Dungeon Master

The primary sense of dungeonmaster (or dungeon master or DM) is the organizer of a role-playing game. The title was invented for an organizer/referee of TSR's Dungeons & Dragons RPG, and was introduced into the second supplement to the game rules ( Blackmoor). To avoid infringement of TSR's copyrights, and to describe organizers in genres other than sword 'n' sorcery, other gaming companies used the more generic term gamemaster.

See also: gamemaster

Dungeon Master was the first 3D realtime action role playing computer game. It was first published in 1987 on Atari ST by FTL Games. It was then ported to many other platforms, including Amiga, PC, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Apple II GS, X68000, PC-98 and FM-Towns.

While games such as The Bard's Tale offered Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying, Dungeon Master took it one step further by doing away with the traditional turn-based approach that was prevalent until then. It also introduced some novel control methods including the spell casting system, which involved learning sequences of runes.

On occasion, Dungeon Master might be used within the BDSM community or fiction to describe the owner or master of a "dungeon"—a place more or less equipped and decorated for the playing out of BDSM sexual fantasies.