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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Doug McCrae" data-source="post: 4353242" data-attributes="member: 21169">A lot of negative comments about the system can be a real downer. What system you use is such a big deal, it feels like the critic is pretty much opposed to the whole evening's endeavour.I've run 4e once so far and one of the players wasn't much of a fan of the system, preferring 3e. He didn't say anything during the game but for about an hour afterwards it was all negativity which put me on a real downer about the session. The next day I realised it had actually been a good game.If I was going to run for this player again I think I would ask him to cut back on the negativity, for the perfectly reasonable (imo) reason that I don't want to feel depressed after every session.The pessimist and the attention hog both sound very annoying. I don't think I'd want to game with them.Regarding improv, there are prep tricks you can use to make it seem like you're great at it:1) A few emergency encounters or mini-adventures that you can drop in anywhere if the players don't follow your main plot.2) A list of names to give to the random NPCs the PCs interact with.I agree with you that a certain amount of railroading is essential if a GM is going to be able to use prepared material, which will most likely be better than improv-ed stuff. Do you think your players will be happy with that, given they are used to 100% improv?Good luck, I hope the game goes well.</blockquote>