The Knowledge of the Game Master

A deep dive into the development of game mastering, or GMing, as a practice, and why it matters.

In a tabletop role-playing game, the game master, or GM, is generally understood to be the person who organizes and manages the game, plays the role of all nonplayer characters, and is responsible for the overall experience of the players at the table. But how does one learn how to GM? And when one has mastered the art of the game master, what exactly does one know how to do?

In The Knowledge of the Game Master, William White answers these questions and more, connecting the worlds of game studies scholars, game designers, and players of tabletop role-playing games to explore GMing as a communication practice. He shows how it takes shape as an expression of ideas about imagination and performance, and he examines the circulation of those ideas among various communities of play.

Using a theoretical apparatus derived from Algirdas Greimas, Erving Goffman, and Marshall McLuhan, White offers a media-ecological microhistory of GMing in popular culture and fan discourse, provides a systematic overview of contemporary GM advice, and draws examples from actual play to show the GM’s communicative roles in action. The book provides a detailed description of the GM workshop facilitated by the author and concludes with a role-playing game that deconstructs the role of the GM by making use of the framework developed over the course of the book.