𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐑𝐄𝐎𝐍 - Monthly high-quality D&D 5e adventures and DM resources ▶▶ www.patreon.com/thedmlair 𝐊𝐈𝐂𝐊𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐑 - Pre-Order my level 1 to 5 adventure module, Into the Fey, here ▶▶ www.kickstarter.com/projects/thedmlair/into-the-fey
Best advice here (paraphrasing): Get the feedback, give it consideration, and make the changes that make sense. No DM is perfect. We miss stuff. We can all improve. But not all feedback is created equal. Some will improve the game for one player but make it worse for the rest of the table. Just because a player suggests something doesn't mean it's right for your DMing style or the experience that other players are looking for.
It also depends on what type of game you are playing. If you are playing a Ravenloft setting campaign as it was originally intended to be played, it should be light in magical loot so a complaint about lack of magical loot is actually invalid.
No dice cam essentially simulates rolling behind the DM screen. It allows you to fudge the rolls. I don't fudge rolls ever but I believe this is why no dice cam.
@@solsunforgevlogs9837 That aint what he said though. He said that it was to much work. I guess he could have meant to much work to show the dice on stream, lie about it to the players and have to live with all of the feedback that that would generate from the viewers and also the players seeing that he fudged some rolls, or maybe he meant that it would mean that he wouldn't be able to fudge rolls and thus would have to make up more NPCs/baddys to fight, but being that he said "set up" that lead me to believe that it was just to much work to actually set it up. It wouldn't be. He could just use a tower and have the camera pointed at the catch tray, which would be hella easy.
First, I roll 99% of my rolls digitally with D&D Beyond when I play online as a DM. Second, I almost never fudge dice anyway, but if I wanted to, that's my prerogative.
One of the things that Luke said when it comes to getting anonymous feedback that I want to add to is *do not pass out physical surveys*! Make it only online, as people will still not usually give you super honest answers if they are writing it by hand, and I personally can recognize most of my player's handwriting instantly as we have been playing/been friends for years. Yes, you could infer who might have given an answer online by what they are saying, but it is still just better to give them the best chance to remain anonymous as possible.
The problem I've had with player feedback is that no matter how much or how little they are enjoying the game visually, or how many different groups I DM for, or how different the adventures/campaigns are, it's always the same feedback: "Everything's great. Don't change anything." It's really frustrating when your players won't engage and look bored out of their skulls, but they tell you that they're loving it. I'm pretty sure I could run a DM horror story game and my players would just tell me everything was great. Nobody ever gives honest feedback because they're afraid they won't get to play if they offend you.
I have done a survey for a couple of years now. Here is my survey: 1.0 Overall, how would you rate your gaming experience thus far for the Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frost Maiden campaign? Rate 1 to 10 (10 being the highest). 2.0 Game balance: Rate 1 to 10 (10 being the highest) 3.0 DM as storyteller and use of other DM tools: Rate 1 to 10 (10 being the highest) 4.0 DM as rules master: Rate 1 to 10 (10 being the highest) 5.0 Location and Facilities: Rate 1 to 10 (10 being the highest) 6.0 Roleplaying experience (not combat): Rate 1 to 10 (10 being the highest) 7.0 Combat experience (not role playing): Rate 1 to 10 (10 being the highest) 8.0 Group Integrity, Cohesiveness, Agreeability: Rate 1 to 10 (10 being the highest) 9.0 House rules thus far (our official house rules is updated and has its own channel here): Rate 1 to 10 (10 being the highest) 10. Campaign Story, as written: Rate 1 to 10. 11. Feel and flavor of the campaign: 12. Suggestions, type of campaigns you might like to play, criticisms, house rules, etc? Please write out.
that seems like alot of questions but only rating 1 to 10 you dont gets things they specifically are asking to be improved upon or what things they specifically like. Do you feel like from your survey you get alot of info out of it and change things accordingly?
