Topic: DnD Survey Results

[Hurin]

There were some interesting results in a significant survey (6,600 respondents) of DnD DMs and a detailed, lengthy analysis of the numbers by Sly Flourish. Here is the writeup:

http://slyflourish.com/2016_dm_survey_results.html#primaryresults

A few things I thought were interesting:
--Of 6,600 respondents on preferred combat type, 63% answered 5' gridded combat, 19% answered abstract maps, and 18% answered theater of the mind.
--More people play online than at their local game store.
--More people play their own worlds/adventures than premade ones.
--Prep time is more than an hour per session for a majority of DMs.

There could be some interesting lessons here for Rolemaster in general and RMU in particular. Theatre of the Mind combat seems not to be the norm; most groups prefer 5' gridded combat (by a ratio of more than 3 to 1) over the Theatre, even despite the way 5th edition has bent over backwards to promote Theatre combat. I also found the prep time numbers interesting. Anything that reduces prep time (like online tools) would I think be a welcome addition to RMU.

[jdale]

That is interesting. (Although the sorting on the tables is awful, why did he do that? Times should increase along the axis instead of being scrambled.)

Not surprisingly, people who play less often do more prep per session, and run longer sessions. People who run very short sessions tend to be efficient in their prep, often half or less prep as the session length, but those who run long sessions often spend as much time prepping as playing. This appears to be because people who run short sessions tend to use published adventures and settings, while people who run long sessions tend to make their own.

People who use a published setting are very likely to use published adventures, but those using their own setting are very unlikely to.

People who play less often prefer abstract maps or no maps; people who play weekly strongly prefer grids. My subjective interpretation is that people who are playing short, frequent games in published adventures are more combat focused than people who play long, less frequent games in homebrew settings. But I'm not sure how well those generalizations carry over from D&D5e to RM.

It does suggest to me that if you want to sell adventures, you should have a setting to put them in, and they should be playable in smaller chunks rather than requiring long sessions.


I will say, for myself, I typically spend more than an hour of prep before a session... when I am a player... as a GM it's way more. But time making stats (creatures and NPCs) is not that big a part of that for me.

[Hurin]

Yeah, the organization of the tables was terrible. I think you're right about people who play short, frequent sessions preferring the grid. We play every two or three weeks for about 6 hours at a time, and are very combat focused ('Let's kill something!' is our Rogue's frequent refrain). I'm guessing more combat-focused groups also like the grid, though again that is a generalization that won't be true for every group.

Having a good setting is important too, as you note. I think Terry has us covered on that front though.

I was surprised at how much prep people do, especially the ones who play infrequently. I guess if you play infrequently, you want to make the time really count, and it is a bit of a labour of love to prep for those. Still, I think most people would be happy if they could be more efficient in their prep time, which is why I like the way Rolemaster has embraced technology like the ERA, in contrast to the current 5th Edition DnD team, which has fought against technology. They don't even have an autocalculating character sheet, and are far behind where they were with 4e when it comes to technology. I think that might be a big selling point for RMU.

[Peter R]

I am one of those infrequent, heavy prepping GMs. We rent a house maybe three times a year for three day long game sessions. We get together in the Friday, normally everyone is there by about 7pm and we play into the night. Up again at about 7am and play though to 1am maybe 2am and then Sunday we play from 7am to about 3pm before going our seperate ways.

I must do forty to sixty hours of prep for those weekends and at the core of it is a bought adventure and a bought setting that I have converted to RM. Those conversions are part of the prep time but mostly it is developing the world and NPCs around where the characters are going and all the off piste places they could go.

That amount of prep is not required but it is something I enjoy and I keep coming back to to just 'just one more thing'.

I am doing a one player, one GM, once a week game with RMU and that gets almost no prep but so far the entire game has taken place inside the same building (fairly substantial palace). The only real prep 'work' is making sure I know the rules that are most likely to come up in each sessions, so mostly reading.

I have a PBP game that is updated 3-5 times a week and that got a lot of prep initially and took a lot of time but now ticks along with no real prep needed.

None of the games use grids or maps for combat as I am a dedicated Theatre GM.

[egdcltd]

I wonder if the gridded combat and playing online correlate. Perhaps it's easier to use gridded combat in online play? And playing at a game shop would be pretty tricky nowadays. Almost all of the chains and stores I went to in the 80s and 90s no longer exist. One singleton still exists, but I don't know if they sell RPGs any longer (they were a model shop to a large extent anyway). The chain is Games Workshop, and they stopped selling other people's products years ago (unless it's changed since). My nearest game shop is probably three quarters to an hour away.

[Peter R]

I think I am nearly 2hrs away from my FLGS.

