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OK, so I have seen a great many posts that refer to PFS gamemasters as "judges". I personally have never seen this term for a GM used in any official Paizo document. I am still new, with only about one year in Society play. Is the term a holdover from earlier seasons? Or common jargon because of its use in other organized play campaigns that-will-not-be-named.
See, I applaud the official discontinuation of the term "judge". I am not a judge. As a PFS GM I may do things that a real-life judge does, such as facilitate and adjudicate. But to me the term engenders an adversarial relationship between players and the person running the game. It does not, for me, foster an atmosphere of cooperation that is essential to a good gaming experience.
But maybe the term "gamemaster" or "GM" is just as bad.
Can anyone provide insight on how the term judge came to be used? I am just as curious about the history of the company and the PFS campaign itself as the in-game story, so I will read your replies!
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Dunno where it started, but it's interesting that you have such negative connotations to the term "judge". A "judge" is supposed to refer to someone who is impartial, fair, and dedicated to doing right by others rather than pursuing his own goals/preferences/etc.
Although I personally say "GM" (just from pure habit), I have noticed an ever-so-slight trend that those who call themselves "judges" seem to less often be the ones saying things like "Not at MY table!" than those who say "GM". It feels to me like the "judge" side of the community is just a hair more accepting (or perhaps, more consistently accepting) of things/people they're not used to.
Perhaps because they see themselves as someone with a duty to impartially arbitrate?
EDIT: Also, I approve of the wordplay in the title. :)
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Think I first ran into the term at a con in about 1988 or so, and I know it had been around a bit before that.
From what I recall it predates organized play and was originally just another term for a Game Master who was running content that they themselves had not written (such as convention-only mods or these days PFS scenarios). The implication being that they were there to adjudicate and run the scenario, not to explain the decisions or logic that went into writing it.
-TimD
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I think that many use judge because as a campaign there is only one GM and that's Mike Brock.
I personally use GM, since PFS is my first OP campaign. I figure if it's good enough that the Guide to OP calls us GMs, it's good enough for me.
On Mike only one GM I always call b%#!**!+ on that ;)
Here is a irrational rehash on what I think of the term judge.
How Many times does the Guide Call those who run the game Judges? 0
How Many times does the Guide Call those who run the game GM or Game Master? 167On the Chronicle Sheet is it GM Initials or Judge Initials?
It may be irrational, but every time I hear the term Judge I feel it is demeaning to what an actual Game Master does.
The way you use it makes it even worse to me, makes me feel less then Mike as a Game Master.
It may be irrational but that is how I feel.
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I'm a GM.
I make calls when things go beyond the scenario, I note things on chronicles like acts of evil or goodness, added NPCs when needed, and I'm willing to bend, interpret, add and discard rules as needed - I'm a GM, not a judge.
As far as I can tell, (good) players prefer it that way.
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Thanks for the input thus far. I have not attended many conventions, and. if the term originated in that setting, that easily explains why it's new to me.
I agree with other comments above in that the GM's role goes far beyond that of an impartial arbiter.
We're there to tell a story, to share the lore of the Golarion setting and the Pathfinder Society, to help new players learn the game, and more as other have noted above.
And yes, we must also adjudicate the rules.
But if that's my number one job I, for some irrational reason, feel like I need to catch my players in breaking rules and shut them down when they do.
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I think it comes from No matter what a book says, the forums says, or anything says, the GM is right, and you cant question it. They have the final say. Like I sometimes ask, can I know this and this since I'm from the region. Some view it as meta gaming, so I ask. They say no, I cant. Some allow it.
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...the GM is right, and you cant question it.Well, that's a view I can't agree with.
I'm not saying its right, but its how its formed. That I can see having us called Judges. I think its more to say, if something is fishy or a scenerio is weirdly worded, the GM can say this is what it means. Hell, most of the time if I don't know, I ask for a book or another opinion.
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This is new to me and I didn't even think it was a subject of debate!
As the guide says...
What Is a Game Master?
A Game Master (GM) is the person who adjudicates the rules and controls all of the elements of the story and world that the players explore. A GM’s duty is to provide a fair and fun game. In Pathfinder Society Organized Play, a GM must also help players fill out their paperwork, ensuring each player has an accurate accounting of his character (PC), and must report the results of each game to the event coordinator or on paizo.com/pathfindersociety.
