Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Firos" data-source="post: 4880299" data-attributes="member: 68533">I'm looking for advice from experienced DMs out there. I hope I've come to the right place. I'm about to begin a campaign for my group of players. A major difference this time is that I have a number of new players (new to the group, that is), and because of this and the change to a new system I am hoping to gauge player interests and prepare a better game by using a questionnaire in advance of campaign prep. "Better" in this case means, of course, "more fun for players." I have a number of problems, though. With many kinds of questionnaire, the problem is that people can see through the questions, or are asked directly, and answer the way they think, when what they really want may not be what they asked for. For instance, if I ask a question like, "Do you prefer a game with a linear story or a wide-open experience?" many players might answer that they prefer the second just because of implications of the terms. A second problem is that many questions can't (or shouldn't, in my opinion) be asked as dichotomies. Some, like the aforementioned question, might be more clear, but it makes little sense to ask "Do you prefer combat or role-playing?" as they are certainly not mutually exclusive. With all this in mind, patient reader, I ask the following questions: 1. Do you have any examples of questions that are useful, based on my needs? 2. How might one go about asking questions that allow for a spectrum of player preference, while avoiding asking players the "meta-question"? In other words, how can I get players to answer without necessarily knowing they are answering, if it is possible? 3. For those of you who have used a questionnaire in this way, has it been valuable? Does it help produce a better game? 4. For those of you who may have answered such a questionnaire before a campaign as players, does this seem like a valuable process, or an onerous distraction? The game will be a 4E game, if that matters to your responses. So I suppose that all questions would be asked with an unspoken, "given the strengths and limitations of D&D 4E." Though, even if this is not your system of choice, I'm sure your answers would be helpful. Thanks in advance.</blockquote>

Verification