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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 8154621" data-attributes="member: 87792">You've never heard my opinion on calling the GM a Storyteller. I consider referee a bad term because it's fundamentally incorrect - but you actively can't run an RPG as a referee as you control the NPCs. It's not even misleading, just incorrect thanks to being a legacy term.Storyteller on the other hand is a fundamental mistake in terms of what to call a GM because it implies it's the GM's story and the GM writes what is going to happen. It (unlike Referee) actively promotes bad behaviour on the part of the GM and is therefore a far far worse choice than referee.I can't think of any games off the top of my head that call the GM a narrator, and whether that works depends on how it's done and what the game is trying to do. If you mean narrator as in a play that has a character that handles scene transitions that could work really well.Hollyhock God (as used IIRC in Nobilis) on the other hand is slightly ridiculous. On the positive side Vincent Baker's MC/Master of Ceremonies is spot on in terms of what the GM in that game should be doing.It's because we aren't having this discussion in a vacuum, absent context, that dictionary definitions should be entering into the matter. The way words are generally used is part of the context.Edit: To sum up a good term for the GM makes it easier by summing up what the GM should be doing (and it's different in different games). Referee doesn't do this at all because the GM can't do this. Which is still massively better than Storyteller which is something the GM almost certainly shouldn't be.</blockquote>

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