What's your DM Shtick?

[iwatt]

"you must coleect th X items of Y in order to Z"

it's so simple, and allows me to easily thread one dungeon afetr another...

I'd really like to run a city-based campaign, with lot's of NPcs and stuff....that takes a lot of effort.

On the plus side my other shtick is to allow cool moves to succeed on reachable DC checks.
( a pet peeve of mine is DMs who "allow" special moves but set the DC at an unreachable level. Might as well just say the PC can't). I say this is a plus because my players like there heroes to succeed at these cool jumps and stuff.

 

[JimAde]

Genre-bashing.

My Star Trek campaign included vampires (with a pseudo-scientific explanation) and dashes of magic. One of the recurring villains was a wizard from another dimension, while another was a lunatic who THOUGHT he was a wizard but had in fact been imprisoned in a holodeck for years.

My (very) old D&D game included a powerful wizard/sage who turned out to be a low-level refugee from a high-tech culture.

 

[The_Universe]

I would say that I definitely favor the over-arching metaplot, with seemingly unimportant characters almost always returning to assume a place of importance in the plot or story.

All of my D&D games have strongly favored the idea of there actually being a "Divine Right of Kings (and Queens)" which is somewhat interesting, because in real life I think that's total bull crap. But it makes good fodder for epic fantasy.

No matter what kind of game we're playing, I also favor dark conspiracies and large action setpieces and running battles.

 

[sniffles]

I would say that I definitely favor the over-arching metaplot, with seemingly unimportant characters almost always returning to assume a place of importance in the plot or story.

If you weren't in Virginia I'd think you were my GM.

My GMs don't post here, so I'm going to speak for them. One GM I play with regularly is not only a fan of over-arching metaplots, he also loves asking us for skill checks on really obscure skills he knows we don't have.

Another GM loves pixies and fairies, and will always take the opportunity to run fairy NPCs in all his games. It's kind of creepy actually. He has a giant collection of Tinkerbell collectables in his house.

 

[The_Universe]

Well, as my players can attest to, I don't have a particular fondness for the fey (unless you count Elves).

 

[youspoonybard]

Redemption.

Each of the campaigns I love the best had the party being redeemed, one way or another, for their previous mistake/failing/weakness/whatnot. In one case, they were not strong enough to stop an enemy, which had disasterous consequences. In another, another party acted as arrogant heroes do, which lead to suffering. In my third...well, that's about to start tomorrow.

 

[Simplicity]

Moral ambiguity is my number 1 shtick.

Example:
PCs seek to rescue a child who was on a wagon that got lost while traveling. They find the wagon, and find blood stains and bodies all around it... The wagon was ambushed. Following the trail of the robbers, they find more bloodstains and the robbers bodies... This time, the bandits were ambushed... By a female ogre. She saves the child from the bandits, and takes the child back to her cave.

The ogress is caring for the injured child as if he were her own, but she will fight to "protect" him from people like the PCs. Unless they do something very intelligent (which I usually don't even bother to think up of first... heck, I don't care whether there's a "good" solution or not)... somebody's going to have an unpleasant choice to make.

 

[cuteasaurus]

Well, as my players can attest to, I don't have a particular fondness for the fey (unless you count Elves).

But I thought you were a colony of fairies... *insert angelic look here*

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

I tend to use lots of conspiracies. No matter if it is a Modern game, a Fantasy game or whatever else, there are lots of mysteries to unravel and lots of good guys who end up being bad guys. Though, to be fair, there are alos lots of bad guys who end up being good guys.

 

[Stormborn]

1) A seeming inability to leave stuff alone. I can't run a game with the RAW, I have to tweek things. Classes, magic, equipment, something. And I always homebrew a more complicated world than I will ever need.
2) Constructs. I love contsructs. I want more constructs. Better rules for them too. My seemingly cursed article for the late lamented EN World magazine had them too. Maybe it will eventually see print as a PDF.... I hold out hope.