What do your player's want? Well....everything.

 

I recently did an informal-fun pole with my D&D group. It was mostly to gauge interest in what to run following our current campaign, Rappan Athuk. I included some questions that hit on what they liked as a player and how tended to play their player characters and the results were pretty interesting.

We all know that each player has different goals, expectations and points of enjoyment through play. I've seen several videos and breakdowns from other sources that are much organized and articulate than myself, but to generalize there is the power-gamer, the role player, the story driver and the anarchist. I can safely say that my groups that I run and play in consist of all of these and probably others I've failed to include. So what is a DM to do, to keep his or her players happy and engaged. Well the best thing is variety in your game...Be sure to have those roleplay conflicts to engage those players, this can be done even within the party with competing interest. Include to difficult set piece encounters where strategy and character build wins the day. Have a world of dangerous and interesting things for your players to explore and engage with....I'm off topic, this isn't really a how to DM tutorial, let us get to those results to illustrate that my and likely your D&D group is diverse in their player styles.

1. The first question is pretty broad beyond just setting. The two highest voted items though were D&D High Fantasy and Futuristic / High Technology (Star Wars). I don't think this is really a surprise to anyone currently playing the game, players these days like the high fantasy, tackle anything type of games.

2. The next question was in regards to the style of game preferred. Again, the results lead into what the newest crop of players enjoy which is the adventure part / over-arching story campaigns where the DM directs things a bit more as opposed to relying on player agency.

3. The third question was more specific to preferred setting. I think this again shows the influence of the pushed Forgotten Realms in 5E. I'm not complaining as someone who grew up on Dragonlance and Lord of the Rings Books though.

4. Next I asked straight, which rule system do you prefer. I should note that our group has played everything from B/X D&D to Pathfinder, D&D 5E, Call of Cthulhu and even some Dungeon World. Again, 5E signs through with ease of use yet allowing for some character customization.

5. Now we come to the more interesting questions in regards to actual character play. First up is the morale / alignment question. My group for the most part plays the hero part and no complaints, this is the type of group I prefer to run.

6. The next question is probably my favorite because it shows exactly what this blog post is about. Variety in games for the diversity of the player types. My favorite bit though is that everyone mostly loves dungeons....so does your DM.

7. The question on races. The results here may be a bit skewed based on how I run more grimy low-fantasy games, but human is always an excellent choice for your character race.

8. The last question again shows the variety of player driven approaches. My group is consistent with the hero / do the right thing approach which I honestly adore, I wouldn't trade these guys for anyone.

So what do you think? Would your group say the same, how would your results differ? My players all mostly joined into the hobby with the dawn of 5th edition so the responses certainly reflect that above. That being said, I do not doubt that within each play group you can single out the different player types, so run your games accordingly.