How to Make Your Players More Engaged | D&D | TTRPG | Web DM

um i i don't i don't want to interrupt your reading are you can i you you got can i talk oh yeah it's just great expectations what's up man yeah so um i i just gotta say you know i'm really loving what we've got going on so far we've had a lot of great one-offs and i'm like really looking forward to uh to the future what else we're able to uh to accomplish and and i think it's time to to take it to the next level i've i've prepared a you know a little campaign and i'm i'm really hoping i'm really hoping that you'll say yes getting engaged oh i uh i've never experienced this level of engagement from a dm before um i um i yes uh yes um let's talk about dm engagement on web dm today and you're all invited all of you this episode is sponsored by dungeon fog the online map maker and authoring tool for game masters save yourself hours of time generate awesome maps of buildings rooms dungeons and more with gm notes and share print or export them with just a few clicks they just got a big new update with duplicating and rotating rooms and levels and dynamic lighting that passes through windows and doors people there's free on-demand and subscription access options so go make a map today up your game in 2021 with dungeon fog link in the comments and description all right jim we get asked all the time about um best ways to like foster player engagement and and while still maintaining player agency in their in in the world so so so jim why don't we let's let's run through this let's talk about player agency and engagement um yeah where do you start so i i mean to me they're very reciprocal uh sort of topics and and right here at the top before we get into it there's a lot of facets to player engagement uh and and it's not necessarily that we're going to cover all of those but we are going to talk about the ones that relate to agency as a generator of player engagement with the game right and so the reason why i think they're so reciprocal is because like agency in in your game can uh can really influence the the ways in which you engage with it the ways in which you like playing it and so i'm looking at player agency as the ability to make meaningful choices that direct the course of that game i think it's the strength of tabletop rpgs and central to encouraging players engagement with that campaign right but you can exercise your agency on multiple tiers or these players can right there's at the campaign level where they're selecting which scenarios they want to go on what grand quests things like that whether they want that at all and just want something different there's at the sort of middle level the level of the scenario the adventure how do they approach this particular problem how do they you know go about working their way through it uh whether it's a you know sort of a linear adventure and it's just a matter of pacing and how you approach the individual elements or if it's something you know more free form and then at the lowest level agency uh relates to like how you approach an individual encounter right are you allowed to just sort of do whatever you want are you limited in that how tactical do you get if it's combat those kinds of things uh and all of those um affect how players see you know the choices that they make the impact of them it's this big messy kind of topic right like whether it's agency or engagement the like but dms can do a lot to undermine the trust that it takes to get this thing going right this this mutually supported agency and engagement and do a lot to undermine that trust well yeah like the like the old saying goes you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink right so a dm you can lead your players to the adventure but how do you get them to drink deep the cup of adventure and uh you know and success um so yeah honestly i mean obviously like in engagement uh to me like engagement comes first and uh i know like one of the ways that i try to i try to foster engagement with players is you gotta know your players and i've recently in my last few campaigns start doing a survey and that way just on a base level kind of around what i'm thinking i can at least ask questions like do you like this type of adventuring do you like that type do you like these scenarios versus that um and then you know always got to throw on a random random ass question that seems non-sequitur but it does give you some information you're like what's your favorite this type of movie what what are some ways that you uh you find uh that you can uh foster engagement i mean i i to me it's it's a matter of letting go of a lot of my expectations for what the game is going to be about so that there's space and room for the players to kind of connect themselves to the game world so usually what i'm doing after i after i get a bit of a sense of who they are as players although i've never really used a survey before like you've done but usually during a session zero is when i'll get a feel for it and then i present them a setting that has a lot of room for them to you know to make connections for their characters and usually it's in that session zero that uh that those connections are gonna be made and then those are the main avenues of engagement that i'll you know start to uh to to build up um and like if i'm not doing something where the party and the cohesion of the party and the motivations of the party are important then the engagement usually happens on a there's interesting things to do right there's interesting stuff that you could have that you might enjoy it's varied enough that that there's probably something you could do that's that you're going to want to and as much as possible i i mesh those two together right to really kick things off at the beginning uh when engagement is like really important yeah yeah and uh i mean and we've uh i mean we've done many podcasts like that on our patreon which by the way if you head on a patreon and uh hop on there you can get four podcasts a month and we go much deeper into different set like subjects that are very adjacent to what we're talking about today um but uh another another thing to take into account is uh play style of your players yeah like what are they looking for right right right right i think that understanding your players play styles and helping them understand their own uh is insofar as they want to is is lies at the heart of a lot of these issues of engagement and and how much uh you know investments do the players have in a campaign it really does feel like dms have this yearning for their players to just go all in on whatever type of game