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[Lupo]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

It's a clear manifesto for a particular style of play, but I would be very uncomfortable giving it to a novice GM without lots of warnings along the lines of "there are many other ways of doing this, and they are not all Wrong as the author implies".

Well, the author himself clarifies that he's just describing his own style of play, what has worked best for him, and so on.

To be honest, I much prefer a GM guide like this, which clearly advocates for a specific stile of play; rather than a "generic" GM guide which attempts (and fails) to be good for any possible style of play.

IMHO a novice GM who read and used only this guide, would run better campaigns than 90% of expert GMs.
Even if there is no such thing as BADWRONGFUN, as it is largely a matter of tastes, some styles of GMing DO work better, make for more interesting campaigns etc., than others.

There are interesting ideas here but I admit I found the style rather patronisingly didactic

On that I absolutely agree.
Yet, also Dogs in the Vineyard and other very good games are written in a patronising style, this doesn't prevent me from having fun when I play them :)

[moldymaltquaffer]

I had to seriously repress a shudder when I got to the "in praise of min-maxers" bit.

There's a rather important distinction to be made between optimizing a character and being a munchkin. This distinction, and how to recognise the difference, is especially important for novice GMs.
But all it got was blanket approval.

I also objected to the riff against wargamers. Got my nose a bit out of joint, it did.