D&D General Player Preferences

[Reynard]

Just a quick poll from the player side of things. Basically the question is: which of the listed things are important to you as a player in a regular, ongoing campaign. Obviously you can pick as many as you want and you should certainly vote "Other" and explain if there's something I did not list. The intent is to simply paint a broad strokes picture for no particular reason than curiosity.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

I like to immerse myself, inhabit, and explore detailed fantasy world. I don't want an overarching story. The story is just what happens during the game.

In fiction terms, I want a game driven by character interacting with a larger world, not an artificially planned plot (yuck!).

 

[Fenris-77]

Factions, NPCs, and player impact for me. That tends to get you a detailed world, but one that emerges out of play, and also tends to lead to whatever play styles and modes the table wants to explore. The players can impact the fiction and the fiction can impact them back. NPCs and Factions have goals and motivations that have movement, effects, and teleos, as do the players. Once you have some conflict there pretty much everything else that happens will be pretty cool.

 

[iserith]

This is going to depend on the version of D&D we're talking about for me. I adapt my preferences and expectations according to the game I'm playing. I chose my responses above according to what I want to see in a D&D 5e game.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I like having my character's actions affect the world in some way. It could be small: rescue an NPC, or allow a mook bandit to live and then, later, find out how that small decision changed something: The rescued NPC's teenager becomes an adventurer that we meet later or the bandit becomes a thorn in our side, or starts doing good after we showed mercy.

I really enjoy long-term plans. Creating my own faction, become the leader of a faction etc... So, a sandbox with lots of varied groups is important.

 

[Tallifer]

My favourite campaigns as a player have been sandboxes à la Westmarches. But I always want to turn them into a big Quest to change the World. I have to confess that I also like gaining levels and magical bling.

 

[Fenris447]

I like the big hero stories. Start small, and eventually effect change on a global scale. I can see the appeal of small, local stories. But once you go long enough and gain enough power, it only makes sense to have epic adventures.

My campaign is set up to eventually lead to all that. There are big things happening in the world, and the characters are going to get involved one way or another. How and why they do that is up to them, and the world will react to them as they make bigger and bigger waves. I see my campaign as a slightly more open-ended Mass Effect. The conflict is happening whether you participate or not. But the major players are decided by you and your actions, and the ultimate outcome belongs to the choices you've made to get there.

 

[aco175]

I like varied places. Not all need to be fantastic, but tombs with traps and basic dungeons get old so mix it with a cemetery, a tower, sewers, a hedge maze, a river boat, etc...

I also like a cool item or two. I tend to combine items like a magic sword and boots of flying.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

One thing I didn't see, that's pretty important to me when I'm a player, is that I have lots of opportunities to play my character. That is to say, the DM doesn't just chivvy us from one dungeon to another, from combat to combat, but allows us all to role-play our characters. This gives the game room to breathe, and gives us each the chance to interact with each other and the world.

 

[prabe]

Factions, NPCs, and player impact for me. That tends to get you a detailed world, but one that emerges out of play, and also tends to lead to whatever play styles and modes the table wants to explore. The players can impact the fiction and the fiction can impact them back. NPCs and Factions have goals and motivations that have movement, effects, and teleos, as do the players. Once you have some conflict there pretty much everything else that happens will be pretty cool.

It's funny, because I agree 100% with you on NPCs (and in fact voted that way) but I loathe just about every faction element in every game I've ever played, and I don't use them as a DM. I also think I'm more willing to live with the DM working out more of the world than you are, so long as the PCs have a chance to change it.