[JMason]

Hm, I would say that almost every campaign informs and helps me refine my GMing style. Here are some of the major campaigns that let to changes.

1) The Last Shottenyager - This was a Banestorm/Yrth game I ran many, many years ago. The basic plot was suppose to be the players running into the the last member of the "shadow hunters" that was looking to hunt down and kill a vampire. In the first session the players decided to side with the bad guys, kill the shadow hunter and try to frame the murder on another NPC. From there they ran around killing, burning, and causing all sorts of havoc.

After the campaign I realized that 90% of my plans and prep were wasted. I tried from them on to never assume what the players were going to do. Instead of having a "plot" where the players are expected to perform a certain task, I started to shift to more focus on NPCs and their motivations, and how they react to the players getting involved.

2) Lanton - Years later I ran a fantasy game that was more of a "sandbox". In this game LOTS of things were going on in the background with hidden plots and lots of different motivations.

The game concluded with the character (and players) not really aware of what was really going on. Again, I started to think that the "plot" had issues. This time I didn't presume what would happen and what the games climax and resolution would be, but it still didn't focus enough on the player actions.

From then on I tried to make game more about NPCs that were more or less "stuck" and not able to further their goals w/o some sort of external assistance. This way the PCs are the major players. I also tried to make NPCs clear in their goals or at least as far as what they want from the PCs.

3) Fallout: Two Towns - In this game there were to two different towns were warring over some area between them. There were no "good guys" as far as the town leaders were concerned. They both were morally grey at best. The players had to balance what they needed (to win the freedom of a companion), with the bigger issues of this conflict between the two towns. This morally grey area led to lots of party conflict, one player plotting behind the backs of the rest, and a big finish that while fun, did feel a bit contrived in retrospect (because I was trying to salvage a hot mess of a game at that point).

Afterword I tried to tone down the darker aspects of my NPCs. I still take a very "everyone is self righteous" approach to major NPCs in power and give the selfish reasons for wanting to get whatever they want, but I don't try to make everything a hard morale choice for the players to consider.