Role-Playing Games | 

   There are two kinds of participants in a role-playing game. The "players", who normally run one character each and have little say in the world except through their characters' actions, and the guy or gal who runs the game, who sits behind a screen and describes the world. Every game has its own term for this, and none really satisfy me. "Game Master", "Dungeon Master", "Hollyhock God" (Nobilis), "Storyteller", none of those really describe the role correctly, and the first three are offensively sexist (even adapting them doesn't work; "Dungeon Mistress" has a very different meaning). Trying to discuss general gaming theory with any that aren't offensive is difficult, because they are tied closely to their settings; if you talk about a "Storyteller", people will respond "but I don't play White Wolf".

   I'm a devout believer in "social contracts" in gaming. The vast majority of groups have the same social contract: the person in charge adjudicates the world and rules, and creates and/or elaborates on situations for the PCs to deal with, and resolves the PCs' dealings with them. The person in charge shouldn't break the "laws" of the rules or the world without a good justification from higher ideals, but what they say, is so.

   There's a perfectly good word for this: Judge. Without a Judge, you don't have laws; you only have words on paper. Without a Judge, you don't have a fair way to resolve conflicts. Judges must be impartial to the complainants (the PCs and NPCs), but obedient to the law unless the law is unjust. The law, of course, is the rules system being run; it wouldn't be far off to think of the game designer as "Congress"--a lot of game designers are bastards, too.

   I'm also hugely influenced by the great Judge's Guild, who have sold me many awesome adventures over the years.

   In the immortal words of Judge Dredd, "I AM THE LAW!"

   If you want to consider this just another of Mark's weird quirks, feel free, but there's a serious motivation for it.