that they're running to completely match up with their expectations and to you know immerse themselves in it as much as the dm is and that's like understandable and i i certainly know that feeling um but it's also it doesn't it doesn't just happen you've got to be able to talk to each other you've got to be able to communicate about what you like what you don't like what you prefer that kind of thing and so finding out the players play styles and finding out which play styles you like running games for best is really crucial to fostering engagement because the game takes place at this level above the rule system above the setting of everything else it's the interaction with people at the table and so in this at this level of play you're literally just like well what do you want to do you know what is it that you like doing uh and and i think that that's very uh very important getting to know their types oh most definitely because if you have a bunch of like power gamers and like tacticians and you just give them a bunch of like social encounters and exploration you're gonna have it's you're gonna have it's gonna get bogged down right having a perfect fit is less important than like knowing which ones are really not gonna work for you because i think with player types the the assumption is like well i am a power gamer i'm a narrativist i'm a you know whatever kind of uh gamer that i'm always that and will always prefer that and i don't know any player that that describes but i do know players who are like yeah this one style i just it's not for me you know we're just just not gonna have fun engaging with that you know you don't need exact match everybody's like everybody doesn't have to be on the same page but the closer you are the smoother these things are going to go right oh exactly and a couple things that can help with that uh one of them is definitely uh pacing uh because while you might not have a lot of action for those like action junkies if you keep you you keep the whatever's happening moving quick you can kind of you know it's a pseudo form of action it's it's it ramps up the the the temperature enough that it feels that way right yeah certainly and and that includes just about any play style i think certainly those who like really want the action uh but even those who are sort of thinkers and take their time like i do they don't want to take that much time and so the way you pace a session how you jump from spotlight to spotlight how many uh players get roped into an individual scene like understanding your group's preferences how you handle the transitions yourself you know they could be too rapid that your brain just is like where are we i forget what's going on and learning when to cut it right to me that's the most crucial skill of pacing especially when you're talking about individual scenes or or moments where you're just focusing on one player knowing when to cut and shift focus to me that's the real fundamental skill for that and so i like i like pausing on a question right of some kind like you know i'm in a role playing a scene with player a for instance and they're trying to accomplish something and what i want to do is i want to end on a question of whether that succeeded or not right uh or or it is a question that i have posed to the player either introducing a new element that they have to to uh consider or or surprising them with something that i'll pause and say okay well we're going to shift player b while you figure out what you want to do tell me if this thing succeeded or not you know decide what you're going to do next that kind of thing then i'm over here to player b and we're talking back and forth is there some kind of question that needs to be answered something that we can put on pause at a dramatic moment shift to see and just keep doing that learning how to uh oh yeah keep your focus uh on that one thing but to move on quickly uh that's that's sort of uh best way that i've found to handle pacing oh definitely uh the pacing because pacing and spotlight those kind of go hand in hand uh and being able to basically keep all those plates spinning and when you have to like give another world to each plate as you go around the table it's that's the analogy i always think of when i have my players at the table is is just like that's that's what you got to do as a dm and learning to do that well is a is a tough skill but once you once you feel it like you know exactly oh that's what it feels like you know yeah yeah yeah yeah and it to me all of this both pacing and and sort of like keeping the spotlights uh equitable and moving quickly they apply to both like the individual sessions in which you're dealing with encounters and things players want to do like and they apply to the campaign as a whole because sometimes the what we're doing for these next few sessions really favors this one type of player and the character they've made right and then so these other couple of players maybe they're not the focus of the campaign right now and it's been that way for a few sessions and for you know for a while they're going to be okay with that um depending on their play style right how long that is but at some point you want to shift things over to them okay what is it that you want to do let's let's tie up this loose end with yours or that there's that thing you've been telling me you want to do for a while now i figured out how we're going to approach that let's play through it so we're talking both like the individual level during a session and in the campaign level and like honestly this is going to be to everyone's benefit not just the people who get the spotlight or who have a moment of time to shine but it's like it just creates variety in your campaign and with variety there comes less opportunities to just check out you know if something if things are always moving happening all this stuff then you might get a case where someone who's not involved in the scene or involved in this moment of play is still super engaged with it cares about the outcome you know that kind of thing oh most definitely and that and and fostering that kind of uh engagement with the players um really can make your your campaign on the long haul uh that much more engaging even if if like say you're doing some type of campaign that a couple players that's not their bag right right but if you give them enough give them enough spotlight and everything else you know what kind of campaign you're running starts to not matter as much if you if you do the things on the on the micro the macro kind of follows along with that yeah yeah you can do a lot to like get someone on