Which of these campaigns would you rather play in?

[Lycanorukke]

Actions should have consequences. Levels of accomplishment should have consequences. What happens in a side quest should effect the main quest.

I agree with that to a point. Excessive side quests disconnected from the rest of the world is annoying (as in almost all Bethesda games), however if everything is linked into the main quest, it can rapidly become painfully contrived and predictable.

Saving Granny's cat from a tree should just be saving granny's cat from a tree, and not actually foiling a secret plot by evil grandmothers to control the distribution of cat litter and thus the kingdoms economy.

With a good GM in PnP games, if a side quest becomes interesting you can always retroactively tie it back into affecting the main quest or even become its own main quest. Conversely if it flops and bores players to tears you scrub it as a 'one off' which has no lasting effect. A good GM who can adapt will always be superior to a programmed response tree on a computer game.

As for vid game examples - I would go Witcher 3. While there are side quests which are unrelated to the main quest/s, there are others which _do_ affect the main plot and can come back to bite you hours of game time later. The catch is though, they are not advertised as 'mission affecting' so you have to think about it. Nor are the choices 'Press X to be a saint' or 'Press Y to be a demon'.

 

[mike wightman]

I just unvoted and re-voted none of the above.

It has taken me years to realise but my preferred way to do things as a player and referee is just to travel - get from world from world by any means possible and seek adventure where it offers itself.

 

[robject]

I just unvoted and re-voted none of the above.

It has taken me years to realise but my preferred way to do things as a player and referee is just to travel - get from world from world by any means possible and seek adventure where it offers itself.

I note that 3 out of 4 of the options are more or less part of that umbrella theme, which I suppose would be best described as "We play Travellers".

 

[dalthor]

I'm using the blank button as ALL OF THE ABOVE.

Our group did every one of those things at some point in the campaign. It depended on where we were at the time.

We started with the scout theme, morphed into merchies, drifted off into the darker side, and finally became freelance troubleshooters in a custom-built ship.

The wide range of experiences, multiple contacts (both above and below the legal line) and the ability to acquire what we needed made freelancing both fun and profitable.

It didn't hurt that we had a reputation for getting the job done, one way or another. OK, so maybe there were the occasional wanted posters, but hey, they had it coming, and we let them have it.

Damn, I miss those gaming sessions!

 

[Timerover51]

As I am working on a new sector far to the Rimward of the OTU, I voted none of the above.

 

[flykiller]

a new sector

and what will players do in this new sector?

 

[Thanos]

I really like the game but have played so little I would dive head first into any of them. I did vote for 1 as it would still be new to me!