What is the GM's Job?

This is an opinion thread. No one is wrong. Let's all be respectful while we debate.

A few threads ongoing right now have shown me that people think of the role of the GM very differently than I do. Not surprising, considering how we are not all me, but even so i thought I would see if I could get folks to lay out what they view the role of the GM is in an RPG. The role can change, both at different moments in a single session, over the course of a campaign, and in context of play and not-play gaming activities.

I don't want to pollute the pool as it were with my own opinion at the outset. I would first like to hear what some of you view the GM's job to be.

Thanks.

The GM's role has several parts: (1) scenario designer, (2) situation adjudication, (3) social lubricant. How much of each part is necessary depends on the game engine, accessories in use (like a module or adventure path), and the relationships of the other members of the table.

The GM's job is:

To crush his enemies, see them driven before him, and to hear the lamentations of their significant others!

I'm a referee, I just keep it fair and adjudicate things according to the rules. Though I am open to bribery via good scotch.

Reynard said:

This is an opinion thread. No one is wrong. Let's all be respectful while we debate.

A few threads ongoing right now have shown me that people think of the role of the GM very differently than I do. Not surprising, considering how we are not all me, but even so i thought I would see if I could get folks to lay out what they view the role of the GM is in an RPG. The role can change, both at different moments in a single session, over the course of a campaign, and in context of play and not-play gaming activities.

I don't want to pollute the pool as it were with my own opinion at the outset. I would first like to hear what some of you view the GM's job to be.

Thanks.

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Fundamentally, the DM's job is simply to entertain the players. Indeed, as a general rule, the 'job' of everyone at the table is to entertain the other participants.

Of course, it turns out entertaining the players is a huge job that involves all sorts of reasonable expectations that can vary from table to table and even player to player.

One of the most common expectations of the players is that they will be playing a game that involves overcoming some sort of challenges, and as such the GM will serve as the game's Referee. In this role, the GM is a neutral arbiter of the rules. As a good referee interested in speeding the game along, the GM ought not need to be reminded too often what the rules are, and ought to reliably follow the rules as set out with as little 'video review' and consultation as possible.

Speaking of, the players will also likely expect the GM to serve as a neutral Arbiter or Judge of disputes between players, helping to settle and smooth over any out of game disputes.

Regardless of the game being played or the aesthetics of play of the participants, one of the most common expectations of the players is that they will uncover and discover new facts about the scenario that were hidden to them on the onset. In that regard, the GM also serves as the games Secret Keeper, in that the GM is entrusted with the facts about the game universe that the other players do not initially know.

Secret Keeper itself implies many other "hats" that might be worn. If the game has a narrative structure, then the Secret Keeper is also the chief designer of the particulars of the narrative conflict. In general, the participants of the game that are tasked with resolving the games conflict cannot also be the ones that introduce and know the details of the conflict, or else the resolution of the conflict tends to be rote, unimaginative and linear. Wearing this hat, the GM is the stories primary Author, in the same sense that a person who writes a Choose Your Own Adventure Story has primarily contributed to the story and waits only for the reader to decide how the story will progress and ultimately conclude.

Likewise, if the game has an exploratory structure, then Secret Keeper implies the GM is the game's primary World Builder, Myth Maker, Setting Designer and Set Dresser. While other participants may be able to add to the setting and world in various ways, only the Secret Keeper can add things which the other participants can collectively discover as something fresh and novel. Or to put it another way, the GM is the guy that draws the maps.

The GM is also the actor and enactor of every character in the story that is not a protagonist. All the extras, the chorus, the secondary and supporting characters, villains, foils, and antagonists are the province of the GM, and the GM alone can make them come alive on the stage as individuals. That means that alone of all the participants, the GM must having the acting chops to change roles and play out many different characters with different traits and personalities. A player may have this skill, and if they do, well and good. But only a GM needs it, for a player may get along just fine if they are like Sean Connery, always ultimately playing themselves on stage in all their magnetic scene stealing glory.

The GM is also in many cases a Rulesmith as well as Referee. Not only is the GM referee of the rules, but the GM often stamps his own personal character on the game by creating new rules that set a certain tone for the game specific to his world building or to the story. Further, even if he sets out to use some official rules as written, no set of rules for an RPG is ever complete, and so the GM must decide where the rules are missing or ambiguous how to rule on the particular proposition and when to extend these rulings out to form new Common Law for the game. Thus the GM in his role as Rulesmith may be both Legislator and Judiciary.

In short, the GM wears many many hats.

Celebrim said:

.In short, the GM wears many many hats.

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Very thorough and interesting take. Thank you.

The GM exists to play the NPCs, and adjudicate uncertainty in action resolution. They are the world-builders, and the Laws of Nature.

Essentially, they run everything on the back-end of the RPG interface, such that players can have the luxury of staying in character while playing the game.

