D&D General The DM is Not a Player; and Hot Topic is Not Punk Rock

[Laurefindel]

I would totally play a campaign in Grammaria!

"I am Sir Pedant of the Order of the Dangling Participles, and I am here to split that infinitive!"

I strongly recommend "The Mystery of the Oxford Comma" module. A classic! Two camps. Lots of fighting. Not as good as "The Secret Society of French Nomenclature" but still one of their best!

 

[Jack Daniel]

By way of illustration:

I'm not trying to quote chapter and verse or appeal to authority here; I just want to remind everyone of the degree to which "referee" and "Dungeon Master" have long been synonymous in the context of D&D.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I strongly recommend "The Mystery of the Oxford Comma" module. A classic! Two camps. Lots of fighting. Not as good as "The Secret Society of French Nomenclature" but still one of their best!

We could always do a Cthulhu adventure... The Colour Out Of Space: Putting the Punctuation Outside the Quotation Marks.

 

[Umbran]

Well, you are certainly neither interesting, nor fun to converse with. I don't engage with people that make personal comments.

Mod Note:

Have you considered your own role in setting up the situation in which those personal comments happened? If you are very busy playing word games, while someone else is trying to reach understanding, that will generate frustration.

Maybe you should complain less about others, when you have yourself effectively set them up for a conversational bait-and-switch.

 

[jgsugden]

Are we really arguing about a definition, or are we arguing about a role?

If you're trying to decide how to define player in the context of D&D, it seems like a waste of time as it makes no meaningful change. Whether DM is included in "players", or people should use "players and the DM" when discussing a situation involving everyone at the table is incredibly silly to work about - context of the conversation will tell you.

If this is about the role of the DM, and the duty the DM has to others at the table, then focusing on the language used to describe the DM is only tangentially related.

Either way, this is an odd conversation to carry on for 16 pages.

 

[Umbran]

I'm not trying to quote chapter and verse or appeal to authority here; I just want to remind everyone of the degree to which "referee" and "Dungeon Master" have long been synonymous in the context of D&D.

Yes, that language was used. That doesn't mean it was correct, or good advice on how to approach the game.

 

[Aldarc]

Yes, that language was used. That doesn't mean it was correct, or good advice on how to approach the game.

Nor even reflect the current understanding of the game.

 

[Jack Daniel]

Yes, that language was used. That doesn't mean it was correct, or good advice on how to approach the game.

True enough. But neither does that mean that not using that language leads to a more correct understanding or a better approach to the game.

Nor even reflect the current understanding of the game.

I see no reason to privilege a 2020 understanding of D&D over a 1980 one. It's not as if there's been some significant, revolutionary "theory of role-playing" developed in the interim. What would that be? GNS Theory? The Big Model? It's highly questionable whether that sort of theory-craft adds anything of value to the hobby.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I'm not trying to quote chapter and verse or appeal to authority here; I just want to remind everyone of the degree to which "referee" and "Dungeon Master" have long been synonymous in the context of D&D.

I'm curious how late you can do that - it's not that "referee and Dungeon Master were long synonymous". It's that back when D&D was calling itself "Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns" as the brown book did on the cover the role of DM grew out of the role of a referee in a multiplayer wargame.

As D&D turned into its own thing they dropped the name "referee" and settled on Dungeon Master precisely because the term referee no longer fit what the DM actually was. oD&D seems to exclusively refer to the referee while by 1e the term Dungeon Master seems to dominate.

And for that matter: 1 Referee to 20 Players?!? With the possibility of 50? Nope

 

[DemoMonkey]

"I am Sir Pedant of the Order of the Dangling Participles, and I am here to split that infinitive!"

The parse-pounding adventures of Tense the Paladin, Conjugate the Bard, Gerund the Wizard and Intransitive the Rogue!