How to Make a DM's Report Card

[Hussar]

Something I've struggled with for years is trying to get constructive feedback from players. Most of the time, I'm met with the wall of silence as players have nothing to complain about, and thus, say nothing. No news is good news right? Or, if I directly ask, I get the standard, "Oh, hey man, it's fine. We're having fun." Trying to get more specific tends to make players (at least IME) squirm as they want to be honest and, at the same time, are worried that they are going to offend me.

So, I was thinking of giving out a sort of questionnaire　to my players and see if that might work. I was thinking of something like twenty questions, either a 1-5 rank or short answer and give it as a bit of between session homework, and see what kind of feedback I got.

Only problem is, now I can't think what kind of questions I should ask that will give honest criticism, but not trigger the "Damn, I don't wanna be a dick" reflex.

Anyone got some suggestions?

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

This is the email I sent my group after we completed Keep on the Shadowfell, asking for feedback:

[sblock]Firstly, I thought you'd all be pleased to know that my "Evil Villain Voice" has managed not to completely wreck my throat this morning, although I think the Strepsil I had on the way home might have helped. I can also confirm that everyone should level their characters up to 4th level before the next session.

Thank you all for a great session last night, I enjoyed it. As we've come (more-or-less) to the end of Keep on the Shadowfell, I'd like to get some feedback on how things have gone in the game. I appreciate that the module isn't quite over (for a start, that portal that Kalarel just got pulled into is making some strange rumbling noises and there are trails of necrotic lightning crawling across it), but with next session planned to be much more full of role-playing (victory celebrations, rewards, travelling to Fallcrest, Quest rewards, plot hooks, travelling to Thunderspire Mountain etc) this seems a good time to round up on mechanical issues.

I'd like to offer my own thoughts on how I feel I've been doing as a DM first, and then ask yours. I think I can get a lot better (and that the later modules will help with that), so any constructive criticism that you can offer would be fantastic, and accepted in good humour.

Speed of game: I really appreciate that last night I was pushing the game very fast, and that it was probably too fast and as such, lacked a bit of detail and explanation. I really wanted to get both fights done within the three hours that we had to do them in, and with the first one taking longer than I'd hoped it didn't quite happen. I'll get better at pacing these things (with 8 players it does just take longer to resolve fights!), and I also need to work on not getting frustrated when the players are taking longer than I'd like, as I'm sure it doesn't help you. From now on, I'm going to try and relax a lot more and let the game go slower. There's more variety in the modules from now on – I haven't seen any other examples of such a long dungeon crawl as the Keep.

Combat / RP split: I think KotS has waaaay too much combat, much of which doesn't make a lot of sense. Again, this does improve as we go along, but I'm going to do more preparation on the encounters being solvable by diplomacy or other skill usage (or perhaps by bribery?) so that you all don't feel like you have to fight everything you come across. I know many of you enjoy lots of fighting, but I want to stretch myself out a bit more and offer some more variety.

Saying "Yes" as a DM: Martin made an interesting comment last night, when I was thinking about whether you could destroy one of the chains leading to the lower level. My instinctive response was "no", but when I thought about it I could have said yes. What I need to do, again, is think about some options ahead of time on this sort of thing – and possibly make them clear to you at the start of a combat encounter. Also, I'll try and make sure that I offer an alternative to what you're suggesting if there is a reason I don't want to say yes to the first thing.

Encounter dressing and furniture: I fell back a lot on "it is what you see" and pointing at the map, rather than giving better description. Apologies for that – I'll get better.

I may email again later in the day if I think of anything more. Last night was great fun for me (go Team Halfling!), even though on the way home I realized that Kalarel should have teleported to that magic circle a LOT earlier (as he could have done). Still, you achieved your goal, the villain is toppled, and all is (nearly) well with the world. I really look forward to Joe's write-up, and onwards with the next session.

Please let me know your thoughts regarding my DMing. As I said, I'm keen to learn and get better, and also to tailor the game better to my players, so any and all information you can give me will help the game as a whole.

James – thanks for your email, some really interesting comments in there. I know you're leaving in May, and I can safely say that we're going to miss you.

Last thing as I remember – I'm offering an amnesty for character change at this point. Anything you want to do to change your character (changing ability scores round, retraining powers or feats, or even completely re-working them from the ground up including changing class) is OK by me if you can email me to talk about it. I look forward to your responses![/sblock]

I got a lot of feedback on this, and I think it was because I laid out the issues that I was concerned with in my own DMing and asked them to comment, rather than just asking for "feedback" without giving details of what that meant.

So that's my advice - lay out what issues you want them to talk about and how you feel about them, and ask them to come back to you on that. It gives players a frame of reference in which to talk and not feel like they're the only ones that care about something.

