Game Type--How Do You Play?

[Paladin82]

I'm curious as to what the typical play style these days is. Answer the poll, and post reasons below!

[I can't figure out how to post a poll, so just answer with a number in your reply]

1Sandbox-style: adventure to gain power
2 Sandbox-style: with some overarching goal beyond power and alignment
3 Storyline-focused: without "story immunity"
4 Storyline-focused: with "story immunity"
5 Other (describe below)

[Yora]

I think you have to elaborate on what you mean with the options you've given.

[Calanon]

Depends if i'm doing just a game or a Campaign...

If its a game than its story bound, But if its a campaign I mix it up a little

Depending on the type of Campaign (Good, Evil, Undead, Living, Draconic, Arcane, etc) I decide to start off with either a Sandbox style or a Story Focused style. If it is sandbox I usually start the REAL story at around 17 or so when I'm confident that whatever I throw at my players they could handle it Than during the Story Focused section of the game i focus my players on one Bad guy (Depends if there Good of Evil) this can be anything from destroying the world, to saving the world and anything in between of course

If the players want to make the world a better place than I allow them plenty of opportunities by having my bad guy triggering a war or a natural disaster or by simply casting "Apocalypse from the sky" in a densely populated area

If they want to destroy the world I ask them "How?" depending on how they tell me how they want to I adjust it around so it becomes nigh impossible (I believe the path of Evil should be harder than good and besides I'm confident that the secrets to unraveling the entire universe should be guarded by at minimum an epic level aligned good outsider or something) but I always play fair and don't pull something out to completely piss my players off... COMPLETELY...

I like when my players want to do an Evil campaign... they always get what they want (immunity to the alignment system) I mean its not my fault... I do tell them that its ok to be Evil alignment in a good aligned campaign...

[DeadManSleeping]

One of my current games is 4e. A weakness of 4e is that it very much encourages keeping the players on rails so that they run into encounters in a way that expends their resources appropriately. We'll probably be getting more choice flexing as our DM gets used to running the game.

My other game is an Exalted game where we have a prescribed mission, and we do get our large-scale destination dictated to us...but when we're there, we kinda do whatever we want. And it's very likely that, at some point, we'll be shedding what restrictions we have.

All in all, I think that most kinds of structure have fun potential.

[Cespenar]

Most of the games I choose to play fall in the third group, if I'm not mistaken.

[Roderick_BR]

I mix of 1, 2 and 3. I have a basic storyline, no one has plot armor, but players are allowed to roam around to gain power, and/or roleplay their character's personal goals.

My group doesn't use rail roads, we just make it very clear of what happens if you jump off the train (except for one of my friends, everyone that played as DM can go some sand-boxing, usually resulting into weird but cool stuff... then the BBEG we should have stopped shows up stronger and beats us up )

[Kol Korran]

the campaign i DM (3.5, Eberron)
Option 3: there is a villainous team, and a villainous plot, and the players are a ta race to stop it. however, their actions have (and might still), change the campaign considerably and significantly. and they have quite a big (or so i think) choice of options for them, some that i lay out, some that are hidden, and some they come up with all by themselves.

the campaign i play in (4E shadorun, Seattle)
Option 3: not sure about vilalins and so on, but we do have missions. on the whole the GM has "most likely" scenarios he think we'll handle it, but we have done unexpected things many a time and he rolled with it. (being shadowrun, not always for the better... )

[valadil]

I run sandbox games where the NPCs have just as much agency as the players. Ideally I want my players to have their own agendas, secrets, and side goals but I can't always convince my players to go for that kind of play.

As a player, all I want is cohesion. I'd love to play in one of my own games. But what's more important than story and independence is that the players are all on the same page with regards to what they want to get out of the game. The GM needs to be in tune with that and able to offer what the PCs want. I can be totally happy in a mindless dungeon crawl if that's what everyone at the table is into.