Editing Gamemaster (section)

==Types of GM==
A description of commonly found play styles of GM and their pros & cons. ''(hoping that more will be added over time)'' Note that it's easily possible to be multiple types at once.

*'''Aspiring Author''' - Hand-crafts his own campaign setting, populating it with "unique" characters, factions and history. The campaign will often grow with the players, taking shape based on the things that they do which can be extremely satisfying.
**'''Pros''' - Can make for a very unique experience if the GM takes his time with the setting, particularly in creating unexpected/memorable scenarios for the players. Also becomes very difficult to meta-game since players don't necessarily know how the system works ''(and therefore how to break it)''
**'''Cons''' - If he's not very good, the "uniqueness" of the setting will be contrived / cliche tropes that the players already know, and will get tired of if being sold to them as "different". Also if the GM is not committed to the group, adventures may take a long while to write up and cause the players to forget what they were even playing. Furthermore, can be overprotective of his setting ''(particularly if he IS an author)'' and refuse to budge when it comes to harsh decisions or situations regarding the greater universe, though he is GM so fair play to him for that. But be aware that just because someone is excellent at narrative doesn't always make for a good GM; some encounters may drag out for "impact" or "effect" but don't always translate to good flow for a group of players, leaving them bored. Or they mismatch the power level of the opponents to the party because "that's what they would be in-universe".
**'''Most likely campaign ending''' -  [[The Lord of the Rings|"The players have saved the princess, proved their innocence and slain the dragon, then sail off to the west for a comfortable retirement. The End."]]
**'''Favored Games:''' -  Homebrewed settings, [[World of Darkness]], [[FATE]], [[Nobilis]]

*'''Canon Defender / Fanboy''' - Applicable when using an established setting/adventure modules ''(Forgotten Realms, 40k, Star Wars etc)'' they usually know their fluff better than most and try to maintain the integrity as much as they possibly can by restricting how much damage the players will inevitably attempt to cause by breaking it. Or by restricting their movements to specific "breakable" portions of the in-game universe where the players cannot cause significant harm. ''(eg: no visiting Terra since the players will obviously attempt to murder the Emperor)''
**'''Pros''' - The "realism" of the campaign is maintained, so if the players know their lore they remain familiar with the setting no matter how much they try to screw it over. By necessity, he is heavily invested in the setting, meaning that he will be reliably consistent with the players and one of the most enthusiastic of GM types. So if the GM is well versed enough, the session can be just as immersive as those run by The Actor, just keeping a status quo that won't come crashing down around the group.
**'''Cons''' - Players can feel cheated that they are not interacting with the setting as much as they would like. Meta-gaming is going to happen and arguments will occur with players who think they know the setting better. Also, if a GM is not well versed enough with the setting it WILL devolve into railroading as he won't know how to react to unexpected situations.
**'''Most likely campaign ending''' -  Whenever the ''owner of the setting/universe'' stops publishing material.
**'''Favored Games:''' -  The official RPG of whatever canon when available ([[Star Wars RPG]]/[[Star Wars D20]], the [[Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay]] series, [[Serenity]], hundreds of others), or when not available or not well done, generic systems that work well with the chosen canon: [[GURPS]], [[FATE]]

*'''Formula/Dice GM''' - What the rulebooks often expect a GM to be. Follows the adventure modules religiously, but unlike the canon defender is more interested in the crunch than the fluff. When shit happens, he will likely refer to whatever table of events / random encounter lists / pre-generated characters that are available. He is in it just as much as the players are; just along for the ride.
**'''Pros''' - Things tend to go most according to plan since a rule can often be found to cover most situations. Is also the least likely to cause a fuss with the players, since he's playing the game as much as they are. So nothing is personal with him.
**'''Cons''' - The situations can occur that often feel out of place to the players; such as repetitive random encounters or things not happening in the appropriate locations due to the result of a dice roll. ''(meeting a merchant in the middle of a dungeon?)'' though if the players are light-hearted enough this can be source of amusement and amusing material that may be worth a chuckle long after the game is over.  Also, he needs to know the rules he's deferring to backwards and forwards, or the game will move at a snail's pace.
**'''Most likely campaign ending''' -  Whenever the ''RPG publisher'' stops publishing material
**'''Favored Games:''' -  almost stereotypically [[Pathfinder]] or [[D&D]]

