Quote from: ClusterFluster on February 03, 2023, 02:14:56 PM
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.

There actually is. And it seems consistent with what you quote from Lovecraft. There is a whole field of study called narratology. And by the way, in this field, the term "story" is the sequence of imagined events in raw form. What we do in an RPG is story. It's not even a stretch or a gray area or anything like that. It's a spot on fit. We're creating sequences of imagined events, and the game system to one degree or another helps guide us in that.

The narrative is the telling of that story. And that doesn't just mean something like a Morgan Friedman voiceover. That's just one style of narrative. A play is a form of narrative, even though it's not just one voice telling the story, and even though it includes stage instructions. And, yeah, an RPG session is a narrative, even though players might tell some of the story through communicating their characters actions, and even though it includes dice rolls and rules references. At the end of it, you walk away with a sense of the sequence of events. That alone fulfills the definition. But to go one further, it's not even like this just emerges out of happenstance. We communicate at the table and we have written rules precisely to help us all be more clear with regards to the sequence of events.

Quote from: ClusterFluster on February 03, 2023, 11:53:09 AM
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'm not so convinced that the World-Player can be separate from the Referee. I guess it depends what you mean by it. When I see "world player" the control of NPCs is the more obvious part of that. The less obvious part is in deciding how the world works.

Let's say there's a PC who's a really skilled dude with a sling, and the player specifically says he's aiming to hit the giant right between the eyes. And dice come up with the best possible rolls on both the hit roll and the damage roll. To be clear what I'm stipulating here is an instance where the action and intent is the clearest possible; where the dice rolls are the best possible; and where the circumstances are those most likely to replicate the outcome of David & Goliath. Such that IF the game world is such that felling a giant with a single sling stone is possible however unlikely, then that's what should happen in this case. But if the game is one where a giant should never be felled with a single sling stone, then the giant should survive the attack.

It would seem to be up to the referee to make the determination that these are the most favorable actions, circumstances, and results. And it should be up to the world guy to determine whether or not such a thing is possible.

You can imagine the rub if the world guy affirms that, "Yes, the giant should be dead, as we're playing in a Biblical style setting," but the referee says, "No, the rules of D&D say that the damage is only a small fraction of the giant's hit points. The giant lives!"

Yeah. We can articulate two separate roles. Two separate hats as it were. But I don't think it works unless the two are of one mind. As the saying goes, "No one can serve two masters." Hence "Game Master" (emphasis on the singular) actually does seem to be the most precise term for the necessary amalgamation of duties involved.

Quote from: ClusterFluster on February 03, 2023, 11:53:09 AM

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.

Theoretically you could, but as others have alluded to, you run into the problem that in any cooperative enterprise, someone kind of has to have a deciding vote to keep things running smoothly. If you were going to split the job up, I suppose you'd give that power to the referee, but you still have an issue of manpower. it's usually hard enough to get enough people together for a good game, without multiplying the number of necessary roles.

Anyone can do the "game-manager" task, and its not rare for non-GM players to do it. It tends to fall to the GM partially out of tradition, and partially because they're usually the most motivated. The referee can't --or at least probably shouldn't-- be a player, though, because it opens the game up to suspicions that they are biasing their rulings in favor of their character. That's precisely why so many people are so steadfastly opposed to so-called "DM-PCs". In theory, having the referee also be the "world-player" spreads their investment out across a wide spectrum of characters and elements and so mitigates the temptation to bias. You could do a co-GM kind of arrangement where you have two people, neither of whom play PCs, and one does design and lore while the other runs the game, but that isn't quite the same thing. And again, it's just more people you have to get in the game.

I'm the Dungeon Master.

Regardless of what I'm running.

Quote from: Lunamancer on February 03, 2023, 11:58:40 PM
... There is a whole field of study called narratology. And by the way, in this field, the term "story" is the sequence of imagined events in raw form. What we do in an RPG is story. It's not even a stretch or a gray area or anything like that. It's a spot on fit. We're creating sequences of imagined events, and the game system to one degree or another helps guide us in that.

... And, yeah, an RPG session is a narrative, even though players might tell some of the story through communicating their characters actions, and even though it includes dice rolls and rules references. At the end of it, you walk away with a sense of the sequence of events. ... We communicate at the table and we have written rules precisely to help us all be more clear with regards to the sequence of events.