board of a campaign types they're not used to right or prefer you know if you're trying to run something that's about like monster hunting and so it's kind of investigative it's a lot of combat things like that you might have someone who's not really interested in those campaign styles where that's like the main focus of play but you can tell that person well we're also going to include these other elements we're going to make sure that there's something there and justified in game for you to enjoy and get something out of even though the overall campaign structure isn't something you would like and maybe as the game develops there will be a way for us to figure out how your preferences and the you know the campaign type can mesh even further right um and and so some of that's getting it out in the open fir you know before you start this is a campaign where you guys are going to be solving the the big quest or this is a campaign where i will present you with multiple quests and reasons to go on them and you just pick the order you want to go in and which ones seem interesting or something different right and letting them know up front that that's what it is and then checking in with them as uh the campaign progresses is a way to like keep getting that feedback and letting the players know that their feedback is welcome right that they have a chance to tell you and and will feel more confident in that most definitely um and uh one way especially if you if you if you think maybe like oh i have this this campaign that i want to run most of the tables there they're with that but maybe there's one or two players that this isn't uh their thing that's when you gotta you gotta create those hooks that will get those two players that on the on the ride you know what i mean sure so like creating creating those hooks uh to to sink into your players and get them in there whether it's whether it's catering to the players style or the character that they have created it doesn't like that's that's the campaign hooks are kind of meta gaming in that way like you can try to go after the player or the character but it doesn't matter as long as you get them on board right yeah yeah that that is how i approach um you know creating hooks for individual scenarios or adventures whatever right and again this applies to linear games as well as more open world games because providing a a hook that satisfies both player and character is is like the best way to uh to engage and get them invested in the campaign and if you have to choose if there's if that is off the table for whatever reason like engaging the player is the better of the two because i've found that if a player is engaged they will find a reason for their character to be engaged whereas if you're going with like all right i looked at the characters backstory their flaws their bonds whatever you know and created a scenario that would fit them and the players not interested like it doesn't matter how custom crafted that is for the character if the player is like i'm just not interested in that you know i don't my character is who they are but this specific thing you put forward is is not what i'm into that can happen in all kinds of things you can have a you know the most hardcore power gaming combat junkie in the most hack and slash campaign and if they're like yeah i don't care about doing this thing even if it is a bunch of fighting like i just don't care about this type of monster like they're boring to fight or done it before you know it's an elemental it's just it's a bunch of an element you know yeah that kind of thing oh definitely you have to you have to find out why why they fight you know that's it's the you can't just listen to december's all the time and and get the answer you know get the answer yeah i was just tired of fighting aberrations or something yeah yeah oh no hey i've been there uh i've been there for that but um real quick just like regarding adventure hooks there's a reason why we've been zooming in on this moment right because you've crafting hooks that that reinforce the kind of campaign that you've sold the players on is is one way to make engaging hooks and then the other one is like create hooks that engage to the play styles and even before that just their preferences right if you know someone's like super into a certain tv show or a certain genre of media then like just a little bit of that just a little sprinkle a little like hey i see you i put this in here for you um yeah can be really nice and just a way of of showing the players that like okay i am paying attention i i recognize that we're creating something together in as we play this game and like even if we're i'm a traditional gm and i control the world i control the npcs this is this is my purview like we're still doing something that you have him put on and and you'll be able to impact things and then i will you know we'll see where it goes um so finding things in your game world that uh interest other players asking them what seems interesting about it you know seeing if there's something that they could help you define because you've left the details vague um all of these things can go into hooks in addition to like hey i made these cool monsters and locations and plots and whatever maybe you'll like them too just kind of offer them a buffet just like spoil them with choice in in what they uh what kind of adventures they can have and you'll find out something you know but we'll definitely find something or they will find something to hook themselves on man i'm just uh anyway it's all good um yes definitely uh creating these things is one thing but delivering uh an experience and and um making sure that you are upfront with uh with how you present it is is also important so like what i'm getting at here is you have to have trust between player and dm that the dm has asked all these things and the players have told them oh i like this or i like that or you know you know that campaign was my favorite so trust is is is paramount uh because if you're if your players don't trust you then they're less likely to go after those hooks because they're like oh he's burned me a couple times it's like do that fetch quest and not another fetch quest you know yeah not another one please um yeah trust is is essential for this kind of play where you're looking for like deep engagement as well as maximizing agency like obviously communication is the bedrock of all this right let them know what your expectations are explicitly work out any differences you have in in terms of expectations even if people don't state anything they don't state a preference they don't