I'll attempt to be brief and concise...
I try to adapt to my players, but if "let loose", I enjoy a narrative approach to storytelling. I sometimes narrate introductions and epilogues in the third person.
Many times for me, the "how" counts for more than the dice result. I enjoy using flashback, dreams and other out-of-sequence episodes once in a while.
I like running a rather sand-boxy game in a well defined setting. I have been using Forgotten Realms for years, but I'd gladly return to Planescape if I could find such a group :(
I'm a poor judge of what constitute a solid but fair challenge for a group of optimizers, and I rarely use all of a monster's abilities to its fullest advantage. Creatures are usually there for story purposes, not for their statblock. This result in encounters sometimes too easy, sometimes where "escaping with your life" is the real challenge. I find that not winning every fight is also part of the reality of an adventurer.
I like adventurers vs elements, and houserule in that direction if necessary.
Speaking of which, I'm a great fan of hourserules and I don't hesitate to use them as long as they are:
a) OK with everyone
b) clearly written and available for instant reference by players.
c) suiting the need of the campaign.
'findel
It’s hard to sum up my style in a single post, but here are a few things that I changed over the years that I think made me a better GM. That’s not to say that people who do it another way are doing it wrong, but these are changes that made my play experience more enjoyable, and seemed to increase the enjoyment of my players.
Switching from GM driven plots, to PC driven plots
I used to write adventures like a module. It didn’t matter who was coming it was designed for 4 characters between 4-7th Level. Now I try to tailor the plots based on the PCs. Plot hooks, encounters, NPC interactions, and even monsters are tailored specifically for the group I am running. I still write adventures, but the players are the ones who decide where to go and who to talk to. No PC actions are required for the sake of the story. If the PCs don’t want to stop the ogres from sacking the village, and instead want to explore the long lost ruins I mentioned three games back- that’s OK.
Switching from making players roll for information, to just telling them what I want them to know.
I was running a game, and I had some clever little detail about an NPC villain that I wanted the players to know. I had them roll a Perception check, and none of them rolled over a 10. It occurred to me at that point, who am I helping by making them roll to find out stuff I want them to know- no one. If I want them to know something I just tell them, or I’ll have them roll and whoever gets the highest roll notices/knows/finds out.
Switching from being a neutral arbitrator, to a “The PCs are supposed to win” mentality.
I used to believe that it was the GM’s job to be the fair and impartial arbitrator. Then I came to the realization that since I controlled all the variables it was inherently unfair. Not only did I decide what the monsters were, and how many there were; I also got to decide how many encounters they faced before being able to reacquire expendable resources and when they faced the encounter. Do you fight the Merfolk on the beach, or in the rowboat half way between the ship and dry land. I’m less interested in fairness and more interested in everyone having a good time.
Switching from a static simulationist worldview to adjusting challenge levels based on current conditions.
I used to write my gameworlds like a video game. There were dragons over here, giants over there, and orcs over there. They had X number of hit points, and where they were in the lair was already pre determined. If you were too low level to fight the dragon, it ate you, if you were too high level for the orcs you slaughtered them. After all the world exists outside the PCs, right? Now, if they aren’t ready to fight it, I change the encounter. It’s not home, it wants to subjugate you rather than eat you, it’s fighting another dragon when you show up, etc.
The reverse of that would be if they are too powerful for an encounter I might juice it up- the orcs have a powerful shaman or they were just subjugated by three ogre barbarians. Whatever I have to do to make the encounter fun. I might even hand wave it if it’s not important to the game- Yeah that’s a great plan, there really nothing they can do about flying invisible spellcasters. Do you kill them all or do you let the women and children go?
I run one of two ways:
1) If I have a 'game' prepared, I will try and fit the player's wishes into the game any way that I can. However, I'll advise them as to the nature of the world and that they have to fit into it. Sometimes such a game will have a theme that I want the players to follow, and I let them know as early as possible so that they can follow it.
2) If I don't have anything prepared before the game starts I will try and get the players involved at as early a stage as I can. I'll have an idea and I will ask for more ideas as they design their characters from their backgrounds. I can then involve these into the plot-line ideas I have to weave a more interesting adventure.
In either case I tend to issue 'handbooks' for the players so they can see any house-rules or other limitations up front.
I'm a poor judge of what constitute a solid but fair challenge for a group of optimizers, and I rarely use all of a monster's abilities to its fullest advantage. Creatures are usually there for story purposes, not for their statblock. This result in encounters sometimes too easy, sometimes where "escaping with your life" is the real challenge. I find that not winning every fight is also part of the reality of an adventurer.
