Early use of the term, gamemaster

[cgould42]

I was reading Ironclad by Guidon Games(1973) when came across an early paragraph which grabbed my attention.

“To play, three or more people are the ideal number. This allows one person to be the gamemaster. He prepares the situation and referees it, while the others play the game….”

The term is then frequently use when describing the outline of the game.

I do not have any other Guidon Games’ titles and am curious if anyone knows if they or any other early wargames used the term gamemaster in this context.

Wikipedia (as of 2008-Feb-27) indicates that the term gamemaster was coined by Flying Buffalo in Tunnels and Trolls (1975) but likely had earlier use in PBM games.

Cheers,
Curt

[scribe]

PBM stretches back well into the 60's. I might assume some might utilize a referee or game master. This is purely presumptive on my part.

Interesting topic.
_________________

[cgould42]

PBM definitely had a caretaker role for the game, likely in many cases referred to as a “gamemaster”. However a written rule which implies that one person at the table would build the scenario and referee while not participating in actual round to round play struck me as one of the possible paths which led to gamemaster(dungeon master) / player interaction in role-playing games. While I have played a few early wargames, my experience is not enough to know if this type of role is an anomaly or relatively common. I am particularly curious if a similar rule is mentioned in Chainmail.

Curt