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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8410425" data-attributes="member: 42582">Another thought: Baker calls the GM in AW the MC. The chapter called "The Master of Ceremonies" doesn't deny that the MC is a GM, but emphasises (p 108) that while "[t]here are a million ways to GM games; Apocalypse World calls for one way in particular."It reminds me a little bit of Christopher Kubasik's use of "Fifth Business" in his <a href="https://playsorcerer.wordpress.com/2008/07/23/the-interactive-toolkit-part-two-why-do-modules-suck/" target="_blank">Interactive Toolkit</a> series:Let’s start with roleplaying’s GM (referee, Storyteller or whatever). This is usually the person who works out the plot, the world and everything that isn’t the players’. To a greater or lesser degree, she is above the other players in importance, depending on the group’s temperament. In a Story Entertainment, she is just another player. Distinctly different, but no more and no less than any other player. The terms GM and referee fail to convey this spirit of equality. The term Storyteller suggests that the players are passive listeners of her tale. So here’s another term for this participant – one that invokes the spirit of Story Entertainments – Fifth Business. Fifth Business is a term that originates from European opera companies. A character from Robertson Davies’ novel Fifth Business describes the’ term this way: You cannot make a plot work without another man, and he is usually a baritone, and he is called in the profession Fifth Business. You must have a Fifth Business because he is the one who knows the secret of the hero’s birth, or comes to the assistance of the heroine when she thinks all is lost, or keeps the hermitess in her cell, or may even be the cause of somebody’s death, if that is part of the plot. The prima donna and the tenor, the contralto and the basso, get all the best music and do all the spectacular things, but you cannot manage the plot without the Fifth Business! This certainly sounds a lot like a GM, but it also makes it clear that he’s part of the show, not the show itself.I'm pretty sure Vincent Baker will have read Kubasik, given his reading of Edwards who quotes Kubasik, <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/narr_essay.html" target="_blank">including this passage</a>.</blockquote>

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