In part 1, I discussed about players giving feedback (both good and bad) to DMs in such a way to make it more useful and to limit the damage of criticism.
Today I want to talk directly to the GMs who, while craving feedback, aren’t always that ready to get it.
Having to prep, run and referee the game is a huge responsibility and necessitates a lot from a person. Often, the amount of work poured into a game makes the GM emotionally involved with the game to a point where honest feedback on the game, both good and bad, is taken as feedback on the person.
Dear GM, if you are truly interested in getting relevant feedback from your players, you need to accept, at the deepest level a few very important facts:
1) You are not your game!
Good or bad feedback is not automatically related to your running of the game or a statement on you as a person. You need to detach yourself from your game in order to be better prepared to receive feedback.
Of course, if all players had a great time, I won’t prevent you from feeling like you are on top of the world. A great game session is one of the things that make GMing so incredibly rewarding.
Just remember that you are not the only reason why the game went so well. The GM is a facilitator of fun, not the sole provider of it.
For the same reasons, if a session went less than admirably, you are not entirely at fault. While you may get feedback about decisions you made or how an encounter you wrote turned out, view this not as an affront on you as a GM but as something to explore when trying to become a better GM.
You are just a part of your game, not all of it.
2) You are not as good as you think
Like so many drivers, some people tend to overestimate their skills in a discipline. After having GMed for a couple of years, they think they’ve reached a peak and are at the top of their figurative game.
About 5 years ago, I saw myself as such. Having been a Gamemaster for about 20 years, I deluded myself in thinking I knew everything there was to know behind the screen. While several of our games were fun and exciting, I still had about one game in 3-4 go wrong enough as to leave me feeling like the evening was somewhat wasted.
I started to realize that maybe there were a few things I could improve. I was not the only one responsible, but I had my part to play in these less than stellar games.
Now I’m a much better GM than I was then, thanks to this blog and my game reports, still I manage to learn new things I could do better at every game!
As a confident GM you still need to accept that you can get better before asking for honest feedback, otherwise, you’re just looking for validation.
So take it down a notch and listen to what your players are really saying.
3) You are not as bad as you think
The opposite of the last one. Some GMs are just so damn ready to beat themselves up whenever something goes awry.
There is no way you can write the perfect game, plan for all contingencies, or hit all players motivations all the time. You are not a robot, you have issues and level of tiredness too. You also have limited influence on what your players will do.
With time, it will become easier. Getting better is a slow process. You need to trust that you will. You also must stop yourself from trying to meet unrealistic expectations or worse, spiral into self-doubt at the drop of a bad encounter.
In that sense, you have to grab positive feedback at face value. It’s not something your players will give you just to make you happy. Take the time to note what it is you do well and reflect on that. Similarly, any criticism is not a confirmation of your suckiness, the player giving it, if not a total jerk, probably wants the game to be better too!
If you make player enjoyment your main mission around the table, you are bound to get better faster.
So stop whipping yourself, if you were such a bad GM, no one would show up for your game or ask you to do it in the first place.
The Unspoken word
I’ve said it in past posts, but you can get a ton of non-verbal feedback from your players. Once or twice during a game session, pause the game for a few moments, empty your mind of whatever GMing detail you were focusing on and look at each player’s body language.
Are they leaning forward, talking excitedly? If so, note what kind of scene you are playing. If a player sits back, doodling, note that too. Keep this in mind for future discussions with them.
You’ll need to work for that feedback
How many times have you packed your dice and rulebook after a game, asking innocently enough ‘So, how was it?” only to get grunts and shrugs with a few ‘was okay’?
Unless the player you ask is a chatty extrovert, chances are that putting people on the spot with no preparation will result in limited, non-committal feedback.
In part one, I’ve been preaching that players need to recover from whatever emotion they carried in the game and must identify some concrete element of the game to give useful feedback on. It stands to reason that as a GM that read both articles, you have to give your players time to prepare.
So after a session, or before a campaign, you may tell your players that after the game, you’ll go around, through email, text messaging or face to face discussions asking for feedback on what they specifically liked about the game and what they didn’t.
You should not necessarily do it with each player for each session, but going around the whole group over a period of a few games is a good plan.
Roll that listen Check!
When you discuss the game with players, do what management courses call active listening.
Stick to asking questions almost exclusively. Use answers received to formulate new questions. Don’t argue or explain your decisions (unless asked to), focus on the player. People liked to be listened to and eventually come out of their shell when they feel you are genuinely interested in what they are saying.
Ask open questions, those that can’t be answered by a simple yes/no:
“How did you feel when that dragon cut short on your diplomacy attempt and attacked?”
“Why do you think Jack decide to kick down the door that brought all these demons in the fight?”
If they can’t find anything to say, try to recall how what kind of body language they had and bring it up as a question:
“During the fight vs the dragon, you didn’t seem to be all that excited, what was going through your mind then?”