say anything then leave the door open for you know discussion later i find like a lot of times it's the dms who have these grand expectations for what engagement looks like and if a player's quiet if a player is distracted that you know that that dm seem to like take that as a huge problem and it it might be for the dungeon master right um but that's choice you could recalibrate your expectations which is kind of what we're asking to do but it's also like that player might be distracted for some other reason then they're not into your game or they could just be quiet and they and they don't need as much spotlight time or directed attention as as other players might or as the dm might feel that they need to give and so you know it's easy to say get to know your players play with them a long time not everybody has that luxury but you can't ask you can't say hey uh you know it's been a while since since uh you know i had your attention like quiet player is there anything you'd like to do i just want to make sure that uh you know that you get a chance right yeah yeah there's nothing wrong with asking uh and and i think it's it's sort of it reinforces that role of gm as as primarily a communicator right that's what they do is they communicate and even once you start playing the clarity and consistency of your communication as we kind of described in our descriptions video is important because if things just change a lot if the descriptions of things if the qualities of things change then how are the players going to have the trust that they're making a decision based on relevant information and making sure that you're describing things in a consistent and clear manner often goes hand in hand with being able to show where the opportunities for adventure are in your games because a lot of times players don't see them they're not as recognizable and and obvious as you might think that they are and you're over here is the dm going like man there's all these things they could be doing all these things i've dangled in front of them options for them to consider some of them that they've even said they would be interested in and over here on the player's side there's like what are we supposed to do you know like is there anything for us to do and so like you might need to be explicit and be like hey guys these are the things that i've put on offer you know if it seems like you might not recognize them or you know you haven't let me know clearly enough you're not interested in them but um all of those are are aspects of communication oh yeah definitely uh it's sometimes it's okay to point out all the uh exclamation points above people's heads the npcs so that the players know like these are the opportunities that you have you know like sure sure especially if you're trying to get a group of players who are used to very linear the dm provides them motivation all they do is show up and say yes style game and getting them to be more open and wanting to provide their own motivation you might have to have this transitory period where you're like yep these are the options is clearly what they are you know like that but another um another the i guess the flip side of that though is is you could have a table that is wanting to go left and right you know it doesn't even even when the adventure hooks aren't aren't pulling you that way right so it's you have to be more flexible like that's a that's an important part of trust as well if the dm is is like no you can't go that way that's that's that you know there's guards stepping your way and prevent your you know just because it seems like oh the dm obviously wasn't prepared for that um right i mean that's important too yes yes straight that's what i'm saying be flexible be flexible yeah i i think i tell you what you're saying yeah if if if you're not prepared then say you're not prepared right trying to hide the fact trying to obfuscate it or or like gently nudge somewhere else might get read as a as sort of a denial of agency they're saying well your choice doesn't really matter this is what i want you to do as opposed to saying your choice matters but i cannot honor it at the moment right whether or not you would choose one or the other i am not prepared for you to do the other so either this one and and it has to be acceptable for today or we play some other time or you're okay that i wing it and then we'll get some more detail the next time you know if you feel comfortable with that so flexibility uh it goes hand in hand with communication in that regard and there's even flexibility in terms of the kinds of collaboration that you'll engage in with the players right whether that's world building as part of a character's backstory or just something they want in the game or like collaboration in a scene what is it that the players are allowed to say is here right can they conjure material objects out of their imagination uh and to use and say combat or or something you know to what degree they're allowed to do that that's something that you want to be open about and also flexible on you know oh most definitely i mean if you're if you're uh in a scene and you have a a character that you know makes a point that oh they're from say the the the riverlands or they're from a area an area that has more water than the area you're in and you're talking about some like ritual or festival or whatever and it's like well that's that's normally done in the riverlands turn to player from there what how how do they handle that that uh that that bit of decorum from that area and letting them spice up the world in that moment and letting it be part of the cannon that is an amazing way because if to me if i'm a player and the dm turns to me and tells me or asks me to fill in a bit of just minutia about the world just because my character is from that area like i'm like oh okay well like it matters like i actually can change things about this world um so like i am immediately more engaged in the world because i just created a thing you know this is just great i think yeah i think there are definitely players who like that much freedom to establish details might be too much i'm not always into it but i do enjoy like as a dm i do enjoy it when a player is willing to take it up and also is is able to exercise their imagination within the bounds that we've already created right tonally in terms of what kind of game we're playing and sort of things that go on that i find that very satisfying because like i'm not going to be able to come up with everything when i'm a player i just don't like being put on the spot that's that's it for me i don't mind conceptually i just