It's closing in on Valentine's Day here in the US and everyone has the GM who was the "love of their life".

Tell me about the best Game Master you've played with. What did he or she do to leave a positive impression on you? Were there any unusual techniques employed? Was it simply a matter of keeping the game on track? I'm not so curious about "really awesome runs" or "that one time when my troll adept jumped out a window" but rather the... "holistic" experience of playing with that special someone.

Go.

I'd have to say my favorite GM who I had many gaming experiences with (as opposed to someone I only gamed once with) was a guy named Kyle who at the time must have been a student at UGA. We played on IRC and his email address domain was uga.edu. Anyway I lost touch with this guy, but he typically did historical campaigns using Shadowrun rules that typically ended up in TPK and disaster. It was so much fun, though. His settings were always the best.

I still remember the last time he GMed a Victorian Steampunk setting using SR3 rules and we were all redcoats in China attempting to safeguard the empire. The campaign ended when we tried to Boston Massacre an angry mob converging on a party full of VIPs we were guarding. I think we managed to by and large escape being killed but the moment was the historical lynchpin which lead to the begining of the decline of the British Empire in this alternative history.

See, I don't care about winning, character success, or any of that crap. I like challenge, the pathos of standing against overwhelming odds, and historical settings. Redcoats are pretty cool too.

I've got two. The first, was my first GM. It was the summer before my freshman year of high school. I had never played an RPG before. I was invited to one of my friends. The GM gave me a character he had pre-genned and I started to play and in the first combat, I was killed. Didn't know what hit me. I was bothered that I didn't get to join in the fun of the rest of the session, but even though my first game was short-lived, I was hooked. Now, the GM could have been horrible, as I never did play in one of his games again, but I was swooning after my first RPG-kiss...

The second was many years later. I hung out at a game shop regularly and one of the dudes that worked there and I always talked about past games we had played in or run. He was at least 10-15 years older, so there was some respect there and some envy, as he was a much more seasoned gamer. Anyways, after many months of hanging out at the store, swapping stories and all that, he invited me to one of his games. It was a big deal as he hadn't ran one in a long time, but also because it was a personal invite to a table game. So, the first session, he totally destroyed the party (my first TPK) and then nonchalantly told us to roll up a new set of characters and we could start over. This was my first GM that took no mercy on the party. He viewed his creations as his own party and didn't lay down for anyone. Definitely gritty. Definitely something I would never run. But, definitely something I enjoyed (I also love playing nethack, so yeah, I am warped).