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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rel" data-source="post: 1737000" data-attributes="member: 99">I strongly recommend that anybody struggling with this issue (and even people who are not struggling with it) pick up a copy of Robin Laws' Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering.  It contains an extensive section on "Player Personalities", what they are and what satisfies them.In a nutshell, the theory is that most players fall into one of these categories fairly consistently.  As a result, their behavior and what will bring them joy in a game is somewhat predictable.  Knowing and understanding what sorts of players you have around your table is (in my opinion) key to running a healthy, long term campaign.One of the things that can be determined from this understanding is whether you should be GMing for these people at all.  If you are a "Story Teller" (this is one of Mr. Laws' categories) and you are GMing a lot of "Powergamers" then either you or they are probably not having a lot of fun unless you are both willing to compromise quite a bit.For myself, the group that I play in and run games for looks like this:"Tactician" (this is me - I love to solve tactical challenges, both in and out of combat)"Story Teller" (this guy is most happy when engaged in the story)"Butt-Kicker"  (this guy is most happy when we are engaged in combat)"Specialist"  (this guy usually picks one of a narrow group of archetypes to play as his character and is most happy when he is doing the thing that this PC is very good at)"Power Gamer"  (this guy wants to be great at his "thing" and get even better at it by gaining levels and magic items)"Casual Gamer"  (this guy just likes coming to the game and being with friends)Based on this, when I GM, I understand what an average session needs to look like in order to make everybody happy.  I really just need to forward the current storyline and have some combat (that covers the Story Teller and Butt-Kicker).  I need to make sure that I also give the Specialist a moment to shine, whatever his specialty may be.  The Power Gamer will probably find a way to shine all by himself (most often this manifests itself in combat) and the Casual Gamer is just happy to be there (one thing about Casual Gamers though is that they don't usually want to be the center of attention, so I don't thrust him there unwillingly).  As for me, it is easy to have my fun as I can run the NPC's and bad guys in a tactically sound manner, which satisfies my primary way of having a good time.It is probably obvious from what I've just said, but if your group is all a single type of players then the GM's job is much easier.  I also think that if the group are all Story Tellers and the GM is a Power Gamer that there is going to be some disharmony.  The opposite if of course true as well.I cannot overstate how valuable a resource that book has been to me.  While I was aware of the various play styles in our group for many years, having that information presented in a codified manner and having advice for how to meed the players various needs was a big breakthrough for our gaming group.</blockquote>

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