Has anyone ever used SurveyMonkey for their group? What questions would you ask?

[HawaiiSteveO]

Thinking of trying this for group, we have several different GMs / campaigns and would like to get feedback on each.

As a player / GM what kinds questions would you like to answer and why?

 

[pdzoch]

What type of feedback are you looking for? That is what will guide your survey. Automated surveys are nice, but fairly limiting. Questions and answer options have to be very clear or the survey will not reveal anything useful. Unless there is a large group to poll, I prefer one-on-one interviews to get feedback.

You survey will need to be short so that it is answered completely. Too many open ended questions tend not to get answered. "Why?" questions will be left blank, so I do not ask them unless it is very important and the answer can be short.

Does everyone being polled have experience with the GM's and Campaigns? If so, you could ask them to rank order them.

TO avoid mentioning specific GM/Campaigns, or to start something new, you could simply ask what type of campaign they would like to play in AND what type of campaign they would NOT like to play. Then provide a list of descriptions/characteristics of a campaign choices (perhaps in a interested, not interested, neutral format).

Keep the survey simple and easy to complete.

If I knew more about what you are looking to get out of the survey and the GM/campaigns you have, I could provide you better advice (maybe sample questions that meet your needs)

 

[MNblockhead]

I might consider this for my AL games, if my players were not all kids, but for my regular home game, I just talk to my players.

 

[Jhaelen]

Why would I? What's the advantage over just asking your players?

 

[UselessTriviaMan]

Why would I? What's the advantage over just asking your players?

It allows the players the chance to bring up potentially awkward or embarrassing points of discussion anonymously, especially if they're addressing faults with the GM.

I have used SurveyMonkey with my group to some good success. I did so after a particularly brutal session where two PCs died.

"This week's game was pretty rough. I want to get your input about what you think went wrong. What did you like least about this session?"

"On the flip side, what did you like MOST about this session?"

"How do you like our Obsidian Portal campaign site?"

"Do you like using Inspiration as incentive to participate in the Ptolus site?"

"How do you feel about the amount of direction (if not railroading) that I give to you?"

"I want... (more/less/just right):" "NPC Interaction", "Creative Combat Encounters", "PC-to-PC interaction", "Dungeon Crawling", "Inspiration", "Loot"

"Is there anything else you want to say about this campaign?"

I received very useful feedback from this. If I were to do it again, I'd definitely tailor it to the specific group. This bunch (mostly) hated dungeon crawls, and wanted a lot more RPing, though a couple still wanted the classic D&D hacking-and-slashing. It was a tough tightrope to balance.

 

[aramis erak]

Not survey monkey, but I've used polls on my own website to get player input into what subsetting and thematic elements to use.

We'd agreed on the game system, (Prime Directive), and I asked
Prime Team, Ship's Senior Staff, Ship's Lower Decks?
Time Frame?
Type of ship based upon? (DN, CC, CA, DD, NCL, OCL, FF, Pol, Tug)
Fighter or PFs for the Feds (Only if General War)
Which Border: Klingon, Kzinti, Gorn, Romulan, Tholian, Deep Space Exploration, inside the feds, orion sector?
PC Script Immunity level? None, Some, Full
Threat levels: Low, Medium, high, INSANE.

 

[Blue]

I used survey monkey to allow my players to give anonymous feedback about a year into my current campaign. (We're now in year 3.)

• I was running somewhat sandbox-y and had asked about if they felt they had enough direction to make meaningful choices.
• I asked if they felt they were getting more spotlight time.
• If they liked the speed of leveling or should it be faster/slower
• I gave a bunch of options (exploration, ethical dilemmas, spy, romance, intra-party conflict, action, diplomacy, combat, intrigue) and asked them to rate what they wanted to see more of and what they wanted to see less of.
• That campaign was 13th Age and I asked if two specific things were coming up enough (One Unique Thing which each character has, and icon relationships)
• And an open comments section.

Got good feedback. A lot more then I expected said they felt directionless, so I moved to more "structured" in that the players have clear choices of what to pursue, but what they go after or do is still all up to them.

The other categories were generally good, though each played had something that needed more focus. (One of them wasn't getting enough spotlight, another wanted that their One Unique Thing wasn't coming up enough, etc.)

I found they generally wanted more spying, action, romance, intra-party conflict, combat, diplomacy, and ethical dilemas, and less intrigue, combat, diplomacy, intra-party conflict, etherical dilemas, and romance. And they were getting just the right levels of ethical dilemmas, exploration, action, intrigue, diplomacy and spying. That part wasn't as successful as I had hoped - as a group they wanted basically more and less of everything, but don't change it because it's at the right spot.

Open comments gave me some more, such as it getting big, fast (turned into a travelouge where they were home based on a dwarven zeppelin and were at new locations instead of staying in one place and building up there and he was feeling kind of lost with few recurring NPCs and such. Another pointed out (correctly) that the irregular schedule was really a downer.

My suggestion is don't ask questions if you aren't willing to change based on the answers, and that might be tougher in the multi-GM environment you mentioned. The most useful part was to collect criticism so I can tailor more for my table and improve the game. But in some ways it was discouraging of "I thought they liked that" and "I put a lot of effort into that and they say I'm falling short". Ultimately it was very good to hear, but I needed to move past it as people being critical onto I had asked how to make it better and they told me, excellent!

 

[aramis erak]

My suggestion is don't ask questions if you aren't willing to change based on the answers... /QUOTE]

Yep. If the question isn't going to result in changes, don't ask it.

Likewise, for my surveys, they're done as campaign setup. In that mode, you need to abide by the results, too.

 

[Grogg of the North]

I was in a game once where one player kept making, essentially, the same PC over and over and over again. Rogue that hangs out in the back with a chip on his shoulder and isn't a team player. So after having to make yet another character, he wound up pitching all his ideas to the group and had us vote on them, using survey monkey, in hopes of finding one that would fit with the party. (He wound up playing the one we hated the least)

As a DM I usually just send out an email to the group with three questions when I'm asking for feedback. What did you like? What did you not like? What would you do differently? Short and to the point.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I’ve used survey software for data-gathering with my gaming group, albeit not SurveyMonkey (though I have used it for other things). I think the advantage over just asking is in the reporting and collation of the results. What I was looking for was to find out what the group had the most/least fun with. Stuff like how much role-playing vs combat the group liked, what kinds of long-term goals they had, that sort of thing. I mixed rating and ranking questions with text entry sections.