As a player, I like a campaign that...

[Rune]

...Although, equating games for which the DM does a lot of prep with railroading is, in my experience, inaccurate.

Usually, I have found, it is a lack of prep that leads to railroading (the DM doesn't anticipate, or want to anticipate player diversion from the plan.

 

[Dark Mistress]

I prefer both as a player and GM to play in more sandboxy style campaigns. Any of them in the right hands can be fun to play. But I have meet very few GM's who could pull off a tight story arc. Most tend to be way to heavy handed slapping you back on the tracks. The ones that can make yo want to run down the tracks, there special.

 

[the Jester]

I went with 2, 3 and 4.

Lack of flexibility and real meaningful choice kills my interest as a player.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

I fall in the 2-3 region. I like it when the DM provides ideas for things to do, but reacts and changes things based on player actions.

 

[amerigoV]

I picked 1 and can get into 2. While all the "freedom" is nice, I find too much time is spent figuring out what is in the GM's head. It the same reason I do not like mysteries (separate from discovery, which is the heart of exploration) in RPGs, few GMs can consistently provide the right information at the right level, at the right time and in an interesting way. Since I am an easily bored player, I prefer some structure and lots of action. As long as your story is interesting, I'll agree to follow the rails.

As I once told my GM - I do my thinking at work. I game to kick some butt.

 

[Zhaleskra]

Most of the people I meet face to face have no idea what to do with a wide open sandbox. It seems they like at least an inkling of direction.

I'm very much the same way: I have fun different ways for different reasons. Also, I don't like games that come down to "whoever's loudest wins" because I always lose those.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I chose 1 and 2. I find (both as a player and DM) that if you don't give the players a clear goal, you end up with one different campaign per player, each competing for the DM's time.

 

[DragonLancer]

I voted 1 and 2. I'm quite partial to the occasional railroad campaign. But then, I believe that as a player I am there to tell the story that the DM has come up with.

 

[howandwhy99]

I picked 3 & 4. I'm not quite sure how they are different. The setting includes everything in the world except the players' PC actions and what their unrelated attempts increase it by. Seeing the underlying patterns in the world players can determine their own objectives and navigate to them thereby making their own stories.

I prefer not to limit the number of pathways for players to follow, but what I offer is a number of preconceived strategies. Having an open system enables players to go nearly any direction, but having a system enables me to challenge them coherently. I think a finite game like Chess can be viewed as having multiple plotlines, the total number of game states possible within it, it's just those plotlines are about 1x10^50th power in number. In our D&D game the preset plotline count makes that look like a grain of sand in a galaxy. And even as they play the players continually increase that number.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I went with one and two as I want a game that will go somewhere. I do most of my gaming online, and a perennial problem is people cannot decide what to do or develop a cohesive strategy, so I see the DM's job as making sure there is a story.

Of course they should pay attention to the characters/players and use their input, but overall keeping the story going needs the DM's input more than the players.