How do you as a Game Master approach the role of totems in your game? How active do you make them in a player characters life? As a player what do you want from totems and the GM's who run them?

Depends on the mentor spirit, but I usually start with Cryptic Dream Mentor and work out from there.

Varies according to the totem. I have a bear shaman in my game who is very close to his totem -- it's almost always somewhere around. Might be walking beside him, or just hanging out somewhere in the vicinity. Doesn't talk often, and when it does, it's usually asking questions: ones designed to prompt a search for answers.

Coyote using the teaching style named after him. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Must stay strong...must...not...share...unpublished...fiction...

I recently typed up a scene that entails a character and some aspect of his mentor spirit conversing as part of a metaplanar quest. Their relationship can generously be described as grudging, less charitably as disrespectfully antagonistic. It was a fun write.

I had a story where a young Shaman finds Dog while naked and in the snow.

...

OK, he was really just shot in the head and dropped out of a helicopter, having his stuff stolen, but that was what he was seeing. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Dog was Naked and in the Snow? Aren't all Dogs Naked? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Well, the guy had just gotten the nickname "Puppy", and, yes, he was naked in the snow.

And bleeding from the bullet hole in the head.

we had the perfect Totem moment once.
I played a druide following Oak and was on a protection job. Client plus former client/now friend were in a big meeting and we were waiting in the room's corners. Enemy starts big raid of the meeting room and I push my client out of the nearest door. Outside the room I get this vision of the big old tree cryptically telling me my former client/now friend won't survive (I also had the Divination metamagic and as you know, Oak is wise and gives Arcana bonus). End of the story, I selflessly run through the hail of bullets, grab him, rescue him.

I tend to look for books on the basics on the totems in the past (rl history) and go from there.

I love the ones that pick the greek/roman mentors... those gods were insane. Had one pick Zeus as his dragonslayer totem...

Remember dragonslayer party just as hard as they fight... so yer totem mentions your sister is damn hot, the face is stealing all the girls, the troll can sure drink, etc..

Just like for the rest of magic fluff: I research the magic style of the character to see what part the mentor spirit plays and how that particular mentor spirit does and I play it this way.

Obviously, the zero rule is that you deal with Totems [and other Mentors] in the way the player, the group, and the GM find most enjoyable, but setting that aside, I very much like to keep my cosmic intelligences front-and-center. Just like the gods appearing to Vicik in Eastern Kingdoms, I like for my Totems to be real characters, real figures in the player's world. Still, some part of them is always distant, alien, and unknowable, no matter how approachable they are - these are, after all, mana-charged anthropomorphisms of the human collective subconscious: they shouldn't just be like someone's Aunt Tracy dropping by for coffee [although they can certainly be that some of the time; the Oracle from the Matrix is an excellent example of how a figure can be both].

If Totems [and other Mentors] aren't made a little more real, then what you've got is a hermetic with a couple Edges and Flaws [Qualities, for the n00bs]. Sometimes players do it up well, and you can believe the character carries a little Tiger with them in everything they do, but usually, the GM needs to at least shine a light on the player to give them the spotlight opportunity to really strut their stuff, because it's not like, in the middle of a job, someone's going to take the time to say, "Well, I'm acting predatory because..." The easiest way I've found to shine this spotlight is to put the Totem in the scene, and have a chat. You just can't do it too much, or all the mystery disappears; the Oracle was interesting for a few minutes of screen time, but expand her role to that of Trinity's, and she wouldn't be mysterious at all.

I remember the Story. I liked it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Could stand to see some more of it in the future.

Yeah, well, blame the group that fell apart on me. I built him for them and... Pfft. Gone. Like so many other opportunities OVER TWENTY YEARS.

...

Yes, I am bitter.

Only a little bit... Not so much as you could tell... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)