I would like to wish all the GameMasters out there a very Happy GM Day!
While most gamers have tried to GM at one time or another, GameMastering is an art form of sorts. A person who plans to GM for a group of players has to have a facility of language, in order to get across to the players and their characters descriptions of what the player characters see, hear, taste, feel, and smell. It also helps with the atmosphere of the game. One has to have a sense of creativity and imagination, to create adventures and plots for the players and their characters. One has to know a bit about all manner of subjects in order to run rpgs, and spend a bit of time in a library (or these days on the internet, though I still prefer the former) researching subjects that one knows nothing about, to give games an element of verisimilitude. When all is said and done, the amount of enjoyment that the players get from a given adventure in an rpg is proportional to the amount of work that the GameMaster put into the adventure being played.
And in the end, GameMastering is a thankless job. Those of us who run games for our players have the patience of Job and a bit of insecurity in our running of games (at least I do), as players rarely thank those who run their games for the time, effort, work, and (hopefully) sheer enjoyment that they get out of their games.
So I would like to thank all the gamers who have GameMastered roleplaying games for me over the years, and to wish each and every GM out there a very Happy GameMaster's Day.
And to Nick Roberts (wherever you are!), one of the former players in my Friday night gaming group who willingly picked up the GM dice and rulebooks and ran a game from time to time so that I might have the experience of playing in an rpg every so often, *THANK YOU*. And to David Matchuk (may he rest in peace), who had in recent years taken up the mantle so that I could get to play, another big shout out. I really did appreciate it.