The results are 85% in and I’d like to share them together with my conclusions. I’ll revise the numbers in this post when the response increments to 100%.

My original intent was to share all of the totals but I decided against for two main reasons. First the totals don’t tell the whole story. Second the goal of the survey was to tease out a broad direction for the next campaign the result of which is probably far more interesting than seeing raw numbers.

But if you hunger for raw data please reach out and I’ll share that too.

Not the Whole Story

Since supporting examples are good I’d like to review the totals for the question, “On a scale of 1 to 5, please rate your level of enjoyment for the following Pillars of D&D.” Those totals are, Combat: 22, Exploration: 21 and Social Interaction: 21. The conclusion we must draw from total points is that the group wants a little more of every pillar.

Key For Ranked Results

points	title
6	Very Low. I don’t have fun during this pillar.
12	Low. Less of this would be better
18	Medium. Keep it right where it is.
24	High. A little more please
30	Very High. More is always welcome.

Individually Combat received 3,3,3,4,4,5 and Social Interaction received 3,3,3,3,4,5 which would lead to the conclusion that Combat is on the whole more desired than Social Interaction. This conclusion is further supported by the 100% positive response to the question, “I enjoy the following styles of play (Hack and Slash),” and the 33% positive response to the question, “I enjoy the following styles of play (Heavy Social Interaction).”

I think one example is enough.

Broad Direction for the Next Campaign

Broadly speaking all of the questions were designed to tease out the kind of campaign I should run next and the conditions under which it should start. I’ll use the aggregate answers to set the general tone for the next campaign and the individual results to tailor moments to each player’s taste.

General Refresher

The purpose of this section was to determine the broad strokes of what the party wants in a game. The questions covered the pillars of the game, styles of adventure & play, side quests, campaign length and geographic scope.

Length and geographic scope are perhaps the most influential in designing the next game since side quests, styles and pillars are all levels that can be set within any given campaign.

“A series of episodic adventures in different locations with the same character[(s)],” was the best ranked option for campaign length and “A small region such as a single barony” was the best ranked geographic focus. Within that context there was an overall very positive response to side quests. The pillars were mostly ranked “keep it where it is” to “more please”. The best ranked adventure styles were Heists, Horror, Mysteries, and Dungeon Crawls so you should expect the see more of those.

Setting

This section contained only four questions 2 dedicated to setting and 2 dedicated to the content and usability of a setting guide.

As far as setting is concerned the party voted most favorably for “Standard Fantasy”. This is supported by “Forgotten Realms” and “Greyhawk” placing first and third with the not-quite standard fantasy setting “Ravenloft” taking second.

There was a 50/50 split between, “I would read the whole [setting guide],” and “I would scan it for the highlights” and nearly all points received 4+ votes. So you can expect a setting guide that’s easy to scan at the start of the next game.

Character Creation and Motivation

While there were more questions in this section than in the Setting section there were four areas of focus; starting level, creation method, backstories and personal motivation. I’m not going to report on personal motivation since I plan to use that information to engage individuals rather than make group choices.

The important take away from the other points is that the group will roll their own characters starting at first level and be given hooks to create backstories that fit with the setting. You may of course recognize yourself as an outlier in this section but character creation is a flexible enough process that it can be adapted to suit a broad array of needs.

Observations

The General Refresher reveals that a series of episodic adventures (25 points) set in a small geographic area (22 points) filled with side quests that may sometimes be character driven containing Heists, Horror, Mysteries, Dungeon Crawls and a lot of combat would be the most popular next game.

The Combat Pillar received 22 total points putting it in the range of, “a little more please” while the Hack & Slash play style received 100% positive feedback. Conversely the response to, “As a player I like too … Optimize my character for combat,” received only 33% positive feedback. This indicates the group as a whole enjoys combat but generally doesn’t want to optimize for it.

In the category of, “I enjoy the following styles of adventure,” Heist received 83.3% positive feedback while Urban received only 33.3% positive feedback. This is an interesting contrast since cities tend to attract wealth.

Side quests received 100% positive feed back indicating that 100% of the group thinks , “Side quests are…” enjoyable, alluring or tempting. Everyone is also, “happy to participate” in character driven quests with at least 50% of respondents wanting to occasionally be the focus of the quest.

Conclusions

The subjects of Combat and Campaign require further exploration.

Combat

While there’s clear enjoyment of and desire for more combat the response to character optimization was low. In the wake of what seemed to be a positive opinion of 5E and frequent requests (read ‘demands’) for battle-maps I find the 33% positive response to “Optimize my character for combat,” somewhat surprising.

Thinking back on our “Curse of Strahd” campaign there was indeed slow adoption of the many combat optimizations 5E offers. It’s difficult to say at this late date whether that was due to disinterest or unfamiliarity with 5E‘s rules.