The GM is the host of the dinner party. And although the overall success of the dinner party is not solely her responsibility, she is the one that sets the groundwork for all to run smoothly and nice.

The role of the GM depends on the RPG in question. I'll give three examples, and then draw some conclusions.

Examples

1. In classic dungeon-crawling D&D, the GM's job (as set out in rulebooks like Gygax's PHB and DMG, an Moldvay Basic) is to (i) draw up a dungeon map, (ii) write up a catalogue-like description of dungeon contents, paying particular attention to how said contents are sensitive to dungeoneering adventurers (eg how treasure might be found and extracted; how creatures will respond to adventurers; etc), and (iii) adjudicate - as a referee might - action declarations made by players in respect of their PCs' dungeon-crawling efforts.

Challenges that such a GM might confront: (a) the players try to play PC motivated by something other than dungeon-crawling, who start declaring actions that are hard to adjudicate having regard to what the GM did at (ii) above; (b) the players want to experience the gameworld as something closer to a "real world" than a site for adventure, which again puts pressure on the GM's work at (ii) above; (c) getting the balance right between leaving the players free to declare what their PCs do, and making assumptions about what the PCs do that are essential to the progess of the game (eg it's generally bad refereeing to assume a player who says "I look at the chest" also has his/her PC open it; but it's generally acceptable to assume that a player who says "I lie down to sleep" has openee up his/her bedroll and climbed into it).

I'll pick up on (c) again below.

2. In Call of Cthulhu, the GM's principal job is to invent an imaginary situation involving cultists (or similar sorts of adversarial NPCs) trying to bring about some "supernatural" consequence that will be adverse to human wellbeing (and especially human sanity), and to concoct a series of clues that might gradually lead investigators to notice, then unravel, and then somehow respond to this threat. During actual play, the GM has to present the clues to the players, by way of appropriate narration of the circumstances in which their PCs find themselves; and to evoke the increasing sense of threat and accompanying dread, especially by use of the sanity mechanics and associated narration.

Challenges that such a GM might confront: (a) the system mechanics work at cross purposes to the GM's responsibilities (eg they feel to yield the outcome of the PCs finding clues; they fail to evoke the sense of increasing threat and dread); (b) the players try to play PCs who are indifferent to threats to humanity or to the loss of their sanity.

It's no surprise that many CoC variants (eg Trail of Cthulhu) take steps to reduce the risk of (a) by better aligning the system mechanics with the GM's task.

3. This example could esily draw on a range of RPGs, but I'll use one I've been GMing recently: Prince Valiant. In this system, the GM has three main responsibilities: (i) to narrate fiction in a way that establishes and reinforces a reasonable light-hearted and romantic approach to Arthurian and comparable mediaeval stories (eg damsels in distress, but in a rather PG-rated fashion; freedom-loving woodsfolk whose desire for justice can be achieved by revealing the iniquities of a particular noble without; a mixture of cheerful and surly peasants, but nothing that makes the fundamental injustices of a feudal society appear front-and-centre; robber knights who where there villainy on their surcoats; etc); (ii) to provide the players with clear opportunities, in the play of their PCs, to engage in adventure that fits these tropes, with the outcomes of their choices (in story and "moral"/thematic terms) being clear upfront; (iii) to adjudicate the system mechanics, which will reveal whether the choices the players make for their PCs succeed or result in failure - which, given the nature of the system and its light-touch approach to consequences, may often be temporary rather than lasting.

Challenges that such a GM might confront: (a) s/he runs out of ideas that fit the basic premise of the game, leading to repetition or pastiche that may start to border on parody (eg how many knights guarding a ford and insisting on a joust to permit crossing can a campaign handle without descending into farce?); (b) the players get unlucky enough in their dice rolls that the failures of their PCs begin to undermine the light-hearted tone of the game with excessive grittiness; (c) as a variant of (b), the GM misjudges the maths of the system and sets difficulties that are too high, with the same result of more failure than the tone of the game can handle; (d) whether because of the operation of (b) and (c), or for some independent reason, the players start to push against the tropes and theme of the game (eg playing the PCs as opportunistic mercenaries, or ruthless killers, etc).

The game design itself seems to show some awareness of risks (b) and (c), as it builds in the idea of a GM-orchestrated "rescue" (eg by Sir Lancelot) for PCs who find themselves out of their depth and confronted with drastic or deadly failure (especially in a combat context); but it doesn't address how this sort of GM decision-making is meant to fit with the role and responsibility of the players in making choices for their PCs.

Some conclusions

The GM has a quite different job in each of these three RPGs. There's no reason to think that a GM who is good at one will be very good at the others. In my own case, I think I do a reasonable job of GMing Prince Valiant and other RPGs that work in a similar way; but I'm not so good at classic D&D and think I'm not too good at the CoC-style either (though I've got less experience with that). To try and elaborate this point, I'll hone in on two different aspects of the GM's job across these systems.