*'''Turncoat Player''' - Longtime players (most often [[Powergamers]]) who want to give the GM chair a shot, often thinking they can [[butthurt|do it better than the previous GM]] since they have sat through the experience of being a player and want to do it differently. Often with a list of things they want to change like an election manifesto.
**'''Pros''' - If they can learn restraint, they can be the most sympathetic to the players needs and become one of most adaptable GMs. Also will spend a lot of time with the players developing their characters, crafting well fleshed out back stories and often including an inordinate amount of heirloom items. Additionally if they were a [[that guy]] player there's a good chance they'll be more sympathetic to the previous GM and any future ones after walking a mile in their shoes.
**'''Cons''' - More player experience does not always equal good GM. These GMs can be wishlisters; creating settings that they'd rather play in. Giving the players the '''"best"''' gear, '''"freedom"''' of gameplay, '''"unrestricted"''' access to character options ''(all words which should give proper GMs [[RAGE|headaches]])'' and dish out ridiculous experience and in-situ rewards in an attempt to ingratiate himself with the group and sometimes end up in denial that their sessions have any flaws in them at all. Also, since his campaigns are heavily player focussed, groups may find that encounters become less of a challenge and/or that the universe really is quite hollow and not populated with very interesting NPCs. These campaigns generally have short lifespans, mostly because the players accelerate faster than his ability to come up with new material, or the turncoat gets bored of running the campaign or wants to try a [[Derp|"better"]] ruleset that requires starting all over again, where he's in his element. Additionally as a lesser con, since he is a former player he may be used to thinking in terms of 'optimization' so he may have his NPC's in combat use every trick in the PC's book, such knowing when to focus targets or optimizing action efficiency and so on. Even if he is just doing it because he's used to thinking in that mindset; this can unintentionally make his games much harder even he's not intentionally trying to be a killer GM.
**'''Most likely campaign ending''' -  Whenever the PCs have been prematurely promoted to Generals, Gods or any other point where it makes no sense to continue.
**'''Alternate Ending''' - Turncoat players ''(especially powergamers)'' can go OCD with their campaign, in that he spends too much time crafting NPCs and items, treating them as if they were his very own PCs, then to take things personally when the players outshine them or defeat them. At this point the Turncoat will likely morph into a railroader where they party gets to sit and watch his NPCs interact with each other.
**'''Favored Games:''' -  Whatever the group was already playing

*'''The Monty Haul GM''' - Named for former American game show Host [[Monty Hall]], This type of GM [[This Guy|really likes to put a smile on their player's faces]] and they do so by handing out loot, abilities, and boons like Oprah does cars.
**'''Pros''' - ''Loot. Fun. Good.'' The 'Looter Shooter' style of video game for a reason and entire genre of games exist around the cycle of 'do quest to find stuff to do quests with'. Transplanting that game play to a table top is a natural idea if done correctly.
**'''Cons''' - It's easy for a GM like this to go overboard and turn the entire party into a band of Mary Sues, some even going so far as to invent items like a sword of instant monster slaying or an infinite-range missile launcher just to have some form of loot to give the players that they don't already have.
**'''Most likely campaign ending''' - When the PCs begin weeping over the fact that the world has no more items left to loot, ala Alexander the Great.
**'''Favored Games:''' - D&D, Pathfinder, Dark Heresy. Anything that can have large amount of customized loot to give out.

*'''The Railroader''' - Often appears to have the most desirable skillset as a GM; knows his fluff, the ruleset and gets on well with the group but do not be deceived, he is one of the worst types of style. Recognisable for his lack of dice rolling, also for constantly talking to his players and knowing what happens next without referring to books/notes. Often giving them loads of information to work with and dropping hints about what they could be doing next. If he's good, he will often defer to the players and create a scenario on the fly depending upon what their options are.
**'''Pros''' - One of the smoothest operating GMs, since his plan is constantly in his mind he will quickly have a resolution to most scenarios. Also can be as creative as the aspiring author above, and when telling a good story and is in his interactive element, the players may not ever realise that they have been railroaded at all - which is the sign of a '''REALLY''' good GM.
**'''Cons''' - The players will feel railroaded by his constant hint dropping, and will be punished (sometimes severely) with whatever consequence he has in his twisted mind for not taking those hints. Since there is little to no dice rolling there is often no comeback for the players. This GM will insist ''(and often genuinely believe)'' he is being fair and is NOT railroading you since you ''always had the "option" of following his advice''. Also, since it's all mostly in his mind, if he gets an opinion or a vendetta in there against you, you're pretty much screwed over at this point and are just pawns in his little game that he's playing with himself. Additionally if he can't think fast on his feet, going off the rails may flummox him even if he tries to play along to the party's wishes. Still, if he calls a break to figure out where the hell things are going, at least he's trying, so cut him some slack. Also a combination with the Fanboy can occur where the Railroader puts the players on the side of a major conflict in the setting without actually allowing players to influence it meaningfully.
**'''Most likely campaign ending''' -  [[Rocks fall, everyone dies]] because you went down a corridor the GM ''told'' you not to go down.
**'''Favored Games:''' -  [[Paranoia]], [[D&D]], [[Pathfinder]], [[Only War]], though they can pop up with just about any system. 

