What kind of Game Master are you?

The 8 GM styles

• The Tactical ArbiterTactical Neo-Trad (Classic roots). Fair fights and open math, with real stakes.
• The Diegetic Sandbox RefereeOld School Renaissance (OSR). Rulings over rules, a deadly sandbox and no plot.
• The Auteur DirectorTraditional (Trad) play. A grand story, with secrets behind the screen.
• The Arc ShowrunnerNeo-Trad play. Big set pieces built around the players' arcs.
• The Catalyst Co-AuthorStory games. Play the system, share the pen.
• The Ultralight World-SimulantFree Kriegsspiel Renaissance (FKR). Barely any rules, a world that makes sense.
• The ImmersionistNordic LARP. Live the scene; let the game make you feel it.
• The Systemic ArchitectWorld simulation (simulationist). The rulebook is physics, and the world is built.

No GM at your table?

This quiz assumes a GM, and plenty of games skip one. A GM holds three powers: the Lens (what do we see?), the Law (can I do that?) and the Living (what does the guard do?). A GM also frames, opposes, paces, adjudicates and ends.

GM-less games split those jobs between rules and table. In Fiasco you set up a scene or resolve it, never both, and Microscope says who adds what, when. Try those, The Quiet Year or For the Queen.

Solo games give them to the book: the oracle is the Lens, the procedure is the Law, the tables are the Living. Try Ironsworn, Thousand Year Old Vampire or Four Against Darkness.

Glossary

Bleed

Emotion crossing between player and character, whichever way it goes. Narrowly, a risky blur of the two.

Clock

A named circle split into 4, 6 or 8 segments. Once it fills, the named thing occurs.

Fail forward

Failure still advances the scene, with some cost. Luke Crane's phrase, from Burning Wheel.

Front

A prepared threat in the Apocalypse World style, with an impulse and a countdown clock.

Lines and veils

Boundaries set prior to play. Lines block content, and veils keep it off-screen. Ron Edwards, 2003.

Neo-Trad

Trad since roughly 2015, in two types: collaborative (shared point pool) or tactical (ability packages, rules-fluent GM).

Nordic LARP

Immersion is the point. Mechanics produce the feeling directly, like a tension tower or dying candles.

Oracle

A yes/no procedure for GM-less play, where players pick their own odds and sometimes get an unexpected twist.

OSR

Old School Renaissance: classic dungeons, modern player-facing design. Players rely on their skill, referees on common sense, failure earns information.

Session zero

A pre-game meeting where everyone sets expectations and limits, and often builds characters together.

Story games

A culture built on player authority: players call for flashbacks, successes can grant narrative control, GMs often don't roll.

Trad

The GM is a storyteller with a plot. Mechanics mostly handle combat, with the story atop them.

X-Card

Anyone at the table can use it to cut content without question. John Stavropoulos, 2012.