Should a GM be a Captain or Navigator?

[Yora]

The GM should be the ship. Taking the players where they direct it to go, but also being the limitations where they can possibly go.

 

[malcolypse]

The GM should aspire to be a kind but distant Deity.

The goal is to create the world and then allow the players to explore it. It is the GM who makes the players aware of what is happening in their surroundings, but allows fate to determine the outcome of situations.

Having absolute power requires that you act definitively with reserve, if such a thing is possible, to put images (and smells, sounds, tastes, and touches) into the players minds so that they can interpret them through their characters to choose what to do.

Ideally, the GM should be a ghost. A mere shimmer that the players look through and see a new world on the other side. When the GM fades and the players shine, that's when you're doing it right.

 

[Desdichado]

It's a metaphor for running a game.

That much is obvious.

It's the meaning of the metaphor that isn't obvious, since neither captain nor navigator is a very insightful label for a good GM.