This variance is GMing agenda, principles and joys is no small thing. It wouldn't make me unhappy in the least to see the conversation dovetail into a conversation about the divergence on this very issue from one GM to a next and its attendant effect on play.
First we have to establish that there is a huge variance in GMing agenda. I can see that there are conceivable variations, but at least among the group present here, I don't see as much actual variation in agenda as in differences in the tools and talents applied to obtaining that agenda.
You suggest that you have a low enjoyment of world simulation, and that you have no favored setting you are carefully constructing as a toy in your mind. And that's probably some variation from me as a GM, because I do have such a 'setting as mental toy', but if in fact 'setting as mental toy' was my agenda, I wouldn't bother to nor need to GM, because setting as my own mental toy to develop is just as enjoyable and if not more enjoyable by world building for its own sake. If I really had this as my agenda, I would build the world but not waste time running the game. Instead, I find that I do very little world building except where I think it intersects my game needs. For example, despite the fact that this setting is now 30 years old, I'd never in that time even given much thought to a sun deity until I had a player say, "I want to worship the sun deity." Only after I had an in game reason for a sun deity, did I begin fleshing out what that sun deity was like.
This suggests to me that are real agendas aren't as dissimilar as you might think. I think it is fair to say that once I find an in game need for setting information, I'll pour myself into imagining that setting information and that I prefer to spend a lot of time brainstorming for ideas I think I'll need prior to play rather than hoping my first instincts during a game are the best. From what you've said, I'd guess you prefer to improvise on the fly in response to needs as they come up. But neither of these things is actually an agenda of play, but rather a GMing technique for bringing about the desired play. It isn't clear to me that the sort of play we both desire has divergent features, or that the experience of being a GM in play we both desire is all that divergent. All I hear is you hate to prep and don't think you need it to obtain the desired play experience where as I feel I need to prep in order to obtain the desired play experience because I don't trust improvisation.
Over the course of these 30 years of GMing, I've found that I like very specific things about GMing:
Yes, but the things you list aren't agendas. When you say you enjoy: "Ruminating upon and then devising the most interesting and open-ended ways to hook into the dramatic premises that emerge (either at the PC build stage or in the early stages of play) in each player's character.", I can fully agree with that, but first its not at all clear we are using divergent techniques ("Ruminating...and then devising...hooks into the dramatic premises...in each player's character."). Secondly, the agenda of play here is implied, rather than explicitly stated.
If I may suggest, the actual agenda of play here is nothing less than, "Watching a player play his character in dramatic situations.", and everything else you talk about is a tool or technique toward achieving that end goal. Tools and techniques however are not agendas of play.
The only other agendas of play I see you mention in your seven techniques is: "Challenging my players themselves" and "challenging myself in the process"
Again, if your actual GMing agendas are:
1) Watching my players play in dramatic situations.
2) Challenging my players (to play skillfully, whatever that means)
3) And, challenging myself (to play skillfully, whatever that means)
Then its highly unlikely that your agenda differs all that much from mine. Instead, you've basically described only one difference in technique between myself and you - relatively high prep versus relatively low prep. But both of us are engaged in those techniques I would argue to achieve the same basic ends, and as such I would argue that a lot of the material that I create prior to play is the very sort of material you find yourself improvising in play. For whatever reason, I find I need or prefer to review and refine those ideas between sessions based on 'what was learned' from the prior session. For example, I may find that I need a new event or location that I didn't anticipate. I may need to improvise this event or location in play off the cuff, but if I can foresee it from further off, I prefer to prep that element before hand (even if it turns out half the time I find I don't need it, or that it doesn't happen like I expected, but becomes something I can pivot to many sessions after I first created it).
Writing an extensive meta-plot/adventure, world-building and setting design aren't even on the list.
All of those things have a certain charm for me in and of themselves, but they really aren't part of play and can be entirely divorced from the task of being a GM. In fact, many good GMs are poor world builders either by inclination or talent and so 'out source' world building entirely to some professional or content provider.
This is because there is no need for any heavy-handed GMing or GM force (no over-leveraging of the off-screen, no fudging, no sneaky suspension/abridgement of the action resolution mechanics) and I can just abide by some simple principles, a clear agenda, observe the rules and I can then play to find out what happens just like the players.
This sort of statement strikes me as a misunderstanding, as neither high meta-plot nor high preparation actually requires any of the things you abhor. When you state this as a reason for avoiding the technique, it just suggests to me that part of your problem is that you understand a lot better how to improvise effectively than you understand how to prepare effectively. One reason I say that is I engage in high prep precisely to avoid high reliance on fudging, abridgement of the action/resolution mechanics, and reliance on metagaming that I find is the inevitable result (consciously or unconsciously) of high reliance on improvisation. (See for example my essay on
how to railroad, where I assert that all low prep games are unavoidably railroads.)
My guess is that certain folks reading this post are likely thinking "...dude....you hate GMing!"
Not really. I suspect that you take great joy in watching players engage dramatic situations in clever ways, and you take more joy in watching someone else come up with a cool idea than you do yourself. If you don't, you probably shouldn't be a GM. For example, many stereotypical bad GMs are actually just frustrated players (or novelists), who wish to play out characters engaged in dramatic play but were frustrated at that as players and are so trying to achieve that agenda of play from the wrong side of the screen. One big flashing warning sign that you are GMing wrong is you spend a lot of time imagining in great detail the one way players are going to respond to a scene instead of prepping for the 20 different ways they might respond and being happy with all of them.