Creation/"storytelling: In classic D&D, the main creative ability requires is thinking up clever dungeon designs and ingenious monster lairs and tricks/traps. Opinions differ on which of Tomb of Horrors, White Plume Mountain, Labyrinth of Madness, etc are good examples of this genre, but they all exemplify the basic idea of what is required. In play, the GM's main duty is to describe the situation (eg a corridor, a room, an altar the PCs are searching, etc) in a way that is fair (ie not leaving out details that are important if the players are to deal with the situation properly) but doesn't give everything away or preempt player choices (eg in ToH the GM shouldn't describe the effects of the green devil mouth unless the players declare that a PC sticks something into it). This is closely related to challenge (c) above, because a GM who is seen to railroad players (especially railroading them into unhappy consequences) isn't doing his/her job properly. (Eg with the bedroll example, if the GM has decided - whether by fiat, or as the result of an encounter check, or whatever - that there is a scorpion in a PC's bedroll, how should s/he narrate the outcome of the declaration "I lie down to sleep"? Different tables will expect this to be handled in different ways.)

In CoC, the biggest creative challenge (I think) isn't in coming up with the plot, which can generally be lifted from a book or movie (with appropriate variation if necessary) without too much trouble. It's in narrating the events of play so as to maintain and develop the sense of threat and dread. It's easy to imagine someone being a teffific D&D referee and yet not being very good at this.

In Prince Valiant, the creative challenges are twofold: coming up with the initial situation, and then narrating its unfolding/resolution as the players engage it via their PCs. There's less need for CoC-style "evocative narration", because most of that sort of flavour is going to be delivered by the players choices about what their PCs do.

Adjudicating mechanics: in classic D&D this is all about fairness as a referee. The mechanical system itself is not super-important, because it's not something that the players are expected to actively engage. Rather, it's a way of working out what happens when they interact with the dungeon elements. A lot of adjudication can take the form of simply reading things off the fiction (eg "I poke the floor with my 10' pole" "OK, a trapdoor opens revealing a 5' square rather deep pit" "I jump over it" "OK, you're a healthy reasonably strong relatively unencumbered adult, so that's no problem").

In CoC adjudication is quite secondary. If the players don't learn the clues the game grinds to a halt, which generates a degree of pressure to fudge rolls/results in any event. (As noted, some aspects of Trail of Cthulu are a direct response to this issue.) Generally, in CoC, if the mechanics are invoked the stakes are low (eg what happens when a PC gets in a bar fight?; does the police officer help without needing to be bribed?; etc) whereas at the high stakes moments outcomes tend to be automatic (I've already talked about clues; at the resolution of the adventure, if the PCs have learned the right spell then they can disrupt the ritual and a roll would be anti-climactic, whereas if they haven't then the monsters are summoned and its game over, at least for that secnario; etc).

In Prince Valiant the mechanics are important in a way that they're not in CoC, because outcomes of key player decisions are resolved by reference to them. And there is less direct adjudication of the fiction than in D&D, because the game is less about puzzle-solving and more about twists and turns in the unfolding story. This makes system itself more important than in classic D&D or CoC - eg it has to be able to resolve all the action declarations that might come up in a romantic Arthurian adventure (and it does this by being rather simple in both stats and dice rolls, and offering a single comprehensive approach to resolution regardless of the precise nature of the stakes and the opposition).

I think it's obvious that a GM could be good at the creative part of classic D&D but pretty bad at the creative part of CoC or Prince Valiant. I think it's obvious that a GM could be good at adjudicating Prince Valiant but not so good at adjudicating classic D&D (and I put myself in that category).

TL;DR: the idea that there is some singular job that the GM has isn't tenable when one looks at the variety of RPGs out there. And probably nothing is more apt to produce RPG suckitude than a GM who brings a skillset well-suited to one sort of RPG to the GMing of a different sort of RPG.

(Player expectations are also pretty important, and I've pointed to some possible pressure-points in my examples, but I've left them to one side because they're not the main topic of the thread.)

Some great answers already - the DM is the single most important part of any gaming group, the success or otherwise of the game rests heavily on the DM's shoulders. Storyteller, scene setter, arbiter, improviser - a good DM must be able to deal with all these aspects while being flexible, quick witted, and imaginative - and most importantly, fair.

I was once told, that as DM, my enjoyment of the game was very much secondary to that of my players. I should treat them as customers, as I was providing a service for them, and should do everything to make them happy.

The guy had a straight face while saying this, to him D&D was little more than an exercise in number crunching, and the DM was just there to be his adversary. He's one reason why I detest powergaming.

My opinion is that the DM's enjoyment is actually much more important than the players, but the players' enjoyment should never be forgotten - as the DM has to invest so much more time, energy, and commonly money into the role - and if the DM doesn't enjoy the game, it is destined to fail. So in that sense, the DM is actually a player, but with much more say in the world!