>have dozens of splat books available >have a fully detailed

>>48997298
>Who else does this?
I have never run an official / core setting with any RPG, even though I really like some of them.
>Is it the right way to GM?
Entirely subjective.

>>48997298
I have never used a splatbook because the lawyerly players will then argue that they should be allowed to use it as well and then nothing is a challenge. It's not that I think my own ideas are that great, many of them are dull. It's just that the players really don't care as they are trying to create their own stories anyway, and part of their job is to destroy my creations anyway.

In my opinion, the what makes a good DM is to be passionate and knowleageable about the setting he is going to run. I had a guy who was a overall good DM running a ASoIF for us, and it was a bit boring and weird because he was a show watcher and not the most avid reader, so he only had basic superficial lore of the setting and particulary he didn't understood the tone.

Most DMs are passionate about their own settings, so that helps. But if a guy has a lot of reading and knowledge about Westeros, has read the books, the extra material avaiable and has no fear of improvising, then he running a game in westeros has potential to be as good as another guy running a game in his own world. Is all about how much you know and how good you are at conducting a story within the setting.

>>48997298
I prefer settingless or setting-minimal rulesets. Such rulesets are usually designed with some certain way of playing in mind and tend to be more interesting than rules trying to capture a setting.

Rules that go for a genre but no particular setting also tend to be good, as making the rules requires enough analysis skills to adequately grasp the fundamental components of whichever genre you're trying to invoke. Those sorts of skills applied to RPG design as well means you probably know what you're doing. People making up stuff for their OC settings tend to get tunnel-vision.

Splats are a money grab. They may be other things too, I'm not saying they're worthless as rules, but there's a reason they don't just give you one book.

>have a fully detailed world laid out in the main book
>fully detailed
It never is though. You always have to fill in the gaps yourself. May as well start from scratch for maximum creative freedom.

>>49000903
Better still, have the table build the setting together (via a worldbuilding game or freeform, whatever) and then you're all passionate about it (or about the parts you put in at least).

>>48997298
I only run the core book scenario as the first mission if I have players new to the system, this week I started only war with a few friends who have never played before so I am running the 'against the savages' mission for them so they get the hang of things, then I'll move on to my own missions

>>48997298
It's fine if you have a good memory or keep detailed notes of everything you make up.

Otherwise players will eventually get frustrated that you keep forgetting stuff or contradicting yourself.

>"You say King Bellen has a bounty on our heads? But we killed him 2 years ago!"

Which is why campaign setting books and splatbooks are useful: you can reference them at any time without having to memorize them, and they tend to be internally consistent because professional writers check them for facts and continuity (generally).

>>49001917
Of course you could probably save yourself from that by playing it off as "Yes it was King Bellen, King Bellen's son has taken power while you were off adventuring and has placed a bounty on your head for murdering his father" or something of the sort.

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>>48997298
It's really dependent on how experienced one is as a GM, and how creative they can be. Making up settings and stuff can be difficult if you aren't able to come up with information on the fly. Inevitably, players will ask questions to things you haven't written up yet. You need to be able to fill in those gaps, and keep your world dynamic as a result.

>ignore all that and just use the basic system and make everything else up on my own
>Who else does this? Is it the right way to GM?

Its one right way.

Hell, I just ignore the basic system too.

>>48997298
The rules are for the players, anyway.
Combat encounter themselves, one of the 'pillars' of most rpgs, are just a timing mechanic from the other side of the DM's screen.
The players know the rules and the tactics to use, I deal with the timing and resource depletion. We're reading different parts of the same manuals.