A couple of years ago, I wrote a post in which I briefly touched on the variety of names by which the Game Master or referee is known in older roleplaying games. Since I'm currently knee-deep in revising Thousand Suns, which uses the term GM, I found my mind wandering a bit back to this topic, trying to remember what alternate terms the RPGs of my youth employed.
A quick check through my library revealed the following, but, as ever, I am certain I missed some important ones. Feel free to fill in any obvious blanks in the comments. I have intentionally not included games whose term is Dungeon Master, Game Master, or referee, since these aren't especially noteworthy.
- Ars Magica: Storyguide
- Call of Cthulhu: Keeper of Arcane Lore
- Chill: Chill Master
- Ghostbusters: Ghostmaster
- Golden Heroes: Script Supervisor
- Marvel Super Heroes: Judge
- Skyrealms of Jorune: Sholari
- Space Opera: StarMaster
- Star Ace: Campaign Master
- Starfaring: Galaxy Master
- Star Trek (Heritage): Mission Master
- The Fantasy Trip: Fantasy Master
- The Morrow Project: Project Director
- Timemaster: Continuum Master
- Toon: Animator
- Top Secret: Administrator
As I'm said, I'm sure there are others, especially after 1990 or thereabouts. Still, I must confess I was a bit surprised by how few I could identify. My recollection was that, back in the day, every roleplaying game had its own unique name for the referee, but I suppose I was mistaken.
The term in Nobilis is Hollyhock God.
ReplyDeleteIn Advanced Fighting Fantasy, either edition, they're called Directors.
ReplyDeleteTraveller used "Referee", which you have surprisingly overlooked.
ReplyDeleteI mention that "referee" isn't noteworthy in this context, since it's not unique to a single game.
DeleteAdvanced Fighting Fantasy uses a film metaphor to explain role-playing so the GM there is called the "Director".
ReplyDeleteOddly, the non-advanced version (which came out first) doesn't use the same metaphor, and uses a generic "GamesMaster" for the player running the game.
(Dragon Warriors and WFRP both use "GamesMaster" so I wonder if that's a more popular UK term.)
The 1998 Marvel rpg uses "Narrator" (as does the Dragonlance version of the rules), while the 2012 flavour uses the much more evocative "Watcher"
I, too, was under the impression that almost every rpg had its own term for a referee. Today, my collection is much diminished but I can offer you Deadlands : Marshal
ReplyDeleteThe One Ring: Loremaster
ReplyDeleteTo counter a bit of D&Defaultism I'd argue "Dungeon Master" is only 'not noteworthy' on the grounds of it being the first system published.
ReplyDeleteIn and of itself the term is rather idiosyncratic - like a lot of D&Disms that are somehow regarded as 'generic fantasy' by people, but in fact pretty specific to a a small number of systems at best (like, say the arrays of dragon colours or alignments).
I think that you're right there. GM or Referee is far more prevalent - and now I can't think of another game which explicitly uses DM.
DeleteDragonlance Fifth Age: Narrator
ReplyDelete