I prefer referee, i.e., one to whom questions are referred. You are a referee between the PCs and the world. It speaks to impartiality and puts more onus on the players, as opposed to something "master" which leans to you running everything. Plus two of my favorite games use "referee."

I abbreviate "referee" as "GM" because screw consistency.

If you want to go really old-school-y with it, original D&D uses "Referee", so... This term also implies a degree of impartiality, which I like.
On practice though, we use terms "Master", "DM", and "GM" interchangeably. I don't think anyone really cares.

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 03, 2023, 10:43:34 AM
While I currently use Game Master, my system focuses a bit more on "combat as sport" (vs. as war) and set piece conflicts so Referee probably be slightly more accurate. That said, the ability to shorten Game Master down to GM when needed makes it much easier to keep decent looking formatting in the book's text (particularly as I already use REF for the Reflexes attribute).

Fair enough, I forgot that specific editions can confuse terms with their acronyms (level/level/level is bad enough as it is, been thinking about that also).

Quote from: Vladar on January 03, 2023, 10:57:30 AM
If you want to go really old-school-y with it, original D&D uses "Referee", so... This term also implies a degree of impartiality, which I like.
On practice though, we use terms "Master", "DM", and "GM" interchangeably. I don't think anyone really cares.

Who needs Reflexes anyway though?

I like using DM or ref. Short/sweet, not too steeped in nerdiness.

GM

I like Judge.

Quote from: Slambo on February 03, 2023, 10:36:09 AM
I like Judge.

Dreddful title

Personally I tend to fall back on Dungeon Master, just because it's what I grew up with, but I'll concede Gamemaster as the more generally recognized term.

The way I see it, the GM has three somewhat unrelated roles to play:

1. The "World-Player": The one who plays the setting and NPCs.
2. The "Referee": the arbiter of rules and outcomes
3. The "Game-Manager": Not always the case, but usually the GM is the one that schedules games, arranges locations, recruits new players, etc.

There isn't really a single term that encapsulates all three, so Gamemaster will have to do.

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 03, 2023, 11:27:20 AM
Personally I tend to fall back on Dungeon Master, just because it's what I grew up with, but I'll concede Gamemaster as the more generally recognized term.

The way I see it, the GM has three somewhat unrelated roles to play:

1. The "World-Player": The one who plays the setting and NPCs.
2. The "Referee": the arbiter of rules and outcomes
3. The "Game-Manager": Not always the case, but usually the GM is the one that schedules games, arranges locations, recruits new players, etc.

There isn't really a single term that encapsulates all three, so Gamemaster will have to do.

That looks like something you could divide between three people: a starting World-Player who has an experienced Referee fudging monster rolls/decisions/moves, and also giving hints through NPCs when things are bogged down, while the World-Player focuses on the design and main plot elements/interactions in game. The Manager can help with everything else, including drawing up maps and other handouts that might need organizing for everyone's reference.

I am almost completely in the camp of rolling with whatever the game calls it. Referee when I am playing OD&D, DM for all other D&D, GM, etc. The one exception to that was FF and Director. I hate the idea that I am directing a scene with cast members. That is not what the game is.

If I were to publish a game, I would choose Referee (for whatever that is worth).

I think I've figured out the real issue of what to call the person "running the game":
There's no working definition of what narrative even is, it seems that people relay on the common use of it as story.

Since we're all fans of H.P. Lovecraft, it might be useful to reference a paragraph from his own understanding of writing:

Quote
Before considering the various formal classes of composition, it is well to note certain elements common to them all. Upon analysis, every piece of writing will be found to contain one or more of the following basic principles: Description, or an account of the appearance of things; Narration, or an account of the actions of things; Exposition, which defines and explains with precision and lucidity; Argument, which discovers truth and rejects error; and Persuasion, which urges to certain thoughts or acts. The first two are the bases of fiction; the third didactic, scientific, historical, and editorial writings. The fourth and fifth are mostly employed in conjunction with the third, in scientific, philosophical, and partisan literature. All these principles, however, are usually mingled with one another. The work of fiction may have its scientific, historical, or argumentative side; whilst the text-book or treatise may be embellished with descriptions and anecdotes.

from: 'Literary Composition'; heading: 'Elemental Phases'
first published: The United Amateur, 19, No. 3 (January 1920), 56–60
https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/essays/lc.aspx

[emphasis mine]

Technically, the players "Narrate" as much as the referees do, that much is fair; but they only narrate whatever is in their charge as players, and likewise to what's in charge of the referees. However, referees only narrate in response to the players narration, and he must describe the setting and present some circumstances first before that happens. It seems like there is a stronger leaning for some categories over others between the two metagame roles.

Perhaps, if whomever runs the game has a priority to Describe and Exposit the game's events (instigation), whilst whomever plays the game may only Narrate and Persuade for their choices within those events (reaction), then we must conclude that the game is really just one big Argument over how it ends.

Given this, there is no GM or PC: everyone is merely argumentative, and thus the object of the game is to have fun with arguing.

