Thoughts on "failure" sessions and Finding the Fun
So I recently ran a session of my open table in which multiple players had this feedback: "This was one of the most fun sessions we've ever had even if we didn't get that much xp."
That made me stop and think.
Why do we show up to TTRPG sessions with our friends? We want to have fun of course! That's always seemed like the answer to me, we all show up because we're seeking fun from the session. The question last night's session brought up to me is: Are we finding any?
For a lot of modern RPGs (including video games), I think we've replaced the explosive dopamine of playing-in-the-moment with the drip-feed dopamine of number-go-up from gathering XP and character advancement. We're banking that the eventual guaranteed payoff from gaining higher levels and gaining more class features, gold, number-go-up, whatever will outweigh any non-guaranteed fun that might happen at the table. You know that if you can get a wizard to level 5 they'll learn Fireball, and Fireball is nigh-infinite hypothetical fun! Better play it safe until then, do the dungeon crawl by the numbers to ensure you can get there.
I think that a lot of veterans at my table (myself included) have lost the fun that is had in the moment from just engaging with whats in front of you instead of looking ahead to see what might be down the road. Some of it is down to novelty sure, you skip through the early levels playing it safe because you've seen it before and want to get to higher levels. Part of the fun of playing with new players is that they've never seen any part of the game and so it's all new to them, they find fun and joy in all of it!
My thoughts after last session is that we (as a community) should put a lot more emphasis on having fun on a by-session basis. You never know when a campaign will fall apart, when you'll get crit by a random encounter, when your wizard will fail a save vs death against some trap somewhere in a hole, 100 xp from level 5. Make today fun, don't bank potential fun for tomorrow.