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Message: <blockquote data-quote="d2OKC" data-source="post: 6005122" data-attributes="member: 97351">I'll be answering more from a DM standpoint than a player's. Hope that's OK! My game is mostly fantasy, and I like to throw in a dash of detective stuff, but most of the time my players prefer the combat options to the investigative. That's fine with me.  Most of the time I go for a big, adventure style campaign. I guess action and epicness, from the list you provided. With a good dose of tactics involved in combat encounters.     Most of my players do most of their gaming while we sit at the table, and rarely interact outside of that time. A few times I've had a player ask about things over email, but that is rare.     I'm mostly a narrativist, but my players are mostly gamist. There is very little simulation in our games.For us, a good game is when we all have fun and each character/player gets a chance to do something really cool.We have a large pool of players (about twelve in all!), so it is hard for us to all get together and play. An ideal group for us is about six players and a DM/GM. I prefer a smaller group just for play-style, but we also like to be as inclusive as possible, among our group.     We've done both, but lately we've gone more toward a single GM. I ran the game for nearly 3 years, and now that my schedule has changed, someone new took my spot, and I started another game with a different segment of our extended group.     I like them to think critically, and often they do. They are very good at maximizing their tactics, however, and I'm not the sort of GM to punish them for that. In three years, I only made them run away from a challenge maybe twice? And only killed two characters. I would like to challenge more, but they are a very good group of players that have been together for a long period of time.     Yes, but it should not be a recurring problem. If a bad die roll kills one character, that is fine. If it happens a lot, there is a problem. Most PC death should be more meaningful, and only happen for the story, because of player stupidity, or because of a player leaving the group (and should never be the reason for a player to leave the group!).        I don't like GMPCs for many reasons. But, I do help my players if they are well and truly stuck. Most of the time, it is because I wasn't a good enough GM, and they don't have all of/the right kind of information. Sometimes, they've done something I didn't expect and I didn't improvise well. Sometimes, they just get stuck. I don't mind helping to move the story along, but it's always in the form of a knowledge check or a suggestion, and I wouldn't give them a solution, just a different way to arrive at one.We don't worry about it much. We "poke-ball" the PC and continue play. Like I said above, not real simulationist, but it's the easiest for everyone, and with adult schedules being the way they are, it's the best for our group.    I would like to branch out more, but my group is pretty comfortable right now.      I've asked my group this question specifically, and their answer was a near-unanimous "show us where to go for your story", which was surprising. They like sandboxes, but they don't mind being rail-roaded a bit, if it means they get to enjoy a good session or encounter along the way.      We do everything at the table, so if I didn't let them stop to buy equipment, they never would. I don't mind, the reason we play is to be around each other and enjoy each other's company (we are all very good friends), and shopping in game is a way they can do that, and they enjoy it nearly as much as combat!     No problems with that at all.</blockquote>

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