Quote from: ClusterFluster on January 02, 2023, 01:07:43 PM
Concerning:
The D&D DM is NOT a "Storyteller"
https://youtu.be/g_vTkXro56M
~ 4 years ago

I understand the essence of this debate has been very frustrating for the OSR community for ages, and I doubt much has changed since I last looked at the goings on when I first switched over from mainstream D&D at least 5 years ago.

As we know, sandbox games (ie emergent play) don't include a preset endgoal, but sometimes one becomes obvious and gets established as such. Campaigns do have a preset end goal, and as you compute the game's short-term (the session itself) you create a midterm model to measure the approach to a concise End Goal/Climax Point (eg Kill the necromancer, over there); this End Goal is not necessarily set in stone, if elements of emergent play inspire the need to modify, exchange, or delete it outright in the interest of continuing play.

You don't play out a story or a narrative but rather the aggregate of the player's choices intervening on the pre-determined circumstances (the "narrative" involves what has happened up to the point precisely before play as background lore). When the players agree to your preset of circumstances, you're forecasting the ramifications of their choices influencing those circumstances, and sometimes even the tone. The narrative should only regain relevance when the summary of the gameplay predetermines an epilogue for the organizer-referee to create, potentially identifying problems that were not resolved or undertaken to create a new campaign with.

No previous term suffices a proper explanation as to how the game itself is guided given this information; each one misunderstands the master role, or confuses it due to niche language.

So what would be better name for the role of a game master?

Answer:
You are a Fate Caster, as in a weather forecaster but with dice instead.

Thanks for reading, I hope this helps towards settling this fight in favor of the whole OSR.

Does a presete end goal emerge? wouldn't that be something that exists from the start?

Semantics not withsdanding:

No, the DM/GM is still not telling a story, sure, the players might go kill the necromancer, but they might choose to go in a different direction. Sure, this might mean the end of the world but as long as you're not merelly giving the players the illusion of choice it's a possibility, one I have seen played out from time to time.

The core of the argument is this:

Narrative before or narrative after.

Meaning you go fishing in order to tell a story about fishing or you go fishing to fish and a story might or might not emerge from your fishing trip.

We tell stories about the Vikings, did they got into a longboat qwith the purpose of telling a story?

If yours is a living world and the PCs have agency you can not know what's gonna happen: I just set a vampire against a ddark druid (pit one monster against the other), due to chance it might come to light we were working with the vampire to find out about our enemies and cut a deal with her so she didn't hunt humans, halflings, dwarves or elfs, in exchange we would look for a ring she got stolen from her.

When I did that none could have predicted this would happen, because chance is ever present and we as players have agency over our PCs.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 03, 2023, 03:19:00 PM
Does a presete end goal emerge? wouldn't that be something that exists from the start?

Semantics not withsdanding:

No, the DM/GM is still not telling a story, sure, the players might go kill the necromancer, but they might choose to go in a different direction. Sure, this might mean the end of the world but as long as you're not merelly giving the players the illusion of choice it's a possibility, one I have seen played out from time to time.

The core of the argument is this:

Narrative before or narrative after.

Meaning you go fishing in order to tell a story about fishing or you go fishing to fish and a story might or might not emerge from your fishing trip.

We tell stories about the Vikings, did they got into a longboat qwith the purpose of telling a story?

If yours is a living world and the PCs have agency you can not know what's gonna happen: I just set a vampire against a ddark druid (pit one monster against the other), due to chance it might come to light we were working with the vampire to find out about our enemies and cut a deal with her so she didn't hunt humans, halflings, dwarves or elfs, in exchange we would look for a ring she got stolen from her.

When I did that none could have predicted this would happen, because chance is ever present and we as players have agency over our PCs.

I've mixed up my wording, you cannot have a preset ending emerge...

I do agree with you about the higher quality in telling whatever story happens after the fishing trip, so I will attempt to rephrase:

Deleting a preset goal in exchange for an emergent but consistent goal (i.e. not otherwise preset) was what I should have said. If there needs to be a reason for swarms of ravenous undead across the countryside, the adventurers are going to have to face off against a necromancer sooner or later--my view is that this wouldn't be "railroading" anything because the GM is presenting and following the thematic fiction of that game world (aka. a thematic sandbox), but letting the adventurer's find him of their own skills and assumptions would of course preserve agency.

So if the goal during session one in a thematic sandbox was to kill Necromancer A, but the adventurer's somehow resolve that goal just after third level (however unlikely), you would offer Necromancer B. Killing one necromancer off early, but still seeing undead everywhere, means that there is a cult of necromancers, and the adventure continues. There's no reason why this style of play can't be agreed to during a session zero. My comparison to the pure sandbox style was meant to show that there was more nuance to the narrative vs. sandbox styles.

Published adventures by TSR and WotC, etc., were clearly interpreted by many new players over time as adventure instructions and not as guidelines, because everything about the adventure is spelled out in order to give us, as consumers, the impression of our money well spent on professional game design--otherwise, I doubt that this argument would even be happening. I think that the "story" side looks at this problem and is trying to emphasize the elements of a published adventure as being core to the roleplaying experience, but this is something like the cart placed before the horse if the story doesn't actually happen until everyone is done playing through each session. The label that they have chosen for their advocacy implies that there is a story that follows the dice results in accordance to pre-published trivia, regardless of who in fact wrote it, and is always predetermined by the universe itself.