Challenge level is one of the hardest parts about being a game master. If a game is too hard it feels like the deck is stacked against you. If it's too easy the rewards don't seem real, they almost become like a hand-out. If anything I'm probably on the too easy side.
I once said that the DM's job is keeping the PC's alive while all the time convincing them he's out to get them. It's not a bad way code to play by ...
I'm almost the opposite of D8MB above.
I run a 4E game using something akin to a style one might have seen if they had played in 1st edition. Something that has been called Gygaxian Naturalism though there have been some significant concessions on my part over the years. Mainly on a grand plot level and using some meta game elements to make sure that the action almost never delves into the mundane or trivial. Shortened available gaming time has made it so that my players demand that they are part of some greater story and that we move that story forward during each and every 4 hour session.
In regards to player versus DM driven plots:
I usually design campaigns and the adventures in them using a Story Before method (by which I mean DM driven plots) but have sometimes tempered that by putting out a lot of different branches the plot can take and allowing the players to choose which branch to head down. This is done by making the players tell me a little about their future plans roughly two weeks before they make and major choices so that I can take an adventure from basic outline to full fledged presentation by working on it furiously for that two week period.
Recently I've switched to pruning the number of branches and making it much more clear what the goals and objectives of an adventure are. Often using 'metagame' handouts like quest cards and the like. This was in response to complaints during my last campaign that the players felt they where floundering around with to much choice nut not enough direction. There was obviously an epic story unfolding in the world but they felt they could not find the on ramp to the plot nor follow the story as it unfolded.
I felt that it ws better to tighten up in this regards from an earlier more loose somewhat more player driven style. My feeling being that this was somewhat necessary as the complexity levels of D&D plot lines have actually gotten deeper over the last 15 years even as myself and my players have more difficulty playing for long stretches at a time. In other words, as adults we can't play for more then 4 hours a week and can't dwell on all the intricacies that have transpired. There has, hence, been a call for me as the DM to make certain that the players understand the plot line that is unfolding and what their options are in terms of interacting with that plot. Hence if I present two possible options two my players they want those options to consist of epic and relevant to the plot choice A or epic and relevant to the plot choice B and want some idea of how the quests are likely to effect the overall plot line.
In that vein I've started to do a lot more 'cut scenes' in my game. This is what your actions where and now a quick rendition from the DM on what this means for a town 100 miles a way. Pretty much cinema style to make it clear and obvious what the consequences of their actions where.
In some since the demand from my players has been that they can quickly and comparatively easily tell each other where they are, currently, in their interactive epic novel.
For me it's all about creating a believable alternate reality in which my players' characters can exist.
My prep is world creation and population. I know what the 'Bad Guys' are planning, what their grand aims are and how they are going to go about them... if the characters wish to interfere, fine; if they'd rather go do something else, fine (but the Bad Guys' plot may well bite them in the backside later...).
Whether I'm running a published adventure or one of my own, all those notes are just guidelines. If it's going to make a better story, a more enjoyable and a more personal game, it gets changed (on the fly if necessary).
I want my players to feel that if they took the wrong (or is that right?) turn down the street, they might find themselves in my game world, that the next knock on the door could conceivably be one of my NPCs, not the mail carrier.
But those player-characters are - even if it doesn't always seem that way - the centre of my tales, the heroes of this novel or movie that we are creating in our minds. I try not to kill them off, they are good at doing that for themselves.
Phneri says he runs his games like he runs his classroom. I certainly have found that as my classroom technique has been honed over the years, my GMing has improved... and vice versa!
And these days I prefer GMing to playing...
As somebody re-training to be a teacher right now, this was an interesting read ...
I DM "my" group (players come and go just the DM stays :-) ) for about 20 years by now.
In all the different environments we played (Forgotten Realms, Shadowrun, MERP, Star Wars, Pathfinder etc.) I always stuck to the realistic and reliable wordl vision of DMing.
I usually create the setting before any characters or decisions are made. In the end that leads to PCS who are very cautious in the way they interact with the setting, they know I'm not there to save them, because thats not my job. I just depict the NPCs and environmental hazards of the worlds. They may encounter schemes and plans, hidden agendas and whatsoever, but in the end, everything would also happen if they had not stumbled across ist.