As I might say to a real judge - "I rest my case, your honour" ;)
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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I really, really dislike it when people call me a judge rather than a GM. Magic tournaments have judges, while RPGs have GMs. The usage of the term is, to me, a way to denote a person as having extreme adherence to the rules - refusing to fudge for a lower-level player, reading rules extremely, extremely strictly, holding up tables for book races on minor rules questions, etc. The usage of the term further implies, to me, that the person saying it feels that we should aspire to such rules precision.
Speaking as an attorney, rules are rarely absolute. Most people outside the legal profession don't realize just how loose our legal system - or, indeed, any legal system - truly is. Why? Because the rules do not always squarely fit the facts. You have to work with language, which can lead to multiple meanings. At times, public policy dictates a particular result. The same applies to game mastering - a rule may not contemplate a certain action, a rule could have multiple readings and it might be for the good of the table that you ignore or modify a certain result.
In contrast to judges, GMs are called upon to perform a variety of tasks. We are indeed arbiters of the rules. We are also actors, mathematicians, secretaries, psychologists, tacticians, artists and counselors. A good GM knows how to hold all of those roles, bind them into something seamless and combine them to create a quality gaming experience. Focusing merely on our job to apply rules to situations is a gutting of our job description and presents a misleading image to both players and new GMs.
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I believe I remember reading the term "judge" back in the 1st edition AD&D books. Certainly the term referee was used a lot in those books. I strongly suspect it comes out of the game's wargame roots. Indeed, for very early D&D, they didn't even realize they were playing RPGs, they thought they were playing a variant of a wargame. So, you can see where having a game judge or referee might have made sense, instead of a "person so plays the role of the world".
Personally, I like the term GM, because it's the closest thing we have to an industry standard generic term. DM is D&D specific, but even if it weren't, implies a genre. GM is a term that is standard for RPGs.
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It was an alternate title for game masters at some convention events, might have been used in other tabletop games because Dungeon Master was off limits or ill fit.
Judge is a term that predates RPGs. It refers to any third-party adjudicator of rules in a game without regard to game genre. It originated in wargaming and miniatures gaming where certain scenarios either required or were greatly facilitated by having someone involved other than the actual players. Especially if there were issues like Fog of War, or strategic level maneuvering for a tactical game.
RPGs evolved from miniatures gaming, and a DM was a specialized judge who was absolutely required for this new style of game. But plenty of people continued to use the original term.
So "judge" is the most generic term, "DM" the most specific, and "GM" the generic for when you are specifically playing RPGs.
You'll see judge used a lot at cons when they might be putting together a document that is referring to more kinds of games than just RPGs, or who haven't updated their verbage in a while. You'll also see it used a lot by people who came to gaming from the wargaming side of things, or who are older.
I now, officially, feel old.
EDIT: And ninja'd.
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White wolf uses story teller. I suspect a few other games have titles besides game master. Judge is likely to be recognized as the person running the game regardless of the rules system. Perhaps the ability to use it in a generic way for whatever system gave it some traction. Regardless of how rules intensive like PF, or rules light like White Wolf World of Darkness, anyone who has been in the judge seat knows what it is like to have to be a judge, or whatever game system term. We have to improvise on the fly when the players go off the rails, never understand a clue, have to adjust adventures for the specific group, mediate for the players, spend so much prep time, ect.
I also wonder if judge and game master became more commonly used to avoid association with the BDSM scene before such became so popular, and wildly common itself. If you heard someone useing dungeon master back in the day, even if you were not an active member of the BDSM scene, you might know just enough to think that was what people were referring to it as.
I believe there is some sort of copy right on dungeon master. it might be for that reason, Paizo expressly emphasizes GM instead.
I typically prefer to call my self a DM. As much as I like some of the PF changes and additions, it does not satisfy me. If not for the backwards compatibily to add in old 3.5 stuff I enjoy, I would not like the game anywhere as much as I do. Because I think there is some legal issue about Paizo useing the full DM, I try to sometimes take that into consideration. There are also many people who never played other RPGs and would not know a DM was something different then the nefarious lord running the nearby crypt.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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...added NPCs when needed, and I'm willing to bend, interpret, add and discard rules as needed...
As far as I can tell, (good) players prefer it that way.
So good players prefer people who do things explicitly forbidden in the Guide and repeatedly asked by the Campaign Coordinator to not do?
I guess I'm a bad player then. Darn.
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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...added NPCs when needed, and I'm willing to bend, interpret, add and discard rules as needed...
As far as I can tell, (good) players prefer it that way.