*To answer the question in the title .* *YES , BUT ACTUALLY NO .* *[ TRANSLATION ]* *It's not always what they say .* *But that they said it & what they don't say .* *Players don't always know what they want & enjoy .* *But sometimes they do know .*
I used to do this every 6 months, using chat to each player personally (so no anonymous part). But I tried this surveymonkey yesterday, pretty useful. That being said, based on previous answers I know who answered what and it seems the anonymous part didn' t reveal much new stuff. Combat and discussion are too long (8 players, so no real surprise here), but lets see what to do about this ;-).
Thanks for the video. I am writing a few new questions for a quiz of my own: 1. How satisfied are you with combat in this game? 2. How satisfied are you with the NPCs? 3. How satisfied are you with descriptions of environments?
Maybe it works for you, but I don't see the point of doing it anonymously. The party is small and I'm playing with friends, so even if it was anonymous I'd easily figure out who's who. And we've generally had no trouble giving open criticisms to each other. Hell, I practically bullied one of them into being a better DM when he first started, and it payed off. He hasn't made the same type of mistake again. (He put us up against four CR6 Level 11 casters at Level 5 or something, who were supposed to be shadow sorcerers but didn't follow the PC template for it, and they were supposed to be the grunts of the organization we were fighting. If they could afford to use Level 11 casters as disposable grunts for menial labor, why did they have any trouble taking shit over?)
some people really hate confrontation and wont write what they truly are feeling, if they think you won't like what they are saying, no matter how good of friends you are.
Have you ever made a pre-campaign survey? What kind of questions would one ask? I'm thinking of a Session 0 sort of survey; the goal is to keep people creating simple characters, keeping crazy fluff to a minimum (I'm talking "my character is the chosen one/killed a hydra with a hidden power in their backstory for their level 1 character/is the champion of an arena"), and having the players keep their creation in line with the campaign expectations (like a Theros character should have a much different backstory and connection with the world than a Sword Coast character).
I do luck points that can be used before a roll and just allow you to roll at advantage or make another roll at disadvantage. It works pretty well and keeps things smooth.
I described it above. I hand luck points out as a reward. They can give your players an edge here or there mechanically. I don’t know how to describe it differently.
Could you tell us what kind of questions you ask your players about their backstories in session zero? I have trouble getting my players to write backstories that I can actually use in the game.
Every time you pick up your cats on camera , they give everyone the look of "Help us, father beats us every day, and never feeds us!". Same way my cats act when my in-laws come over.
Running my first game and I have a homebrew idea I might implement in some way. I´m thinking about buffing all town guards, especially in a capital city. Atleast so they are comparable to lvl 5-7 players. It feels weird to me that towns guards can be so easily killed and/or subdued by lvl 1 players. I have in my head from World of Warcraft were all town guards is max lvl and then some. I believe that making town guards atleast lvl 5 makes it more realistic. Do you or your followers have any thoughts on this Idea?
I would say that maybe not ALL of the guards are tier 2 (levels 5-8), but your "veteran" guards would be. The ratio ought to change based on the size of the population. In a small town, you would have more tier 1 guards than tier 2. In a large city, you would have mostly tier 2 or 3 guards, with leaders being tier 3 or 4 (and be retired adventurers). And even that suggestion should have exceptions. I can imagine a small town with three level 2-4 guards and a level 9 guard leader who was an adventurer who fell for someone in town, married and lives there with their family. This retired adventurer may be training the town militia, or may take on all the tougher jobs themselves.
