D&D General Player Preferences

[CleverNickName]

I voted for at least half of the things on this list. I also need my own character to have a fully-developed personality and backstory, not just the NPCs. I'll sometimes come up with pages of backstory.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

There are two things that I look for in a prospective D&D campaign:

1) Don't assume that everyone will want to use all of the supplements, as though we were still playing 3E.

2) Some sort of plan to address the non-sensical natural healing rate. If it's possible to go from 1hp to perfectly fine over the course of eight hours rest, then I'm out.

 

[Fenris-77]

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.

Factions are not automatically cool, and they aren't necessarily plug and play either. You need factions that add to the specific table fiction and that are there for a reason, not just added 'because'. What I like about them is that they are actors in their own right, and push back or with PC impact on the fiction. They give characters a chance to have authentic connections, allies, and enemies in the game world too. I have pretty broad definition of faction too. Politics is factions, social class stuff can be factions, as well as stuff like guilds and actual organizations. When you have a common frame of reference for those they get easy to use as the GM, and easy to relate to one another, as well as to the characters. For example, cities are, in some ways, more profitably described in terms of interlocking factions and loyalties than in terms of geography.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

I ticked about half-a-dozen, but my top two (for RPGing in general) are a variety of adventures in a variety of locales; and clear PC impact on the world. For D&D specifically, add on mechanical advancement of PCs (ie, "Ding! Time to level up, woot!").

 

[Lanefan]

Voted "other" as merely "Dragons" doesn't cover my preference for "A large variance of cool and interesting monsters and-or villains".

Another thing not listed at all that's important for me is this:

"The freedom to play my character(s) in the way I want to play it(them)". As in, an underlying ethos of almost-anything-goes.

EDIT: thought of another important factor:

"The campaign is open-ended with no pre-set conclusion or end point in mind".

 

[Lanefan]

I ticked about half-a-dozen, but my top two (for RPGing in general) are a variety of adventures in a variety of locales; and clear PC impact on the world. For D&D specifically, add on mechanical advancement of PCs (ie, "Ding! Time to level up, woot!").

Funny - level-up and mechanical advancement is probably the very least important thing for me on that whole list, and that's coming from a D&D (old school) background.

 

[Immoralkickass]

Where's the option for 'Wenches and booze?'

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Funny - level-up and mechanical advancement is probably the very least important thing for me on that whole list, and that's coming from a D&D (old school) background.

Yeah, it's generally the least important thing for me, too.
Except for "D&D".

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I'd consider almost everything on there important to some degree, though not in every game. I made a arbitrary mental line of importance for purposes of voting so I only ended up with 2/3 of them.

 

[Li Shenron]

Many of those are somewhat important but not essential. The only essential part of the game I cannot live without is exploration, and in a regular long-term campaign a detailed fantasy world also becomes necessary.