Much of my commentary is the blog posts, dating back to 2012. This page is a sort of ‘pinned’ post.
I do role-playing with adults; so this involves beer, ironic banter, and complex interplays of role-play and ‘meta’ commentary. Nonetheless, what do Players want? Moments of Awesomeness! Ideally, they also get to build the scenario together with the Game Host; have a sense of control and choices; and thus a sense of satisfaction when the Moment of Awesomeness occurs.
Music
I have found that ‘epic’ style instrumental music works best. Favorite composers: Joe Hisaishi (Princess Mononoke), John Powell (How to Train Your Dragon), Gustav Holst (The Planets), Jeremy Soule (Skyrim) and Przybylowicz & Stroinski (Witcher III: The Wild Hunt) work best. For requiem-style music, Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Variations on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, and Hans Zimmer’s Gladiator and Inception are excellent.
If you can set up a long playlist, get it running before you have to focus on other stuff.
Player Ethos
In addition to the roles of the Characters, there are the roles of the Players.
One role is as Scribe: noting the names, details, and clues as the campaign develops.
Another is as rules-checker (I don’t like rules-lawyers, but I also prefer that the GM be free to focus on storytelling and managing the emotions of the Players). Assigning roles to the Players helps promote their sense that they are involved in producing the experience.
Story-generating etiquette: players help build the scenario through the flavor of the questions they ask. For example: “Is the Ogre drooling green slime as he threatens us?” Some questions help in case the players are developing a creative action-strategy that the GM needs to understand.
There are also two new rules, consistent with the principles just stated:
1. No rules-lawyering. Help the Game Master keep the game consistent, but don’t bog down game-play.
2. Do not try to ‘game’ or ‘break’ the system by deliberately exploiting flaws in it.