I figure most of the in-game organisations and NPC-ranks about the same way across the board. The larger the organisation, the higher the "level equivalency" for any given rank in the system... Generic and window-dressing NPC's are generally level 0 - 3 Grunts in any organisation, militia, police force, or army start at 3 and may rise to 5 depending on "time in rank"... not every group is going to promote on the same merits, but this keeps a relative "band" and sets a math precedent for the GM... Low level officers can start at 4 or 5 and carry "old timers" up to 7 or 8 AND as we rise higher in "proficiency in office" and the demands or requirements, space other "tiers" about the same... More or less, the principles of small towns or villages (who'd be prone to having militias rather than "regular army") versus big cities and metropolitan expanses or capitals that would clearly require high ranks and nobility in excess follows as MonkeyJedi99 said it in short... Just that almost everywhere you go "IRL" you're going to find "mooks from off the street" somewhere in the system, even in the largest cities and organisations. They have to draw in "fresh meat" from somewhere, and someone has to fit a billet. What you do with those lowest ranks is up to you... but casual security and janitorial is a fairly low-level function, and they'd be most likely to run for an alarm of some sort rather than stand and fight... If you're looking to be realistic... ish. (yeah, never forget all the "ish".) ;o)
I'm sure that this is the reason you show off the questionnaire, but just to be sure, us as viewers and DMs can borrow these questions for use in our campaigns correct? Love your vids btw. The traps and preparations segments are especially helping me to create an even better game experience for my casual group of players.
Hi Luke! I recently started a campaign and implemented your luck point system - in this video you were saying the luck points felt too "metagamey". Do you still like the luck system? What are some pitfalls to watch out for?
Luke: (in a baby talk voice) "He is sho adorable~ This is Orange, he's adorable." Me: Awwwwwwwwwww Luke: *does a Bond villain chuckle* Me: Holy s---- O_O
Don't think so. If you wanted to "purchase" them, maybe you could sign up for the tier, download the stuff, then cancel your sub before it charges a second time?
I don't know exactly. You have to give things a little bit for them to be able to have a good feedback to give you. Crap it might have been 6 months or so. The thing is that I'm not only Gathering feedback through the survey. I'm also using my eyes and my ears. I'm watching my players Expressions during the game and the reactions. Are they smiling? Are they laughing? Are they paying attention? Are they engaged with the game? Because if I can observe all of these things that I know they're enjoying themselves. And that's the most important part. The survey itself is going to delve into more the fine details that I'm going to be able to get for my players. I would suggest doing it probably every 6 months. I found it in my line of work that surveys that come out too frequently are usually not answered or done poorly. Survey fatigue is a real thing.
I usually give straight up feedback to the DM and I find it funny how your players are "more loot" and I am always "less experience and less loot". And our DM gives like an item every 10 or so sessions so it is not like it is raining stuff baseline.
well.. good answer. I mean let's imagine a game where I play a teifling, and all your NPC are suPER racist against teifling and it does impact my enjoyment of the game. If I eave you a comment as "could you dial down teh racisms against teifling" even if it's anonymous, I might not give you that feedback, since it wouldn't be difficult for you to tace it back to me. So yeah people might be more open an give more feedback, but cerain feedback will still remains secret, since they could be used to identify the player
My CoS game was so low on loot, it made it interesting.I made my Fighter dip barb to go Unarmored, and I loved the "poor" side of the region! :) Makes it gloomier
𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐑𝐄𝐎𝐍 - Monthly high-quality D&D 5e adventures and DM resources ▶▶ www.patreon.com/thedmlair
𝐊𝐈𝐂𝐊𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐑 - Pre-Order my level 1 to 5 adventure module, Into the Fey, here ▶▶ www.kickstarter.com/projects/thedmlair/into-the-fey
Best advice here (paraphrasing): Get the feedback, give it consideration, and make the changes that make sense.
No DM is perfect. We miss stuff. We can all improve. But not all feedback is created equal. Some will improve the game for one player but make it worse for the rest of the table. Just because a player suggests something doesn't mean it's right for your DMing style or the experience that other players are looking for.
It also depends on what type of game you are playing. If you are playing a Ravenloft setting campaign as it was originally intended to be played, it should be light in magical loot so a complaint about lack of magical loot is actually invalid.
You can't do a dice cam, but you have a coffee mug cam?
