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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ThirdWizard" data-source="post: 3042625" data-attributes="member: 12037">I start almost all my sessions with "Where are you and why are you there?" unless there's an obvious place that they are based on the last session. So, they decide if they start traveling or if they decided to take a layover, or if they want to pick up right where they were last session. This leaves it almost impossible for me to start a session as you describe it. Of course, I often figure out where they are going to start or what their plans are going to be between sessions. I just got off the phone with one of them, actually, talking about that exact thing.I have never witnessed this phenominon of Players not paying attention until combat begins. It's really strange to me that people have that problem. Last game I played in, there wasn't a combat until about an hour into the session and that was fast. Session before that was more like 3 hours into the session. I don't want to force a combat into the session when a session when it wouldn't benefit from it. I certainly wouldn't start the next session with combat right off the bat. It would destroy the mood completely!And I completely agree with this:It's most logical to stop a session when the PCs are safe, not when they're in danger of being attacked. I can see the benefit of ending on cliffhangers, but I run my game once a month, so its impractical from that viewpoint. Further, a sense of completion at the end of a session is in many ways better than a sense of completion at the beginning or halfway through.Ending a session after killing the BBEG and dividing up his spoils gives them something to celebrate about between sessions, to be happy about and enjoy. Ending right before the BBEG fight means that they might be anticipating it, but the sense of accomplishment won't be as enjoyable IMO, because it comes when they have other things on their mind, since the session keeps going. It just doesn't seem as good a place to leave off to me.Further, starting a game basically putting the PCs in a situation that the Players never had any control over isn't something I would want to do, and I don't think my group would enjoy that very much. I run a fairly freeform game, and that would just leave a bad taste in all our mouths. It wouldn't be something to look forward to, it would be more of an annoyance at "What situation has my PC unwittingly walked into this time?" Not enjoyable.</blockquote>

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