Now that I'm thinking about it, let's look at the GMing styles of the people I game with. (As an aside, I've been using my new Macally iKey keyboard and Apple Pro Mouse. Maybe this is just general RSI use, but the new keyboard is not as good as the Apple Extended Keyboard. The keys seem to require more push, especially the space bar, and they feel a bit too plastic-y. The Apple Pro Mouse seems a bit heavier than I'm used too and the button requires has a bit too much tension. You can adjust the button tension in three settings, but the difference between the least and most tension is not much, though noticeable. Back to the article).

We have one main GM, Eric. He's run half our games and at times has been running both Saturday games and a Sunday game. His GMing style is laid back. Except in his Erzo campaign, he reads the modules and presents them to the players. They can do whatever they want and he adjusts effortlessly. Eric is good at subtle long term plots, trying things together, and making it look easy. Only he knows how much work he actually puts into his games, but it doesn't look like he's stressing out at all and he makes GMing look easy.

Shannon is the second most prolific GM. He has run most of the last three Ars Magica campaigns, plus a Pendragon and half of another Pendragon campaign. Shannon puts a fair amount of work into his campaigns. He's really good at character subplots, at making us choose between different shades of gray. Few things are simple in his campaigns, and actions have consequences (much more obvious in Shannon's campaigns than Eric's). There have been times when he's taken the game too seriously, and he is disappointed when we don't share his enthusiasm for a campaign. Especially the Ars Magica campaigns which we love in the short term. But we run them into the ground and at the end of a couple of them we've only been playing because we don't want to break his heart and tell him we don't want to play anymore.

Dave Pickering has run one long term campaign: Star Wars. Plus he occassionally runs in the troupe-style campaigns. He's run a few Ars Magica adventures and one Boothill adventure. In the Star Wars campaign, what became evident is that Dave runs a realistic universe. Everything just sort of flows from a universe- view where the PCs aren't special. It just seems like he's style is to run a mechanistic campaign. Towards the end of Star Wars I had a hard time finding a soul to the campaign. It looked like he was going through the motions. He is never all that emotionally when running so that rubs off on me and the campaign looks a bit grayer than it should be.

Dave Woo has run an adventure or two. Nothing sticks out about his GMing style. Chris has run a few adventures. What sticks out is that his main villain must not die prematurely. We joke about the vampire that wouldn't die, but Chris has that tendency. Before the GURPS campaign Dave Sweet ran a Call of Cthulhu campaign and a BRP campaign in his own world, neither of which ran more than a couple of weeks. In those two I think he was trying to push his worldview too much on us (especially the BRP one which was supposed to follow the plot of the book he will one day finish writing).

I don't think Donald has ever run an adventure for us. I hear he ran a Star Wars campaign for some coworkers. Billy ran a few Ars Magica adventures. Lots of detail and research, very medieval flavor courtesy of his wife. Billy runs a good adventure as long as he doesn't get mad because the players are being too obstreperous. Eric Fulton hasn't run anything yet. It's doubtful he'll be able to run anything other than an occassionally adventure or two because he doesn't show up that often.

As for myself, I've gone into this before. I tend to be rules light, making things up as I go along. I also change the rules so that the universe comes out the way I want it to -- the rules are there to channel the players. I'm way too nervous before a game and stall shamelessly. I also believe in running a dramatic universe, where the characters are the heroes, rather than a realistic universe where the characters are just people with better skills and powers. I like detailed combats, good looking NPCs, and PCs who don't try to abuse the rules and try to flow with the spirit of the campaign. I'm trying to tell a story and the players are just getting in my way.