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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 6005407" data-attributes="member: 2205">It seems like I've seen a lot of discussion about play style preferences and stuff like that in the last little bit, here, in the blogosphere and elsewhere.  As I've been thinking about that, I realize that my answers to a lot of the questions isn't really one size fits all.  For example, most of the time, I want the pace to be fairly fast.  Spending time on shopping for gear is usually something I'm interestd in skipping past.  But sometimes, it can be fun.  Sometimes it can be some great roleplaying, or world building, or just a nice break from non-stop action, suspense and drama.  How's a GM to know the difference?Another example: sometimes a group might be confused or directionless, or otherwise failing to "find the game."  Is it acceptable in this case for the GM to give "hints" via DMPCs or otherwise, to the players?And those are just two; I came up with about half a dozen earlier, even on such items as "if a combat is dragging because the opponents have too many hit points, and the resolution of the combat is pretty much assured at this point, but the mop-up is going to take several more rounds to conclude--what do you do?" the real key, I think, is a GM skill which I don't see talked about much: being able to read the crowd!  I.e., a GM can't get so caught up in playing "correctly" or sticking to some ideals on how a game should be run, or whatever the case may be, that he fails to pay attention to how his group is responding to what he's doing.  Being able to sense when the players are restless, confused, bored, or frustrated and making on-the-fly course corrections is, to me, one of the most crucial--and yet overlooked--key advanced GMing techniques out there.  To me, no GM can call himself a great GM if he doesn't develop this skill, at least somewhat.  He can be good--but never great.And in my opinion, having a game that is "idealistically pure" or whatever, is a poor consolation prize to having a game that's great.</blockquote>

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