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

[Snarf Zagyg]

"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!

"Intransitive, you need to unlock that chest!"

"I can't."

"Why not????"

"Don't you know, I can't act on an object!"

 

[DemoMonkey]

"Where's Conjugate?"

"Visiting the princess in her tower."

"What kind of visit?"

raised eyebrow

 

[Neonchameleon]

Or, to put things more simply.

oD&D was a hacked tabletop wargame. In multiplayer tabletop wargames some players take one side of the wargame and others take the other. There is also a role for a referee to resolve rules disputes without being a player. This is a perfectly appropriate use of the word "referee" in part because the referee does not have any pieces they directly control and make decisions for in the battle. Instead they are there to resolve disputes and make sure everything flows.

oD&D was, however strongly hacked. The players were all (nominally) on the same side and the referee took over the opposing army. At this point the referee ceased to be a referee because they were in charge of one of the factions. But just as oD&D called itself a tabletop wargame despite no longer being one some of the terms from its wargaming roots remained.

Referee was one of them - and it was dropped because the term "referee" was utterly inappropriate for what the DM actually did. So they had to come up with a new term that actually reflected what the person in charge of all the monsters did. Rather than being a referee that person became the Dungeon Master.

It just took a bit of time because people hang on to old terms.

 

[Jack Daniel]

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.

Doesn't mean the term isn't still in currency—particularly in OSR circles, where it's used nigh-exclusively over "GM."

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

Yep. I've had campaigns that exceed twenty players easily, though I can't recall ever having seen more than fifteen of them all show up at once for a single adventure, and it's typically only about half that number. (This would've been around 2010, for context.)

 

[Neonchameleon]

Doesn't mean the term isn't still in currency—particularly in OSR circles, where it's used nigh-exclusively over "GM."

And although you can use it as a term of art no one is obliged to think that a Referee is, by the normal definitions, a referee. That's why the term was dropped in the first place. By normal colloquial definitions on the other than a GM is a player..

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Doesn't mean the term isn't still in currency—particularly in OSR circles, where it's used nigh-exclusively over "GM."

This conversation has always been more about usage (descriptivism) than prescriptivism, which is why it has been incredibly disheartening to see people retreat into catcalls about "semantics" and "word games."

I feel like I have to keep quoting the last sentence of the OP:
Again, there are other TTRPGs that are built in a different way, but when it comes to D&D, there is a distinction between players and the DM that is useful to maintain, both as a matter of language and in terms of the roles that they play at the table.

This is why, when you are a DM, you would never say to another gamer that you are a "player," because that term has a specified use in the context of D&D; just like if you were in a group of people that had PhDs in mathematics, you would not say you were a mathematician because you happened to split the check (unless you were either joking or had slept at a Holiday Inn Express). For that matter, the long-repeated, but true, joke is that no matter what your opinion is on PhDs, if someone drops on the ground and someone screams, "Is there a doctor in the house," you probably won't rush forward because you have a PhD in Comparative Literature.

So when people say (as in the quote that gave rise to the OP) that the DM is a player like any other player, then they are not making a prescriptive claim about dictionary definitions. This is a normative claim about what D&D is, or ought to be. As you can see, people saying, "Well, maybe that is how it was, but not how it is." And using the idea that this is semantics (and ignoring the context-shift) as a cover for the normative argument about how they want the game to be played. a/k/a, this is how the game should be played, because this is how the term is defined.

Eh, forget it it Jack. It's Chinatown.

 

[Jack Daniel]

And although you can use it as a term of art no one is obliged to think that a Referee is, by the normal definitions, a referee. That's why the term was dropped in the first place. By normal colloquial definitions on the other than a GM is a player..

Nevertheless, the term is in use, and is so for a reason—just as some RPGs call the position "narrator" or "storyteller" for the purpose of placing different emphasis. (And somehow, I doubt that either of those "terms of art" would get slapped with the same sort of dismissive, descriptivist/prescriptivist quibbling as "referee.")

So when people say (as in the quote that gave rise to the OP) that the DM is a player like any other player, then they are not making a descriptive claim about dictionary definitions. This is a normative claim about what D&D is, or ought to be. As you can see, people saying, "Well, maybe that is how it was, but not how it is." And using the idea that this is semantics (and ignoring the context-shift) as a cover for the normative argument about how they want the game to be played. a/k/a, this is how the game should be played, because this is how the term is defined.

Precisely. We aren't having this discussion in a vacuum, absent context. Dictionary definitions shouldn't even be entering into the matter.

 

[loverdrive]

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.

Well, for starters, game design became an actual thing. And also principles of good gming were formulated.

Doesn't mean the term isn't still in currency—particularly in OSR circles, where it's used nigh-exclusively over "GM."

In sub-circles of OSR circles that isn't busy with cargo-culting and paraphrasing B/X for a thousandth time (which means: people who actually know what they are doing) term "referee" comes up pretty rarely.

 

[zarionofarabel]

And yet, I feel as though I have conversed with posters on these forums who really do think that as the GM they are god almighty and worthy of veneration.

If you mean "god" as in "will only run games I find interesting and fun" then absolutely YES!

If you mean "god" as in "will force players to do something they don't want to do" then absolutely NO!

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

In sub-circles of OSR circles that isn't busy with cargo-culting and paraphrasing B/X for a thousandth time (which means: people who actually know what they are doing) term "referee" comes up pretty rarely.

Is there a way to phrase that less dismissively? Is it possible that there are people who don't ascribe to the same things that you do that also know what they are doing?