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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 8979677" data-attributes="member: 4937">So in answer of the original question, my "guiding morality" when GMing is: "Be the GM that you would want to have if you were a player."  To a certain extent this, as much as I am able becomes, "Be the GM that your players want you to be.", in that I will try to observe what the players like and give them more of that.  But I also have to have fun and enjoy the prep and running the game, so there is always a bit of what I want in the game as well.  For my current group, I think they would prefer more linear adventures with less problem solving and investigation and more combat, but I balk from that to a certain extent because I don't enjoy leading groups around by the nose and likewise do enjoy more RP and game variety than just one combat encounter after another.As far as my agenda as a GM are concerned:a) Players can't be expected to not metagame, so if you want to avoid player actions being driven by meta knowledge leak as a little of that as possible. b) As much as possible without violating 'a' be transparent and honest about the game and what is happening and don't fudge results.c) As DW puts it, "Play to find out what happens."  Prepare for what the players might do but don't get hung up on fantasies of what you want to have happen or impressing the players or imagining how exciting it would be if the game plays out in a particular way as if the way you foresee is the one right way for things to happen.  Allow what happens to happen knowing that not every encounter is going to be or needs to be exciting.  It's OK if the players just win sometimes.  Likewise, players will find their own ways to struggle or lose without you planning for it.  d) One of your hats is referee, be a neutral enforcer of the rules as much as possible. e) I tend to pursue a "naturalism" agenda, by which I mean simulate the setting as richly as I can.  Make the setting feel lived in and real.  My players tend to speak of this in terms of "the side quests", but really to me it is just that things that aren't central to the main quest or "the plot" are still going to be happening.  The NPCs have problems and agendas of their own and there are all these other stories playing out alongside the players' stories, that the players have the option to engage with them or not.  This also mean that one of the first things I do when planning a campaign is set up some demographics for what average NPC's look like and how they live their lives and what communities would do to defend themselves and what the prevailing social order is like and so forth, so that I have a baseline for extemporaneous play when the players invariably zig where I expected them to zag.f) Related to the naturalism agenda is that the world doesn't specifically hate or love the PC's by default.  I have a particular pet peeve against "All NPCs are useless and exist only to serve as foils of the PCs, even when doing so would be against the NPC's self-interest".  I detest "The GM is Satan" gameplay and agendas, where the GM thinks they exist to foil the player's plans and be their adversary.</blockquote>

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