What reels you in, and holds your interest?

The Genre
The Story / Plot
The System
The Ruleset
The Mechanics
The Consequences of Player Choice
The Group Dynamics
The Miniatures
The Artwork
The Book Craft
The Game Creator's Talent Level
The Ongoing History of the Game
The Antagonists
The Host Site Environment
The Snacks
The Hot Chicks

Friends

Quote from: Jam The MF on March 15, 2022, 05:22:48 AM
What reels you in, and holds your interest?

The Genre
The Story / Plot
The System
The Ruleset
The Mechanics
The Consequences of Player Choice

I've thought a lot about what makes an RPG session fun. And I tend to think that the most important thing is being able to make choices. That's the difference between a book or a movie and an RPG. They can be trivial choices, like what kind of hat your character likes to wear, or something profound like deciding who lives and who dies.

Not that the rest is unimportant, but I think choice and how the game encourages and reflects those choices is like a building block that everything else rests on.

Quote
The Snacks

Snacks are good, too.

Yep, choices and friends, then "unintentional comedy", then snacks.  Snacks used to be a bigger part, but I find now that I don't eat much when I'm engaged in the game.

Mechanics and genre matter a lot for my enjoyment, but that's more about setting a good floor than "grabbing me".

The ability to immerse myself in simulated worlds that react to just about any action I can take without constraints of programming (as is the case with video games; which I guess hints at the aforementioned "choices"), where I get to make my own characters, tailor fitted to my own specifications (to the degree that's even possible) and watch them grow. Also related to this, the ability to make and play a wide variety of characters from different origins, interests, outlooks and "identities" different from my own (which I have no interest in playing*).

*characters with my same identity, I mean 

Player Choice and Group Dynamics are the two big reasons I game.

Artwork can help draw me in to a specific book (especially if the artistic aesthetic is old-school.)

1) The genre (if it doesn't remind me of a novel I've read and loved, I'm probably not interested)
2) the setting (if it's not coherent and focused, I'm probably not interested)
3) using teamwork to overcome obstacles
4) laughing at unexpected events, usually our spectacular failures

Exploration - Some of the best parts of my RPG experience isn't really dependent on anything even happening. I've done Appendix A dungeon crawls, and randomness being what it is, sometimes the lulls stack up. But I didn't find myself bored at all. I was constantly curious about what was around the next corner, even if only to map the corridor. Lore overload can actually be a liability here, because I don't want the answers spelled out up front. I want them to be something that have to be discovered.

Interesting/compelling characters - Villains, NPCs, sure. But also the player characters.  After all, those are the characters that are always going to be there. However, widget and roleplay overload can be a liability here. What makes a character compelling for is its humanity and/or spark of will. Those things which go against expectations--that do not flow deterministically from personality traits or strategically from special abilities.

The actual game - I like to level. To gain gold, gain magic items. To power up. And also the head-to-head competition of fighting monsters. Now obviously killing monsters, taking their stuff, and going up levels is not going to be appropriate for all, or even most settings. But there has to be some form of head-to-head competition, even if it's only with NPCs, and some identifiable means of keeping score related to the action.

Building up - Something I've noticed about most stories is they begin with a premise, and the premise is torn down as the story plays out. In RPGs, the especially story-oriented GMs tend to do a bunch of prep, building a villain, a fortress, a plot, special enemies, and so on, and playing out the game is all about destroying those things. But what I like about an RPG is the potential to build things up. Not just your level and your magic item reserves. But build up a reputation, a castle, an army, and so on.

Choice with compelling consequences grabs me the most. If you get that right, almost everything else will fall in line. While it probably won't overcome a completely broken system or ruleset, it will help an okay system feel good and a good system feel great.

The game's premise/genre.

The quality of the GM.

Problem-solving (not puzzle-solving).

Exploration and non-linear scenarios.

Consequences to actions.

Gray morals.

Rules, to a certain extent (lite preferably).

The interaction between players, and between players and GM.
The oft unexpected things that happen and the challenges as a GM to respond to these.
The unfolding story that is the adventure. And by story I mean the things that happened.

Quote from: Jam The MF on March 15, 2022, 05:22:48 AM
What reels you in, and holds your interest?

The Genre
The Story / Plot
The System
The Ruleset
The Mechanics
The Consequences of Player Choice
The Group Dynamics
The Miniatures
The Artwork
The Book Craft
The Game Creator's Talent Level
The Ongoing History of the Game
The Antagonists
The Host Site Environment
The Snacks
The Hot Chicks

The role-playing.

The Story / Plot


Bar none it's the story that even 30 years later people are still talking about it like they remember it yesterday.

This is the only way to truly live forever is in tales.

Those are all good, but for me it's exploration.  Learning what's over the hill, what's at the bottom of the dungeon, what are the monsters like, what is the history and lore, what's the culture of group X, how do the spells and rituals work, what are the dark secrets of the world, and so on.  I suppose that before I was married hot chicks would have taken precedence ...

'Choice and consequences' would be the obvious common factor.

Playing alongside/GMing for all the hot chicks is definitely a positive, but not strictly necessary to enjoying the RPG experience.  (GMing for the Italian supermodel types, which can be an actual thing in London, is often a bit distracting though)