplies.

My second answer has been kicking around my brain after my return to STF. I was involved with OGRE in its very early stages of revisions and so while I won’t claim to be an expert on everything GMD, I do feel my insights might be helpful. I was thinking of the feasibility in establishing a ship that would run as normal excepting for the fact that the purpose of it was to be a training ground for GMTs. Whether this would work better in the X-Fleet or as a chartered ship I’m not really sure but it could be something that would definitely benefit from brainstorming with others. The concept I was thinking of was one where a member of the ship’s command staff would be a licensed GM and be qualified to be a GMM. This way an additional person doesn’t need to be brought in. Ideally if the CO & XO were qualified for that then they could trade off every other GMT or fill in if the other is absent due to LOA. Again I’m not really sure of the feasibility and I know that shoehorning a single ship for this purpose would not be the best option if more than one GMT were going through their training at the time, but with the crew knowing that the purpose was for training the GMT and enjoying whatever wacky ideas the new GM in the making was coming up with then I feel the environment may encourage higher passing rates as well as GM retention. Wow that was a mouthful.

Matt

Just to add my own two cents to Matt’s here… I have already let the Gmdir know that I would like to finish my gmt once there’s an opening. This is something I’ve been meaning to pursue for a while now, and I will follow through regardless of the election outcome. It doesn’t solve the issue, but it’s a step.

Further, I think encouraging more people to take the exam would be an excellent step. Otherwise, I am interested in discussing the matter and seeing what ideas develop.

-Dave Eads

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