My players like the feeling that they are not the superstars and that its not all about them. They really enjoy discovering a world which offers alot of freedom and since we often have new players who come to our table and say "I heard alot about your group and would like to join" it seems to be a good approach...on the other hand maybe they just like the fully fledged RPG Cellar, with walls covered by dozens of maps and shelves full of about 700 rulebooks and 2000 minis....dang...
btw. I'm also a teacher :-)
Good gawd, I keep looking at this thread and thinking, "I have no idea."
But I'll try:
- Focus on sandbox more than linear adventure---develop the setting and situation well, but let the players drive where they want to go. Offer choices--you can do this or this first. Occasionally, I do want to have certain things happen for story's sake but I try hard not to railroad. I work better with players who take charge; I had some very passive players in a past campaign and I don't think I had a very good story as a result.
- By the same token, sometimes the background stories I make up are a little too complicated. I'm learning to make things a little more simple.
- I love to explore, so I create areas with lots of weird little nooks and crannies for others to explore. (And I admit, I get upset when the players don't explore them, but have to remind myself that my play style is not theirs).
- My fights tend to be too easy. I'm not a bad tactician, but I often forget about certain abilities ("oh crap, he had blind fight or combat reflexes, he could have...")
- I try to learn the rules as best I can but also not obsess about them. I want to run looking at my players, not the GM's screen. I tend to fudge skill DCs. I'm more persnickety about combat rules.
- I like systems with lots of crunch, but that I can still make up stuff on the fly ("... there's no rule for that, but let's call it a combat maneuver. Roll your CMB.") . This is because of experiences with players that tend to be very exploitive of the rules unless you can rein them in with, "Sorry, there's a rule against that" but I still want some flexibility. Mind, I don't really have players like that now but I've gotten used to working like that.
- I love tactile play and I love painting minis, so I use battle maps and minis and handouts and other "feely" stuff a lot. (The handout part was harder when I had blind players--but I also learned that having a physical battle grid sometimes helped clear up misunderstandings about where things were--"May I take your hand? Here is you." *touch mini* "Here is the demon." *touch mini* "You are three squares apart.")
- I write up 20-50 pages of notes for a given story arc and then often ignore the majority of them, as the party inevitably does something I don't expect and then make it up as I go along (but the developing of the setting helps with that because since I have an idea of what's going on, I can pull something out of my rear end more easily).
- I'm absentminded as hell and have very patient players.
- I play with a laptop, with media player playing music in the background. The laptop holds my notes, my book .pdfs (I've been trying to reduce the stuff I carry with me), and I can also quickly generate monsters and NPCs with PC Gen in case something comes up that I don't have prepared stat blocks for. I make maps with Campaign Cartographer.
- I don't like 3.5/PF Stat Blocks and hand revise my own. This is time consuming, and I need to be clever and come up with some kind of template I can plug in.
Good gawd, I keep looking at this thread and thinking, "I have no idea."
But I'll try:
- Focus on sandbox more than linear adventure---develop the setting and situation well, but let the players drive where they want to go. Offer choices--you can do this or this first. Occasionally, I do want to have certain things happen for story's sake but I try hard not to railroad. I work better with players who take charge; I had some very passive players in a past campaign and I don't think I had a very good story as a result.
- By the same token, sometimes the background stories I make up are a little too complicated. I'm learning to make things a little more simple.
- I love to explore, so I create areas with lots of weird little nooks and crannies for others to explore. (And I admit, I get upset when the players don't explore them, but have to remind myself that my play style is not theirs).
- My fights tend to be too easy. I'm not a bad tactician, but I often forget about certain abilities ("oh crap, he had blind fight or combat reflexes, he could have...")
- I try to learn the rules as best I can but also not obsess about them. I want to run looking at my players, not the GM's screen. I tend to fudge skill DCs. I'm more persnickety about combat rules.
- I like systems with lots of crunch, but that I can still make up stuff on the fly ("... there's no rule for that, but let's call it a combat maneuver. Roll your CMB.") . This is because of experiences with players that tend to be very exploitive of the rules unless you can rein them in with, "Sorry, there's a rule against that" but I still want some flexibility. Mind, I don't really have players like that now but I've gotten used to working like that.
- I love tactile play and I love painting minis, so I use battle maps and minis and handouts and other "feely" stuff a lot. (The handout part was harder when I had blind players--but I also learned that having a physical battle grid sometimes helped clear up misunderstandings about where things...
As if you weren't awesome enough- you have helped people who are blind to play this game we love. That is wonderful.
