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A Gamemaster or Game Master (often abbreviated as GM) is a player in a multiplayer game who acts as organizer, arbitrator, and officiant in rules situations. more...

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Today, gamemaster is usually associated with role-playing games. In a role-playing game the Gamemaster's purpose is to weave the other participants' player-character stories together, control the non-player aspects of the game, and create environments in which the players can interact.

Being the GM requires extra commitment and responsibility than simply playing the game. While the basic roles of Game Masters - rules help, moderation, and storytelling - are the same in almost all role-playing games, differing rule sets make the specific duties of the GM unique to that system.

History and variants of the term

The term gamemaster and the role associated with it could be found in the postal gaming hobby, but was coined by the game company Flying Buffalo in the 1975 game Tunnels and Trolls. In typical play-by-mail games, players control armies or civilizations and mail their chosen actions to the GM. The GM then mails the updated game state to all players on a regular basis.

Each gaming system has its own name for the role of the gamemaster, such as "judge", "narrator", "referee", "Games Operation Designate" ("G.O.D.") or "storyteller", and these terms not only describe the role of the gamemaster in general but also help define how the game is intended to be run. For example, the Storyteller System used in White Wolf Game Studio's storytelling games calls its GM the "storyteller", while the rules- and setting-focused Marvel Super Heroes Role-Playing Game calls its GM the "judge". The cartoon inspired roleplaying game Toon calls its GM the "animator." A few games apply system- or setting-specific flavorful names to the GM, such as the Hollyhock God (Nobilis, in which the hollyhock represents vanity), or the oldest of such terms, "Dungeon Master" (or "DM") in Dungeons & Dragons.

Duties

The gamemaster prepares the game session for the players and the characters they play (known as player characters or PCs). The GM describes the events and decides on the outcomes of players' decisions. The gamemaster also keeps track of non-player characters (NPCs) and random encounters, as well as of the general state of the game world.

The game session (or "adventure") can be metaphorically described as a play, in which the players are the lead actors, and the GM provides the stage, the scenery, the basic plot on which the improvisational script is built, as well as all the bit parts and supporting characters.

GMs may choose to run a game based on a published game world, with the maps and history already in place; such game worlds often have pre-written adventures. Alternately, the GM may build their own world and script their own adventures.

Read more at Wikipedia.org