>>20480844I've gone over this concept over and over again as a DM. Essentially, player buy-in is THE most important part of running a campaign. In that session, Mori was very invested, and Gura was very invested, so they had a blast. Mori of course cared about her own game, and Gura (as Scout) cared about her family, her farm, and the events there-in. So even though Gura had a flimsy grasp on the mechanics, there was always something to do or talk about for her.
Later sessions destroyed this buy-in because the party members (having all built their characters separately) had no real reason to care about each others' backgrounds or place in the setting, and no driving motivation beyond what the DM gave them. So you had the girls all just sort of meandering around, not really invested, while Mori quietly seethed in the background. For me that was a textbook example of what happened for some of my failed campaigns.