[tangent]
What a cool thread.
People tell what they like, what they're good but also, what they're not so good at as well. Turns out there are human beings behind those avatars; not that we didn't know it, but it's nice to be reminded that we aren't just a bunch of wannabe "can't-be-wrong ultimate wells of perfect wisdom". And perhaps we are - communally - but after all these "you're doing it wrong/I'm doing it better" threads: this is refreshing.
'findel
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Before each session I read over the adventure I'm about to run, or the bits that I'm most likely to run into in that session.
I then work on one encounter that relates to a particular PC or 2, that ties them into the plot a little more.
With that done I wait patiently for game time, perhaps cutting out some paper minis or reading on the boards.
During the game I have one of the players recap the last session from the journal and we deal with a little bit of house keeping (XP totals from previous session, divvying up treasure etc). Once that's done we begin, usually I just lay out the scene wherever they are at, remind them of any currently open goals or quests and ask: "What do you do?"
At the moment I'm running Kingmaker so as long as they are somewhere within the Greenbelt it's fairly easy to adapt to whatever choices they make.
During the game I tend to focus a lot on my voice to convey a sense of character, and I try to have the adversaries talk a lot during combat. Sometimes just simple instructions in guttural nonsense (if the PCs don't speak the language), other times taunts and smack-talk. I have quite a range of voices and my players say they get a kick out of it.
I tend to encourage role-playing, and rarely have monsters that exist solely to murder the PCs.
I also encourage crazy over-the-top action in combat, basically if a player can think of it then there's probably a way to do it. I tend to judge DCs by the rule of thumb that 10 + Level = 50/50 success.
I'm a fair judge of challenge rating, but sometimes my players can surprise me when they remember how the rules work. Had a level 3 Inquisitor hold off two Trolls until help could arrive with liberal application of judgement, spell use and the full-defense action.
As a GM I try to encourage players to bend the plot (the Plot Twist cards have been real useful for that), in order to give the players more authorship of the game they're playing.
At the end of the session (I usually try to find a natural break, like when the PCs turn in to rest) I ask everyone one thing:
"Most important question: Did everyone have fun?"
I always get a full round of yes, and if I don't. Then I usually find out why not, and endeavour to improve in the future.
For the record it only happened once, and it was a problem with another player not my GMing style.
As if you weren't awesome enough- you have helped people who are blind to play this game we love. That is wonderful.
In all fairness, they were (and are) enthusiastic gamers before I ever met them (with one an AD&D GM from back in the day). I just found using minis and other tactile terrain really helped when my words failed me.
Tangentially, I've discovered at least some Paizo .pdfs can be read by screenreading software which is great---a lot of times the compression used on .pdfs can "flatten" the words--so blind gamers are screwed because that's the only way they can "read" the books. It's usually done to prevent piracy, but creates an accessibility problem in the process.
My gamemastering style has changed a lot over the years. I've gone from being really obsessed with detail to a pretty fast and loose improvisational type GM as time has passed. Back in the beginning, when we played 1e, I would write page after page of notes for the adventure, the encounter, and even backgrounds for the BBEG, even if they weren't necessary.
Later, during the run of a 10 year long 2e campaign, I drastically pared that down to just a few notes on the beginning of the game, what I wanted the PC's to accomplish and encounter, and what I would do next if the outcome was what I thought it might be. The only things I'd have in detail were the encounters, traps, and rewards. It was just so much easier to improvise and let the players have more of a hand in directing their fates.
With the advent of 3.x and now Pathfinder, I still only write up a half page or so of notes regarding the basic adventure, with a back story that lead up to the event, a few ideas for possible encounters and the like, and a few lines about major obstacles and adversaries. I print out the monsters from the PRD/SRD, or just use it out of the book with a sticky note for whatever changes I might want to make to its stats, and the only bad guy(s)I flesh out is the main adversary(ies), if any. I really like letting the PC's feel like they are the ones in charge of the outcome, not me.
My players have noticed that over the years I've gotten a big softer when it comes to combat encounters, as well as stingier with treasure. As a GM I value player feedback more than just about anything, so I'm going to do my best to make them happy on both counts.
Hmm. I find myself, as many posters before me, daunted by the task of dissecting my own GMing style. But I'll give it a shot...
