[RPG] How to get to know the players’ expectations

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I am soon starting a new game with a bunch of new people that I have never played with – and some of them I barely spoken to. I am going to be the GM and will introduce them into the setting that they do not know.

I talked to them and they impressed upon me that they would like a more roleplay-oriented game, with less min-maxing and turn-based combat. They apparently want to avoid centering the game around crunch (as they said, they did not like their previous group being much more interested in XP and loot than in the story or drama).

However, I am concerned that they do not want to disclose their expectations too much out of fear of having the story be bespoke smooth sailing, which would spoil the surprise part of the story.

Is there a technique (say, a short test, a questionnaire, survey, don't know) that I could use to get that information out of them? I would especially like to position them correctly on the Threefold System.

I am aware that the most obvious answer is "talk to the players", but as I don't know them that well it might not be as straightforward. Also, I am intending to do a one-off trial session to get them to taste the new system, so that would be a good opportunity to observe their style but that observation might be inaccurate due to everything being new.

Best Answer

Same Page Tool

There is such a thing. It's called the Same Page Tool. It does require you to talk to the players, but gives you a structured set of questions to work from that can guide that conversation.

There's really no way to do this that doesn't involve talking to them in some way, short of running campaigns and watching what they react to & what they do.

Campaign design can also matter a lot if you don't know what the players want yet. The best thing to do is focus on creating situations that have multiple resolutions (ie: you can solve the problem in a way other than beating things up). Early on in the campaign, see if they choose to talk, sneak, bribe, or do anything other than attack when given the chance. That'll tell you pretty quickly what to expect in the future.

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