[Spectre771]

For me, the amount of prep time I spend for a session depends on how far along the grand campaign I am.  If I'm starting a new campaign for all new players, the prep time is considerable.  I'm not a fan of using published modules, but I love injecting components from the ShadowWorld companions into my game world and that saves time.  Length of prep also depends on how long that night's session will be.  If I know my group is only dealing with a small town or a set of tasks that won't have them all over the place, prep time is again less.  I haven't looked in depth at the data yet, did the numbers for prep time take those factors into consideration?  Or the GM depth of knowledge of the system?  My daughter wanted to try running her first session and it took us hours just prepping for her, where it would have taken me far less time to create the same scenario.

I can see the 5' grid being extremely helpful for online folks to use, particularly if the session ends for a week and picks up later.  That visual is great to have to remind everyone where they were.  We did that ourselves when we all gamed in house.  We were fortunate to have the basement area that was undisturbed for the entire week and we could leave our pieces on the grid map.

I'm not surprised the game stores are dropping as a playing venue.  I can't even tell you where the nearest gaming shop is for my town and the surround 3 towns.  The one that was local to me closed down 2 years ago.  I've seen shopping malls in other states (1-2 hours drive away) that have gaming stores now with more table then shelves of stock.  That could be a trend on the upswing now; store fronts for actually playing the games vs. one that is meant to sell product and has a couple of tables in the back.

I must do forty to sixty hours of prep for those weekends and at the core of it is a bought adventure and a bought setting that I have converted to RM. Those conversions are part of the prep time but mostly it is developing the world and NPCs around where the characters are going and all the off piste places they could go.

Wow.  Even knowing that you and your group game only 2-4 times per year, that's a lot of work.  My hat off to you, sir.  Do you run a complete campaign in each meeting, or do you have that one campaign over the course of the year?

... most groups prefer 5' gridded combat (by a ratio of more than 3 to 1) over the Theatre, even despite the way 5th edition has bent over backwards to promote Theatre combat.

We played 4e for quite a while, then the Beta for a good amount of time, then finally into 5e when it was released and we never even considered it being Theater of the Mind.  I find that striking as you mention that one of the hopes was for 5e to move away from the grid.  It just never occurred to us.  Never mind that it wasn't an option the GM gave us, it was just never even a thought.  I think at least 2 members of that group just never thought that it would be played without the grid map.  I think when 2e  (or around that time) was out, I was with a group who did all TotM for their sessions.

[egdcltd]

Back in the day, we only used miniatures in wargaming scenarios (basically H1-4). After reading the Pathfinder rules, I don't see how anyone can play that game (or 3.x) without a grid to play on; it's just too integral a part of the combat system.

[intothatdarkness]

Most older systems provided fairly decent rules for both kinds of combat, honestly. And I think habituation plays a big role in how the surveyed DMs approached combat. Spectre makes a good point: If all you've ever used is a grid, that's how you'll approach combat no matter what system you're using. Rules bias (even if unannounced) also plays a role as Peter points out.

[Peter R]

I must do forty to sixty hours of prep for those weekends and at the core of it is a bought adventure and a bought setting that I have converted to RM. Those conversions are part of the prep time but mostly it is developing the world and NPCs around where the characters are going and all the off piste places they could go.

Wow.  Even knowing that you and your group game only 2-4 times per year, that's a lot of work.  My hat off to you, sir.  Do you run a complete campaign in each meeting, or do you have that one campaign over the course of the year?

No campaigns typically take 7 to 10 years to complete. We are two years into my current game but the next session isn't until weekend of the 4th of Feb.

My prep will include finding the page of rules that may apply to a particular situation, say Drowning for example, and I will print just that section off and insert it into the plot notes at that particular point. So if someone falls down the well or in the river I don't have to look for the right book, chapter or page, I have it right there. For every NPC I have a small flow diagram just roughtly sketched out of what they would typically do in the first 3 rounds of combat with favoured spells or skills and the total bonuses. This is on a large post it on the front of the character sheet so the instant I turn to that NPC I know what they would most likely do next without having to refer to the back pages. I also have a post it on each one with a bulleted first impression, not just their description but mannerisms, turns of phrase and body language so I can play each NPC at the drop of a hat and they are clearly differententiated and recognisable to the players. One post it I can see from here says "Refers to everyone as 'You" or "Boy" as in "You! Yes you over there, go saddle my horse buy, and be quick about it!" or "You Sir are a cad and a bounder!"

I also do retrospective prep, if a party has passed though a town or village and made a few connections there I will go back over people I created on the spot and give them a bit more colour just in case the characters return. I sometimes give people, particularly peasants and sages, medical conditions from bad backs to pregnancies, just to give them something to complain about. Some of these will change over time, you can only be pregnant for so long before something should happen after all. There was a guard that was intended to be of no consequence but ended up as being the parties go to person for town gossip and he ended up with four or five children and a much put upon wife that he would bore the characters with.