*'''The Actor''' - Basically what the Railroader would be if he weren't in touch with his inner control freak.  Like the Author and Railroader, he really wants to tell a story, but like the Turncoat he wants it to be the players'.  Generally more interested in the ''role'' part of roleplaying, he tends to put lots of effort into making colorful side characters and setting flavor, but tends to regard combat as a side dish rather than the meat and bones of the game, so he frequently improvises and works off a set of indistinct guidelines more than rigid pre-prepared content.
**'''Pros''' - A very flexible kind of GM.  Since he isn't married to a preconceived notion of how the session is going to go, he isn't going to be completely floored unless you [[The Henderson Scale of Plot Derailment|go full Henderson]].  The effort he puts into making the world feel alive can be very immersive, and he tries to make events feel like they matter to the characters instead of just being a story they're blundering through.  Prefers to keep the game moving, so he's likely to make a judgement call based on the roll rather than look up the exact rule if he doesn't know it.  If you tend to regard constant pointless action scenes and random encounter fights as annoying filler where nothing is happening to advance the story, you and he are going to get along like white rice and soy sauce.
**'''Cons''' - Very prone to taste mismatch.  Since he's an actor first, he tends to skimp on combat and hack-and-slash unless it's important to the story.  Don't expect lots of random encounters, and don't expect [[Old School Roleplaying|constant life-or-death struggle with everything trying to kill you]].  Frequently has problems with managing lots of simulationist rules, and often jury-rigs solutions out of [[Rule Zero|GM Fiat]] rather than looking up the answers in the book which can be a real problem if he's not consistent about it.  If you regard the "standing around talking" part of the game as pointless nonsense fluff between the action and fights, you and he are going to get along like sodium and water.  
**'''Most likely campaign ending''' -  Whenever the GM moves house away from your city.
**'''Favored Games:''' -  Any system, and settings that allow for large and diverse casts of 'interesting' NPCs. [[D&D]], [[Pathfinder]], [[World of Darkness]], [[Spirit of the Century]] 

*'''Submissive / Reactionary GM''' - Not an oxymoron, but rather the polar opposite of the Railroader. Bends over backwards to accommodate the players and their characters, but unlike the Turncoat actually knows how to GM properly by maintaining an interesting storyline and also how to reward the players correctly/fairly for what they do. This style requires a tremendous amount of creativity on the part of the GM even though they can stick to a script / published adventure module. They tend to occur with campaigns involving evil PCs or with novice GMs among more veteran groups where players are given more latitude with their conduct either by design or through the GM's lack of personality / assertiveness. 
**'''Pros''' - If the GM is any good then players can get the full package, the freedom to do whatever they want with the in-game universe and it still remain a challenging and enjoyable experience for them.
**'''Cons''' - Sub GMs tend to have a short career, either by giving up or switching to a different style as constantly having to come up with off-script consequences to outrageous player behaviour can burn them out creatively. Or due to a lack of enforced discipline/conduct, player groups become bogged down by conflicting personalities and the group loses its cohesion.
**'''Most likely campaign ending''' -  When the players have dueled each other to the death over the [[Awesome|staff of godhood]] and there is only one left standing. ''(or the campaign gets forgotten about and shelved)''
**'''Favored Games:''' -  [[D&D]], [[Pathfinder]], sometimes [[White Wolf]], often generics like [[GURPS]] and [[FATE]]. 

*'''The Comedian''' [[File:Joke-GM.gif|300px|right]]- A GM that's not afraid to drop gags and jokes into his story. For this GM, Role playing is an activity to be enjoyed, and by slipping the occasional gag into the world in an attempted to get a chuckle from the players. Expect to slay Vampire cults inspired by Twilight, Dwarfs who act like [[Dwarf Fortress|Dorfs]], Have an Octopus [[Sir Brian|disgused as a human however nobody notices thanks to an insane bluff score]], ectra.
**'''Pros''' - Comedians are not above running silly, funny and awesome concepts like the [[Deffwotch]] and when everything is running well and the players and the GM ''click'' they can provide very entertaining games.
**'''Cons''' - The players and the GM '''have''' to be on the same wavelength. Humor is ultimately subjective and a gag that the GM finds funny may be annoying or infuriating to the other players. Further the number of gags, in jokes, and shout outs weaken the overall structure of the game world and makes immersion harder.
**'''Most likely campaign ending''' -  "The players have saved the Dragon from the princess, have been found guilty of [[Murderhobo|murder, looting, and jay walking]], and an ork was the prosecutor, they then run as fast as they can out of the kingdom and go into hiding. The End?"
**'''Favored Games:''' -  [[Paranoia]], [[Human Occupied Landfill|HōL]], or any "serious" game, like the [[Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay]] series, [[White Wolf]] games, [[D&D]], where the humor can take on a tone of parody of the normal sort of games those systems/settings expect. A good Comedian can make just about any game into a laugh riot. Perhaps even [[FATAL]] {{BLAM}} {{BLAM|EXTRA HERESY!}}

