>Game Master
Yep someone that's head of the game and runs it, makes sense
>dungeon master
Has a spooky feeling to it, if they are playing against the players a little that's fine. It's nice and fluffy.
>referee
This isn't a sport, this is moronic.
Having a nice flavourful name associated with the player running the game is fun.
Giving them a name associated with someone who has the final say on rulings makes sense, but it's just so fricking gay and feels detached from 99% of RPGs.
I could see it in let's say, a Bloodbowl RPG but if I'm playing something else completely removed from sport it just sounds dumb.
Stop calling the GM a Referee
But their job is to Referee the rules. It isn't an evocative title but it is sensible.
How did you get the two little zeroes in front of the 3 zeroes on top of each other on your post number
I just schwooom'd. You can do it, too, just got to open up your third eye and then pluck it out so your spiritual blindness amplifies the rest of your unseen senses. Meditation is a crutch.
I'm gonna I'm gonna schwoooooooooom
You probably also think "storyteller" is acceptable
It is in single player games.
Referee is probably the oldest term used, and is used several times in the 1E AD&D DMG. Your job is to interpret the rules and make judgments. That's literally refereeing
Your thread is gay and you're a homosexual.
>it's old!
Not an excuse, shit name
My job isn't to sit there and make boring calls like this is a game of footie, my job is to provide the players with a fun and engaging experience. Future is now old man, get with the times or get left behind with your half-baked hack of a shitty wargame from the era of the dinosaurs.
>Anon, what would happen if I do this? Would it conflict with a rule?
>I'm not here to make boring calls!
Also
>Footie
Britbong detected
>Old man
Zoomer detected
You're persona non grata so I win by default
>Anon, what would happen if I do this? Would it conflict with a rule?
Strawman example, give me an actual example because unlike (you) I understand nuance and make calls based on the situation.
>I'm not here to make boring calls!
Correct, I'm here to make calls that make the game more interesting and fun for everyone involved, not just regurgitate what some moronic old fart wrote in a book.
>Britbong detected
Incorrect.
>Zoomer detected
I garuntee I'm older than you.
>You're persona non grata
It's an anonymous imageboard, the fact you think you're better than anyone else here means you have a serious case of unwarranted self importance - the sign of an entitled zoomer.
You didn't ask a question.
Sure. One of your party members robbed another player in his sleep and is about to ride off with his coin purse. The victim wakes up and wants to catch him before he gets away. The system is your preferred one. Both their minds run wild trying to think of how to get the upper hand and they pepper you with questions.
>Can I leap up and grapple the thief on the horse?
>Can I use a ride check to jump off and have the horse run away with the victim?
>Can I spook the horse to knock him off?
>Can I grab him by the ankle to drag him from the ground?
And probably a hundred other questions. Maybe your system has extensive rules for grappling while mounted, and you choose to slow the game down to look them up, but likely (and preferably) you'll have to make a judgment call based on your own interpretation and experience. When you're doing that, you're being a referee. Even if you would argue you wouldn't allow such a situation in the first place, you are setting parameters outside of the written rules, refereeing the game. When a game has well defined rules and restrictions you don't need a third party to interpret them, but in sports, like RPGs, the referee addresses unusual circumstances and ambiguous outcomes.
>Butthurt about being a zoomer
You called me an old man and also derided the hypothetical RPG writer for being old, and now want to dick wave that you're older, on an anonymous imageboard (like you said). moronic zoomer.
>Unwarranted self importance
You literally want your friends to call you "master" for 'tard wrangling them to play pretend. Maybe Reddit is more your style.
>One of your party members robbed another player in his sleep and is about to ride off with his coin purse
I kick the one who stole from the game and find someone who isn't a shitter. Nothing else matters in this scenario and I refuse to entertain that sort of behavior. The party in my games is a cohesive unit working together, if you're going to be That Guy and a loner homosexual, you can frick off.
>You called me an old man and also derided the hypothetical RPG writer for being old
Yes, because you can be old in spirit and old in body, and those old in spirit deserve to be ridiculed.
>moronic zoomer.
Not a zoomer.
>You literally want your friends to call you "master" for 'tard wrangling them to play pretend.
At what point did I say that? The role is game master, because you are the master of the game. You decide on the setting, the available player options, any and all houserules or rules you're ignoring, the system being run, you control every NPC, every monster, and what the world is like. You are, for all intents and purposes, master of the game and its world. But I play with my friends (and actually play games, unlike (you)), so we're all sitting there having a good time enjoying the game and laughing at whatever shenanigans are happening rather than being anal autist rules lawyers like you think. If something comes up everyone knows the game well enough to reference the actual rules but I know when to bend or ignore them entirely in favor of the group's overall enjoyment, which is a crucial skill for a GM to have alongside being an excellent liar.
Thanks ref, for ejecting a player for poor sportsmanship. Exactly like I stated in my post! I accept your concession.
>Being a crotchety old man is a negative, on Ganker of all places
You are a zoomer in spirit!
>No games
Anonymous message board, like you said! Maybe if I can find a picture of one of my games without any faces in them I'll even post it for you. You won't see us looking in any rule books either, because we trust our referee.
>I know when to bend or ignore rules
Ah. Like some sort of...judge? Arbiter? Umpire? A referee perhaps?
>Thanks ref, for ejecting a player for poor sportsmanship
It's not a sport, and has nothing to do with sportsmanship. I'd kick you too for being a smarmy c**t even if you did nothing wrong in character.
>You are a zoomer in spirit!
