RPG Desires?

 So I was asked last night what I actually want in an RPG game/campaign. I came up with a few points, but that's a question I find hard to answer on the spot. It's easy to point at things in an ongoing game that I don't like, and a little harder to point at things I do (darn negative-focused psychology), but making generalizations is more difficult still. It does, however, give me something to focus a little on and ramble about for a time...

Story

I like a narrative through line - not usually to the point of "railroading," but I want more connective tissue than just returning to a job board after each mission. Sometimes that develops as things go, with character goals shaping things. Setting an end goal at the outset ("defeat the demon lord!") can have ups and downs. However it comes about, I really like to feel there is some forward momentum toward something, though.

Consistency

This one gets sub-points! 

As far as setting, I sort of stopped using the term "realism" when it comes to most RPGs in favor of "internal consistency." So what's that mean? Well, if magic is supposed to be able to do everything short of bringing back the dead, then people probably shouldn't be coming back to life. If something in the course of the game does break the known rules, it should be a big thing. And this is where "anything goes" settings clash with me because some things just fundamentally don't work together without dumping internal consistency of the world out the window and once you do that, nothing feels to me like it matters. So a game world should, by and large, play by its established rules.

For the game sessions, consistent timing is an issue. I've been in games playing ever two weeks and that's about the bare minimum. One session falling through there means a month without playing and that makes it hard to get back into. I'm not married to any specific frequency so long as it's regularly kept to and I don't miss things by sticking to it myself.

Also a consistent roster is a plus, both in players and characters. That's not to say new characters should never be met and party composition can never change, but such changes should be limited in my view.

Party Composition/Chemistry

This one's a bit hard to quantify, especially because I'm often bad at coming up with characters pre-game. Still, the party needs to be able to work together both mechanically and psychologically to some degree. Certain conflicts can be fun or interesting, but who really wants to struggle against another party member? And being mechanically redundant tends to lessen fun to be had - it's nicer to feel like a character fits and accomplishes something meaningful in the group. That can be a hard thing to engineer from the outset, though, when characters may change a bit through play.

Romance?

I don't know if I would even address this were I not already thinking about it otherwise and... it feels awkward to "talk" about. Personally, I've been mulling over the "aromantic" label recently. It fits me in a lot of ways, but perhaps not all. And I'm not a big fan of labels like that in general as my own philosophy is sort of "everyone feels what they feel and it's not necessarily the same as anyone else."

But for all that, I have no problem with, and often have enjoyed, exploring such relationships through characters. It's another dimension to character interactions and can be fun in the same vein as everything else I like to see through a game, but maybe not so much myself in reality. Of course, even virtual relationships can be messy and shouldn't be forced, but I like to see at least the possibility in games if characters click.

System

Familiarity with a system helps. The less I have to think about and look up rules, the easier it is for me to get into things. But I feel like I should be willing to put forth at least some effort to learn new systems, so a new game isn't a hard stop or anything.

Venue

Let me be frank - I do not like Discord. That said, I accept that it's pretty much the normal baseline for games that I have access to these days, so it's a necessary evil and there's not much to be done about that. I don't realistically have a better alternative in most cases.

Genre

As a generality, I probably rate it something like Fantasy > Scifi > Modern > Historic > Multiversal Free For All. Of course, details really matter, so it's difficult to really say everything falls that way.

What else? ... I don't know. Maybe this is something to come back to later...