Do you survey your players?

[TracerBullet42]

So, my question to you uber-DMs out there is have you ever done something like this? How did it turn out? Do you have any material I could repackage?

Well, I am no uber-DM. In fact, I haven't DM'ed ever...BUT, in a game that I was a part of, our DM gave us all little surveys to fill out about the game. In addition, we each randomly drew each other's names out of a hat and had to put in little plot twists for the person we drew. He asked us to come up with one friendly contact, one neutral contact, and one enemy contact for the person we drew. It worked out rather well.

One guy had an old flame brought in for the female bard in our group. The NPC ended up being a major part of our group and a major pain in the bottom for the guy who "created" him. Good times...

So I'd encourage you to try a survey with your players. You don't have to implement all, or any for that matter, of the ideas. It may give you some good ideas, though, and I'm sure the players will like having some input on the game.

 

[Shallown]

I made it a simple survey for my players.

Name three things you like about the game

Name three things you do not.


That's about it. I leave and let them discuss it if they want with the prevision that A) they write down their answers. B) not everyone gives the same answers unless they are tied to their character somehow.

I find it harder to drag the bad points out of my players than compliments. They are always ready to suck up to me

Later