Giving a Reason to Play

In my last post on the subject, I rather viciously said before a DM can give their players a reason to play in their campaign, they have to listen and find out what the players want.  There is a deep problem with this, in that most DMs ~ and most people, whatever their role ~ already believe that they DO listen, and that they're not hearing anything that helps.

Here's a typical dialogue between a DM and a Player, discussing the DM's world.

DM:  Do you like the campaign?

Player:  Sure.  I guess.

DM:  Are there things you don't like about it?

Player:  I don't know.  It's okay.

DM:  If you had a chance, what would you change?

Player:  I don't know.  More combat, I guess.

Which then might cause the DM to add more general combat to the campaign, whereupon the players all ask,  "Why are we fighting all the time now?"

Whereupon the DM realizes it is useless to ask the players what they want.

Up until 2014, I would have encouraged a DM to ask deeper, more meaningful questions, to get to the heart of what players really think and what they really believe ... but I have learned from different sources since that time that this doesn't work.  The more you put your players on the spot, the more pressure you put on them to give you an answer, the more likely it is that they will try to give you the answer you want, or any answer that sounds like a good one in that moment, than they will an answer that is anything like the truth.  It is something like the Heisenberg principle.  The moment you ask the question, you have already screwed up the measurement.

As such, when I encourage DMs to listen to their players, I am asking for a two-step approach.  The first is to do the best you can to remove yourself from the occasion.  This is what I meant when I said, don't tell your players what they're going to do this session.  Ask if they're ready or if they're in the mood to do it.  Chances are, you're still going to get a bad answer, one that tries to please you.  You can try backing off further, saying you don't actually need to run this adventure, or any adventure, but if your players are used to you giving them instructions, that probably won't work.

At first.

Backing off and gaining your players' trust is going to take time.  You're going to have to institute a policy of changing your entire approach and agenda-seeking practices if you expect your players to open up to you about what they really think.  This is risky for you.  First, it means that a lot of the choices you've made as a DM that were designed to protect your authority and legitimacy at the table will have to go.  If you've cultivated a bombastic, draconian voice, body language, clothing choice and like presentation designed to intimidate your players so they give you less trouble, it's going to be hard for you to forego those crutches when it comes time to act, you know, human.  Even if your particular ego-saving strategies aren't that heavy-handed, the act of shucking them off and being utterly genuine will make you vulnerable in ways that will not bring you comfort.

And for a time, that is going to be hard for your players, too.  They are used to these strategies and as you forego them, they will be concerned and questioning.  They don't know you've been guarding yourself; and dropping those guards will be disconcerting.  It will take them a little time to get used to a different you ~ and that includes if you adjust your gaming towards getting rid of your game screen and deciding to drop some of your more repressive game systems.

Finally, when you are vulnerable, and your players realize it, there's a very good chance they will say things to you that are really, really going to hurt.  You probably don't feel that you're ready for that.  It is one thing to ask them in your power-guise as a DM, "Do you like the campaign," it is totally different when you are emotionally naked and asking the question of players who might be ready to finally get some things out in the open that has bothered them for ages and ages.  Raw truth is a blood sport ~ and there is a very good chance that you're not ready for that.

This is, however, the only way you're going to improve your game.  Your DM mask represses communication, more so than your DM's screen.  Before you can grow as a person, you've got to get off your pedestal and let the dogs of war (the players) rend your bones.  And then you've got to find a way to compromise with the players, which is harder still.

That doesn't make you the players' bitch.  You've still got to push back, to make your position understood.  But it has to be understood on its merits, not because you're the DM and therefore you're always right.  You'll never grow that way.

Your second means of listening to your players is to hear what they say when they're not talking to you.  This is the safer route, and bound to be the one you'll take.  Unfortunately, this method requires that you be a genius at interpretation and deconstruction, that you understand what your players are actually saying, not just what the words mean, and that you're willing to make adjustments entirely on unproven faith that you understand what your players need.  In other words, you're shooting in the dark.  Good luck.

Realistically, you want to promote both methods.  You want to compromise your control, give in more often on things during the game that don't really matter and slowly drop attitudes that divide you and the players during sessions.  AND you want to set up situations where the players talk about your campaign, in which you can leave the room and listen from the kitchen, or simply shut up and let them talk, without letting yourself be controlled by your compulsion to join in.

Get into the habit of listening to your players talk at the table while you're making notes or looking things up.  Have the book in front of you, stare hard at the page and stop reading, as you listen to what they're saying.  Flip a page or two to give them the impression that you're lost in thought.  Get up to fetch something from another room.  And keep listening while you do it.

Of course, this isn't going to work if your players can't focus on your game.  If, every time you stop DMing for two minutes, they immediately launch into some non-D&D discussion, then you have other problems that have to be solved first.

I wish I could give you a simple list that would tell you what to change about your world to make the players happy.  In general, give them more information, give them more control over where their characters go and what they do, remove the time constraints on your adventure designs, so they can spend an extra day in a town or on the road, letting them enjoy a side quest of their own invention.  Don't build pathways into your adventures, which means give multiple ways in which a castle could be breached, or allow your dungeons multiple bypasses so that they don't always have to go through rooms 1, 2 and 3 to reach room 4.  But these suggestions are general and likely unhelpful.  It would be better to have your players explain it to you, since their needs and idiosyncracies will be exclusively their own.  You need to learn how to adapt to them, not to a particular style of game play.

I hope this has been more helpful.  My original take on this was short and blunt, concentrating on the resistance to the above.  The fact will be, finding a way to let your players speak and then hearing their opinions in the raw will be hard.  But don't worry, you have five to ten years to get better at this.  Nothing needs to be done within the next two sessions.