Active listening is one of the best, most useful social skills that a GM can learn. Look it up and practice it… it’s well worth it!
Open Questions, they talk, you keep a lid on your defensiveness, you move the conversation with more question and you will get the feedback you want!
Post Scriptum: The limits of feedback
Some players and GMs have limited communication skills or don’t actually care about others all that much. This can make any form of feedback nearly nonexistent at best or downright rude and hurtful at worse.
While I leave conflict management for a future post (or see Tony’s excellent take on the subject here), you must try to differentiate lack of social grace with uncompromising selfishness. If a player refuses to give feedback or says something that comes out wrong, don’t automatically assume the worst. Settle on non-verbal feedback gathering until better trust is established and the group works out how to interact better.
However if over a prolonged period of time, a player’s feedback is solely focused on getting more at the expense of you or the others, you likely are dealing with a problem player.
Oh and it bears mentioning that an uncompromising, selfish GM is among the most toxic things you can find around a gaming table, flee those like the plague!
Thanks for reading, feel free to add more things I didn’t cover. This is a large subject and I already wrote 3000 words on it!
I learned years ago that I’m much happier when I can accept criticism. The key is not to take it personally, which takes practice. I still have to consciously shut my mouth, resist the emotional knee-jerk reaction, and just listen. Even if I disagree with it, I don’t immediately argue back. The fact remains that the player did not like something, and that’s worth discussing.
It helps to reiterate the suggestions or concerns back to ensure that you understand. Often just listening and acknowledging the concern is enough. And finally, always thank the players for their criticisms. Even if you disagree, or decide not to follow through on it, you still need to encourage that kind of feedback.
This approach helps with everything in life, not just role playing games.
@ Kevin: Hey there, welcome on the blog. I wholeheartedly agree with you. It is very hard to do and I still sometimes get sucked in trying to explain myself when I should just be listening.
I’ve found it useful to have a single player act as a collection point for commentary, allowing him to anonymize feedback with a new group by leaving the room for a bit so that they can discuss things without worrying about me. I try to ask specific questions about points I know can be weak and strong–
Did combat flow fast enough?
Was the combat flavor good? Appropriate? Sufficient?
What were your impressions of the NPCs?
What about the setting?
Did you feel the session accomplished anything?
What events did you not encounter or complete that you wanted?
Was there something in particular that really made or ruined the session? Why?
Then, if there was a particular encounter mechanic that I experimented with in a session, I might ask specific questions about that.
Overtime, as I build trust with a table, I can just remain in the room and ask the questions directly, drawing the answers from players. By collecting all of this at the end of the session, as folks are leaving, I give the players space between sessions to cool down if emotions ran high or if something was frustrating, and to provide an interim for me to digest the materials and adjust for the next session.
I also find that notes during a session can help engage lurkers, or asking them for a quick aside if they seem disengaged in a discussion, soliciting their opinion to draw them into debate.
-Ben.
Bens last blog post..My Spawn of Dajobas
@Ben: Great strategy. I see that you are quite the veteran of these things. Does that mean that you have a significant pause between the end of a game session and the players leaving?
I’ve found I’m better equipped to receive and digest feedback after a few days but I see that others prefer it in the here and now.
It can be a few minutes–20ish, as I have them gather thoughts and talk about stuff for me. I want their ideas fresh. Getting it from the one Point of Contact allows me some time to digest it, and if I have questions, I can ask that person to go back and elaborate with the speaker. The layer of anonymity permits players to be more vocal when they don’t like something, which I like to know.
I agree, it’s tougher to process that feedback right then, but I think it’s best to collect it right away, while the session is fresh, while the moments are clear. It’s easy to lose details and nuances after a few days, and I want as much as possible, not just the points that made the most impact– which is why I like to have a few stock questions and some that are specific to the particulars of the session. In some ways, it should be as much a part of the prep as the statblocks are.
Even with that information right then, I’ll still chew on it for a few days to consider it best. 🙂
-Ben.
Bens last blog post..My Spawn of Dajobas
I think it’s more a question of what type of players you have…
In our group we are all computer savvy people with easy internet access. This makes the feedback by e-mail our media of choice.
But in the game I run my players are not strong on the email part. This makes gathering feedback by email an incomplete process, which mean I either have to probe by phone (which I hate) or in person which is really hard and time consuming. All these makes it a lot more easy to gather feedback at the end of the session.
This means that I must be all the more ready to handle criticism with the emotional load.
@Yan: Yay for roleplaying in the Stone age! 😀
Seriously, I totally understand and as you say, you need to add an extra filter to separate genuine feedback from kneejerk reactions.
The same GM (such as myself) often needs both 2 and 3 on different days, and occasionally the same day. If my mood is up, I have to check myself on thinking I’m the best thing ever, God’s gift to gamers. Something bad happens, it’s hard not to think of myself as pond scum.
