Tasha's Cauldron of Everything has a section crucial to the future health of Dungeons & Dragons: 5th Edition. It solidifies the idea that a "session zero" should occur before each campaign to establish a set of shared expectations for everyone at the table. That's a deeply needed concept for any tabletop RPG, but what Tasha's misses is that the dungeon master should be considered a player like the others at the table, rather than something separate.

We've all heard the stories and seen the memes. A dungeon master can be like a tyrant, changing the rules when it fits their vision, railroading the party along a rigid storyline and killing player characters with hazards no one could possibly predict. They might do this only to complain later when they find their players are "murder hobos" or using out-of-character knowledge to their advantage. Yet, players often engage in this kind of metagaming as a reaction to this adversarial model.

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An image of cover art for the published DnD campaign, Tomb of Annihilation

On the other extreme, a dungeon master can be like a slave. When one or more players at the table have had experience with tyrants, they might try to push the rules in their own favor, and the dungeon master – perhaps to avoid feeling or appearing like a tyrant – might acquiesce. The DM's encounters then all implode under the rules-lawyering or get skipped entirely by a successful persuasion check (or even just a persuasive player). Any plans the DM might have had are dashed when the party decides to leave the carefully planned campaign setting on a boat.

These two examples might seem exaggerated, but they're not far from the truth. And while they can be avoided with a thorough session zero, the player/DM dichotomy can easily remain, and with that dichotomy comes those old ideas – separation at best, opposition at worst. If the DM isn't a player, then they aren't really there to play. They're there to judge or to serve. At that point, they might be treated more like a game engine than yet another person who's there for the same reason as anyone else, to have fun.

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If the DM is considered a player instead (albeit a player with a special set of roles and responsibilities), their true goal is to have fun and become more obvious to everyone, including themselves. What "fun" means is different for each person and should generally line up with the expectations set by a session zero. But when the DM considers themself not above the players somehow, they might think twice before going on a power trip. And when a player acknowledges that the DM's fun is equally important, they're likely to take the DM's work a little more seriously (e.g., by not shanking an important quest giver just for their cool hat).

Some might consider this kind of thinking anarchy waiting to happen. If the DM is just another player, why should they have the final say on the rules? At that point, why don't they throw away their DM screen and let the players see everything? It's still important to have someone who can make final decisions on rulings. What removing this distinction between player and DM should do is make everyone's fun a mutual responsibility for everyone at the table, rather than the sole responsibility of the DM or the sole responsibility of each player to themself.

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