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[SalmonGod]

I suggest you be this kind of GM.  The players will fear respect you, and your game will run smoothly.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Cthulhu]

Buying sunglasses and a GMing balaclava improved my game, I can confirm.

As for the style questions...

1.  Yes, but only if they don't know.  That goes for both questions.  I will fudge whatever I think I can get away with to make the game run smoothly, as long as the players don't know I'm doing it.

2.  Yes.  Yes.  Yes.  I don't fudge /that/ hard.

3.  If it's thematically appropriate yes.  If a lucky grenade is about to TPK and the damage to the story would be irreparable, I'll pull some strings.  If the PCs are wiped by the BBEG, that's fine.

4.  In theory yes.  In practice...

5.  As with everything else, the most important thing is that the players feel that they succeed and fail by their own actions, even if I'm fudging all kinds of shit.  OOC intervention is only if something is wrecking the campaign, otherwise I'll try to adjust or subtly wrangle things back into line.

[neotemplar]

http://www.1km1kt.net/rpg/taverns-drakes

Noone mentioned Tacerns and Drakes yet I think.

Its basically silly romping.  Goblins get bonuses for being rude, like sucker kicking an old guy in the nuts rude.

[SalmonGod]

I picked up Eclipse Phase at Gencon.  This is by far the most compelling RPG setting I've ever seen.

It sells itself as "The Roleplaying Game of Transhuman Conspiracy and Horror".  It's a mixture of space opera, cyberpunk, and post-apocalypse.  Earth has been reduced to a lifeless husk (after an event named "The Fall"), and trying to go back awakens sleeping technological horrors.  Transhumanity has spread throughout the solar system and a little even beyond that, but that spread is precariously thin, as there are only roughly a billion people left.  Those people are somewhat immortal, however, as people's minds can be completely digitized.  The mind is now referred to as "Ego" and the body is referred to as "Morph".  The technological capability exists for people to switch out morphs (biological or synthetic) as easily as changing clothes, or to exist purely in the digital realm ("The Mesh").  This has resulted in massive amounts of cultural restructuring, such as almost complete abandonment of the concept of gender as we know it.  It's also resulted in bizarre psychological issues, such as loss of identity or any concept of humanity, survival apathy, massive paranoia, etc.  Then there's the nanoswarms, rogue AI, viruses that infect biological and digital vectors simultaneously, divisive politics and terrorists with access to weapons of mass destruction, etc.  So transhumanity, as they now call themselves, faces many threats of various natures, despite having overcome most material needs and natural causes of death.

The four lines on the back of the book sum it up pretty well.

Your mind is software.         Program it.
Your body is a shell.            Change it.
Death is a disease.              Cure it.
Extinction is approaching.     Fight it.

Also neat -- it's published under a Creative Commons license.

[Criptfeind]

I know Nobilis was mentioned. But I figure I will mention it again. It's pretty great if you have a good GM, which I happen to have for the game I play of it. There is no chance involved in it, it's all roleplaying and spending of 'miracle points' and finding ways to use your attributes well. The setting is pretty great as well, it is set in a sorta multiverse type place, creation, that is under attack by a force from outside creation bent on destroying, as in making so it does not exist and never has existed, everything.

Since the players are all basically gods of their own domain combat is not really the main point, as if it is against 'mortals' it is incredibly easy and actually killing other god beings is a bit past most abilities, for instance, I play the evil and scheming blade Excalibur and am physically at least the most powerful a PC can get, I still can only do minor harm to my fellow PCs though major battle.

Instead of combat it somewhat focuses on defeating plots and such, with the outsiders tying to erase concepts from creation, not all at once, but in steps. So they might turn a lie into truth in order to hurt the noble of lying, and so one might have to establish it as a lie again.

All and all it is a really cool system and setting, great fun for a more casual play as you really can do pretty much whatever you want.

[Draco18s]

I picked up Eclipse Phase at Gencon.  This is by far the most compelling RPG setting I've ever seen.

I know of it.  It's kind of post-Shadowrun (7th world, IIRC).

