A minor thing but I happened to notice that, when you tap a skill on the character sheet in DnD Beyond and it gives you the window with the description, it consistently says “GM” instead of “DM.” It has this under the descriptions for Acrobatics, Animal Handling, Intimidation, Persuasion, Slight of Hand, and Survival. Sorta a weird thing to do in an official D&D product, I thought.Then I checked the digital copy of the Player’s Handbook on the app and, lo and behold, it also says “GM.”
Then I noticed “GM” in other places on the DnD Beyond website, like some spell descriptions (e.g. Speak with Animals) and magic item descriptions (e.g. Bag of Beans) but not on the D&D Beyond app.
'Dungeon Master' is a term copyrighted by Wizards of the Coast (in relation to TTRPGs). Spells in the Basic Rules (which can be used under the OGL/SRD to make content copy D&D) use GM instead as it's the non-copyrighted term. It's the same reason there are non-named versions of named spells
A minor thing but I happened to notice that, when you tap a skill on the character sheet in DnD Beyond and it gives you the window with the description, it consistently says “GM” instead of “DM.” It has this under the descriptions for Acrobatics, Animal Handling, Intimidation, Persuasion, Slight of Hand, and Survival. Sorta a weird thing to do in an official D&D product, I thought.Then I checked the digital copy of the Player’s Handbook on the app and, lo and behold, it also says “GM.”
Then I noticed “GM” in other places on the DnD Beyond website, like some spell descriptions (e.g. Speak with Animals) and magic item descriptions (e.g. Bag of Beans) but not on the D&D Beyond app.
What gives?
'Dungeon Master' is a term copyrighted by Wizards of the Coast (in relation to TTRPGs). Spells in the Basic Rules (which can be used under the OGL/SRD to make content copy D&D) use GM instead as it's the non-copyrighted term. It's the same reason there are non-named versions of named spells
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
GM stands for Game Master, not Guild Master (at in the context of DM)