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I had a particular player, Doug, whose goal in character creation was to use all of the game rules and break the game and/or campaign.
She's also got advice for the GM. Much of this I noticed on my own, but it's good to keep in mind.
It took me many years to stop treating the players like they were my enemies. I have never run a session without at least one player treating me, personally, as their enemy.
This led to a realization that all of us were there to have fun.
This will give rise to the temptation to go more story driven and putting the players in the back seat while you spin your narrative with minimal input from them.
I've always been more of a "present the world and sit back while the players explore" style GM; but this can lead to them sitting around doing nothing because... I don't know why they couldn't self motivate.
The scars from my more adversarial days led them to avoid most of the disadvantages and character traits that I could use to have the adventure come to them.
We were just coming out of it when I upped and moved to Florida. That's a happier ending than it sounds because I would have become a suicide statistic if I'd stayed in Ames.
Now I have several campaign ideas and a dearth of players to play.
I know, now, to give them something to decide rather than a roll to make. The dice are there for a reason, but sometimes it's better to play it out than to roll it out. Role over roll is more satisfying. I've seen that over and over.
The RP groups I played with in the ancient times had 2 very different styles... The "it's just for fun" and the "Let's break this system"... Both had their place and were fun so long as everyone knew going in what we ere doing and how it was going to play out... Should note that my last "broken" Champions character was taken by the GM to be his endgame Boss because I was really good at min/maxing and had a deadly answer for every character archetype... But we accepted going in that the GM was making things the same way we were, so... That was a math game, the Fantasy setting was the "fun" one and you were expected to play it that way... THAT game lasted years and was a just for fun thing, but different vibes for different folks, whatever works for your group(s)...
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