Favorite style of setting.

[Tyndmyr]

Now, we all have our favorite settings...but even within any setting, there are certain styles of games.

Examples: Everyone works for a guy.
Saving the world.
Greedy, violent hobos out for wealth and power.
Take over the world.
Wander around looking for adventure.
Major conflict.

I've noticed that certain DMs tend to like certain themes...what are your favorites, and why?

[Kylarra]

I tend to run towards saving the world as an overall theme, although our campaigns never seem to last long enough to actually get there.

[HunterOfJello]

Whenever I DM I end up starting with an overall theme and then forgetting about what it was supposed to be. In the end they turn out to be a group of adventurers doing random jobs for people all over the place.

[Earthwalker]

I would have to say as a GM I tend towards saving the ..... type deals

not always the world but usually I tell players before most games I expect there characters to be good guys. I don't always do this but it is my main default, even when GM shadowrun I have save the world games.

Its a beautiful world worth fighting for. I agree with half of that sentence.

[Jjeinn-tae]

I tend to run games with a war on the horizon, whether between countries, factions, or within a faction. It allows for a lot of intrigue, and when the players start becoming well known, it attracts the attention of both sides. That gives them the ability to play both sides, or look like it, and stealthily weaken one.

As an example, my most recent one was an Eberron solo campaign. The player was a Paladin of the Sovereign Host, and an over-active Dark Six worshiper tried to get ahead and accidentally put the two religions at war with each other, but in a way that no one outside seemed to notice.

[Vitruviansquid]

As a DM, I like episodic adventures, where each session or group of sessions is a standalone mission. It's a lot easier to write adventures, it allows a drastic change of scenery whenever I feel like it, and it's fun to reveal the setting to the players in little bits and pieces, as each episode builds up to a grand finale tying everything together.

As a player, I like anything that gives me direction. I like being put on rails, as long as it's not ridiculously obvious, and it gives the feeling of a story unfolding. Maybe it's my group, but more open ended formats just lead to all the players arguing over how to butter a toast.

[Erom]

My group always rotates DM's so we can play with a new shiny character every week. Thus we end up liking themes that fit well into small packages - much like episodes of a tv show or movie. "Small mysteries" like investigating a single crime or pulling off a heist (oh, we LOVE heists) work well, as do "single location" adventures (IE, here's your backstory, you start at the front door of the tomb, already all geared up and ready to go.)

We usually collaboratively write the backstory over email in the days before the session, so we get a decent amount of roleplay out of even a dungeon delve - though if we don't respond to our email it's understood that the DM fills in the blanks however he sees fit. Since we are only playing the character for that session we don't get too stressed if the backstory makes our character out to be a little different than originally envisioned.

[Vangor]

Usually the party are pawns of another, not unknowingly. I feel this provides mystery into the campaign and will often be a great motivation as no one enjoys being used. One large factor is the party never loses direction; the unknown figure tries to assure this. Plus, the purpose is to wreck my plot which means in another way fixing my plot, and still I plan for the "wrecking" of which helps me.

Can become complicated, though, because the realization of what the party is being exploited for needs to dawn slowly, but players tend to exist in a world with absolutes or of scrutiny of everything which makes unveiling hard.

[Emmerask]

I would have to say as a GM I tend towards saving the ..... type deals

Yeah it does not always have to be the world which the elder evil overlord tries to destroy.
Saving the village, organization or kingdom from smaller threats is also good stuff

but yeah mostly those

[valadil]

I like city games. I want there to be NPCs with conflicting motives. Maybe the PCs work for these people, maybe not. But the confrontations have to be with actual people.

I rarely do dungeons. The way I see it, you can't stick the PCs in a hole for a month and expect them to come back and remember the plot. The rest of the world will have moved on by the time they get out. All that plot I'd built up will have passed. It just doesn't help the game. I also don't do extended travel. Usually a combat or two if the destination is far away, but the rest gets put on fast forward. At most I'll have a meaningless session here or there (like the one I'm planning for tomorrow). Sometimes the players need a break from a ton of plot.

The PCs can get powerful, but they should never be the most powerful entity in the world. I like for them to be threatened by something. They need to defy the odds and confront a foe bigger than they are. This is my preference in games I run as well as games I play in.

I don't usually bend the rules as the GM too much. I think this is because I'm a programmer. I see the rules/setting as my API and build a game out of what I'm given. There's very little mysterious magic acting in a way you can't explain, unless it's me exploiting spells in ways the players haven't seen before.

I generally do one major plot arch. There are tons of smaller plots, but they all inevitably run into the big one. When the big one concludes, my interest in the game fades and I have to wrap things up. I'm trying to get over this, because I have a sneaking suspicion that the focus of my current game is going to resolve itself within the next few sessions. I'm out of twists and the players can figure things out if they're ambitious enough. (I probably could invent more twists, but I don't want it to reach the point that they give up because they expect they'll never reach the end.)

Finally, and this is a style thing not a setting thing, but I apparently have a thing for dead MacGuffins. I'm all about building someone up as important and then killing him off. I've used it in my current and previous game, and have plans for it next time around (although next time it'll be more than just a missing person). No idea why my players haven't caught on that I overuse this technique yet.

[arrowhen]

As a player, I greatly prefer episodic campaigns. I'm perfectly happy with the opening line for any given adventure to be something like, "Your search for adventure has led you to Location X", where Location X might be halfway around the world from last adventure's Location Y. Modern DMs don't seem to favor that campaign style anymore, so I usually end up getting stuck saving the world instead.

As a DM, I always mean to run that sort of episodic campaign, but without even trying to I manage to drop all sorts of hints suggesting that there's some kind of Sinister Hidden Plot behind whatever the first adventure is about. The players invariably decide to dig deeper and find out What's Really Going On. Since I don't want to disappoint them, I'll end up making the second adventure a logical continuation of the first and the campaign rapidly becomes another huge, tangled, "Let's Uncover The Sinister Hidden Plot" monstrosity, with me frantically scrambling to add new layers of Sinister Hidden Plot, often mid-session.

After several months of the PCs uncovering increasingly deeper and more sinister layers of Sinister Hidden Plot I'll finally come to some grand revelation where I finally figure out who's behind the Sinister Hidden Plot and how to steer it toward an appropriately dramatic climax... And then I look upon my notes and despair, realizing that it'll take another six months worth of sessions to get the PCs to that dramatic climax.

About that time I'll decide I'm burned out on DMing again and ask if anyone else wants to run something for a while.

[Devils_Advocate]

Planet Eris.

You are a maid, having worked dutifully for the Saionji family for several years. You are also a shy albino princess who does odd jobs for the yakuza, and train with the three-section staff. Your peer Maya is an outgoing young maid with freckles, a streak of being greedy for sweets, and who also happens to be a military cyborg.

Your master is a kind teenager who lives in the mansion alone, but is a bit of a train otaku. He is also a cursed werewolf. With amnesia.

Somewhere between doing the laundry and preparing lunch, the master is kidnapped by evil ninjas. They escape through the basement of the mansion, which contains a portal to the Netherworld. It's up to you to get him back before dinnertime.

- MAID: The Role Playing Game