My apologies, I should have written that many players don't seem to have a working definition of what narrative is, and merely rely on a possibly convenient over-simplification of the term as they engage in debate on the issue. I fully agree with your assessment on all counts, it looks consistent with the idea of telling whatever story arises from "the fishing trip you were going on anyway" concept of emergent tales using guidelines, only that I did not mean to imply that stories emerge from gameplay without any sequences of cause and effect by player negotiations.

Quote
I'm not so convinced that the World-Player can be separate from the Referee. I guess it depends what you mean by it. When I see "world player" the control of NPCs is the more obvious part of that. The less obvious part is in deciding how the world works.
...
You can imagine the rub if the world guy affirms that, "Yes, the giant should be dead, as we're playing in a Biblical style setting," but the referee says, "No, the rules of D&D say that the damage is only a small fraction of the giant's hit points. The giant lives!"

I more or less had in mind that the World-Player has final say in what monsters during any interactions might decide to do, including how situations would be handled given the David vs. Goliath scenario you have given, whilst the Referee is less "referee" and more of a Rules Consultant, who may double as NPC/monster voicing to help spare the World-Player from losing his voice; if this were a movie, RC is a Director to the WP as the Producer. So my concept of World-Player was ultimately as Referee as well, with someone else to help manage the immediate gameplay (i.e. combat, crowds, et.c. according to the campaign outline). The WP/R could be freer to handle player questions and other in-game effects. I would stress that this would only be very advantageous to new GMs trying to learn how to manage the game on their own.

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 04, 2023, 02:09:42 AM
... If you were going to split the job up, I suppose you'd give that power to the referee, but you still have an issue of manpower. it's usually hard enough to get enough people together for a good game, without multiplying the number of necessary roles.

Anyone can do the "game-manager" task, and its not rare for non-GM players to do it.

Indeed, I would like the idea of a separate game-manager also taking on the role of Lore-Keeper for intricate or long-running games requiring reference to previous records of play, but as you mentioned it is difficult as it is trying to get enough people into one room to roll dice in the first place, and this division of labour certainly complicates things.

As others have already mentioned, the original term is referee. It was used by the all the old Big Three rpgs (OD&D, RuneQuest 1&2, and Traveller). One thing I dislike about GM is that people keeep slipping up and use DM instead, a title I really dislike.

I'm the DM.  Never got used to Game Master or other.  My players just call me "sir", though.

"Never mind, the man behind the filing cabinet."

I find Dungeon Master to be triggering and it makes me sad that WotC wants to enslave me.  /s

In my gaming circles it's always DM, even for scifi stuff. I like judge and referee, but have never used those terms outside writing stuff. Gamemaster is probably a lot more inclusive compared to DM, but yeah...DM.

Quote from: DocJones on February 04, 2023, 09:17:20 PM
I find Dungeon Master to be triggering and it makes me sad that WotC wants to enslave me.  /s

I'd rather ridicule those who find the title to be sexually enticing.

Particularly at the sort of parades that they demand the attendance of everyone's children.

---

Edit:
I haven't seen the </sarcasm tag> for years and read that as "/sad"

I would be happy with "Sir" but more often than not I get called "Screen Monkey" 

Quote from: zincmoat on February 06, 2023, 05:23:56 AM
I would be happy with "Sir" but more often than not I get called "Screen Monkey" 

Now that you mention it, I'd like to be called "Dr. Leader" 

Quote from: Spinachcat on February 04, 2023, 04:13:44 AM
I'm the Dungeon Master.

Regardless of what I'm running.

I used to be the DM in all games too. Somewhere around 3.x I found myself so disillusioned with D&D that I naturally stopped calling myself a DM and went with GM. It's weird, because I didn't notice it until about a year into it and the moment I realize it, was when I knew the breakup of my love for D&D as a brand was real.

Because I certainly remember having this conversation at conventions during the hey-day of 2e when it was shiny and new, and I'd look sideways at "GM's" who weren't my tribe. Then god forbid the 90's hit, and while I was deep into WoD when it landed, I'll be damned if I called myself the Storyteller... are you fucking crazy? I'm a DM!...

But those days are long gone.

In English, "referee" is fine, "judge" is fine, "game master" is fine, even "dungeon master" is also fine, if the players have cause to think they might be going on a dungeon. In Portuguese, typically the standard term was "mestre do jogo" or "MJ" or, much much much more typically, just "mestre."

In Polish it's Mistrz Gry or eMGie in short, so basically Game Master and GM.