For a couple of years, I’ve been experimenting with ways to get feedback out of my players. The two best ways I’ve found to do it are Ben’s way (ask them after the game itself), and by offering such rewards as are in my GMly power (experience points in games like World of Darkness, in-game goodies and events) in exchange for feedback in response to a general email. A common form of the latter is a “session log,” where the player recounts things from his/her character’s perspective. This gives me quite a bit of nuanced information about where that player’s flashlight is pointing.
Great post! (And thanks for the link 😉 ). One thing I’ve had to control in myself is the fact that I need to be prepared to be blindsided and not to immediately become defensive. Not all players will be willing to provide feedback when you expect it.
Tony Laws last blog post..Conflict Resolution and Gaming
I think the ability to handle criticism goes far beyond the gaming table. I actively ask for feedback (in all venues of life, even as a husband from the wife), and anyone who knows me personally (or maybe even just from here on the web) knows that I have a pretty thick skin. I say lay it on and don’t try to skirt the issue (but on the same token, I can be a dick if you are).
I find that the trend, socially (I call it the “pussification of America” down here in the States), is to treat people as if their self-esteem is too fragile to touch. In a world of growing b.s., err I mean p.c. (as in politically correctness), everyone is too touchy about confronting people with criticism.
Well, I digress into topics probably better suited for another kind of blog… But I say take your precious feelings and shelve them, else you may not be able to develop as a GM or player, or anything else for that matter.
Mad Brews last blog post..Game Room: Gaming Table
Excellent post!
I like point 1 especially, as I do tend to take it personally when one of the NPC’s/towns/environments/etc. presented gets bad responses.
Like I said in part 1; in my particular case, a lot of my sensitivity to negative feedback came from an insecure age and the need to be approved by my peers. Now, my personal involvement in negative feedback comes from the fact that I put a lot of work in my campaign and settings, and negative feedback feels like criticism on my creativity and story-telling capabilities. While this is not necessarily the case, I find it hard to set that feeling aside. While I (think I) can hide it, I’ll usually be pissed for a few minutes after negative feedback.
On the other side; yay for me insofar that I managed to overcome being insulted when people poke fun at my setting when I’m trying to be serious. This really pissed me off a few years ago, but trial-and-error made me see the jokes as not relating to my efforts, and have a hearty ho-ho with the funny guys before I start flinging ashtrays at the aforementioned funny guys’ heads.
@Flying Dutchman: Do you play with other Dutch players? It might be cultural stereotyping, but I find it hard to imagine a mostly Dutch gaming group being serious and respectful of authority.
Am I dead wrong?
Yeah, we’re all Dutch. So what’s this cultural stereotype, then? I’m very curious… I’ve heard a lot about the Dutch, but not being serious and disrespectful of authority is a new one for me…
As for us, I think we’re no different than your average adult gaming group; goofing around and actually gaming go about 50/50, I reckon.
Yeah my bad man, I’ve a Dutch colleague at work that spews stuff about the Dutch that seemed to abound toward what I was saying. Pay no more attention to that.
My group is like yours in many aspects.
The thing about DMing is that you have to push past the barriers of self-derision to truly blow your players minds away. What I mean is when you start using silly voices in your games, the players will initially snicker and laugh at you. Until they realize just how more immersive it is to have those voices differentiate NPC dialogue from your ‘Dungeoonmaster’s’ voice of description.
Haha! Don’t let him get to you. The Dutch are all very, very different (much like them there “Cay-nee-dee-ans”, I reckon 😛 ). I’ll spare you the mostly boring details of good ‘ole Holland.
Back on track; I don’t really do a lot of voices, except for fun. I do sound effects though. My “mindless ghoul”-gurgle, monstrous grunts, and terrifying roars are all frequently used and good enough. I do try to adjust vocabulary when voicing NPC’s though; attempting to make a scholar sound like a scholar, and a peasant like a peasant.
I get decent feedback from my group, mostly because I require it to a degree. I have a Players Communication section on our website that allows everyone to give and take on things they like or dislike.
Because our game is entirely Internet based I have to pay attention to comments people make, to the things not said and try to feel out people away from the game as to how they think things are going. It partially goes with knowing your players and helping them grow into new roles as well. If everyone is passionate about what is happening in the game (good or bad) then I feel I have run a good session.
I do agree that I never think I know enough, 15+ years of weekly meetings and I am still amazed at how good or bad things can go over a 4 hour period.
Reading about how others do things and working with others to help their games go better helps me re-energize and strive to be better.
@BOB: Hey there, welcome to the Blog. Always nice to see new people. While I’m still completely inexperienced with online Gaming, I get that passive feedbackgathering is a lot harder when unable to observe body language.
As for ‘knowing enough’, accepting that we never will (or that we are only human) is one key DMing lesson.