RE: SINAI: Oh boy. 20/20 hindsight and all that. There are so many things that if I could go back in time and lecture my younger self, I would advise to do. The trouble is that I wouldn't want to end up SQUASHING everything in the process.
1) Let Others Have Their Fun. I got way too into criticizing and picking apart what others were doing with their own plot-lines, what I perceived as self-GMing, power-tripping, and whatnot. Eventually, over time, I started getting my way a bit too much, and I think it squashed a lot of the creative energy that was otherwise contributing to the project.
2) Keep the Plots Modest. I have a real problem with ESCALATION. Sure, we can start with tea parties and trips to the bazaar, but eventually my mind turns to ratcheting things up until we're dealing with world-threatening events, and/or uncovering the entire history of Sinai. I think that by dangling the prospect of "rags-to-riches" "slave-to-queen-of-all-Savanites" right in front of Kaela in her very first adventure, I was setting things up for DOOM. It was a dumb idea. (Sure, some interesting things came out of it, but that doesn't erase the initial TRAIN WRECK I caused.)
3) Establish the Mood and Threat-Level with the Player. My job as GM is (a) to entertain you, the on-camera players; (b) not to ruin the fun of other GMs and their players in the process; and (c) to have some fun myself (I hope) doing so. If someone is playing with a "personal furry," I shouldn't put him in life-or-death situations (not even when the "death" choice should be, IMHO, really easy not to make -- DO NOT PUT THE RED SHINY CANDY-LIKE SELF-DESTRUCT BUTTON IN FRONT OF A GOOFBALL PC IF IT'S REALLY GOING TO KILL HIM.
4) Play Nicely in the Sandbox. Don't stomp all over others' creations. Don't drop a bomb on the Himaat. Don't bait Chiaroscuro the snake-killing mongoose into a Naga-murdering mongoose cult. Don't use someone else's hero faction as your villain.
5) Don't Try to Cram EVERYTHING You Like into One Universe. There are far too many instances where I had an itch to run something Mutant Chronicles-esque, or more horror, or more whatever, and I really shouldn't have tried to force it all into Sinai. I should have gotten permission to run a limited-run mini-adventure in a Holodeck with anyone who was interested, rather than creating new potential for mood-whiplash and other messes in the main shared-universe timeline.
6) Don't Break the World for Drama. The 5-year leap forward and off-camera death of lots of NPCs caused a lot of hard feelings. I don't think the setting really needed that much "shaking up."
Honestly, I think a lot of it could have been avoided if I'd just spent more time trying to get a feel for what the players hoped and wanted. Maybe some more time spent OOCly checking in with the player for his or her opinions could have enlightened me. A character might *in-character* be friendly given a given NPC, but privately the player loathes having to interact with that character. (E.g., "My character is polite and trusting, but this NPC seriously creeps me out, and I wish he'd go away! Just because my character smiles and greets him doesn't mean I'm having fun!")
I can't say that would solve everything by any means. I mean, I had to learn things somehow, right? And even now, I'm not exactly a grand success as a GM. But, eh, I can still wish.
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Oh boy. 20/20 hindsight and all that. There are so many things that if I could go back in time and lecture my younger self, I would advise to do. The trouble is that I wouldn't want to end up SQUASHING everything in the process.
I think that by dangling the prospect of "rags-to-riches" "slave-to-queen-of-all-Savanites" right in front of Kaela in her very first adventure, I was setting things up for DOOM. It was a dumb idea. (Sure, some interesting things came out of it, but that doesn't erase the initial TRAIN WRECK I caused.)
Honestly, I think a lot of it could have been avoided if I'd just spent more time trying to get a feel for what the players hoped and wanted. Maybe some more time spent OOCly checking in with the player for his or her opinions could have enlightened me. A character might *in-character* be friendly given a given NPC, but privately the player loathes having to interact with that character. (E.g., "My character is polite and trusting, but this NPC seriously creeps me out, and I wish he'd go away! Just because my character smiles and greets him doesn't mean I'm having fun!")
I can't say that would solve everything by any means. I mean, I had to learn things somehow, right? And even now, I'm not exactly a grand success as a GM. But, eh, I can still wish.