*'''Killer GM''' [[File:Iamthegamemaster.jpg|300px|right]] - This GM very much believes that their job is adversarial. They're here to fuck you up through any means necessary, either through crunch or fluff. Expect save-or-die traps, Level 20 town guards, monsters out of nowhere, and Tomb of Horrors style dungeons. Very little or even non-existent storyline, just challenge after challenge, essentially creating a P&P Dark Souls. Killer GM are also unique in that they are often a secondary role, difficult is after all easiest part of a story to change so any of the above roles can also run a killer GM game. (Reportedly [[Gary Gygax]] himself was one of these, which might explain the nature of [[Old School Roleplaying]]. many those how were their at dawn of Roleplaying games tend to be the killer as the game was a evolution of war games where PC lives were thought as cheap even to those players, with the point of games was beating the meatgrinder and most long term campaign long character development was enjoying the fact you were able to keep your ant alive long enough that they get god-like powers as a reward.) (as roleplay became more important, the Killer GM is either an old-schooler or old-schooler fan, or a dick). Also if you want to run these kinds of games: for the love of god have a plan B for if your players even as optimized as they are just roll a one and die. Restarting at level 1 not only sucks for them it suck for the st of the party as they now lack a major amount of firepower.
**'''Pros''' - You want a mechanical challenge? This is the GM for you. The perfect opponent for munchkins and murderhobos, the good kind of Killer GM excels at creating harsh, cruel, punishing, though not impossible, scenarios. If all the players just want to kill stuff and feel smart for avoiding traps and generally enacting badass death-defying stunts, the Killer GM can provide.
**'''Cons''' - Just as with the Comedian here above, players and GM must be on the same wavelength and accept that things can go utterly, awfully, hilariously [[just as planned|right]] or [[not as planned|wrong]] with little forewarning, sometimes on a single die roll. And the GM must be impartial, or even a little in the party favor if they make an honest mistake in the knife edge balance a killer game requires. A bad Killer GM is just a [[That Guy|massive twat]] with a huge hate-boner for you, your character, and everything you stand for. Hopefully not going as far to just kill you with no saves or warning, but the sort of GM to throw Lvl 20 monsters at a Lvl 1 party and then wonder why you didn't min-max enough to beat them. Like a Railroad GM, except the only destination is your frustrating, inexplicable death. Railroaders are also infamous for metamorphosing into Killer GM's in order to punish players who stray from there{{BLAM}}{{BLAM}}{{BLAM}} their story.
**'''Most likely campaign ending''' -  [[TPK|Total Party Kill]] either by defiant, awesome last stand worthy of posting on /tg/, or getting so fucked over you wonder why you even bother playing these stupid games in the first place, which can also be worthy of posting on /tg/.
**'''Favored Games:''' -  [[Hackmaster]], [[Castles & Crusades]], [[AD&D]], [[Only War]], [[Paranoia]], [[Call of Cthulhu]].  That's if they're up front about the sort of games they run.  The worst Killer GMs will surprise you with an exceptionally hard form of a game that ''should'' be less death-prone, like [[FATE]] or [[Exalted]]

*'''/d/M''' - No way we could keep all the horrors of the /d/M on everything but it's own page, sanctioned and hermetically sealed, so its wrongness may never ever spill out into the world. Long story short: Go [[/d/M|here.]]
**'''Favored Games:''' -  [[FATAL]] (of course), [[Maid RPG]], [[Black Tokyo]], [[Zettai Reido]], [[CthulhuTech]], and if you're unlucky, whatever game your group happens to be playing.

===DM Alignment===

There is also another potential way to categorize types of DMs, based on the [[Alignment]] system of D&D:

*'''Lawful''' DMs prefer to go by the book and look up a pertinent rule when in a situation they don't know the rule for.
*'''Chaotic''' DMs prefer to houserule things and use homebrew a lot.

*'''Good''' DMs are [[This Guy|having fun when the players are having fun]].
*'''Evil''' DMs are [[That Guy|having fun when the players are not]]