I’ve gotten some amazing ideas from listening to the players shoot the bull over what’s coming up next. A few times, I’ve completely changed the adventure because their ideas were cooler than mine.

Some comments on individual suggestions:

Killing off a well-loved PC: a good learning experience, but man, if I new my PC died because my GM saw this list of suggestions and decided he needed to gain that learning experience right now…

Raise from the dead a well loved player: Gee, I wish I could do this… I guess I’d be torn between one of my high school gaming buddies who died of cancer within a year or two of our graduating, or Glen Blacow who was such a mentor to me… Oh, you meant raise a well loved PC… Sure, as long as it fits the game and is not a deus ex machina (though using a dem would be a good learning experience).

GM lying: I assume you mean a lie at the player level, not a lie at the game level (NPCs should lie all the time). I’m not sure this is a necessary learning experience…

Improvising a session: as long as this suggestion allows for “run a game that allows for improvisation if you are running a high prep game.” Improvising, say Champions, to the extent that you don’t even have villains prepared, could be pretty painful for the players (please wait an hour while I stat up these villains to some minimal level…).

Killing off favored NPCs: sure, as long as it fits logically. See killing off a favored PC above…

Houserules: sure, though better would be to suggest every GM make an effort to find a game that really fits his players at least once.

Finish a campaign at least once: what do you mean by this? Depending on the game system, that may be hard to define. D&D really doesn’t have a defined end.

Collaboration: I’ve considered trying this several times. It might be a good thing to be open to, but finding someone who it would actually work with is a pretty hit or miss proposition. And you need a game that’s appropriate for this.

Frank

I’ve written about winging it at least once, getting out of your comfort zone and playing to become a better GM here on TT, and I couldn’t agree more.

“Every GM should try using another GM’s style at least once” and “Every GM should collaborate with one or more other GM’s on a campaign at least once” both caught me by surprise (in a very good way).

I like to experiment as a GM, but I’ve never taken someone else’s style whole cloth and tried to emulate it. That sounds like a great learning experience.

Ditto with collaborating — I’ve considered it, but never tried it, and man, would that be fun!