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Hey, I'm with you. I don't really like D&D much. Too combat focused, not enough characterization. I make a D&D character, (any edition) I feel like I have a very good idea of what they can do, but almost no idea of who they are. D&D to me is long, tedious dungeon crawls, kitchen sink...

An important part of enjoying gaming is knowing what you want and what you really enjoy. I'm near the opposite of you, nothing but combat bores me to tears. I don't mind a good fight, but I want to know who I'm fighting and why I'm fighting them. Most of my games feature a single fight, and...

Most gamers are nice, interesting people. Reality is that it takes 100 of those people to counteract meeting one jerk or social miscreant.

I don't feel particularly compelled to stat up characters that I do anticipate them fighting. I will if I have time, but its generally the last and least important thing that I do. Schrodinger's statblock indeed. If you have a decent understanding of the system, you can just pull numbers out...

Voted World of Darkness, as that's been the big one lately. Been running a Hunter: the Vigil game and having a blast. One advantage of hunter is all the other cool to read WoD books become 'stuff my hunters can kill'. :) Our other weekly game alternates games every 3-5 sessions so we can try...

This one approaches the Tao of GMing.

Um, no. Stuff from AD&D really means nothing to my style of gaming personally, so there's at least one GM that falls outside of that 'all'. I generally don't create environments so much as conflicts and situations.

I think we all agree that having one solution is bad, but I try to avoid expectations as well. GMs can find themselves not outright banning alternate solutions, but adjucating in such a manner than only one solution is feasable. This may not come from a desire to railroad, but from his own...

Don't Panic! Yes, others have said it, but I'm saying it again because it is important. Personally I love it when the group does something I haven't considered. - Don't set up conclusions based on what the PCs will do. Give them a conflict or problem and see what they would do to get by it...

Savage Worlds is pretty awesome. Its inherantly pulpy, but most things that you'd want to turn into a game are pretty pulpy anyway, so it works for lots of stuff. Playing in a short run game now where the PCs are all monsters, working for the Dark Lord of Darkness. We take on missions like...

If you stat it, they will ignore it If you don't stat it, they will attack it The Wise GM never makes stats beforehand But makes them up as he needs them. This is the Tao of GMing The relevent bit is that you're assuming the villain is going on about irrelevant stuff. If you get a villain...

The combat maneauvers provide a decent amount of tactical depth. For starters, Buffy can go right for the stake through the heart. If the vamp is weak enough and she rolls good enough, it could go down right off. Or, she could punch it a couple of times first to soften it up. Staking does...

Okay, the Scooby Gang is walking through the Graveyard on patrol when the gang of vampires they've been hunting come out of the shadows. Two each charge in on Buffy and Angel. Two more come up from behind, one goes for Giles and Cordelia and the other tries for Xander and Willow. The vamps...

What is your game about? Is it about swordplay and hand to hand combat? In that case intricate details like the difference between an elven thinblade an a Dwarf Waraxe might be interested. If its about other things - politics, exploration, exploring characters, etc., then it really isn't...

I think you'd be best off using a system designed for miniless play than trying to force 4e (or even 3e) into such a mold. Yes, it can be done, as can pounding in a screw with a hammer. Doesn't make it a good idea. To take one of my favorites, the Cinematic Unisystem has a tactically...

Had a thought when reading this discussion, especially the bits about design goals. 4e is meant to last 4-5 rounds for a combat. But if there's an error in PC tactics or GM encoutner setup or just bad/weird dice rolling, it can turn into a slogfest. How do we fix this? We force it to go 4-5...

This is an important distinction - I don't generally have a set endpoint in mind. They can and will go in directions I haven't thought of, and I enjoy that very much. What I'm talking about is some kind of gratifying ending, some resolution. I'm more than willing to add a little with more...

Another thing that might work is the Cliffhanger. A friend of mine used them for Savage World running Slipstream, which is a Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon clone. Instead of concluding, each episode ends in an exciting cliffhanger. There's a big fight, showdown, or reveal to keep people interested...

I suppose the difference is I would handle it at the meta level. You go back to the keep because we agreed when I started this thing that you head back to the keep at the end of the game. I'll handwave it so there's no trouble getting out, because I want to keep things moving smoothly. I...

Having long combats is one of 4e's design goals, and one of the things that people who like it, like about it. I'm a story-dude, but I like 4e for having lots of roleplay then a big huge dramatic fight. 4e does those big fights pretty good, so its cool for that, it works for me in that way...