Inspired by Anaamika’s and my exchange over here.
Other inspiration found here and here.
And many other threads I’ve done relate to the topic, feel free to search around. So what folks here have experience with game-mastering roleplaying games?
As an added bonus, you may feel free to use this thread as an “Ask the GameMaster!” thread as well.
Not to already run from the flirting, but my boyfriend is the best DM in the whole world.
But mostly I like to listen to what other people have to say about *their * games.
Ok, maybe I should have posted a little more.
My name is Anaamika, and I have been a D&D junkie for…maybe 6 years now.
It all started one day when my boyfriend came out with the innocent comment “Do you know what D&D is?” And went on to describe it thusly. I will never forget the initial example.
“You are walking down a stretch of road. To your left is a forest, spreading out over rolling hills. You can hear birds singing. To your right, is a beach that leads down to the water.
You come up over a hill and see a pack of orcs a few hundred yards away. They look like they are setting up their camp. The game is played thusly: What do you do next?”
Well all my life books have made me crazy with that very question: “What happens next?” D&D fired my imagination and I’ve never looked back. I mostly play male characters, a chance to live vicariously on the other side. I have had a handful of female characters. I’ve had characters die. I’ve had NPCs die, ones I liked a lot. It is nothing more or less than the most living & alive fairy tale.
And I love it.
Well, I like to hear the stories, and tell them, too.
I’ve GMed several different RPGs over the years… some for prolonged campaigns, and some for shorter engagements.
I have to say that the most unique GMing experience I’ve had from a mechanics standpoint is with Champions - it’s so wonderfully detailed and smooth, and yet it’s almost impossible to do “quick” NPCs like one might do for Dungeons and Dragons. So the prep time is a pain.
90% of the games I’ve run have been D&D, though.
I have tried a few things:
D&D.
Twilight 2000 (3000 now, I guess).
Paranormal in modern-day.
Futuristic.
And probably the one that I had the most basic & visceral love for, being a mech pilot.
I love mechs. I love motorcycles. I like machines. 
Sounds like a pretty intriguing introduction to the form, Anaamika.
I basically started as a GM from the outset, but with the Marvel Super-Heroes RPG as my “Gateway” game. Things quickly progressed to D&D’s Basic box, though.
My favorite things about the games are coming up with interesting characters and interesting stories. As a player, I enjoy playing my character to the hilt, and coming up with unorthodox solutions to challenge the GM.
For instance, there’s the story of Ned and the Twins… and no, this isn’t supposed to be in the “name your privates” thread.
I’ll get to it in a moment…
I’ve only ever been a DM/GM with D&D. I started playing when I was…8? I think, with my brother being the DM. Eventually, several years after he stopped his campaign, I finally started a new one with some friends. I have only DMed 2nd edition, though. That’s what i grew up with, that’s what I love. I actually came back from college and had to be a player, sicne I didn’t knwo a thing abotu 3rd edition.
Between my collection and my brother’s, I had soooo many sourcebooks to use, 90% of them for the Forgotten Realms. I used as many references as possible to keep my players on their toes. Dragon and DUngeon magazines were amazing. If I ever needed a quick adventure because we finished the one I wrote up early, hey, there were tons in there! Most easily adapted to my campaign.
sigh, I’d like to get back into DMing, Hell even just PCing, but I moved 6 motnhs ago to the middle of nowhere and haven’t even found a gaming/comic shop around here where I could place/look for gaming classifieds.
There is:
One in Wilton Mall. Not the best of worlds, but they do have quite a bit of D&D stuff, Um…WarHammer, Magic…those castles. What are they called, I’ve got four sets? The building ones? Gray stone? Anyway, they’re pretty decent and I like the guy there. He’s probably the only male gaming store owner I’ve ever me who doesn’t just about fall over when a woman comes in and asks him some knowledgable questions.
Then there’s one…Clifton Country Mall, I believe. Very small.
Also, one in Colonie, I can give you more info if you need. Maria’s Flights of Fantasy. My favorite place!
And let’s see. Earthworld Comics which for the moment I am blanking on where that is. But it’s in Albany.
Okay, Ned and the Twins.
My distinctly Batman-based Elven Ranger-Rogue and his compatriots were defending a city under siege by an army consistimg mostly of constructs… many of them large iron golem-like things.
Inspiration struck us - we’d fetch forth some Rust Monsters, buff them with spells, and set them loose amidst the mechanoids. Rather than try to gather an army of them inside a few days, we’d just get a handful, and use an illusion to make it seem that there were more.
Well, using my wilderness knowledge, I guided us to a spot where we could find the necessary beasties. We found two in short order… a mated pair, it seemed… and after a few more long minutes of searching, a scrawny, underfed third one.
He became “Ned” instantly, and the others, being virutally identical looking to the untrained eye, became “the Twins.”
The plan took shape - the twins would be released amidst the metal army to cause chaos… Ned, however, had a special purpose. The generals of the opposing army were holed up in a mobile fortress… which appeared to be a hollowed-out Bulette. We assumed it was a metallic construct, but… it was a hollowed out Bulette. We found that out during phase two of the plan where, amidst a chorus of Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries, Ned was air-dropped on its back.
