GM or DM or something else?

[seasong]

Story teller has one huge problem for me: it means something already, and that something is not running a campaign. When I extemperaneously tell a fairy tale to someone's kids, I'm a story teller.

But that's WhiteWolf in a nutshell - pick a word out of thin air and pretend it means something else. I've never forgiven them for their misuse of caern, ever since I used it while describing a scenario, and one of the players asked me what a Place Of Spiritual Power was doing deep underground.

Bah!

 

[Latency]

DM all the way

 

[Fenes 2]

If you are playing D&D, it is the DM, if you are playing Shadowrun or another game, it is the GM - at least for me.

 

[bret]

GM all the way.

There should be more to a world than just Dungeons.

 

[~Joseph~]

I voted DM, but I make my players call me God

 

[NoOneofConsequence]

It's a game - GM 100%.

There was a time not so long ago when I rather foolishly believed that DM had gone the way of the dodo. Then 3e comes along, defrosts EGG and DM is suddenly retro. One day I'll be cool, but not today.

 

[Outlaw]

What's it called?

Wow, this is all a bit rough. With the explosion of games in the past few years, they've all adopted and held fast to their preference of what the man in charge should be called.

Hackmaster-GM
Kalamar-DM
Living campaign-Judge
Vampire-Storyteller
Basketball-Referee


DM has always been my favorite because D&D is my favorite, although I play all those games and very few dungeons appear in my Kalamar games. But it's a matter of tradition. It's Dungeons and Dragons and I'm the dungeon master!

Of course, if I run a hackmaster campaign I thoroughly expect to be called the GM instead, as that is what is appropriate for the game.

 

[Elf Witch]

I usually call mine ratbastard

When I am talking about DnD I usually use DM but when I am talking about other games I say GM. I never say storyteller even when playing whitewolf it just sounds so elitist and phony.

 

[Deadguy]

I use the term appropriate to the game I am playing, so DMs in D&D, Storytellers in Mage, etc. But inside I am always thinking Referee (or rather Ref since it's nice and brief). Partly because that's the best description of the role of that person behind the screen, and partly because it's a fairly neutral term that most people will understand.

So I guess I am a Ref forever!

 

[Kilmore]

I really prefer Dungeon Master, simply because in midwestern speech (and I think in British too), we tend to run our words together like DungeonMaster or GameMaster. And if we talk at our usual brisk speed "GameMaster" loses one of the "Mm" sounds in the middle, and the resulting pronounciation sometimes results in heckling of the GM and much suffering for the characters.