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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scott Christian" data-source="post: 8086804" data-attributes="member: 6901101">I agree. Different experiences bring different views. In your world, you are the odd duck story GM. In mine, you are the norm. I really like the focus on adventuring. Very cool. Of course there is hasty generalization. I didn't make that generalization, Charlaquin did. I even stated it was not an absolute truth, but just drawn from my experiences. If I had to sit back and fully analyze, I would say DM's shift, both in the campaign and in their stage of life. Some DM's start out as combat encounter DM's, and then ten years down the road, after experiencing or seeing something new, shift to more of a hybrid. Some shift from the beginning of the campaign to the end because the players pushed it more in that direction. And others shift session by session. These too, are generalizations. But, if you need to try and define something, we can say there are DM's out there that are more story oriented and others that are more combat driven. I think that is a fair generalization.I have not experienced that story GM's are less likely to favor deadly combats. In my experience, they are much more often to favor deadly encounters. They play the villain as a villain, not as someone who is there to "test" the PC's powers. They even do things that are unfair. Most combat DM's I know would never do that because they want things to be even - level against level. Story DM's don't care about level. They care about story. And if their PC's insist on sneaking into the adult dragon lair at first level, they are allowed to do so. But the consequences might be grave. The combat DM would set it up that they can't get in until they are the appropriate level. The end goal of a story DM is not to complete their story. It is to complete the character's story And if their story ends in a dramatic attempt to let the others escape while being burnt alive by that dragon, that is a great character arc! The others just experienced a great story; "We entered a dragon's lair and escaped with this (fill in the blank)." Or they might all die, leaving their story as more lore for the player's new characters. A statue erected in their honor for being so brave, a children's book written about them. A local pie named after one of the character's, it has blueberries on top to resemble their blue eyes. And a copy of the map that the PC's are able to find. All this adds to the story. Every descent story DM I know would do something like this. Your experiences might differ.</blockquote>

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