i'm usually like ah i'm not ready for this um so i love that improv jim you know don't you do uh and so you know right now uh when i think of flexibility and collaboration that's largely what i think of and i think that style of creative collaboration is very in vogue and very much in the the moment for uh player culture and and one sense there's been that for a long time in terms of the how do you hit your monster how do you do your crit how do you kill it that kind of thing even before critical role this was you know something that i saw in nearly every d d game and then there's also that kind of like what does this place look like what is the feel of this place that's one of my my favorite ones as a dm uh is to say like all right here's sort of what's going on here are the broad strokes so and so what can you tell me that is reminiscent of theme or mood or whatever we're trying to go for right that requires flexibility but it also requires the the willingness for the player to go like nope no thanks i'm i don't i don't really that's not what how i want to engage with the game right now so like you were mentioning earlier about uh players may uh creating things in the scene like you're at the docks players like i want to jump behind these boxes certainly there's boxes here because we're on the docks like to me as a dm yes like that's that's not outside the bounds of of possibility so there's no reason not to you know reward that player for you know just you know that's that's ingenuity uh at work right there right yeah it's part of why we recommended in the description show relying on like stock descriptions like this is a gloomy graveyard this is a bustling tavern like just you don't have to go into that much detail because people already have an idea of what's there and the the the sort of one of the benefits of that is that they don't you don't have to like exhaustively detail everything they can just ask hey are there are crates around here there's a you know there's a table i can flip over there's uh an expensive piece of art i could smash you know things like that that uh you know is there a curtain i can hide behind or a tapestry or something um chandelier i can swing from right all of those things sort of like interacting with the environment uh you can be flexible on so it doesn't like tax your imagination player gets to have some creativity um that's that's not the only way that players can have an impact that requires some flexibility from the dm like there's the narrative impact and the sense of like describing things and and sort of setting the scene but there's also like the impact of their choices you know flexibility when they want to go left and you thought they were going to go right the ability to to roll with the punches of play as it were and accept that like for this game to have any any kind of meaning or resonance with the players they're on some level they have to see the impact of their choices in play and understand that their characters are center stage even if they're not the heroes of the world they are the protagonists of this this thing we're creating this unfolding story and that that's important that they're not negated this is why we say don't fudge don't you know roll in the open don't switch things around behind them or present them with false choices like this is this is where the rubber meets the road in terms of the players try something and and if the response is that didn't matter it didn't change anything then you're sending the signal over and over and over again that it doesn't really matter what they do they're you know they're this the show will go on regardless of what they uh what they try to do this is a this is a game of heroes for them this isn't like working a job in corporate america um uh another thing about uh player engagement at the table that kind of steps away from the choices but the way a player interacts with the game yeah like for me i'm if i'm in a game i'm always in character sure if i don't i'll be like hey jim whatever but other than that like i'm in character a lot of people aren't like that yeah right yeah i'm i'm not i switch between actor author and director this you know the sort of like stances of approach to your character all the time you know and usually an in character moment with an out of character sort of statement of intent or or you know a bit of like stage direction or description like my character does this flourish and then launches into this kind of speech at which point i switch into to in character and like i understand that that's confusing like i've i've been at the table when people like who are we talking to and so i do my best as a player to to you know let them know all right i'm speaking a character now um but it it it is sort of a i wouldn't want that to be mistaken for me not taking the game seriously right or not being engaged usually when i'm when i'm on multiple levels when i'm interfacing with the game and interacting with it making decisions with it as both character player and and sort of just person who wants a certain thing um then i'm usually engaged but i'm not going to be immersed in my character you know and that's just it just looks different you know yeah you're not going to be like daniel uh day lewis on the porch uh during there will be blood smoking a pipe and being just pissed off all the time no no no i'm not right i'm not looking to be a different person i'm looking to just play someone on in the session um the converse of that is i have gm for games where there's somebody at the table who's always speaking in character and yet could care less about what's going on and and those are very frustrating moments because there's at least one where they refused under any circumstances to address the irl and would not stop answering as if they were in character it's just like that was one of the last it was like the second the last time i played with them um just like nah man we're people here we're not you're not an elf you're not you're not really a druid come on [Music]

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Keywords: DnD, dungeons and dragons, d&d, dungeons & dragons, web dm, webdm, rpg, how to play dungeons and dragons, dungeons, dragons, tabletop, gaming, roleplaying, games, accessories, rules, rule, gameplay, play, game, d20, player, character, 5e, DM, PC, tips, advice, guide, guides, review, dice, books, book, D&D, engagement, engaging, explaining, matt mercer, matthew colville, dungeon master, game master, how to run dungeons and dragons

Id: ZEDwQ00NPxw

Length: 37min 6sec (2226 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 27 2021