No dice cam essentially simulates rolling behind the DM screen. It allows you to fudge the rolls. I don't fudge rolls ever but I believe this is why no dice cam.
@@solsunforgevlogs9837 That aint what he said though. He said that it was to much work. I guess he could have meant to much work to show the dice on stream, lie about it to the players and have to live with all of the feedback that that would generate from the viewers and also the players seeing that he fudged some rolls, or maybe he meant that it would mean that he wouldn't be able to fudge rolls and thus would have to make up more NPCs/baddys to fight, but being that he said "set up" that lead me to believe that it was just to much work to actually set it up. It wouldn't be. He could just use a tower and have the camera pointed at the catch tray, which would be hella easy.
First, I roll 99% of my rolls digitally with D&D Beyond when I play online as a DM.
Second, I almost never fudge dice anyway, but if I wanted to, that's my prerogative.
But coffee cam is second best cam
@@willmena96 Noone can reasonably refute such stunning logic. I concede.
One of the things that Luke said when it comes to getting anonymous feedback that I want to add to is *do not pass out physical surveys*! Make it only online, as people will still not usually give you super honest answers if they are writing it by hand, and I personally can recognize most of my player's handwriting instantly as we have been playing/been friends for years. Yes, you could infer who might have given an answer online by what they are saying, but it is still just better to give them the best chance to remain anonymous as possible.
The problem I've had with player feedback is that no matter how much or how little they are enjoying the game visually, or how many different groups I DM for, or how different the adventures/campaigns are, it's always the same feedback: "Everything's great. Don't change anything."
It's really frustrating when your players won't engage and look bored out of their skulls, but they tell you that they're loving it. I'm pretty sure I could run a DM horror story game and my players would just tell me everything was great. Nobody ever gives honest feedback because they're afraid they won't get to play if they offend you.
I have done a survey for a couple of years now. Here is my survey:
1.0 Overall, how would you rate your gaming experience thus far for the Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frost Maiden campaign? Rate 1 to 10 (10 being the highest).
2.0 Game balance: Rate 1 to 10 (10 being the highest)
3.0 DM as storyteller and use of other DM tools: Rate 1 to 10 (10 being the highest)
4.0 DM as rules master: Rate 1 to 10 (10 being the highest)
5.0 Location and Facilities: Rate 1 to 10 (10 being the highest)
6.0 Roleplaying experience (not combat): Rate 1 to 10 (10 being the highest)
7.0 Combat experience (not role playing): Rate 1 to 10 (10 being the highest)
8.0 Group Integrity, Cohesiveness, Agreeability: Rate 1 to 10 (10 being the highest)
9.0 House rules thus far (our official house rules is updated and has its own channel here): Rate 1 to 10 (10 being the highest)
10. Campaign Story, as written: Rate 1 to 10.
11. Feel and flavor of the campaign:
12. Suggestions, type of campaigns you might like to play, criticisms, house rules, etc? Please write out.
that seems like alot of questions but only rating 1 to 10 you dont gets things they specifically are asking to be improved upon or what things they specifically like. Do you feel like from your survey you get alot of info out of it and change things accordingly?
Didn't realize, you basically publish DnD magazine every month...
Between Luke's PDF and Matt Colville's Arcadia PDFs, it's like having Dragon Magazine back! :)
*This game SUCKED!!!!*
When are you going to run another one?
*To answer the question in the title .*
*YES , BUT ACTUALLY NO .*
*[ TRANSLATION ]*
*It's not always what they say .*
*But that they said it & what they don't say .*
*Players don't always know what they want & enjoy .*
*But sometimes they do know .*
I used to do this every 6 months, using chat to each player personally (so no anonymous part). But I tried this surveymonkey yesterday, pretty useful. That being said, based on previous answers I know who answered what and it seems the anonymous part didn' t reveal much new stuff. Combat and discussion are too long (8 players, so no real surprise here), but lets see what to do about this ;-).
