EPTIt wasn't exactly the subject matter, as we had been playing the same game of Corporation (SciFi/Cyberpunk) ,although with me as a GM, for a few sessions now.
The story definitively helped. Sneaking through a train to protect cargo that the authorities don't even allow us to reach due to them smuggling a gigantic cybered up fanatic to a lab in that same train was pretty cool. The damn smug Mr. "Oh, you are a second class passenger, surely there must have been a mistake, let me invite you to a dinner that costs more than you make in a month while i go bone my supermodel girlfriend on my third vacation this month" opposing agent was amazingly well done too. Gigantically messing up that job to the point where we are fighting said gigantic fanatic on the train while also trying to prevent the asshole from stealing what we were supposed, breaking an incredibly expensive stardrive in the process was a wonderful bunch of chaos too.
Yet usually simply having a lot of action in the story isn't enough to get me engaged, at least not always. Everything just clicked. Inter player interaction, the games responsiveness to our actions, it all just clicked.
One possible explanation, though one i don't really like, is that dismiss is simply a better GM then i am. I don't really like that one, because i quite enjoy to gm games and think that i am at least acceptable at it.
I think i had a lot of positive input into the game during this session as a player, at least i constantly felt creatively active, started interactions with other players, and got generally into character in a much stronger way than i did in most of our previous games. I don't really play that much nowadays, most of the time i dm. There is a synergy needed between all of the players at the table (including the dm) to make for an awesome game. I never really thought on a meta level a lot, or even "well what would my character do", i just was in character and did things, and then everything went amazingly wrong. I really love that feeling, but it is incredibly hard to produce on call, everything just has to fit together. But i want more of that.
One big important factor is that the game system is not annoying me in the way the Star Wars Saga edition that dismiss last ran did. I feel like i can get it to do what i want it to do reasonably well without having to invest enormous amounts of energy into looking through 5 books for the right combination of feats or whatevers. It is still not my top system, because it lacks the tools to actively drive the story further than the players imagination does on its own like FATE for example does, but it is definitively a solid system that works without bogging things down.
Oh, and finally, a small ad as a conclusion to this rambling blog : We are still looking for one more player, if you are interested in trying out tabletop RPGs, contact either me or dismiss (preferably him because i am lazy). No experience, knowledge or skills are required, though a bit of creativity and willingness to engage yourself in a character as opposed to just playing the rules would be nice.
