# GM-as-adjudicator or GM-as-storyteller - Or Is There a Third Way? tags: #thoughts  > [!quote] Full Tweet: > > The games were originally conceived with the Dungeon Master as a referee, as they are in war games. DMs whose primary concern is to tell a story find themselves wrestling with the tension between “telling a story” and “managing a scenario”. > > They seem related because both Author and DM are presenting a world. It’s the introduction of players as independent actors that keep the two distinct: the DM is presenting the parameters of the game for players to affect, then use the rules to adjudicate what they can do. > > “Stories” are a byproduct of play and are specific to that group. It’s rare to get a story out of the game that you could novelize satisfactorily for outsiders: PCs often die ignominiously, quests are forgotten, and hooks are ignored on the regular. This is a legitimate stance to take regarding TTRPGs, and I'm here for it. DM as arbiter is a solid position to take. Ultimately, it's probably a far more effective position to take than DM as storyteller because in an ultimate sense, that takes the agency away from everybody else at the table. Here's the reason I believe it's become a pretty significant mode of play: because a lot of people in the hobby are emotionally immature and unsure, and they don't trust the other people around them to actually engage with the game but instead want to reassure themselves as to their primacy by telling them a story and making them bit players in their own fantasy. From the player's side, they are emotionally immature and unwilling to assert agency for fear of *"doing the wrong thing,"* and thus ride the happy railroad without responsibility. Both sides then wonder why their experience devolves into murder hobo territory. The players know their characters have no particular desires except for the immediate gratification of getting to play with the system, and the DM has no real talent for storytelling, and realizes the only response he gets from his table is the immediate gratification of getting to play with the system. *"DM as adjudicator"* takes care of at least half of this problem. The DM no longer feels compelled to be the storyteller. As such, everyone knows up front that a good chunk of the gratification that's going to come must emerge organically from the wants and desires of the characters, or, equally, and with open acceptance, the gratification of getting to play with the system. This puts everybody much more on the same page. And ultimately, you probably get a better experience. There is one problem in this for a lot of people—and by a lot of people, I mean *publishers*: you can't sell anything to those people. You can't sell them an endless cavalcade of scenario books, storylines, pre-made characters, and all the rest of the garbage that keeps deeply mid-creators afloat. The adjudicator doesn't need them. Neither do the players, because they're not designed for the players to actually use them. They exist purely for the story-forcing GM. As such, most publishers who want to sell scenarios lean heavily on the GM as storyteller, as how they expect the game to be played, and they communicate it whenever possible. They want your money. They want everybody's money, and they don't get it from adjudicators unless they publish something which is almost purely focused on mechanics. And despite appearances, there's only so much of that you can do. Moreover, there's only so much of that you should do. Publishing supplements which expand the world, that expand the possibilities of the characters to care about new things and experience new things while giving guidance to the GM as adjudicator has fallen out of favor, mainly because it's hard work. You have to actually be creative and write things that are compelling enough for GMs and players to want to be involved. My personal inclination for the last couple of decades has been to avoid the problem altogether and play GM-less games. I am not GM as adjudicator, even though I'm not horrified by that. I just no longer want to do it. I'm definitely not GM as storyteller because I want it to be the characters' stories and not my story. I don't need actors. I want to play a game with the people at my table. Instead, I am a facilitator, not a GM or DM at all. I focus on making it possible for people to play the game by being cogent and talented with the rules, knowing them so that everyone can use them. I'm generally the one that organizes and provides the space for things because I'm good at it, and I don't mind doing it. It also means I get to play solo and co-op games a lot, which reduces the stressful overhead of trying to manage large groups, or sometimes even groups at all. I love a good wargame, and I'm perfectly happy to play games where somebody else is adjudicating. A referee is a fine position to have. I just don't want it necessarily for the RPGs I'm playing. (Hell, we have solo adventure wargames these days which require neither a referee/adjudicator nor another player, and this is amazing. Watching solo and co-op play spread out of a very tiny niche in wargaming to a surprising number is great. It's making things better. Design overall is getting better.) If you want to write a story, write a novel, put together a screenplay, or assemble a collection of your short stories. If you want to play a game by yourself or with your friends, play the game. Don't try to tell them how they should play, which is what GM as storyteller is ultimately about. Play with them. The world is full of good games which allow for all of this. Pick them up. Play them. Enjoy them. Your experience at the table. Alone or with your buddies is going to be better for it.