There is a debate in the role playing community. It is the question of what to call the person running the game. Is it “DM” (Dungeon Master) or should it be “GM” (Game Master)?

The correct answer is “GM”. That was easy. Everybody go home. The debate is over. …ok, fine. Lets get into a little more detail about why this is important.

As a player, many of you simply don’t care and you can use the terms interchangeably. People can and likely will complain about it, but nobody is going to sue you for using the wrong term. As a publisher however, there are some legal barriers in the way that we have to contend with. You see, the term DM or Dungeon Master is actually trademarked by Wizards of the Coast.

Back during the 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons, Wizards of the Coast released the OGL (Open Gaming License). This allowed other publishers to create their own games based on the D&D 3rd Edition rules. It led to small companies creating their own settings and systems and most notably, it let Paizo create the Pathfinder RPG.

Even though WotC was letting people use the rules, they still needed to make sure that D&D was recognizable in the crowd, so they setup the D&D Product Identity. A list of things that represented their copyrights and thus could not be used. It included creatures like the Beholder and Mind Flayer (but not the Owl Bear, for some reason), as well as places, names and other such copyrightable or trademark worthy material. One such thing that they trademarked was the term “Dungeon Master”.

Because of the trademark, you will never see a game published by a company other then WotC use the term “DM”. Instead they will fall back to something else. “GM” is the most common as it is a catch all term and is likely what you will see in a genre neutral system like Savage Worlds or Fate Core. Other systems may use a more thematic term. For example, in City of Mist the person running the game is called the “MC” (Master of Ceremonies) and in the World of Darkness games they are simply called the “Storyteller”.

So, if I publish an RPG and use the term “DM” will I get sued? Yes, yes I will. WotC would sue me and they would probably win.

I say “probably” because of normalization, which is the idea that if something becomes to common, the trademark falls apart. For example, many people still refer to all facial tissue as Klennex and back in the 90s Nintendo pushed to popularize the term “Video Game Console” because our parents called every system the “Nintendo” and they were concerned about losing their trademark. Today, many people (even those who should know better) still use the term “DM” for everything and even refer to every system as “D&D”. Though, the idea of normalization is also questionable, as we have not had to really deal with it yet. After all, Klennex has not lost their trademark yet.

As a creator, I want to stand out, and part of that is trying to get out of the shadow of the behemoth. Even if I could use “DM” in my game, I wouldn’t. It’s focus on fantasy is a bit narrow and it is well associated with a larger system. It’s like trying to yell louder then the person with the megaphone. Obviously, the idea of picking a fight with an 800lb gorilla is also bad.

Now you know why we don’t use the term “DM”, though many players are going to just keep using it, no matter how many times we tell them to stop.