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Except my understanding of the example is it was a test of cookery. I've been busy though and haven't really followed the thread closely.

I see no reason for it to be more than one. In 5e terms I'd probably go with a Survival check. I'd allow assistance within the party and I'd set the difficulty at the bandits' Passive Perception. I might vary that based on what the party did or if the bandits were established as being...

Colville is mostly useful as a negative example and a dunking target. The less attention paid to him the better.

It is possible for the GM to make the setting interesting to the players in a way that doesn't turn them into sightseers. It's probably not the norm but it is possible.

I bring my own interests to the games I run. I find GMing much more satisfactory when the players enjoy and are interested in the game than when they're not. I have not ever run a game where I felt it my responsibility to ever and always do what the players wanted.

You certainly explained why the games with the biggest audiences are as they are.

If the people at the table have differences in preferences that cannot be reconciled then that is probably not a table that should be trying to TRPG together. And I'm deeply unsurprised that you wouldn't run a game that you felt limited you as a GM. Rather than making the game at the table mine...

Then it's a good thing I'm not a publisher looking to sell my game to a large audience with varying tastes.

"Every GM basically behaves the same" for a given game doesn't seem like a bad thing to me. It'd mean that GMs would have to pick the games that best suited how they wanted to GM of course but that doesn't seem like a bad thing to me either. The metrics I listed are the ones I'd look at more...

I think the most obvious way to judge a GM's quality is by the players continuing to come back. I think a somewhat less obvious way is by how many players go on to GM. I think an even less obvious way is by whether the players who go on to GM learn more what to do or more what not to do. Maybe...

I'm pretty sure you have the causality wrong here. My friend isn't writing up new portions of the world because he thinks we'll find them interesting. He's writing them up for his own reasons then putting things that lead the PCs there so he can run those new portions of the world. It is not so...

I'm pretty sure we want more good GMs.

I think there are exactly two reasons to prep what's happening in the world away from the PCs. One is because it's imminently going to be relevant to what they're doing or what they're interested in. The other is because it's a thing you enjoy doing. I have a good friend who has over time...

Having the players create the relevant details is consistent with making sure they have a handle on the setting. I do this mostly in session zero these days but occasionally I'll ask the players questions about the setting and use their answers. This was a case where we were using those rules...

It was and the setting that came out of it was one that I rapidly came to dislike running. At this point I find it's faster and easier just to make up the setting myself plus I end up with a setting that I like.

The last time I was part of a group that played Fate we tried that. It took us two sessions to get enough of a setting to play with using the rules and systems in the Dresden Files game. I suppose 480 minutes is still minutes.

I am a big fan of improvisational GMing myself but I find it easier to do if I'm adlibbing off of and building onto something. My views as a player are pretty similar. The sort of complete blank slate you seem to be advocating would likely leave me with very little in the way of places to set my...

"No one knows anything" is not the same thing as "adequately informed."

I am inclined to agree with that. Insisting on writing the whole thing means handing your players a lot of information and then finding out it wasn't enough.

I agree the PCs should be familiar with their part of their world. I think it's up to the GM to make sure the players have adequate information to play that.