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<blockquote data-quote="SteveC" data-source="post: 9470125" data-attributes="member: 9053">I agreed with your post so much that I would give it a thousand likes if I could. I wanted to comment on this part because I just listened to a video discussing it. Derik from Knights of Last Call (which I can't recommend watching enough if you want to hear about different games from a guy who started with what I would call a D&amp;D mentality but is in a very different place now) asked the question: can you have a session that's a perfect 10 without having some that are 1's? The idea was that the perfect session would come almost as an accident from emergent play. When all the forces of the universe aligned correctly. The thought was that because there was no pre-determined story at all, many times, you'd get a garbage session that just wasn't fun at all. And I've lived that story. I've played with GMs who pretty much determined the game by random chance, encounter tables, and reaction rolls.And I think these sessions are something I just can't put up with at this point in life. I played these games when I was single and in school or just starting work, and I had a lot of free time. At this point in my life, I am willing to have the best session be an 8 out of 10 if I don't have to put up with a train wreck. I just have too many important life responsibilities where I should be doing something else if I'm not really having a good time. Most of the sessions I play now have some buy-in required and a willingness to go with the GM. They can have a lot of player agency, but you can only go so far. And I've decided I'm okay with that if it means I never have to ask &quot;what exactly are we doing here tonight?&quot;To me, that's the heart of the matter about railroading. There are degrees of it, of course, but I'm willing to go where the GM goes if we all have a good time.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="SteveC, post: 9470125, member: 9053"] I agreed with your post so much that I would give it a thousand likes if I could. I wanted to comment on this part because I just listened to a video discussing it. Derik from Knights of Last Call (which I can't recommend watching enough if you want to hear about different games from a guy who started with what I would call a D&D mentality but is in a very different place now) asked the question: can you have a session that's a perfect 10 without having some that are 1's? The idea was that the perfect session would come almost as an accident from emergent play. When all the forces of the universe aligned correctly. The thought was that because there was no pre-determined story [B]at all[/B], many times, you'd get a garbage session that just wasn't fun at all. And I've lived that story. I've played with GMs who pretty much determined the game by random chance, encounter tables, and reaction rolls. And I think these sessions are something I just can't put up with at this point in life. I played these games when I was single and in school or just starting work, and I had a lot of free time. At this point in my life, I am willing to have the best session be an 8 out of 10 if I don't have to put up with a train wreck. I just have too many important life responsibilities where I should be doing something else if I'm not really having a good time. Most of the sessions I play now have some buy-in required and a willingness to go with the GM. They can have a lot of player agency, but you can only go so far. And I've decided I'm okay with that if it means I never have to ask "what exactly are we doing here tonight?" To me, that's the heart of the matter about railroading. There are degrees of it, of course, but I'm willing to go where the GM goes if we all have a good time. [/QUOTE]

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