Thanks for the video. I am writing a few new questions for a quiz of my own:
1. How satisfied are you with combat in this game?
2. How satisfied are you with the NPCs?
3. How satisfied are you with descriptions of environments?
Dang it, the survey monkey is not free.
Use google form
Maybe it works for you, but I don't see the point of doing it anonymously. The party is small and I'm playing with friends, so even if it was anonymous I'd easily figure out who's who. And we've generally had no trouble giving open criticisms to each other. Hell, I practically bullied one of them into being a better DM when he first started, and it payed off. He hasn't made the same type of mistake again.
(He put us up against four CR6 Level 11 casters at Level 5 or something, who were supposed to be shadow sorcerers but didn't follow the PC template for it, and they were supposed to be the grunts of the organization we were fighting. If they could afford to use Level 11 casters as disposable grunts for menial labor, why did they have any trouble taking shit over?)
some people really hate confrontation and wont write what they truly are feeling, if they think you won't like what they are saying, no matter how good of friends you are.
Have you ever made a pre-campaign survey? What kind of questions would one ask? I'm thinking of a Session 0 sort of survey; the goal is to keep people creating simple characters, keeping crazy fluff to a minimum (I'm talking "my character is the chosen one/killed a hydra with a hidden power in their backstory for their level 1 character/is the champion of an arena"), and having the players keep their creation in line with the campaign expectations (like a Theros character should have a much different backstory and connection with the world than a Sword Coast character).
I do luck points that can be used before a roll and just allow you to roll at advantage or make another roll at disadvantage. It works pretty well and keeps things smooth.
What are luck points?
I described it above. I hand luck points out as a reward. They can give your players an edge here or there mechanically. I don’t know how to describe it differently.
Could you tell us what kind of questions you ask your players about their backstories in session zero? I have trouble getting my players to write backstories that I can actually use in the game.
Great stuff friend 👏 👍
Are past monthly PDFs available to new patrons?
Every time you pick up your cats on camera , they give everyone the look of "Help us, father beats us every day, and never feeds us!". Same way my cats act when my in-laws come over.
No cat has ever been fed, ever. Every cat will tell you this.
The Luck system we use in our Pathfinder game is Meta, but it allows for a more cinematic game.
Can you share a reader digest version?
Running my first game and I have a homebrew idea I might implement in some way.
I´m thinking about buffing all town guards, especially in a capital city. Atleast so they are comparable to lvl 5-7 players.
It feels weird to me that towns guards can be so easily killed and/or subdued by lvl 1 players.
I have in my head from World of Warcraft were all town guards is max lvl and then some.
I believe that making town guards atleast lvl 5 makes it more realistic.
Do you or your followers have any thoughts on this Idea?
I would say that maybe not ALL of the guards are tier 2 (levels 5-8), but your "veteran" guards would be.
The ratio ought to change based on the size of the population. In a small town, you would have more tier 1 guards than tier 2. In a large city, you would have mostly tier 2 or 3 guards, with leaders being tier 3 or 4 (and be retired adventurers).
And even that suggestion should have exceptions. I can imagine a small town with three level 2-4 guards and a level 9 guard leader who was an adventurer who fell for someone in town, married and lives there with their family. This retired adventurer may be training the town militia, or may take on all the tougher jobs themselves.
Thank you for your input. That makes sense having different tiers depending on rank.
I figure most of the in-game organisations and NPC-ranks about the same way across the board. The larger the organisation, the higher the "level equivalency" for any given rank in the system...
Generic and window-dressing NPC's are generally level 0 - 3
Grunts in any organisation, militia, police force, or army start at 3 and may rise to 5 depending on "time in rank"... not every group is going to promote on the same merits, but this keeps a relative "band" and sets a math precedent for the GM...
Low level officers can start at 4 or 5 and carry "old timers" up to 7 or 8
AND as we rise higher in "proficiency in office" and the demands or requirements, space other "tiers" about the same...