The other thing I'd suggest is to get into the habit of sending out a quick email the day after a game, mentioning if there is anything that you thought went particularly well or badly. That way, whilst it's still fresh in everyone's minds, you can get some commentary.

Hope this helps - getting feedback is really useful as a DM.

 

[Lanefan]

Something I've struggled with for years is trying to get constructive feedback from players. Most of the time, I'm met with the wall of silence as players have nothing to complain about, and thus, say nothing. No news is good news right? Or, if I directly ask, I get the standard, "Oh, hey man, it's fine. We're having fun." Trying to get more specific tends to make players (at least IME) squirm as they want to be honest and, at the same time, are worried that they are going to offend me.

Depends on your particular situation, I'd say; and how well you know your players out-of-game.

Me, I get more feedback sometimes than I can handle, mainly because I see all (or almost all) my players regularly in settings other than the game...which means, if I screw up I'm gonna hear all about it!

But if the only time you ever see your players is during the game, and you're DMing for strangers, then yes - some sort of feedback form might be a plan. Or, maybe instead of a form that might be seen as too bureaucratic, go for the informal discussion approach.

I wouldn't do it after every session, though; that's overkill. But, you could kinda work it into the game itself: each time the party's in town debriefing after each adventure you could sort of kick back and ask what they thought of the adventure (maybe get in-character and out-of-character answers, just for fun), then file the answers away for future reference. That discussion, if allowed to wander, will soon enough veer into other game-related stuff such as pacing, plot preference, etc.; and there's your answers.

Lan-"still hearing about mistakes I made in 1999"-efan

 

[timbannock]

Great way to get feedback is by putting that extra "layer" between you and the players: face-to-face is often (though by no means "always") not the best way.

Email works wonders.

But also, as noted above, use open-ended questions. If they can answer "yes" or "no" then they probably will. If you ask "how can I improve X" or "what do you think about the pace of that 2nd combat?" then there's more likely to be substantive responses. Not guaranteed, but more likely.

And yes, it does help if you present a few problem areas first. They may just confirm what you said, but they may also offer advice, or bring up something related that you didn't see ("The second fight dragged a little, but man, that first was S-L-O-W!")

 

[Hussar]

Thanks for the replies guys. Great stuff.

Lanefan - I play over OpenRPG, so, other than on the forum we use, I do not socialize with my players outside of the game. Nothing face to face, which certainly is NOT helping with getting feedback. I can't even get body language.

I was thinking, perhaps, setting up a section on the forum we use, then allowing annonymous posting to that forum, with some discussion generating questions thrown in. Do you think I have to go that far? Or just have everyone sign their name?

BTW, I have, what I consider, very good players. They are very conscientious about things, both in game and between. So, that's not an issue. I'm pretty lucky in that I've managed to gather such an excellent bunch. Plus, out of the seven of us, six have DMing/GMing experience.

 

[Piratecat]

In addition, I'd ask things like:

On a scale of 1-10, with ten being "love them!", what's your preference for:
Dungeon adventures
Wilderness adventures
City adventures

On a scale of 1-10, with ten being "love them!", what's your preference for:
Combat encounters
Roleplaying encounters
Puzzles

On a scale of 1-10, how satisfied are you with:
The game overall?
Your character overall?
Speed of levelling?
Difficulty of combat encounters?
Variation in encounter types?
Speed of combat?
Plot?
NPC characterization?
Loot you find?
Comfort/layout of gaming space?
Frequency of skill chalenges?

What one (or more!) thing would you change about the game (DMing, plot, players, play space) if you could?


Stuff like that.

 

[Random Axe]

PirateCat has a great set of questions; I would add something of the following, making it generic enough to apply to any RPG:
[And hopefully your group has kept some kind of record of the adventures and memorable moments during the campaign]:

* Which was your favorite moment or adventure in the campaign {so far}?
* Why? What part of it kicked the most /\ss?
* Which was your least favorite moment or adventure in the campaign {so far}?
* Why? What part of it made it suck so bad?
* Where would you like {or where would you have wanted} your character to have developed?
* What story elements would you have liked to see, or would you have wished we didn't get into?

 

[Hussar]

Hrm, I like that. A Highlights thread on the forum we use. Not a bad idea.

PCat, that's some great stuff there.

Thanks everyone.

 

[Ahnehnois]

People like opinion polls. Back when I had a large group, I'd periodically post polls on my group's message boards which operationalized key questions about the content of the game ("How is the combat difficulty?", "Who's your favorite NPC?", "How dark can I go before people start getting turned off?", etc.). This was very helpful, and the comments accompanying poll votes were specific enough to be useful.

 

[Tewligan]

My old DM (Fathead on these boards) had a really good questionnaire/campaign evaluation he would hand around to the players to answer. I'll shoot him an email and see if he still has that around in a format he can easily post up here.