Without a doubt WOTC era D&D (3E+) provides a far more mathematically crunchy combat experience. The crunch lives in the PHB giving players the full ability to optimize without DM intervention. These systems all but require battle-maps in order for the players to truly maximize combat effectiveness.

TSR era D&D (OD&D to 2E) provides little in the way of mathematic crunch. Optimization comes predominantly from finding the right magical items. Combats frequently take fewer than 3 rounds making battle-maps more of a nice to have than a necessity.

Given these factors I think further exploration of the subject may be a worthwhile pursuit.

Campaign

As one would expect the questions informing what the next campaign should be were broad leading to equally broad interpretation. There was one minor oversight on my part which was that I should have included “The Known World/Mystara” setting in the “Rate the following published D&D settings” question. I don’t think it’s exclusion skewed the results in any meaningful way but it’s worth mentioning since it’s the setting in which we concluded our last game.

Above I observed a campaign structure based solely on feedback that sounds suspiciously like, “A long term campaign [of] 100+ sessions.”

…a series of episodic adventures (25 points) set in a small geographic area (22 points) filled with side quests that may sometimes be character driven containing Heists, Horror, Mysteries, Dungeon Crawls and a lot of combat…

This is confusing feedback due to the higher amount of negative votes¹ a campaign length game received.

I hope we can agree that what a “campaign” is in D&D can be variably defined which would allow us to set aside the confusion and instead focus on “a series of episodic adventures” which was ranked 100% 3+ making it the most popular choice.

What remains then is to determine the most desirable series of episodic adventures. Before I proceed I think there are two considerations to keep in mind. First, how high in character levels would the players like to go. Second are the episodes about forming deeper connections with a single area² or about the continuing adventures of our plucky band.

There are three main ways I see this becoming a reality.

The Known World/Mystara

This is the default setting of those wonderful old TSR modules starting with “B”, “X”, “CM” or “M” many of which have iconic covers. They provide adventures through level 25 which gives us the ability to focus on a group of characters until we decide to tap out.

This would be the story of the continuing adventures of a group of plucky heroes. The adventure locations would vary from episode to episode with possibly two or three part adventures in some locations. There would likely be breaks between episodes to give me time to prepare the next.

The principal advantage is variety. In any given adventure you might be a pirate or a desert raider or be lost in a jungle without having to be committed to that kind of play for more than the amount of time it takes to complete the episode.

The principal disadvantage is also variety. This game would be global in scope³. There wouldn’t be much time to get to know any single area. Side quests would be limited due to the need to focus on the plot of the current episode.

The West Marches

Originally detailed in the article “Grand Experiments: West Marches” the cliff notes description of this style of campaign is that the “West Marches” is a mostly unexplored wilderness. Play begins in a safe border town where the characters have a partial map and several adventure hooks. It’s not unusual in this type of campaign for maps to be found as treasure leading to additional adventures. It’s also not unusual to have inaccessible areas in dungeons that must be returned to later when new clues are found elsewhere.

Originally designed for a group larger than our own it allowed for the players to flexibly schedule game times and quest locations which allowed for players to step into adventures they were interested in and had time for. There was also a system of rewards for players who’d write after action reports to be shared with the group.

The principal advantage of this type of episodic campaign is player agency. You’ll take the quests that sound like fun, skip the quests that don’t and have the freedom to designate your own quests as your engagement with the wilderness grows. A secondary advantage is that the “West Marches” can accommodate several DMs and several character groups.

The principal disadvantages of this campaign are its reliance on exploration and player investment. In the “West Marches” the players are responsible for filling in the blank areas of the map, writing the, “When last we left our heroes…” entries, and letting the DM know what they want play with plenty of notice.

A Bite-Sized Campaign

The disadvantages in this case are plain and simple. Most of you just don’t want long campaign. Those of you who voted positively (4+) for a long campaign voted just as positively for a series of episodic adventures so there’s no strong argument to be made for this format.

However, the advantages are just as plain and simple. This is the kind of game where it makes sense for the DM to write a setting guide, provide background hooks and spend time developing the setting. Players are rewarded by having their decisions around backstories and faction membership generate adventures and conflicts.

To make this game “bite-sized” it would have to be run much like an episodic TV series. Each episode would have its own goal and come to its own satisfying conclusion. Several of the episodes would contribute something to a broader plot that would be resolved in the metaphoric two-part season finale.

Post Script

I’m excited to run any of the above described game styles. There’s no reason we can’t pick the best sounding one and if we get bored along the way switch gears. All I really need is the feedback to make it happen.

Foot Notes

1. 66.6% of votes were less than 3
2. The positive response to “A small region such as a single barony” would lead me to believe that deeper connections to the setting are important to the group.
3. “Globe Spanning” was the weakest option in, “Please rate geographic focus from 1-5,” receiving 66.6% rating 2 and 33.3% 3.