So good players prefer people who do things explicitly forbidden in the Guide and repeatedly asked by the Campaign Coordinator to not do?
I guess I'm a bad player then. Darn.
Adding NPCs is not against the rules, so long as those NPCs do not provide a new and additional barrier to the adventure and are not used in combat. There are several scenarios which tell you to make up NPCs - Among the Living and Cyphermage Dilemma come to mind.
As far as bending, interpreting, etc., it depends on the purpose. A GM must make an interpretation of a rule in order to issue a ruling. Whether that ruling is based on what you *want* to happen or not is another question. Many actions which occur in an RPG do not have explicit rules, or the application of those rules could be open to interpretation.
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...added NPCs when needed, and I'm willing to bend, interpret, add and discard rules as needed...
As far as I can tell, (good) players prefer it that way.
So good players prefer people who do things explicitly forbidden in the Guide and repeatedly asked by the Campaign Coordinator to not do?
I guess I'm a bad player then. Darn.
Here's an interesting observation: every 5-star GM I've ever had (often before they were a 5-star GM) added NPCs and changed things in scenarios which absolutely had mechanical effects, including adding combat encounters.
When Mike Brock, in fact, ran my group through Murder on the Throaty Mermaid - and we went completely off-rail - he pulled out the GM Guide, looked up the Captain, and our Tier 4-5 table was fighting a CR 11 encounter (expert 3/fighter 9)... and we had a blast (even if we mostly died). Oh, and this was at his house in Atlanta, long before he was a Paizo bigwig... he was just a very good GM doing what it took to run games in Atlanta.
If there's one important characteristic of good GMs, it's that they take ownership of the scenario they're running - and sometimes that means knowing when to set the guide down - maybe pretend they didn't read it - and go "off book" for awhile.
(And don't even get me started on John Compton running us through Eyes of the Ten... oy!)
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Judge probably comes from wargaming, as I'm pretty sure it's hard-boiled into the RPG convention culture. I know it was used heavily in the RPGA in the 80s and 90s. I think I remember the old Marvel Super-Heroes RPG actually used the term "judge".
Yeah, I think "judge" was also in use during Living Greyhawk but I don't have my files on this computer to check. There were some debates on the term in the forums back then. I try to refer to myself as a GM, but sometimes the "judge" slips out. Old habits die hard.
Personally, I prefer the term Game Master, because this is, in the end, a roleplaying game and even in organized play I would not say there is a "winner". We're supposed to do more than adjudicate the scenario in front of us impartially, often pulling stuff out of thin air to patch up things the author did not think up or had no wordcount to cover.
(And indeed, Marvel Super Heroes had a Judge. My personal favourite title for the game master is from Nobilis, where I am given the lofty title of Hollyhock God.)
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Judge probably comes from wargaming, as I'm pretty sure it's hard-boiled into the RPG convention culture. I know it was used heavily in the RPGA in the 80s and 90s. I think I remember the old Marvel Super-Heroes RPG actually used the term "judge".
Yeah, I think "judge" was also in use during Living Greyhawk but I don't have my files on this computer to check. There were some debates on the term in the forums back then. I try to refer to myself as a GM, but sometimes the "judge" slips out. Old habits die hard.
Personally, I prefer the term Game Master, because this is, in the end, a roleplaying game and even in organized play I would not say there is a "winner". We're supposed to do more than adjudicate the scenario in front of us impartially, often pulling stuff out of thin air to patch up things the author did not think up or had no wordcount to cover.
(And indeed, Marvel Super Heroes had a Judge. My personal favourite title for the game master is from Nobilis, where I am given the lofty title of Hollyhock God.)
In LG is was mostly DM, I think, with some forays into GM - indeed, for a while WotC was very proprietary about the title "Dungeon Master", which in part is why we have "GMs".
Perhaps I'll go the Call of Cthulhu route and start calling myself a "Keeper", and having players roll sanity checks...
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Thanks for the feedback everyone. In the end, just getting my thoughts out here expelled some pent up bile. And it is interesting to hear about how the term originated. Makes me feel like part of the convention-going club, in a small way.
Honestly, I was afraid it had its origins at Wizards, so hearing that it doesn't makes me feel much better.
And I have nothing against other RPGS or their titles, but I don't play them. I can barely afford time or money to play the one game, let alone several (Though I've tried a few over the years).
So go on using whatever term makes you happy, and I won't take offense, as I might have before. But I will still use Gamemaster or GM.
