World builder. Storyteller. Rules arbiter. Plot writer. Director. Facilitator. Actor. Entertainer. Improv expert. Enemy. Caretaker. Group manager. Event host.
The game master (GM) fulfills many tasks, takes on roles too numerous to count, and thus, has many faces and names. In TRPGs, one single GM usually juggles all the aspects of this role. In larps, we literarily can encounter a thousand faces if we consider mass conventions. Plot-GMs and battle-GMs have direct player contact in mainstream larps, with plot writers and logistics managers working in the background but equally important. Many game masters –storytellers, dungeon masters, keepers – and organizers prepare and host play as a hobby.
Increasingly, we encounter professional GMs, for example, in TRPG cafés in Japan or as educational larpwrights working for an NPO. The thousand faces become ten thousand.
Contrastingly, some games follow a trend of GM-less play, eschewing this role altogether. We believe the time is right to put the GM into the spotlight of academic and practical investigations.
The 2022 JARPS Symposium features six presentations from scholars and practitioners worldwide dealing with various aspects of game mastering (detailed program available after registration). The presentations are based on articles submitted to the 2022 special issue of the journal, entitled “The Master with a Thousand Faces: Game Mastering, Organizing, Plotting, and Running Analog Role-Playing Games”.
Online free event organized in collaboration with JARPS (Japanese Journal of Analog Role-Playing Game Studies).
