The Game Master is neither a God nor a Judge

You’re the GM, Not the Judge

One of the most persistent misunderstandings I see—especially online—is the belief that the GM is supposed to teach players a lesson.

I’ve read it so many times in Reddit and Facebook:

“How do I teach my players not to act as murder hobos?”

“My players didn’t do any investigation before attacking the cultist hideout. How should I make them understand that there are consequences to not investigating first without killing them?”

“My players always enter rooms without checking for traps, so i designed a room with a trap that would catch they all. It was a Total Party Kill, but I think they finally got the message.”

This is not good GMing. It’s moral posturing.

You are not their teacher.

You are not their parent.

You are not a better person just because you’re behind the screen.

(and they are not “your” players by the way, and although we often used that as a shorthand for “the people I play with” I think many GMs forget they are not property.)

You are the Game Master. Your job is to hold the world steady: to make it breathe, react, unfold, not to pass judgment on fictional choices.

That doesn’t mean actions have no consequences. They should. If the group murders a noble in broad daylight, the city guard may come. If they torture prisoners, word spreads. If they act like children in a brutal world, they’ll get hurt.

But the consequences should arise from the world, not from your need to correct their behavior.

Reaction, Not Retribution

Good GMing is about honest reaction. Not revenge. Not correction. Just coherence. (You can also think “what would make the game more interesting?”, as long as it respects the coherence of the fictional world, and aligns with what you think the players will enjoy: to be a good GM, empathy is essencial.)

You don’t need to make the guards psychic. You don’t need twenty paladins riding in to make a point. You don’t need to make a point. In fact, you shouldn’t make a point.

You need the world to respond like it’s real. 

(If it is a characteristic of your fictional world that there is a god that punishes “bad” deeds, by all means, punish those, but it is particularly ironic that Call of Cthulhu GMs so often talk about teaching the players a lesson, when the only lesson that a Lovecraftian universe should give is that Gods are not really Gods, and that they don’t really give a crap about you anyways).

If players start to feel like you’re punishing them, not their characters, them, and trying to teach them little lessons on morals and on how to play, they either stop making bold choices, or they start fighting you. They start focusing on dealing with you, not with the NPCs, not with the fictional world.

And that world ceased to really matter. Immersion is broken. It is all about you now.

So: let the consequences come naturally. Let them sting when they should, let the be avoided if coherence allows it, and the story is better for it. But let them belong to the world, not to your sense of righteousness or the right way of playing.

But What If It’s Not Just Fiction?

There are moments when you must step in, when it’s no longer about character actions or story logic.

Two, specifically:

1. When a player—not a character—is uncomfortable with the behavior of other players, or simply doesn’t like that type of game.
   This is not negotiable. If someone at the table is distressed, you must intervene. Doesn’t matter if it’s “just roleplay.” The discomfort is real, and the table is real. We protect the real. No judgement is required, see my article of how to dial with problematic players-
2. When you are uncomfortable.
   I’ve had games drift into territory I didn’t want to touch. Cruelty played for laughs. Torture treated as problem-solving. Murdering  civilians to be funny. The GM is also a player, and you deserve to enjoy the game and be comfortable with it, just  like the others.

When that happened, I did two things:

• I let the NPCs react, not with lectures, but with disgust, fear, or resistance, if that is how the NPCs with credibly react to the character actions.
• And eventually I paused the game to tell the group, plainly: This isn’t the kind of game I want to run.

That wasn’t judgement or punishment. It was a boundary.

You’re not a machine. You’re a person at the table. Your values matter too.

Final Word

You’re not at the table to punish boldness, naivety, darkness, or softness.

You’re not at the table to moralise.

You’re there to make the world hold together under pressure, and challenge the characters.

To give players something real enough to push against.

And to stay human while you do it.

When things go too far for you, you speak for yourself, not for the fictional world. Not to scold, but to name the line.

Because no one, player or GM, should have to sit through a game that feels wrong.

So, you’re not a God or a judge.

But you’re neither invisible nor self-effacing.

You are present.

You matter.

And the way you run your table will always say something, whether you mean it to or not.

Make sure it’s something worth saying.