More or less, the principles of small towns or villages (who'd be prone to having militias rather than "regular army") versus big cities and metropolitan expanses or capitals that would clearly require high ranks and nobility in excess follows as MonkeyJedi99 said it in short...
Just that almost everywhere you go "IRL" you're going to find "mooks from off the street" somewhere in the system, even in the largest cities and organisations. They have to draw in "fresh meat" from somewhere, and someone has to fit a billet. What you do with those lowest ranks is up to you... but casual security and janitorial is a fairly low-level function, and they'd be most likely to run for an alarm of some sort rather than stand and fight... If you're looking to be realistic... ish. (yeah, never forget all the "ish".) ;o)
Does survey monkey need to have them make an account? Or do I need to pay to send them the survey?
I'm sure that this is the reason you show off the questionnaire, but just to be sure, us as viewers and DMs can borrow these questions for use in our campaigns correct?
Love your vids btw. The traps and preparations segments are especially helping me to create an even better game experience for my casual group of players.
How often do you survey? After each session? Every few sessions? At the end of the campaign?
Hi Luke!
I recently started a campaign and implemented your luck point system - in this video you were saying the luck points felt too "metagamey". Do you still like the luck system? What are some pitfalls to watch out for?
Luke: (in a baby talk voice) "He is sho adorable~ This is Orange, he's adorable."
Me: Awwwwwwwwwww
Luke: *does a Bond villain chuckle*
Me: Holy s---- O_O
Nice.
Is it possible to purchase your patreon PDFs without becoming a patron?
Don't think so. If you wanted to "purchase" them, maybe you could sign up for the tier, download the stuff, then cancel your sub before it charges a second time?
Why this man posting at 4am
Timezones and upload times.
Euro gang reporting in at 11:15 AM
03:01 here... but then again the real question is why am I awake...
Damn likebait kitty (it works)
You stopped luck point just for this party or all together ? I have to admit I was thinking it was a good idea back when you present the idea.
What is the luck point system?
Luke, After how many sessions do you send out the first feedback survey? Thank you in advance
I don't know exactly. You have to give things a little bit for them to be able to have a good feedback to give you. Crap it might have been 6 months or so. The thing is that I'm not only Gathering feedback through the survey. I'm also using my eyes and my ears. I'm watching my players Expressions during the game and the reactions. Are they smiling? Are they laughing? Are they paying attention? Are they engaged with the game? Because if I can observe all of these things that I know they're enjoying themselves. And that's the most important part. The survey itself is going to delve into more the fine details that I'm going to be able to get for my players. I would suggest doing it probably every 6 months. I found it in my line of work that surveys that come out too frequently are usually not answered or done poorly. Survey fatigue is a real thing.
No! Players have no say in what happens in the game, only the dm can have fun! Yes, I'm joking.
Orange!
I usually give straight up feedback to the DM and I find it funny how your players are "more loot" and I am always "less experience and less loot". And our DM gives like an item every 10 or so sessions so it is not like it is raining stuff baseline.
well.. good answer. I mean let's imagine a game where I play a teifling, and all your NPC are suPER racist against teifling and it does impact my enjoyment of the game. If I eave you a comment as "could you dial down teh racisms against teifling" even if it's anonymous, I might not give you that feedback, since it wouldn't be difficult for you to tace it back to me.
So yeah people might be more open an give more feedback, but cerain feedback will still remains secret, since they could be used to identify the player
My CoS game was so low on loot, it made it interesting.I made my Fighter dip barb to go Unarmored, and I loved the "poor" side of the region! :) Makes it gloomier
You mean more boring? I agree.
the key here is if everyone at the table was having fun with that dearth of stuff.
@@bloodyirishman9155 Boring for you. Maybe even boring for me. But apparently not boring for TheJoPro.
Who cares about a dice cam when the cat cam is obviously more important. Priorities..... sheesh
What is that thumbnail lmao