High simulationist, with an emphasis on how the mechanics affect the world: This is kind of an odd one, and I think one of the things that make me a unique GM. A lot of people feel that the rules are too stringent, put too many limits on them. Or vice versa, they think the rules are there to be conveniently ignored. While I certainly do ignore the rules at times, I never do so at critical moments. I consider the Core Rulebook to be akin to the laws of physics in my game world - they apply to everyone, and they cannot be broken. Rooms aren't designed on 5x5 square blocks because they fit conveniently on a grid - they do so because this is the convention for the culture, etc. Even when I write my introductory fiction that accompany some of my games, I make it a strict point to stay within the margins of the game rules, and do things that are "level appropriate". (For example, I once wrote a CSI-like story about a wizard/rogue attempting to solve a murder. He used spells straight out of the PHB and used the skills and feats available to him as an NPC.)
Along those veins, I like to work the system and see how I can use it to accomplish the story goals I want. Instead of being constrained by the system, I make sure that whatever it is I want to happen I can make happen within the bounds of the system. And it's been a long time now since I haven't been able to work a plot into the actual mechanics of d20 D&D.
(On a side note - this is the reason I did not follow into 4th Edition. It was pretty explicit when reading 4E that the mechanics the game provided did not apply to the game world, that they were just there for when the play "paused" and switched to Tactical Mode in combat.)
Combat Style - Near-Killer GM: I love having players sitting on the edge of their seats during an exciting combat. And I run plenty of them. During a big fight, I'll make sure to take PCs right to the brim, using up their last ounce of power before giving them the win. Often this means that half the party is making Con checks in the negatives while those left alive are desperately fighting for their lives. (Of course, I make sure they know that they're making progress; they know that the bad guys are hurting just as badly as they are too.)
But I expect good tactical sense from my players - or at least, I expect them to not act stupid. I do not reward stupid (I do reward cool - it's a fine line at times.) If you do something stupid that exposes your neck, an enemy will go for your neck. And you might likely die. In fact, if you die in one of my games before raise dead becomes a feasible option (9th level+), then you can bet it's your own dang fault.
Plot Style - Very Political: I like intrigue. I like convoluted plots with various factions working against each other, with the PCs often being caught unwittingly in the middle. I don't like epic struggles of Good vs. Evil (though often my factions are good vs. evil, or law vs. chaos - or at least can eventually be broken down to that basic concept.) I actually kind of hate the way most fantasy religions are portrayed in RPGs - I prefer my churches to be political entities with mortal concerns, not direct servants of an active god. (This is why I rarely play clerics...)
Of my circle of GM friends, I think we would all agree that I tend to be the best with plots. My NPCs, though, are generally my weakest link.
Game Style - Immersive: I love making the experience as real as possible. I use the most props, I like creating wonderful maps and vistas, I design soundtracks and sound scapes. I know I'm not reconstructing a world for my players, but I want the experience of the game to be as immersive as possible. Anything I can do to help them get into their characters, the better. I dislike OOCing or taking joke actions, and I dislike joke or punchline characters.
GM/Player Interactions - Open: I trust my players, and I want my players to trust me. I let them craft their own characters, with only a few notes from me in terms of rules options (the fewer the better, in my opinion, though there's still a few things that I'll ban for being what we consider overpowered.) I'm probably the most permissive of the GMs in my circle - if a character has a good reason for doing whatever, I'll let it ride. I'm also the only one who does not explicitly ban evil characters - do I still ban villains and villainous actions at my table, for the most part. I try to encourage players to come up with their own feats and skill uses and PrCs if they find something in the rules is lacking.
Rules Style - Original Intent, with Tinkering: I'm kind of a dichotomy in this. On the one hand, I am a rules lawyer, generally, as a player (though I have not had the time, nor really the inclination, to learn Pathfinder as well as I did D&D 3.5). On the other hand, I am constantly tweaking and adding new rules. (It's not that I think the rules are bad, I just think the rules can be better!) I'm the kind of GM who, when he wanted to have the PCs lead an army, actually sat down and wrote a 6 - 8 page rules booklet on running mass combats in D&D. (For the curious, they turned out as a slightly more complicated version of the mass combat rules in Kingmaker.) But I do my best to keep whatever rules I create working within the greater framework of d20 (no 2nd edition like subsystems that use completely new mechanics, for example.)
