The Knowledge of the Game Master: Imagination, Performance, and the Craft of Guiding Tabletop Role-Playing Games

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 t...