Ned scuttled around up there for a while, not having any metal to eat. Our Paladin finally smote the Bulette-fortress and it crumbled into dust, depositing the generals of the opposing army on the ground… and Ned right on top of them.
Most of them didn’t mind Ned, but the fellow with the large steel shield, full-plate, and mechanical prosthetic limbs was a bit nonplussed.
I want a Ned!
I have come to the conclusion that you, your fiance, and Filmgeek, and her fiance Ardred, and Draelin would make a spiffing good roleplaying group for me if you weren’t so geographically dispersed.
Let’s see… what have I GMed over the years? Marvel Super-Heroes, DC Heroes, Champions/HERO, Call of Cthulhu (d20), Silver Age Sentinels, GURPS, AD&D 2nd Ed., D&D 3.0, D&D 3.5, D&D Basic… Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG… Hmm…
Eh, not really. I’m really not that close to ALbany, over two hours away. Even the one in Clifton Park would take me two hours to get to. actually have been to that one, as a couple summers ago when I was living in roy, I started a game with some guy there, but I didn’t like his DMing style, it was all “hey, look what crazy thing happens next!”, so I left. I mean, by the fourth session, we had already talked to walknig mushrooms, were captured by “evil” druids (I know druids aren’t good or evil, but they were out to get us, so at the time, they were evil,) so we had to run away. We then were caught by a large group of…I think orcs, and had to run away again, back to the murshroom cave, to walk into a circle of mushrooms, and after we did, we were transported a thousand miles away and had weird physical changes (I had feathers for hair…) an some weird powers to go with them. I’m sure he was going somewhere, I just never coudl tell where, as everything we were doing kept changing every session.
I was really dissapointed, too, cause I had a cool character. A half-drow paladin. He had a great backstory of how he came to be, why he was a paladin, etc…Of course, the DM actually had the gall to change him. I know they can say what its and isn’t allowed, but I asked him if I could have a half-drow paladin and he said yes. Then I made him a paladin of Tyr, cause Tyr is a cool God in the Realms, but since he already had the village we started in as having a temple to Helm, he made me a Paladin of Helm…can you beleive that? I hate Helm! He’s a pansy! Where’s the wrath to avenge the injustice? Hmm? Where is it? Nowhere! 
delighted smile My fiance! Turtle-Man, you’re the best! You’re the first one who’s called me that since the Big Talk.
bouv, what about Wilton Mall? Is that too far too?
:smack: I meant called *him * that. I got so excited I got confused.
One time I was walking through the neighborhood on a Saturday, cruising yard-sales, when I saw a battered red box on a table. There was a picture of a dragon on it; the ornate words “Dungeons and Dragons” on the cover; and a price tag of $0.75. I decided to buy it.
But the woman running the yard sale looked at me worriedly and said, “Sweetie, I don’t think you want this.” I had to argue with her for a bit before she sold it to me.
I took it home and got ready to run my first adventure: “In Search of the Unknown.” And at the age of eight, I was hooked.
It’s more than two decades later, and I’m still hooked. It’s been a few months since my last game (a dungeon-crawl through a pyramid overrun by the nightmares-made-flesh of a dead wizard, complete with demons, dragons, undead, and puzzle-traps–I was going for old-school flavor), and I’ll be starting a character in a new campaign next week. It’s tremendous fun.
In addition to D&D, I’ve run games of Feng Shui, Toon, Mage, and Werewolf, as well as live-action Vampire and a live-action homebrew set in an asylum for the criminally insane. I’ve played Paranoia, Shadowrun, Spycraft, Call of Cthulhu, and certainly other systems I’ve forgotten, as well as various diceless homebrews.
I’m a moderator at www.enworld.org, a humongous D&D site (pielorinho over there), and I’m a member of the Rat Bastard DM’s Club, a board on which DMs solicit and offer advice on how to twist plots for maximum fun.
Yeah, I like gaming.
Daniel
I’ve done a bit of GMing, but it’s been about a dozen years since I’ve sat down and role-played from either side of the screen.
I’ve GMed (in preference order):
Champions
Shadowrun
Traveller
Star Wars
DC Heroes
Rolemaster (loved the system but to many Og-durned tables)
D&D (the original)
2nd Ed AD&D
Champions and Shadowrun were my longest lived campaigns. However, my best stories come from me on the player’s side of the screen. I was the greatest gift a GM could have; I was the person who walked gleefully into the traps set, knowing there would be traps set, but prefering to work the story rather then conquer it.
I’ve only GMed a Werewolf game, but I was told by my players that it was one of the best campaigns they’ve played.
Made me feel good about it, because I was worried that with the male dominant group there would be too little fighting and too much story telling for their taste.
They said it was a good storyline and a refreshing change to actually flesh out their characters.
Then I killed them all. j/k 
Ah! Yes, I’ve GMed the World of Darkness. Thank you for reminding me. Didn’t get to do much with the campaign though.
And HackMaster. Once.
Which storyline?
Mummies, Werewolvies, Witches, or Ghosties?
Faeries, maybe?
Yup, still almost two hours away.