Things to Remember as a Storyteller

1) The game is about fun for everyone
.....Addendum: Typically the Players out number the Storyteller so this means they should be the main focus of what is fun

2) The players are always going to do the unexpected
.....Addendum: This is an over the time statement or basically sooner or later kind of thing

3) As the Storyteller you are going to favor someone (it happens) so be purposeful about it
.....IOW chose a different person each session or episode and consider how to favor them and then do so because if you do not do this purposefully you will do it and it typically it will not be balanced and this will get noticed and some fun gets lost

4) When characters are being created the GM should get involved as a player can only create a 2-dimensional characters as it requires the GM to add the 3rd Dimension as that is linked to the world/campaign they are running. Further the players and the GM all should be looking for ways to make ties between the various characters so as to make becoming a group a much more organic thing. Everyone meeting for the first time in a tavern and then deciding to risk their lives with a bunch of complete strangers is just ridiculous and smacks of mental laziness. While quality relationships of any sort tend to create an extra dynamic to the game. Of course I know there are those that prefer to just do the purely organic thing with out making any ties at all but then the question comes up -- why are you becoming part of a group -- which means you force the GM to do all the work -- or go with a ridiculous situation that most likely would never have happened had everyone actually been role-playing their characters.

-- MORE TO COME --

I have always wondered why do some GMs not want their players to play characters with good stats. Personally when I initiate the game I go with 6+(3d6 through out the lowest) and players can still get saddled with a stat less than 10 but its fairly rare but less rare than the player actually getting an 18. To me point buy as its outlined and arrays are just lame -- no creativeness to them and again what is so terrible about having good stats in a game?

I mean ultimately what effect does it have on the game -- basically nothing from the GM's point of view as they have an endless supply of monsters that they can tweak however they want and they can set difficult challenges that well only the heroes of the story can have a good chance of solving because they are simply better than the average joe or janet. Its balanced because all the players used the same system to roll up attributes and yet it is still a bit random.

Further I have never encountered a player yet say -- oh man I wanted a character with all 8s or less. Not once, at least not seriously any way. Besides I have played a character with all 18s it was rather boring.

The point is not the good stat persay, but good stats relative to their peers. You can balance an encounter easily if all the players are relatively on the same playing field in terms of power, but if one is significantly stronger or weaker than the others, then balancing becomes more difficult. It also affects progression, since if they're already at the peak, there's not much room to improve.

Correct and I did not say they ought to have max attributes but the crippling attributes is not all that good either unless it is serving a story purpose -- I have played these types before but out of choice not out of I had too -- I have never experienced a GM that said -- no you cannot lower that attribute to be less than it currently is I do not care what your story purposes are -- so that is always a viable option if you as the player are comfortable with it -- maybe they will even let you lower it temporarily and build it into your character's advancement some how.

My experience with point buys and arrays have never been overly positive and just under-par -- first point buy promotes min-maxing and the arrays are always set to low and are static -- if you are going to use arrays make more than one and beef them up some --- this way they are still balanced but allow for just about anything to be played well --- as for attributes not being balanced when rolling dice that is easily fixable by a GM in numerous ways as I have done this before -- BUT that is IF that is even the reason they are doing it -- as I do not think that is actually the case most of the time I would lean to laziness more than anything else but I admit I could be wrong on that one. It just I look at the basics of human nature -- especially when most GMs do not even bother answering fairly obvious questions that get brought up due the mechanics being inconsistent -- because doing so is extra effort and I understand -- why make more work for yourself. I just do not like anomalies that I have not addressed as to why they exist as I know I would ask my GM that question so I make sure I can answer those questions should a player ever ask me. Then I make sure that once I have explained it everything else adheres to that theme accordingly. Yea its a little extra work for me but what I find is it helps to make for a smoother game to run and most players appreciate it because they then understand the why of it and can adjust accordingly as they move forward.

Oh and thanks for the feedback

One of the other things to consider is the stigma about minmaxing, where it's to the point that it's feared more than it should be, and GMs overcompensate as a result.

Yep like I said -- I try not to restrict my players -- and when I say it promotes min-maxing it does not mean I am overly concerned about it but I am not going to directly do things that encourage it greatly -- or I will do things that minimize it to some level as I would much rather have the players focus on the story content of their characters -- which due to point buy and/or the array system both have a tendency to sacrifice for the sake of "balance" which is a very mythical thing since if you have balanced the characters against one another -- that is all the balance you need and that can be achieved without the use of these two systems --- but again to each their own.

For instance I inherited a game that was based off of point buy and arrays -- to keep the game balanced that meant new characters were based off the same set of criterion for character creation. However, I have my own way of then making the game more fun for players (which I do regardless of the character creation system used) and that is giving each some kind of special "magic" that grows as their character grows which is tailored to each character based on their story content (when possible) then by feel otherwise.

Why do I do this because cool magic items are just that -- cool but rarely encountered until much later in the game -- why um because of game balance ? --- again that mythical thing that GMs are more concerned about than they need to -- yes a monty-hall game is not much fun IMO but one piece of "magic" (not always an item) that starts out week and grows is not unbalancing especially if every character gets one .... because again the only thing the GM needs to balance per-sae is PC vs PC as the NPCs and monsters can all be designed however they need to be designed.

Running Sand-box or Mission Based Games

There are pros and cons to doing either of these 100% and I have found that mixing them actually works the best it requires a little bit more work on the GM/STs part than a pure Mission (module) based game but it has more flexibility and potentially a lot more fun as players never know what to expect in fact I might take 2 or 3 modules and blend them in such a way that they all are possible to pursue -- or I might use one or more as a main story arc and then use others as minor story arcs that crop here and there. Where conversely pure Sand-box have the detriment of directionlessness which most of the time many players are not very good at mainly because this requires them to be the Story-Teller instead of the person running the game as (in my opinion) that is the responsibility of the person running the game.

How to Do This

So as stated sand-box games tend to be just that directionless and may not even have story arcs just a world you can interact with maybe. But all the color and hype and details does not matter if there is no story per-sae to sink ones teeth into which is why many of these games die fairly quickly -- not all mind you as sometimes you get a player that is good at creating their own stories but then this means the GM is not really doing their job and the true GM is the player

Next having at least one large semi-vague story arc that effects things in a pre-determined manner and can also be affected by the players is good and pretty much essential -- this large story arc then creates various small story arcs over its duration that the players can choose to interact with or not -- this is one aspect of the game -- note you can have more than one of these and you can even have competing ones if you like this all has to do with the major story you are wanting to tell

Then as players make characters you create various story-arcs tailored to the characters that help to move the character along allowing them to bump into those story arcs from the large story arcs you have going on -- but these story arcs are all about the character and who and what they are more so than the those large story arcs -- further they cannot really be created until you get a player to create a character

Lastly as counter-intuitive as this may seem -- creating a lot of detail up front is a near waste of time -- and I speak from extensive experience on this. As a lot of time the players only end up interact with a very small subset of all the time and effort. It is best to create skeletal frameworks for ideas and then create a minor cosmos of detail just enough necessary to place the characters into and then as they adventure you flesh things out as they go -- this means sure you can dive into the details at any time just make those details mutable in that you can use them to flesh whatever part of the skeleton that the players have chosen to pursue and no more than that otherwise you as the GM will simply burnout