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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Blue" data-source="post: 8240500" data-attributes="member: 20564">Well, I emphasized fair, so we both agree on that.Impartial though is a definite negative.  Impartial in applying the rules is already covered under "fair and consistant" which I've championed.  Impartial in terms of the rest makes for a worse game.  Let me give a real life example.I'm currently running two games with no overlap in players, both of which have been at similar character levels to each other.One is full of veteran RPG players, mostly couples, aged 30s and 40s.  They have a high degree of system mastery as well as tactical ability and I need to make sure that for their level the encounters are a lot tougher then the other group in order to keep it interesting.  We have several players who really enjoy knotty RP and seeking allies or convincing people to help them, so I make sure that is a regular occurance.  They like to "stay on plot", disregard side quests and aim for the big changes to the world, which I take into consideration when preparing adventures, but also like a good degree of autonomy in how they resolve them.The other group is all full of new players.  They are very attached to their characters and regularly do art and other things about their characters, including having longer backstories that they flesh out over time, including just hanging around and chatting about their characters.  They get a little overwhelmed with too many plot hooks (I tried), and are better when there is at most two different hooks to follow.  They enjoy down time, and some "slice of life" in addition to plot advancement, and also like a mix of important and side quest type things, as well as some deep and some light adventures in tone, unlike the hard-driving first group.  After doing a number of exploration sessions, the player of the eladrin bard specifically requested some urban time she envisions a lot of scenes there for her character.  They are very attached to their characters, with some getting distraught while at negatives, and did not have the system mastery or interest to build as strong combat-focus in characters or party synergy as the first group, and as such would not have fun with the amped up encounters as the first group, and it would likely lead to TPKs.  They have all build characters with intentional flaws that they greatly enjoy RPing.  They do regularly get themselves into trouble with those flaw, and that needs to be considered in adventure planning - they'd rather they have fun then their characters always succeed.  Sometimes they also did not realize the mechanical effect of the flaws when building (even when advised), such as one person wanting to play an impulsive rogue with little common sense having a penalty WIS and failing a lot of perception checks that would be useful as a rogue.  Or another multiclassing for a concept even though how they are doing it is leaving them weaker for a number of levels.  Because building "maximum effectiveness" characters is not even on their radar as a priority.Adventure building, session planning, and what to do next are highly based around the players in terms of skill levels, what they are interested in, and what they can handle.  Fundamentally, they what they enjoy from D&D is weighted very differently and a one-size-fits-all approach would ill suit either group.  In both cases I've changed focus on how I run for them since the campaign start, such as amping up the deadliness of encounters so they feel challenged, less sidequests, and big, important goings on for the main plot for the first group, and less hooks but more tonal changes in adventures including varying pressure, extensive down time, an urban homebase that they return to regularly and have some urban adventures, plenty of recurring NPC they develop relationships with, and scenario design around their play style.Treating them the same would under the guise of impartiality or because I had a single vision of the world and campaign that didn't adjust to fit the players would be an active detriment to both groups.</blockquote>

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