Because I'm willing to evolve and change with the times, I refuse to be trapped in the mindset of some crotchety old homosexual who insists old good, new bad when that's almost universally untrue except in the realm of movie remakes. Even then, the new Super mario brothers movie and the new D&D movie mog the old ones from the 80s-90s by leaps and bounds.
>Maybe if I can find a picture of one of my games without any faces in them I'll even post it for you.
Bullshit. An unlikable c**t like you has no friends, let alone players.
>You won't see us looking in any rule books either, because we trust our referee.
I just don't look in the rule books because RAW is the worst way to run or play a TTRPG, so is not fudging. I lie about numbers, I change them on the fly, I will actively ignore any encounter rolls I make if I don't care to waste time on them, I will break every single rule in the book because I am not an impartial referee, I am someone whose entire purpose is to help make a fun, interesting game tailored to myself and my friends, and if the rules get in the way I will ignore them.
>Like some sort of...judge? Arbiter? Umpire? A referee perhaps?
Nope, like a master of the game. The game is my b***h and it is whatever I say it is. The opinion of the author as to what the game should be is invalid at my table, and means less than dirt.
>being an excellent liar
Not such a necessary skill for a GM if you're running a game instead of a railroad theme park.
>on the spot house rules.
whether these are desirable or undesirable depends on your group.
so no answer then.
>This isn't a sport, this is moronic.
The Referee is an impartial arbiter of how the game world and its denizen react to the players actions and what their own action might be beyond the players.
GMs and DMs just shuffle around braindead action setpieces and storygay "scenes".
Spoken like a true Dungeon Minstrel. Dance, Black person, dance!
I don't like 'referee' because it sounds like it would encourage argumentative shitheads to dispute DM rulings. But then, you should leave groups that contain that kind of person anyway. So I guess it's okay.
Would you accept Arbiter instead of Referee?
Referee/ref gets used a lot in the larp scene, since much of what happens is players doing player things on their own with refs as a distant presence called in when it matters, or to watch battles.
>refs as a distant presence called in when it matters
that's the biggest reason I think referee doesn't feel as right as Game Master, referees aren't expected to be as involved in having fun with playing the game as a GM is.
It's a really stupid term that fails on every level.
The first thing that comes to mind with 'referee' is an antagonistic relationship with players and controversy.
I want to PET that cat!
I like fluffy tittles, and I like "game master" as a catchall generic term. Refereeing, storytelling, arbitrating, overseeing, controlling, operating, etc are all things I might be doing, but not all the time. So "master" seems fair, in the absence of a term for someone who has an operation going that they have a varying degree of involvement with. Manager, I guess.
What I do know is that when I run, I am not a referee and I am not a storyteller. That isn't why I play RPGs.
I want to FRICK that deer
>>>/k/
The referee is suppose to be an impartial and consistent ruler rather than some sort of self proclaimed master.
If you can't set limits on yourself and maintain them you are actually no master, nor a referee. You're just some dude tricking people into spending time with them by rationing out good feefees.
>The referee is suppose to be an impartial and consistent ruler rather than some sort of self proclaimed master.
Which was fine for something that was basically just a war game on a small scale (TSR/OSR) but for adventures with characters in a world that is meant to feel like a living, breathing place that you're running to have fun with your friends, you shouldn't be some stodgy boring robotic midwit who sits there saying "no the book says you can't do that" any time someone tries to be creative (though if your game doesn't support player ingenuity and creativity by default and reward such acts then it's shit anyway).
>You're just some dude tricking people into spending time with them by rationing out good feefees.
t. Friendless loser. It's not tricking people into anything, TTRPGs are a social hobby and you should be playing them with your friends. The end goal should be for everyone - the players and the GM - to have fun and to spend time with friends. If you aren't doing that, you're objectively gaming wrong.
Is popular you like it or not
I would like to express that I agree with OP. It does sound fricking cool to be called a dungeon master and I would feel weird being called a referee. But it's not illegal and in the end a matter of choice per group, I'd say.
Referee makes sense for the spirit of OD&D, where they're supposed to know the rules well and determine whether the actions of a player are legal within the rules, but given the obsession OSR people have with bad game design and just making shit up, referees have far more influence on the game than real-world ones, so it's not an accurate term.
>Keeper
I will now play your game. It sounds kino af. Ominous evil man who hoards the secrets of the universe behind his screen. That or he's just wife material.
The full title is "Keeper of Arcane Lore" which is even cooler.
referees adjudicate rules. it makes sense and is applicable. work on your bait and don't make another thread for 30 days.
We just call them Master, and the players are called Subjects. it's fun, kind of turns me on a little sometimes.
>subjects
>not slaves
You need to freshen up on your dungeon lingo.
I wonder how the bra stays on.
Game Warden is the title I recently decided to go with in my D&D discord server. It’s different, objectively sounds cooler than Dungeon Master or the neutral Game Master
Game Pilot is what we use; Game Warden is good too
I genuinely don't get the point beyond distinguishing who's not a player playing a player character, do you guys not refer to each other by your names or handles or whatever? You DO play with your friends right?
I refer to my friends as their characters, literally the only place I differentiate myself is in our discord. Other than that, I’m referred to usually by name or by proxy. And by that I mean they just look to me and ask “can I do this?”
What do you guys think of Alcaide for a 15th century mythic portugal game?
Stop replying to the moron and just report him for trolling outside of /b/ jfc.
I call myself a tool.
How players interact with the tool will reflect the results onto themselves.