[sluissa]

Traveller (Most of my experience is with the Mongoose version, but they're mostly all decent.) is by far my favorite RPG and I don't think it's been mentioned. I could fanboy about it for hours, but I'll spare you all.  Basically, think Firefly (TV_series) and expand upon that. It's actually pretty open about how you can play it though and you never need to actually go into space at all. Also, the 2d6 system so far has been the easiest to deal with, GM wise, I've come across.

[Draco18s]

Traveller (Most of my experience is with the Mongoose version, but they're mostly all decent.) is by far my favorite RPG and I don't think it's been mentioned. I could fanboy about it for hours, but I'll spare you all.  Basically, think Firefly (TV_series) and expand upon that. It's actually pretty open about how you can play it though and you never need to actually go into space at all. Also, the 2d6 system so far has been the easiest to deal with, GM wise, I've come across.

There's also the Serenity RPG, which is directly based off the TV series.

[sluissa]

Traveller (Most of my experience is with the Mongoose version, but they're mostly all decent.) is by far my favorite RPG and I don't think it's been mentioned. I could fanboy about it for hours, but I'll spare you all.  Basically, think Firefly (TV_series) and expand upon that. It's actually pretty open about how you can play it though and you never need to actually go into space at all. Also, the 2d6 system so far has been the easiest to deal with, GM wise, I've come across.

There's also the Serenity RPG, which is directly based off the TV series.

Not worth it in my opinion. Just seemed like a cash grab to feed off the nerd-popular franchise (Publisher also makes Battlestar Galactica, Supernatural, Leverage, and Smallville RPGs). The whole system just feels really limiting. It is an option but I'd suggest adapting Traveller before using the Serenity RPG though.

[Draco18s]

Not worth it in my opinion. Just seemed like a cash grab to feed off the nerd-popular franchise (Publisher also makes Battlestar Galactica, Supernatural, Leverage, and Smallville RPGs). The whole system just feels really limiting. It is an option but I'd suggest adapting Traveller before using the Serenity RPG though.

My group's played both games.  Traveller's probably better, but the Serenity game was amusing (primarily because money had no actual value; anything we could afford was essentially free, and anything we wanted was so expensive as to be unobtainable, there was no middle ground).

[Viken]

I would so join in a Traveller's game should someone want to DM it sometime.  Lol.  Perhaps even using that nifty Roll20.net system.  I've never gotten to play it, but I seriously dig the sci-fi deal. 

[SalmonGod]

I'll have to look into Traveller.  I've seen it around, but never actually picked up a book.

I'm reading through the Eclipse Phase core book the last couple days, and still quite fascinated.  The ideas here are all standard for ultra-high-tech cyberpunk & sci-fi, but the cohesive setting built up around the social/psychological ramifications of these ideas is very unique.

What I came to report is that all of Eclipse Phase can be legally downloaded for free here.  I think I mentioned before that it's published under a Creative Commons license.  The game's main website offers pay downloads only, but that link is to the personal blog of the lead developer (who also had a 6 year run as lead dev on Shadowrun), where he basically says "Here they are.  Have fun and think about paying us."

[sluissa]

I have DM'd Traveller in the past for very short campaigns. (A session or 3 max.) However, like most tabletops, IMHO, it gets bogged down in the combat while online. Were I to do it again, I think I'd throw out the grid map system, and look for something simpler to modify and houserule in. Space combat is fine as-is online, it's just the ground combat that slows things down.

However, as in Firefly or any other good sci-fi series, it is possible to do a lot with the system without ever firing a shot.

[Viken]

In all honestly, these days you have to be a very nitpicky individual to want to keep up with a full gridpoint map.  Simple doodles on a peice of lined paper is usually enough to give soem visualization to the gameworld, and I have yet to play with  a group that demanded to keep up with movement points, positisions for both attack and defensive stances, and how bloody far up your a$$ an enemy has gotten. 

To me, the Traveller solar grid and other maps are there as references while in space, and combat isn't reuired to be a total hassle.  Just assign initiative, figure out how distant you are at the start, and then get to work. Lol.

[Nadaka]

Well, in deep space with 2 ships, there are only 3 moves. Closer, farther, and sideways.