I want to learn about ways you make combat interesting and reward tactical creativity!

One of fellow players sent me a link to this community. As I always love learning more about facilitating games, I decided to join. I love lots of games to play. Games like Fudge, Sentinel Comics, Traveller, Call of Cthulhu, Gumshoe, Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple, Koriko: A Magical Year, D&D, etc. I'm currently playing 4 ongoing games as a GM and 2 as a PC. As a GM: a Traveller (Mongoose 2nd edition) game set in my own sector. It's the border of Imperium space near some Aslan clans in conflict. The group have a type S scout ship named the Manzikert. It is mostly sandbox as I discover more of this sector. A Dragon Age ttrpg set set during the Mage-Templar War (ie. after Dragon Age 2 and before Inquisition). The group are all rogues and they just took over a lyrium smuggling operation. They've been told there's a larger smuggling network. The villain is a tranquil merchant who operates the network to get the components for a ritual. She plans to open the gates of the Black City and destroy it. A Star Trek Adventures game set right after the Dominion War. The PCs are the crew of the USS Victoria, a Luna class starship as they are to explore the Shackleton Expanse. Mostly episodic games with a thread. A Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition campaign as we plan to go through the H1 to E3 series of adventures. The PCs are a group of pixies that serve the archfey Zybilna (aka Iggwilv aka Tasha). We are still early in H1 Keep on the Shadowfell. As a PC, I play in a Marvel Multiverse rpg game in the Cataclysm of Kang. I play Oneiroi, a gaseous alien from the Dream Dimension. They can possess machines and invent stuff. I view them a portion of the Dream Dimension made manifest. I also play a witch in Koriko: A Magical Year. As it is a solo rpg, I wonder if would count as having both roles of GM and PC. I've been playing rpgs since the 1990s. I started learning to GM in the 1990s as I was babysitting and kids were curious. Kids enjoyed themselves and I got repeat babysitting business.

Since I started running proactive games, and especially with some collaborative worldbuilding, my games tend to be very fast paced. There’s always something going on, and my players are always sprinting forward as fast as they can. I’ve had a few groups say they want to turn down the speed a bit and have some lower stakes sessions, which they always call beach episodes lol, some time to just chill, talk to people, shop, engage in some tomfoolery, downtime, etc. I highly recommend incorporating that, especially if your players mention it. At first, it really went against my instincts—as a GM, I tend to prep by adding as much tension, raised stakes, and drama as I can cram in my notes, and I prep by specific encounter using a PC v NPC goal structure. So the more free form, laidback stuff made me nervous that it would be boring for my players—I felt like I had so little prepared! But it’s always resulted in a great time. My players will have the opportunity to do stuff they never would otherwise, and the Freeform format makes it so they really steer the story themselves. I’ll do very little and relax, and they’ll talk amongst themselves, form more goals, make allies and enemies, etc. anyone else had some good seasons this way? How did you prep for it?