Introduction
A Director is a GM archetype recognized by Extroversion, Sense, Thinking, and Judging traits. You have a vision in mind at most times and have the endurance to see it through to the end. You’re an anchor as a GM, proving to be a reliable source of information and direction. You know the rules as written, even as intended, and believe that staying as close to them as possible ensures events run smoothly.
you're an anchor as a gM, proving to be a reliable source of information & direction
This approach is less about being right but remaining honest, dedicated, and operating with dignity. You are willing to take the time to understand the structure and to have a comprehension that allows you to reiterate information. It is not just knowing and following the rules that drive you; it is a matter of having a clear path to follow when things become too chaotic to manage.
Game Mastering Styles
The Director archetype is known for being organized, loyal, and traditional. They believe in the freeing power of rules and systems.
As a Director, you’ll be happiest with a TTRPG system that offers a lot of structure and direction for your players—like Dungeons & Dragons or Starfinder. You might enjoy classic games and stories because of tradition.
You prefer to run campaigns with a solid structure and clear direction—you’d rather have a pre-written adventure than make one up as you go. You’re also more likely to trust pre-written and playtested content, so you’ll probably do well with commercial campaign settings that provide guidance and referenceable rules. Of course, you’ll alter this content as needed, but having a solid foundation on which to work is essential because it creates freedom within the framework of the rules and mechanics.
you're excellent at running one-shots and keeping within strict time constraints
Your players know that when you run a game session, they will be treated fairly and given clear expectations about expectations. As a result, you’re loyal to your group and long-term campaigns as long as they’re structured more episodic. You’re excellent at running one-shots and keeping within strict time constraints. But if there’s not enough time to run as many games as you’d like, it can be hard to keep up with all the ideas bouncing around in your head!
Storytelling Style
You are likely to be a natural storyteller that enjoys the simplicity of the hero’s journey and the complexity of world physics. You may prefer obvious rewards for stoic character efforts and lawful consequences for their misdeeds. You don’t like chaos or unpredictability and probably thrive in combat scenarios with the order of a well-developed system of rules.
You're not so much of a stickler that players can't bend rules on occasion
You tend to be inflexible in collaborative storytelling. That said: you’re not so much of a stickler that you won’t let them play around in those rules a little bit (and maybe even bend them). They’re here to play your table—so it’s essential that the characters can easily engage with the content and feel important.
You’re here to provide an enjoyable game; if they want to build their own stories within the world of the game you’ve created for them, that’s great! But ultimately, it’s your job as GM to make the world and uphold its rules—players should recognize that they’ll have fun playing within those parameters.
Table Management
You like to be in charge of things as a natural leader. You excel at facilitating player bonding and keeping the game moving forward, but that’s only some of you do to make your games great.
You can see what is needed, and you take charge of the situation. As a Director, you’re observant of your players and their attention levels. If you notice that a player is getting bored or distracted, you’ll try to find a way to pull them back into the game. Likely by crafting some quick story drama around them or pivoting to use them as part of an important plot point.
face-to-face feedback may allow you easier access to nonverbal cues from players
You are strict in established rules and boundaries—you have no problem enforcing them. You expect your players to be mature and responsible in their actions and communication with each other and with you. If someone breaks those rules or boundaries, you may be more inclined to throw them out of the game rather than deal with their nonsense.
You have no problem enforcing rules, but when there are exceptions, you communicate them clearly, so everyone knows what’s happening. You highly regard fairness and want to see people working together as a team.
Direct communication is preferred instead of anonymous feedback, email, or text messages. For example, if something needs saying or fixing at your table, you might hear it face-to-face. In addition, it allows easier access to nonverbal cues from your players that help you better understand their points of view.
Session Resources
You don’t just run games; you orchestrate them. You are the conductor of your players’ experience, and they are the instruments in your orchestra. This experience takes planning and organization.
You likely have a wide variety of tools at your disposal—many of which you use regularly. For example, you might use Notion or Google Drive to organize your sessions and DnD Beyond (or other digital systems) to keep track of character sheets and stats. Whatever you choose to use, you’ll stick with it if it is proven beneficial.
You're the conductor of your players' experience
You’re also very organized with your sessions—the way you plan and organize them has enviable consistency, which helps players feel confident that they’ll have a good time. You enjoy the pleasure of organizing your groups for chats and resource management. If you don’t use it already, a private discord with categorized channels may be your best friend.
You also take great pleasure in planning for future campaigns and adventures. Not only do you enjoy creating new stories for players—you also love thinking about how they’ll play out.
You like a consistent schedule. It’s important to know when each session will happen so everyone can plan accordingly. A system like Calendly may do wonders for you in schedule organization.
The Game Master's Toolbox:
- World Anvil: A worldbuilding program that helps you create, organize and store your setting with detailed wiki-like organization and interactive maps to store your notes.
- DnD Beyond: An excellent place for digital character creation and creating a campaign group for easy roll shares and sheet management.
- Notion (TTRPG University Notion Templates)
- Evernote
- DnD Beyond’s Encounter Builder: I’ve heard it’s helpful. You can build an encounter and determine its difficulty level based on math.
Role Generator: You can randomly generate everything from cities, to magic items, to herbs, to NPCs. https://www.rolegenerator.com/
- Inkarnate: For fantasy world and city maps. Yearly subscription.
- Wonderdraft: For fantasy world and city maps. One-time purchase.
- Dungeon Scrawl: For creating flat and isometric dungeon maps. Completely free.
- Dungeondraft: Building and Dungeon crawl maps, full color.
- Azgaar Github Fantasy Map Generator
- Dungeon Fog: Free map-making tool
- Dungeon Map Doodler
- Spotify: There are so many D&D playlists to choose from, or, pick your favorite video game tracks to play.
- Syrinscape: With Syrinscape, you can control the master playlist and players can decide their preferred volume from their end.
- YouTube Premium: Put on a 3-hour ambiance video without commercial interruptions.
- Google Forms
- TTRPG University Google Forms to Copy
- DMs Guild: A place to find supplemental guides and campaigns to enhance your official D&D content.
- Drive Thru RPG: The all-TTRPG sister of DMs Guild.
- The Monsters Know: A book series about monster tactics and strategies to help enhance gameplay.
- Point Buy Calculator: Doing a character sheet from scratch? This will help so much with the number crunching. https://chicken-dinner.com/5e/5e-point-buy.html
- DnD Beyond: The best place to build a digital character sheet. Fully connected to all the official D&D content. Makes leveling up take about 30 seconds.
- Wild Shape Tracker: Super helpful for druids. https://arcaneeye.com/apps/wildshape-tracker/
- Character Backstory Template: https://arcaneeye.com/dm-tools-5e/dnd-character-backstory-template/
- Xanathar’s Guide to Everything: I use this particular book ALL the time to help build my character backstories. There are roll tables in the “This is Your Life” chapter.
- Google Dice Roller: Super simple. Go to Google, type “dice roller,” and you have a dice roller.
- Roll Dice With Friends: You can give your temporary room a custom name, share the link with your friends, and all roll together!
- Owlbear Rodeo (straightforward and intuitive)
- Canva (DIY, simplified VTT)
- Roll20 (complicated learning curve)
- Foundry VTT
- Norse Foundry
- Shard
- Tablespire
- Tabletop Simulator
- Fantasy Grounds
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The Organized Game Master
End the overwhelm that comes with running multiple games.
