What Does Your Perfect Session Look Like?

[John Dallman]

I can't argue with that. One of the most miserable gaming sessions I've ever had was triggered by a single, inflexible player and a pizza order.

Back when I hosted evening sessions, we ordered delivery from a place that did good Chinese, fish & chips, pizza and burgers. Everyone just told me what they wanted and I placed one order. No, we didn't save money on large pizzas, but the saving in hassle was easily worth it.

 

[pogre]

If you imagine your perfect session of an RPG, what does it look like to you?

What game? What campaign? How many participants? How long is the session?
What is the "breakdown" between time spent in combat, exploring, roleplaying with NPCs, PCs interacting, players fooling around, wtc..?
And finally, what's on the pizza?

Game: Ars Magica, CoC, WFRP 2e, D&D 5.5, Runequest, Homebrew created by my youngest son and me, or Imperium Maledictum.

Campaign: Varies, but with players totally bought in and anxious to play. Constant texts, emails, and posts about events in the campaign outside of the sessions. One shots are fun, but the perfect session for me is going to be part of a long term campaign.

Session: 4 to 6 hours

Breakdown: Lots of intrigue and politics, but at least 35% combat.

Pizza: The Special from a local joint - pepperoni, big Italian sausage chunks, bacon, mushrooms, onions, Chicago-style thick crust with Sicilian-style sauce.

 

[R_J_K75]

Canadian bacon, Pineapple, and banana peppers.

That actually sounds pretty good

And no pizza. Ordering pizza is one of the biggest game-disruptors in existence.

It's not the ordering, it's the "get me the menus, what should we order" so agree on a place for cheese and pepperoni from the start of the campaign. Damn now I want some pizza.

 

[A_Carrington]

My most recent session, also the first session of my current game. Went better than I could have hoped for. Players, several new to the system, didn't try to figure out what I wanted them to do, they just made the best decisions they could. No mystery, no twist, no super special villain. No pre planned narrative to incentivize me to nudge them in a particular direction, or to manipulate outcomes. Just the players, a crisis, the rules, and their decisions, which actually mattered and actually affected how the situation turned out. No fudging, everything rolled in the open. At every step, I was looking forward to discover what would happen next just as much as the players. Everything that makes these games worth playing.