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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9029702" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Speaking as someone who primarily GMs at present, getting real feedback is hard. Most times, my players simply say they had a good time.However, from the one shining example of really good feedback, I can draw a few conclusions. In this case, I was using the very excellent Gardens of Ynn supplement, which has you randomly roll to determine what locations are where and such. The players had fun and it was a really solid adventure.However, one player raised a very valid criticism. Thing is, he realized that locations were only rolled after the players chose to go some direction. Meaning that, properly speaking, it really didn't matter what direction they chose; the map would simply end up being whatever it ended up being, they were just along for the ride. He was fine with that in context and didn't want to disrupt the process to critique it, but he was quite right. It didn't really matter what choices they made moving from one location to another.The critical parts making this feedback really good were:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It was specific. Not squishy, ill-defined comments about how things felt or whatever. It was about something identifiable.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It spelled out why this was a problem (here, lack of agency.) It wasn't just "well I didn't like it."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">While no specific fix was suggested, a goal to shoot for was (here, making exploration choices matter, not just choices within each location.)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Player was patient and non-judgmental. He knew I was just adapting someone else's work and wasn't upset by the flaw. Just noting it didn't sit well with him.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Any changes to this format would be relatively easy to implement. This wouldn't require major retcons or system alterations. Just a different approach.</li> </ul>Between those things, this was good feedback. I knew what I needed to accomplish, why, and had a rough idea of where to start. I have made sure to keep these things in mind for future adventure scenes, and I'm pretty sure it has improved the group experience.As for how I solicit feedback, I do so regularly, both individually and collectively, and get...mixed results. That is, as stated, I usually get just "good session" or "yeah that was a lot of fun" or the like. Which, I mean, I don't want to complain too much, because that means what I did couldn't have been that bad! But I know it's not as good as I could be doing. And it's hard to improve when you don't know what you aren't doing right.</blockquote>

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