What is your style?

[Loc Taal]

What is your style of gamemastering? Do you tend to be more lenient, letting the characters get away with more and giving them breaks, or do you "sock it to 'em"? What do you focus most on? Do you focus more on the story, more on the character development, more on combat, etc.?

Personally, I tend to be a little lenient toward the characters if they've been playing well. I also tend to focus on combat, sometimes hurrying through the story to get to the fighting. Guess I have to work on that...
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[Mvlakh]

I like to let my players do what they want cause they always finds ways to get knee deep in bantha podo. i also like to let my player get away with some stuf unless they do something really dumb.

[Rexer]

I hate to say it but I tend to sock it to my players a little too much sometimes. Throw a ton of stuff at them and see how they do. The only thing is it seems that my players always find the one thing I forgot and get out of it. I guess I have to work on being smarter than my players.

I like to just have a basic idea of what the adventure will be and then let the characters develop it. I don't like following books too much because sometimes it forces you to steer your characters in a direction they may not want to go or just don't see. Books are good starters for adventure ideas and some background work but customizing it yourself really puts a unique touch to it.
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If you run .... you will only die tired!

[MacDuriz]

For my part I let my players do what they want, but I made somethings for they are going to do what I want, to continue the mission.
I have a lot of combat in my game but I get to have more discussion... without blasters... it's very difficult sometime: I have a wookie in my group and some smuggler very fretful...
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"When I was a child, I was a Jedi"
Dyonisos

[Loc Taal]

That's a good point, MacDuriz. A good gamemaster should be able to "steer" the players the way he wants them to go without the players even knowing it...
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[Crell Damar]

In the two games that i've GMed i've found that not pulling punches gets players to play a lot smarter, they don't pick unnessesary fights and they usually try to find some way to talk their way out of their current situation. I like to keep suspense up in my games and the easiest way to do that is to make the characters believe that they could be killed at any moment.

But overall i tend to try to let the characters do anything they wish. And with the way my players play they usually find enough drama to suit their pallet without my help

[Loc Taal]

That's a good point. I think sometimes it's more fun if the characters can't always just shoot their way out of every situation. Making them think of another solution is fun and adds more variety to your adventures. "We're totally out-gunned! RUN!!!!!"
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[Crell Damar]

yeah, or roll me out that con

[Loc Taal]

* rolls a 1 on the wild die for the con roll *
"What, what am I doing here? Um... I... uh... well... BLAST 'EM!!!"

I like adventures that make characters use a variety of skills. They make players realize that maybe they should spend some character points on something other than Blaster and Dodge for once...
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"Mind what you have learned. Save you it can." --Yoda

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[Crell Damar]

yeah, if every situation is "There they are, BLAST THEM!" then you're no better than those jack@$$* in Knights of the Dinner Table. They're funny, but it doesn't seem like they think logically 8)

[Loc Taal]

LOL!
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[Volar the Healer]

As a director, I try to balance my missions. One third puzzles, one third exploration (different planets/organizations/NPCs/situations), and one third shoot 'em ups. I always create situations where the characters can suceed or fail. My general guideline is "It's the players' game. I write half the script. They write the other half."

If you find your characters are resulting to blasters in every situation, perhaps you, as director, aren't doing enough to show them alternatives. NPCs who have their own goals is a good way to do this.

[Rexer]

Making characters think is a trick with our group sometimes. I know I am guilty of this when I am playing sometimes. I find that it is up to the GM to get characters to make their characters well rounded. If a player picks a skill, try to incorporate as many of the skills the players have into the adventure as possible. If they get to use more than just blaster, dodge, and brawling, then they will be more apt to take other skills.

Also, if a person rolls a con but can't think of anything really good to come up with, you should let him succeed. He rolls a 25 on his con check and .... "ummm ... we were just bird watching here with these rifles." Ok cheesy but hey, maybe the guard is an avid bird watcher.
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If you run .... you will only die tired!

[Loc Taal]

I agree. I think the GM should put characters into situations where their blasters won't help them sometimes.

"You hear that patrol of 15 Stormtroopers coming down the hallway. They've got you totally out-gunned. There's a door you could duck into but it's locked. You can roll your security skill if you'd like to try to pick the lock."

Maybe they'll think about spending some character points on their security skill when the adventure is over...
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[Crell Damar]

or spend those character points to succeed in the first place