5 ms·

Has there been any community consensus towards what to replace "game master" with?

wrp 5y ago
GMs develop the narrative that players work through, so why not call them story tellers or narrators. That would be a more literal description of their role.
- jedimastert 5y ago
  I like story teller, but I feel like it doesn't involve the players enough. After thinking about it, I've settled on "narrative guide" for now
mikkelpaulson 5y ago
I've wondered about that myself. I did swap out "race" for "species", but I don't know of a preferred term there.
diablerouge 5y ago
If you want an alternative to GM (I can see why you might want to, but I'd be curious to know how many people see it as a problem), "referee" works well. Has an old-school flavor, and because it's an old term it won't really raise any eyebrows or "why don't you just use game master?" questions.
jefurii 5y ago
I'm curious as to the reasoning here. I know the word "master" has some seriously negative associations when opposite the word "slave", but that's not the case here. Nobody that I'm aware of calls D&D or other RPG players "slaves". If anything, a good GM is there to serve the players, not the other way around. Edit: I support replacing usages of the paired words "master" and "slave" so as not to reference the very real history of slavery. I'm also totally fine with using "referee" instead of "game master". But I'm concerned that other senses of "master", like "master craftsman" or "gold master" or "game master" which refer to mastery (of a craft or some such) and don't (to my knowledge) connote "master/slave" are being lumped in here.
- jedimastert 5y ago
  It doesn't have to be opposite the word "slave". Really just the word "master" as a position of power.
  - jefurii 5y ago
    There are other senses of the word which are more about mastery of a craft or a body of knowledge. Language is a complicated thing.
dunefox 5y ago
No, because it is a non issue. There is no need to replace it.

wrp 5y ago

GMs develop the narrative that players work through, so why not call them story tellers or narrators. That would be a more literal description of their role.

jedimastert 5y ago
I like story teller, but I feel like it doesn't involve the players enough. After thinking about it, I've settled on "narrative guide" for now

mikkelpaulson 5y ago

I've wondered about that myself. I did swap out "race" for "species", but I don't know of a preferred term there.

diablerouge 5y ago

If you want an alternative to GM (I can see why you might want to, but I'd be curious to know how many people see it as a problem), "referee" works well. Has an old-school flavor, and because it's an old term it won't really raise any eyebrows or "why don't you just use game master?" questions.

jefurii 5y ago

I'm curious as to the reasoning here. I know the word "master" has some seriously negative associations when opposite the word "slave", but that's not the case here. Nobody that I'm aware of calls D&D or other RPG players "slaves". If anything, a good GM is there to serve the players, not the other way around. Edit: I support replacing usages of the paired words "master" and "slave" so as not to reference the very real history of slavery. I'm also totally fine with using "referee" instead of "game master". But I'm concerned that other senses of "master", like "master craftsman" or "gold master" or "game master" which refer to mastery (of a craft or some such) and don't (to my knowledge) connote "master/slave" are being lumped in here.

jedimastert 5y ago
It doesn't have to be opposite the word "slave". Really just the word "master" as a position of power.
- jefurii 5y ago
  There are other senses of the word which are more about mastery of a craft or a body of knowledge. Language is a complicated thing.

dunefox 5y ago

No, because it is a non issue. There is no need to replace it.