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The Auteur Director

Traditional (Trad) play · A grand story, with secrets behind the screen.

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You do a great job telling stories. The lore runs deep, the pacing's careful, and your big reveals land because you kept them hidden. If you nudge a roll to protect a moment, your table knows that's the deal.

Your best-fit players: The Questing Hero. A hero chasing a grand plot, and a storyteller holding the secrets that make it land.

Trad GMs are storytellers with their own plot, and each dungeon has its reason. Mechanics mostly serve combat, story comes first, and reskinning stat blocks for the story is common and correct.

What you do well

  • Your secrets wait until they count, so the reveals land.
  • Cut the scene or let it breathe? You know which.
  • You build rich worlds, and their lore pays off in play.

Where your style trips

Falling for the planned scene and steering a good player idea back onto the rails.

The fix: Prep situations and NPC motives, and leave outcomes open. Let a good unplanned player idea change the world.

Things to practice

  • Run a published module sometimes; another author's habits will surprise you too.
  • Share how you handle hidden rolls at session zero.
  • Push one big secret at the players early and see what they do.

Who you'll click with

Players who lean Storyteller, Method Actor, Casual Gamer tend to love your table. Tactician, Power Gamer players may need some conversation first. Most players span several of Robin D. Laws's player types.

Players who'll love your table

Talk it through first
The Tactical Strategist. Decide how often a fight can be won through clever play, and how often the plot settles it.

Get your players to take the player style quiz

How to prep

First write about ten secrets and clues with no location, so each can land anywhere. Give each major NPC a want, a fear and what would change their mind.

Pitch your table with these

On screen
The Lord of the Rings, Se7en, Blade Runner, Jaws, True Detective, The Thing
Actual play
L.A. by Night (Vampire 5e) and radio-drama plays: moody narration, hidden rolls, perfectly timed reveals.
Games
Call of Cthulhu 7e, Vampire: The Masquerade, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Delta Green, Alien RPG, Ravenloft

A culture of play describes a table, so one 5e group could sit in two cultures on two Tuesdays. From John Bell's "Six Cultures of Play".

Terms on this page: Session zero, Trad

The 6 GM styles

Glossary

Clock
A named circle of 4, 6 or 8 segments. When it's full, that thing happens.
Fail forward
Failure still moves the scene, at a cost. Luke Crane's phrase, from Burning Wheel.
Front
A prepped threat, Apocalypse World style, with an impulse and a countdown clock.
Lines and veils
Limits set before play. Lines keep content out; veils keep it off-screen. Ron Edwards, 2003.
Neo-Trad
Trad since about 2015, in two kinds: collaborative (a shared point pool) or tactical (packaged abilities, rules-fluent GM).
Oracle
A yes/no procedure for GM-less play, with odds you set and a chance of a twist.
OSR
Old School Renaissance: classic dungeons, modern player-facing design. Player skill tackles the game, referees use common sense, failure buys information.
Session zero
A meeting before play to set expectations and limits, often building characters together.
Story games
A culture of player authority: players trigger flashbacks, successes can win narrative control, and GMs often don't roll.
Trad
A storyteller GM with a plot. Mechanics mostly serve combat; the story sits above them.
X-Card
Anyone can tap it to cut content, no questions asked. John Stavropoulos, 2012.

Credits and further reading

Based on John Bell's "Six Cultures of Play" (The Retired Adventurer), Robin D. Laws's player types, Christopher Chinn's Same Page Tool, Justin Alexander's The Alexandrian and Sandy Petersen's horror advice.