Quote from: ClusterFluster on February 03, 2023, 09:00:58 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 03, 2023, 03:19:00 PM
Does a presete end goal emerge? wouldn't that be something that exists from the start?

Semantics not withsdanding:

No, the DM/GM is still not telling a story, sure, the players might go kill the necromancer, but they might choose to go in a different direction. Sure, this might mean the end of the world but as long as you're not merelly giving the players the illusion of choice it's a possibility, one I have seen played out from time to time.

The core of the argument is this:

Narrative before or narrative after.

Meaning you go fishing in order to tell a story about fishing or you go fishing to fish and a story might or might not emerge from your fishing trip.

We tell stories about the Vikings, did they got into a longboat qwith the purpose of telling a story?

If yours is a living world and the PCs have agency you can not know what's gonna happen: I just set a vampire against a ddark druid (pit one monster against the other), due to chance it might come to light we were working with the vampire to find out about our enemies and cut a deal with her so she didn't hunt humans, halflings, dwarves or elfs, in exchange we would look for a ring she got stolen from her.

When I did that none could have predicted this would happen, because chance is ever present and we as players have agency over our PCs.

I've mixed up my wording, you cannot have a preset ending emerge...

I do agree with you about the higher quality in telling whatever story happens after the fishing trip, so I will attempt to rephrase:

Deleting a preset goal in exchange for an emergent but consistent goal (i.e. not otherwise preset) was what I should have said. If there needs to be a reason for swarms of ravenous undead across the countryside, the adventurers are going to have to face off against a necromancer sooner or later--my view is that this wouldn't be "railroading" anything because the GM is presenting and following the thematic fiction of that game world (aka. a thematic sandbox), but letting the adventurer's find him of their own skills and assumptions would of course preserve agency.

So if the goal during session one in a thematic sandbox was to kill Necromancer A, but the adventurer's somehow resolve that goal just after third level (however unlikely), you would offer Necromancer B. Killing one necromancer off early, but still seeing undead everywhere, means that there is a cult of necromancers, and the adventure continues. There's no reason why this style of play can't be agreed to during a session zero. My comparison to the pure sandbox style was meant to show that there was more nuance to the narrative vs. sandbox styles.

Published adventures by TSR and WotC, etc., were clearly interpreted by many new players over time as adventure instructions and not as guidelines, because everything about the adventure is spelled out in order to give us, as consumers, the impression of our money well spent on professional game design--otherwise, I doubt that this argument would even be happening. I think that the "story" side looks at this problem and is trying to emphasize the elements of a published adventure as being core to the roleplaying experience, but this is something like the cart placed before the horse if the story doesn't actually happen until everyone is done playing through each session. The label that they have chosen for their advocacy implies that there is a story that follows the dice results in accordance to pre-published trivia, regardless of who in fact wrote it, and is always predetermined by the universe itself.

If you had bad guy A planned to be the BBG and your players somehow find and kill it earlier and then you switch to creating bad guy B that's EXACTLY like bad Guy A that's NOT a sandbox, that's just the illusion of agency, you're gonna have a necromancer as the final boss no matter what.

The same as if you have bad guy A behind door number 1, bt your players go chasing squirrels in the forest and so you put bad guy A behind a tree. You have a preset event you're determined to have happen ON your terms/time frame.

In a game where the PCs have agency neither of those would happen, there wouldn't be a cult of necromancers UNLESS I had thought it before they found and killed the first one.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 03, 2023, 09:09:48 PM
If you had bad guy A planned to be the BBG and your players somehow find and kill it earlier and then you switch to creating bad guy B that's EXACTLY like bad Guy A that's NOT a sandbox, that's just the illusion of agency, you're gonna have a necromancer as the final boss no matter what.

The same as if you have bad guy A behind door number 1, bt your players go chasing squirrels in the forest and so you put bad guy A behind a tree. You have a preset event you're determined to have happen ON your terms/time frame.

In a game where the PCs have agency neither of those would happen, there wouldn't be a cult of necromancers UNLESS I had thought it before they found and killed the first one.

Yes, I said carbon copy of the necromancer, and I am otherwise incapable of generalizing about alternative villains within such a cult, and I am not in anyway trying to fuse two styles of play, and I absolutely told you that players are unable to reject this before the campaign even starts per the social contract of all roleplaying, because higher than normal amounts of undead plaguing the countryside is just something that happens on a Tuesday in Greyhawk and I must refuse myself the liberty of coming up with a plan B so that players can still take advantage of their undead-killing class features crammed onto one character sheet from the thousand of player character options books that they insist on using in every game, and I don't understand that you could otherwise just have that necromancer merely be a sub-quest in a pure sandbox style of play if that's what the players really wanted before any game-time really got started or if the whole thing is just keeping them in a rut and they feel uninspired during the middle of the game, and I do in fact advocate GMs taking minutes during play so that you can penalize players for spending too much time using the bathroom according to the pre-scheduled seconds, so bravo sir, you've caught me red-handed and pants-downed.