Of course, my rules lawyer players have access to the rules that I write, and they can lawyer me right back on those new rules that I come up with. Fair is fair, after all. And to me, the rules are the rules - I believe that I, as GM, will abide by the RAW is an implicit contract between GM and PCs. If the GM doesn't abide by RAW, then there's no way that the PCs can trust the GM to adjudicate the game fairly. If I create a new rule, I will give my players plenty of forewarning and publish it to them long before I execute it. I don't make rules up on the fly. (The reason for this is simple - if your players have gone to the trouble of creating their characters, they've presumably done so for the Rules As Written, or whatever version of the rules the table has agreed to run by, including house rules. If I then, as GM, decide to use whatever rules I want in the middle of the game, the player's efforts in creating their characters is minimized, and in the worst cases, completely nullified.)
I tend to be fairly free flowing with how I run a campaign. I have a plot, and we'll get to it eventually, but if the PC's want to fly to Planet Vegas and cheat/rob a casino blind, I'll roll with it.
When it comes time to advance the plot, I can adjust any time sensitive hooks accordingly.
Additionally, while I occasionally foster a somewhat adversarial approach to GMing, I do so to encourage creativity. I want my players to out-think me, and award them extra EXP when they do (it's about 50/50 at this point, which I'm satisfied with).
Plot often writes itself: I present a plot hook, and the players make their plans/assumptions. I, meanwhile, sit back and pay attention, jotting down what I want to use and what I don't. It makes the players active participants in creating the world, which gives them incentives to roleplay.
When it comes to character creation, I outline any house rules I have at the beginning of a campaign, of which there are very few. I do require some sort of backstory from my players; the more detailed, the more I can write story arcs centered around that PC (everyone needs a chance to shine).
One final thing that I require, which is something I picked up from a PbP I was in a few years ago. I ask for 9 NPCs from each player; 3 friends, 3 contacts, and 3 enemies. Again, this makes my world a little more real, and invests the players in the world. Plus, I end up with a ready pool of 50+ NPCs, which makes my job a lot easier.
Keep in mind while reading that, although I've been playing for a while, I've never been the main DM for the group. Also, I run only very small groups (1-3 players). Last time I tried a larger group it ended poorly, but that may have been because of the players as some weren't very serious about it.
I like to get my players thinking about their characters and decide what it is they want to do. I come up with a vauge idea for a plot, but I know better than to try to get my players to follow it through. Then I like to start with a base adventure, one that doesn't rely on what the players are or what they want to do. The purpose is to just feel out what they'll act like when confronted with combat vs roleplay vs stealth and whatever else I think I might need to test. The base adventure I did last was a mystery where I did up the town's major NPCs (and suspects) in high detail and just let the PCs explore and investigate. The full adventure isn't over yet so I'll have to get back you on whether it works or not =).
After feeling the players out, I use any loose ends or some other way to tie the adventure into the next adventure, which is where I start to include the PC's goals and backstories if possible. Each adventure after I try to work as much of their characters into the setting so that they feel like they're really there and making a difference in the world. I also like to reference previous characters of theirs, especially if they had any effect on the region, such as making my brother's character an NPC in the base adventure mentioned above.
Once they're well integrated into the setting they start taking care of setting up stories more or less and I simply accommodate. I want them to try and see their goals through and if they end up accomplishing what I initially set up all the better.
One thing I've found as I've run over the years is that the more I do it the more I turn into the "the rules are guidlines" type of GM. I happily experiment with stuff somewhat to comepletely outside the rules. I detail monsters less and less (mainly because I can come up with the details I need VERY quickly in my head and have them be accurate to the RAW). I'm very much an off the cuff GM, particularly since I run two campaigns that try to meet about once a week.
I try to be tactical, and as difficult as possible while still giving players a chance to survive. I don't control RP. I will introduce NPC's, and if a player wishes to communicate that is ok, but if not that is ok also. I am very hands off and open with how I do things.
I like to run games with different feels to them just to avoid monotony. The next game I want to run will be something similar to Iron Heroes, but if I do something that is 100% Pathfinder it will probably be Serpent's Skull due to the lack of magic item shops. In my worlds adventures are common so a player can normally get what they want in bigger cities.
I also leave portions of my world undefined so that any new ideas have a place to originate from. If I go ahead and make everything up it kind of locks me down, and while I understand that I can change things it kind of ruins immersion to do so. If a player has a nice backstory I try to incorporate it into the game at some point.
My weakness is describing what an opponent or an area looks like. Every session I say I will get better, but I always forget. Over the past 2 years or so I have gotten a lot better about being in character for my NPC's rather than just using the same style of talking for everyone.
I do allow players to run into things they should not fight every once in a while, just to let them know that there is always someone who can kick your butt.