D&D 5E 2016 5th edition D&D Dungeon Master Survey

SlyFlourish

SlyFlourish.com

Supporter

• Oct 29, 2016

• #1

Hello! I am conducting a survey for 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons dungeon masters to get a better idea how DMs prepare and run their D&D games. If you are a 5th edition Dungeon Master and have a few minutes to spare, I would greatly appreciate your response.

You can take the survey at:

http://tinyurl.com/2016dmsurvey

Thank you very much!

Mike Shea
http://slyflourish.com

 

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AaronOfBarbaria

Adventurer

• Oct 29, 2016

• #2

Every question in this survey fails to have an accurate answer for me as an option by being entirely "this" or "that" with no "some of both" types of answers. As a result, I feel the information gained by the answers that I can select will not actually provide the stated desired idea of how I prepare and run my D&D games.

Further, some of the questions are ambiguously worded. I cannot be sure if "For each session, how much time do you spend on developing the story of the adventure?" is meaning to ask me how much time I spend doing prep work that develops the story (next to none) or is meaning to ask me how much time during a session of play gets spent developing the story (basically all of it, in one way or another).

So I've answered assuming all ambiguous questions were talking about prep time rather than play time, and limiting my answers only to one of the three distinctly different ways in which I prepare for sessions and selecting the nearest matching answer for questions about how I run games (though the nearest match was often very far away, much like rounding 1.5 to 10 rather than 2 because the choices for answers are all 10 or larger values).

 

Ath-kethin

Elder Thing

• Oct 29, 2016

• #3

I also had a bit of difficulty, in that the answers to the questions are not the same for every session I run. A lot depends on how far we made it in the previous session, and what seeds I have sown have taken effect at any given point.

 

Wuzzard

First Post

• Oct 29, 2016

• #4

I get a feeling that some DMs spend way too much time preparing.


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darjr

I crit!

• Oct 29, 2016

• #5

I do both grid, non-grid, and map but griddless combat styles. My preference is totm but I often run on the grid for player preference.

 

Plaguescarred

D&D Playtester for WoTC since 2012

• Oct 29, 2016

• #6

I filled your survey Mike. In short i run a GREYHAWK campaign using published and homebrewed adventures twice a month with maps and miniatures with about an hour preparation (this reduce prep time before a session to only a couple of minutes). Many of this time goes on thinkering and can run longer when i need preraring props and handouts.

Things to i find helpful to run a D&D game apart from maps and minis are condition cards, an initiative board and Sly Flourish Building Encounter Guidelines

Things i find that help run great D&D game is to be overly descriptive and making voices help make NPC and monsters more alive and fun to interact with.

 

hawkeyefan

Legend

• Oct 29, 2016

• #7

I answered as best I could. The trickiest question for me was about the setting...I essentially could have answered "all of the above" because my game consists of 5 prime material worlds (Oerth, Toril, Athas, Golarion, and a homebrew world, Arta) and all of them are connected by the planes, where Sigil tends to be the major hub.

I put homebrew for lack of a more specific answer. I imagine that a lot of other folks will struggle with this one. The prep time question had the word "about" so I ball parked all of that easily enough.

 

pdzoch

Explorer

• Oct 29, 2016

• #8

Hardest part of the survey was the parsing out of specific preparation. Most times, these parsed events are interrelated and they are conceived and developed at the same time.

Although, one of the misrepresentation of workload involves some of my favorite tools. They save me tons of time producing quality materials for the players and myself during the game. However, much of the work was done long before the adventure began.

 

W

Warbringer

Explorer

• Oct 29, 2016

• #9

Completed.

Basically just answered the option which was "most like" when I'd have wanted to check two options

 

Blue

Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal

• Oct 29, 2016

• #10

There was questions about prep-time on world/setting building - when you publish the results I'd love to see how that varied for homebrew vs. published settings.

Oh, and a question not asked: What tool would I most like to have for preparation but don't: PDFs I can cut-n-paste to my prep. Spell descriptions, an uncommon condition that's going to come up, monster stat blocks, etc. Having that handy without cracking books (or cracking them for other things without losing the main stuff I need) would be a huge help.