When the question ‘What is the best way to describe running a role-playing game?’ cycles around on social media, I answer that I view it as a practice. This response is often unique compared to the usual answers you get. Since I use the answer frequently, here is the inevitable post I can link to when and if people want further explanation of why I have that view.
How Do People Describe It?
Before we frame it as a practice, we should briefly examine some common lenses people use to describe running a role-playing game. I’m not saying this is a perfect list or even the best way to express it, but it’s good enough and works for our journey in this post. They are talking about running a game, so they are naturally GM-slanted.
Storyteller or Improviser
“The GM is the narrator of a shared story, guiding players through a world they help bring to life.”
The common view of collaborative storytelling, often in the small ‘s’ style, involves weaving narrative threads together and responding to player actions. This framing emphasises creativity, playing to find out, and the improvisational nature of the experience.
Performer or Entertainer
“Running a game is like putting on a show where the audience also happens to be those playing.”
While this framing has always been part of the experience, it’s been elevated with the rise of actual play podcasts and live streams. The GM (and the players) view giving a performance as important, and all those involved get to share in it. When it comes to live streams, there is also an external audience to entertain.
World-builder or Architect
“The GM builds the stage upon which the drama unfolds.”
The focus is on architecting the world, creating maps, societies, histories, and intriguing things to explore. This is a vital part of the experience—to the extent that it can take a lot of time compared to actually playing.
Arbiter or Designer
“A GM is like a living rulebook, keeping the game fair and fun.”
The focus is on the mechanical elements of the game and the rules and how they work—balancing encounters, interpreting rules, and even designing homebrew content that extends such things. The experience is part referee and part game designer.
Faciliator or Group Therapist
“A GM is like a living rulebook, keeping the game fair and fun.”
For others, the social dynamics take centre stage. The GM is a facilitator, ensuring everyone has fun, resolving conflicts, and creating a safe, inclusive space.
Leader or Coach
“The GM is the one steering the ship, but everyone’s helping to navigate.”
Some describe GMing as leadership: helping the group move toward shared goals, encouraging participation, and making tough calls when needed.
What are the two most important things to consider regarding this list? First, they’re not mutually exclusive, as a GM will use skills from across this list, if not from all of them; it’s just a matter of emphasis. Second, talking about skills, each of these lenses has multiple skills, methods, and tools associated with doing them well.
This list focuses on aspects of what it means to run a game while ignoring the deliberate development of skills, tools, and methods that evolve over time. This fact makes the case for it being a practice.
So, What’s A Practice?
My career involves a couple of practices, namely business analysis and project management. Both exist as recognised practices with associated bodies of knowledge where approaches, skills, tools, and methods are assembled. So, I tend to come from the perspective of thinking how project managers or business analysts keep improving their work through experience, feedback, and adapting to new challenges.
That same mindset can apply to running role-playing games if we accept a more conversational view of a practice.
A practice something you get better at over time through doing it intentionally—by learning, reflecting, and refining your approach. It usually has a mix of skills, tools, and shared ways of doing things, and it’s often shaped by a community of people who care about doing it well.
This sounds pretty spot-on for running a role-playing game, right?
There is also great value in seeing role-playing games through the lens of what exists in the professional world, and we’ve done this a number of times on this site – a few examples being how a gaming group can be a high performing team and when looking at the storytelling spectrum.
Why Does It Matter?
Well, it doesn’t work for many people, as role-playing games are just something they do to have fun with their friends. The intentionality around learning, reflection, and refinement isn’t present and doesn’t need to be. At the same time, there are certainly people who look at it that way, and bodies of knowledge do get built up; they’re just not recognised as such or formally documented in a recognised location.
The other way to look at it is that discussions around running role-playing games rarely involve looking at the whole but instead focus on specific parts as islands. This is why bodies of knowledge in other areas exist so practitioners can begin to see, use, and absorb something closer to the entirety of what the practice can and does involve.
Ultimately, if we did have a body of knowledge similar to that for things like Project Management and Business Analysis, it would act as a way to: –
- Document and refine standard tools, definitions and methods to improve the act.
- Enhance communication by having a set body of knowledge as a common language.
- Establishes the act as a discipline that requires expertise, preparation and reflection.
The question then is: is it even possible?
Is It Even Possible?
It’s possible, but it will never happen for several reasons: –
- No one will ever agree on what should be in it
- No one would agree on the definitions of what is decided to go into it
- There is no professional imperative to get through (1) and (2)
Despite this, we can speculate what a body of knowledge for the practice of running a role-playing game might look like. Wild speculation on what it might look like to try and drive an idea rather than empirically define its structure – let’s go crazy. Let’s look at the main structural elements of bodies of knowledge first.
| Practice Element | Description |
|---|---|
| Areas of Work | Worldbuilding, session planning, encounter design, pacing, etc. |
| Principles | Create meaningful experiences, respond to players, maintain flow |
| Techniques and Tools | Encounter templates, lore bibles, safety tools, improvisation games |
| Professional Skills | Facilitation, creative problem-solving, emotional intelligence |
| Contextual Adaption | Narrative-heavy, sandbox, crunchy tactical, horror, one-shots |
| Ongoing Refinment | Campaign retrospectives, GM forums, AP feedback, community learning |
Even with the above random attempt at the things that could go into the structure defined by other bodies of knowledge, you can see how things could inter-relate. For example, you’d probably want to assemble some other areas under the contextual adaptions – like contextual adaptation bundles.
We could go on to expand each of these out, but I’m conscious we get more and more into the speculative territory – there is a reason these practice bodies of knowledge are defined by communities of those practising over extended periods of time! If we take principles, we might have: –
- Foster collaborative storytelling
- Adapt to the needs of the group
- Balance structure and spontaneity
- Support player creativity and agency
- Maintain fairness and consistency
- Create safe, inclusive spaces
- Commit to growth through feedback and reflection
It’s a list to demonstrate how it could be done. Anyone remotely interested in refining and improving their practice of running a role-playing game knows various principles from games that would serve as inspiration. This is another reason you might use contextual adaptations, as some principles would be universal, others might be weighted to different playstyles, etc. For example, OSR principles would not include the first one I have listed above.
I’m not going to list them out, but if you think of tools, methods, and techniques, I’m sure things come instantly to mind, like session zero, encounter templates, group templates, scene framing, planning horizons, clocks and tracks. You could go on and on.
I could go on with examples for some of the other sections, but I’m not sure they would serve a purpose; they’d just be things for people to argue about. Hopefully, you get the idea.
And, Finally…
There is no imperative for running a role-playing game to be viewed as a practice unless the individual sees it as one, along with the the intentional goals associated with a practice. There is also no imperative other than an altruistic one for those in the community performing the practice to start creating a formalised body of knowledge around the practice.
This doesn’t mean running a role-playing game isn’t a practice and wouldn’t benefit from having a shared body of knowledge. It just will never happen.
Still, when I say running a role-playing game is a practice, I think it makes sense and is entirely defensible.