1. The most important thing for me is having a collaborative GM. That's not to say that I don't want the GM to do his or her best to kill me, but I really appreciate GMs who're enthusiastic about creative solutions to problems or characters who're well played. I suppose the corollary quality is a bit of flexibility--being able to react when something unexpected happens, being open to letting players have more agency in the campaign, and so on. Another trait I value is good people management, from keeping everybody relatively focused to keeping an open communication style. I consider myself pretty relaxed at the table, but I guess I have been peeved by GMs who proscribe player options too much, in my mind.. In the first case, I don't like GMs who frequently just prevent players from acting or dictate auto-success or failure based on "story reasons" or how the GM thinks things should go. These are the cases where spells auto-fizzle, your perception checks all fail because you're supposed to get ambushed (even if the characters suspect the ambush) or a fight that's supposed to be challenging just keeps going until the GM feels like the players have had enough, not when enemies should go down, by the numbers. 2. I really appreciate players who're supportive of one another. That ranges from making sure that everybody at the table's getting a chance to speak up, to advice about character building, to filling roles in the party that need to be filled, to really promoting those in-character inter-personal relationships (friendships, long-term goals, even conflict in the right group). I like players who take the game seriously enough to be prepared, invest something in their characters, and stay focused but light-hearted enough to joke around a bit and prioritize everybody's enjoyment of the game above all else. I don't suppose my dislikes are that out of the ordinary. I don't like playing with people who're disrespectful of others, whether that's direct or indirect, such as wasting other players' time. I haven't enjoyed playing with people who lose their tempers because of bad rolls or who introduce a lot of unnecessary personal drama into the game. 3. I'm sending a PM with this. 4. There are a lot of highlights for me. There was one where we were (inventively) exploring a very deadly haunted house, where things were tense because of the likelihood of sudden death but we kept things light around the table by joking around. It was definitely a "I tie the halfling to a ten-foot pole and push him through the door" or "let's cast invisibility on this stone and throw it at the mirror; maybe the ghost won't intercept it this time" kind of experience. I've liked heavy combat sessions, where the paladin gets one shot by an enemy barbarian and I'm yelling for the sorcerer to dimension door the monk and ranger to the other side of the field, next to the enemy cleric, while I attempt to survive drawing the barbarian's attention long enough for the cleric to try breath of life . There was another one in an OSR type game where, through a comedy of errors, our bard agreed to summon a minor demon so that a guy we were trying to con would a) be impressed by our power and b) get to ask it some personal question. Unfortunately, there was a secret c), where the bard wanted to summon some dread demon and try to barter the life of the mark for power (???). Shit hit the fan, demonic messenger appears, our mark dies (along with the information we needed from him), his guards turn on us and each other and we would up being the gophers of a demon lord on pain of pain. 5. One of the best characters I've made is in Werewolf; The Apocalypse in a 2E WoD game. He's a galliard lupus who grew up as a stray "dog" in up-state New York. He's the scout and the guardian of the pack. He doesn't talk much and when he does, he doesn't lie or joke, though he knows how to keep a secret. Instead, his actions have to speak for him. He never starts a fight, much preferring to give in to his natural curiosity and observe something. But once it's clear that his pack is in danger, he's the quickest to strike. In combat, he's the one who always defends the less capable members of the pack while letting the ahroun be the hero--due to that and his Bone Gnawer heritage, he's never recognised by his pack. He's the one who figures out the weak flank, the unexpected angle of attack. He's also the only one that tries to preserve innocent life, even that being manipulated by the Wyrm into fighting the pack. He gives away all of his money, either to his pack or, more often, to the Church, and possesses nothing except a disguise for passing among humans. He's never fired a gun or driven a car, and only uses a phone when his alpha insists it's necessary. He is extremely hierarchical, accepting decisions by his alpha or werewolves he recognises as superior even against his better judgement (which happens a lot with his alpha...). It also means he's extremely antagonistic towards inferior werewolves who attempt to dominate him. He is, however, extremely nurturing towards those weaker than he is and is the only member of his pack to go out of his way to protect non-pack members. Obviously, a lot of my enjoyment of the character came from deciding to play a character that has to communicate through his actions. This is the kind of role-playing I like, where the creation of the character is based on his mechanical decisions more than on his 500-page backstory or the alignment on his sheet or his speech patterns.
