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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 9364976" data-attributes="member: 4937">There is a complex trade off going here.&nbsp; My current set of players are mostly happy with challenge as an aesthetic and do want to face a good mix of obstacles and triumphs and do want to feel their triumphs are earned based on overcoming real difficulty, so in this case I don't really have to compromise between what I want and what they want. But I want my games to be more open-ended sandboxes with more literary pretentions than they are interested in, and they would really prefer more linear combat heavy sessions with straight forward A-&gt;B-&gt;C progressions.&nbsp; Fortunately, they put up with my pretentions because they do like a little bit of variety, but I probably would be better off relaxing and just giving them more linear action sequences.However, one of the things that is true about GMing is that you shouldn't do it unless you enjoy it, and so you have to compromise between running the sort of game you enjoy running and the sort of game the players enjoy playing.&nbsp; And this for me isn't a huge compromise because really the biggest kick I get is out of bringing enjoyment to other people.&nbsp; Nonetheless though, I still have to do some things for my sake.&nbsp; For example, I'm never happy with a game that isn't internally consistent and doesn't play out logically.&nbsp; And so for example in the current &quot;Rise of the Empire&quot; era Bounty Hunter game one of my rules is that the investigation has to be hard enough that it's plausible no one has solved it and that is why they call in bounty hunters.&nbsp;&nbsp; It's much more plausible to do that than have situations where the Empire hasn't solved it because it lacks the military force to solve it, except when the PCs stumble on problems in the course of doing something else and just happen to be on the scene.&nbsp; But this leaves an investigation phase in most cases of what I can imagine that isn't their favorite thing but is necessary for me to believe in the story.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 9364976, member: 4937"] There is a complex trade off going here. My current set of players are mostly happy with challenge as an aesthetic and do want to face a good mix of obstacles and triumphs and do want to feel their triumphs are earned based on overcoming real difficulty, so in this case I don't really have to compromise between what I want and what they want. But I want my games to be more open-ended sandboxes with more literary pretentions than they are interested in, and they would really prefer more linear combat heavy sessions with straight forward A->B->C progressions. Fortunately, they put up with my pretentions because they do like a little bit of variety, but I probably would be better off relaxing and just giving them more linear action sequences. However, one of the things that is true about GMing is that you shouldn't do it unless you enjoy it, and so you have to compromise between running the sort of game you enjoy running and the sort of game the players enjoy playing. And this for me isn't a huge compromise because really the biggest kick I get is out of bringing enjoyment to other people. Nonetheless though, I still have to do some things for my sake. For example, I'm never happy with a game that isn't internally consistent and doesn't play out logically. And so for example in the current "Rise of the Empire" era Bounty Hunter game one of my rules is that the investigation has to be hard enough that it's plausible no one has solved it and that is why they call in bounty hunters. It's much more plausible to do that than have situations where the Empire hasn't solved it because it lacks the military force to solve it, except when the PCs stumble on problems in the course of doing something else and just happen to be on the scene. But this leaves an investigation phase in most cases of what I can imagine that isn't their favorite thing but is necessary for me to believe in the story. [/QUOTE]

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