What makes a successful session?

[aco175]

I like to have at least one combat. There were game nights playing where all we did was shopping in a town, and ok. Most people I play with like to throw some dice in combat and not to try and haggle or such. Even mix up the shopping with a bar fight or alley ruffians.

 

[Corinnguard]

The 'I didn't see that coming' moment that plays into the party's favor. Sometimes the actions of each party member, when it's their turn, work together to produce a result that surprises and excites everyone to the point where it's all they can talk about it post-session. No planning in or out of character. It just happens.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

So yeah, fun. Engagement. But you want deeper than that so what does that mean to me?

I think engagement is about as good a metric of success as I can think of. When you see players deep into roleplaying their characters, cheering as they roll a critical hit or sweating as they roll badly to avoid dangerous consequences, seeing their sense of wonder grow as they discover and interact with something new to them in the world, that's all them showing that they are engaged and care about the game.

 

[thullgrim]

Did we have fun?
Were the Players engaged?
Was the GM on his game?
Did we accomplish something meaningful content wise?

 

[prabe]

Engagement and interaction around the table. Whether the engagement is with narrative or game, whether the interaction is player-to-player or player-to-GM.

 

[Distracted DM]

I can't say "it's successful when I was happy with it," because there are plenty of sessions where the players enjoyed themselves but I was kicking myself and thinking I could've done better. "When the players enjoyed it" is the easy, and correct (for me) answer.. but to drill down on what made the players enjoy it:

One big thing that I always try to do is make sure the session left off with a drama or suspense.
Either "now we know what we have to do: get revenge on that leprechaun!" or "the princess tears off her face, revealing an eight-eyed arachnid abomination, and you find yourself in her dire lair!" Basically, something that the players can discuss after the game. "How are we going to handle tracking down the leprechaun? do we have magic, tactics, allies that can help?" or "Whaaat- do y'all think the princess was always a spider or was that evil seneschal sneaking her spider poison? or maybe he's a good guy and knew she was a spider?"

I think, to me, a successful session means everyone was engaged and there weren't many lulls. Pacing is big, and something I constantly have to pay attention to. It's easy for shopping, for example, to be "dead air" for some players while others are gleefully looking through what they can purchase. This was my last session. We had missed a week due to holidays, it took me a while to really "get going" and shopping an hour in didn't help. But after we took a break halfway through the 4hr session, I was full of ideas again and could step on the gas. The second half of the session was waaay better than the first, and we ended on a suspenseful moment. But the first half being "not so great" by my standards meant the session was a B at best.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I think the only reason I have a thoughtful answer to this is because of a discussion from another thread:

A successful session for me means I understood what the goals were, I was able to move forward toward those goals without wandering around blindly, and along the way I had the opportunity to make decisions that would move us toward our goal if successful, but would set us back if unsuccessful.

(Note that it doesn't require that we were actually successful in moving toward that goal....)

 

[Reynard]

Did we accomplish something meaningful content wise?

It is interesting that a few people have talked specifically about "accomplish"ing things at the table. that isn't really a thing i think about too much. That is probably at least partially due to me being an improv, pantser GM and not usually having any sort of goal structure other than what the players have created for themselves.

 

[payn]

I think the only reason I have a thoughtful answer to this is because of a discussion from another thread:

A successful session for me means I understood what the goals were, I was able to move forward toward those goals without wandering around blindly, and along the way I had the opportunity to make decisions that would move us toward our goal if successful, but would set us back if unsuccessful.

(Note that it doesn't require that we were actually successful in moving toward that goal....)

Absolutely. We may not have reached our goal, but we should at least be closer to it, or have a few avenues closed off at least. That can still feel like accomplishment under the right conditions.

 

[Velderan]

It is interesting that a few people have talked specifically about "accomplish"ing things at the table. that isn't really a thing i think about too much. That is probably at least partially due to me being an improv, pantser GM and not usually having any sort of goal structure other than what the players have created for themselves.

Most of the time when we don't accomplish as much as I had hoped when I did my prep for the session, it's because we were having too much fun getting sidetracked with something the players found interesting and decided to follow to see where it went. It's often not something I had considered digging into further, but they found it interesting and had fun interacting or exploring which usually means I did a good job making things up as we go along. The only time I have ever stopped a session and admitted "that doesn't lead anywhere important" is for playtest one shots.

So I guess success to me is the players found something they liked and whether planned or not I was able to keep things moving along in a coherent enough manner.