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<blockquote data-quote="StreamOfTheSky" data-source="post: 5684182" data-attributes="member: 35909">*Shrug* Some of my favorite games have been total railroads.One of the most amazing one-shot sessions I ever played in came during a week where someone was out for the night, so we couldn't do the normal game.&nbsp; That game being about unwillingly chosen champions of the gods who compete in fights, challenges, fetch quests, and other dangerous things (our first major leg of the quest involved delving through half a dozen different mythological underworlds, and champions were dropping like flies, just to get an idea) so that the winner's patron becomes the most powerful god for the next 1000 years and can establish his/her own pantheon.&nbsp; The champion him/herself being granted any one wish for the effort.&nbsp; So anyway, we had heard about the previous winners and knew that circa 1000 A.D. Satan's champion had won the games, but not how.&nbsp; So, that night the DM invited us to RP 3 of the finalists remaining to go after the prize.&nbsp; We knew we were supposed to lose.&nbsp; HAD to lose, otherwise it'd completely mess up the entire backstory of the ongoing game.&nbsp; But we had no idea how we were going to lose.&nbsp; Turned out the DM had a pretty elaborate Xanatos Gambit set up to plan for anything we could really try, and legitimately had his guy win in the end, despite giving us free reign to try our best to not let that happen.&nbsp; It was still loads of fun, and how it went down in the end (we each had powers or magic items granted by our deities and going in Satan's champion's power was unknown; we later found out the hard way that his power was to body swap, leading to our alliance utterly shattering in a most tragic fashion) left us amused rather than bitter.I dunno, the thing I most enjoy about video game RPGs is the feeling that I'm playing a novel, and it carries the same enjoyment as reading a book, except you're actually immersed in the story.&nbsp; A tabletop game doesn't have to be like that, but it also isn't such a bad thing, either.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="StreamOfTheSky, post: 5684182, member: 35909"] *Shrug* Some of my favorite games have been total railroads. One of the most amazing one-shot sessions I ever played in came during a week where someone was out for the night, so we couldn't do the normal game. That game being about unwillingly chosen champions of the gods who compete in fights, challenges, fetch quests, and other dangerous things (our first major leg of the quest involved delving through half a dozen different mythological underworlds, and champions were dropping like flies, just to get an idea) so that the winner's patron becomes the most powerful god for the next 1000 years and can establish his/her own pantheon. The champion him/herself being granted any one wish for the effort. So anyway, we had heard about the previous winners and knew that circa 1000 A.D. Satan's champion had won the games, but not how. So, that night the DM invited us to RP 3 of the finalists remaining to go after the prize. We knew we were supposed to lose. HAD to lose, otherwise it'd completely mess up the entire backstory of the ongoing game. But we had no idea how we were going to lose. Turned out the DM had a pretty elaborate Xanatos Gambit set up to plan for anything we could really try, and legitimately had his guy win in the end, despite giving us free reign to try our best to not let that happen. It was still loads of fun, and how it went down in the end (we each had powers or magic items granted by our deities and going in Satan's champion's power was unknown; we later found out the hard way that his power was to body swap, leading to our alliance utterly shattering in a most tragic fashion) left us amused rather than bitter. I dunno, the thing I most enjoy about video game RPGs is the feeling that I'm [i]playing[/i] a novel, and it carries the same enjoyment as reading a book, except you're actually immersed in the story. A tabletop game doesn't have to be like that, but it also isn't such a bad thing, either. [/QUOTE]

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