Sometimes, it can be really difficult to know what your players think about your Dungeons and Dragons sessions, and you can feel completely in the dark as to what they're enjoying, and what they're not.
This is a pretty frustrating place to be - and usually asking 'how was it?' at the end of the session is only going to be met with something along the lines of 'oh yeah, that was great. Thanks'. Not the most useful feedback, if we're honest.
There are absolutely ways to improve the quality of the feedback you get from your players though, which will in turn help you to improve the quality of the D&D game you're running (and, hopefully, make you feel a bit better at the same time!). Let's have a look at some of them.
Tell people in advance
I make sure to tell my players before the campaign starts that every couple of months or so I'm going to ask them for feedback, to ensure that I keep running a game which everyone finds enjoyable. Usually I'll mention this during Session 0, or if not, I'll do it by email before our first session. By mentioning it from the outset, I'm already setting the expectation of my players that I will be asking for feedback, and also gives me the opportunity to tell them that I really value hearing their opinions.
This (hopefully) helps them realise that it's an important step towards building a game that everybody enjoys, rather than just me asking for the sake of my own ego and desiring affirmation. This also gives people a heads up, so that in the back of their mind while they're playing, they can think about what they enjoy and what they don't - which should lead to higher quality feedback when I do ask for it, instead of just whatever's top of mind when I ambush them at the end of game night.
Ask specific questions
I also find that if you're specific about the questions that you ask, you are more likely to get back specific, useful feedback in return. If you just ask 'are you enjoying it?' people will more than likely say 'yeah, totally!' which, while affirming, is not terribly useful.
Instead, I may ask how they find the balance between combat and other elements of the game. Or if they are ok with the frequency of the sessions we're running, and if a different frequency would work better. I might ask if there's any elements of D&D (puzzles, dungeon-crawling, maps etc) that they'd like to see more of in my campaign, or if they have a rough idea of how long they want the campaign to last.
By asking specific questions like these, I ensure that I get feedback that is relevant and actionable. I also make it easier for my players to feed back to me honestly, without compromising their thoughts in an attempt to spare my feelings.
After all, I am much less likely to take offense to responses to a question like 'are you happy with the frequency of our sessions?' than I might be to the broader question of 'are you enjoying the game?' Yet knowing the answer to the former might go a long way towards improving the latter. Given that the whole point of this is to receive feedback that I can use and learn from, this specificity is key.
You'll likely not get much back
Even when asking specific questions, the chances are that your players won't give you loads in the way of feedback. This isn't a bad thing! More than likely, it means that they're enjoying how you're running your game and just want more of it. Yay!
Also, remember that your players probably spend waaay less time thinking about your campaign than you do. All those bits of lore that you're thinking about at 3am have probably gone way over their heads anyway - so don't expect the kind of feedback that is gonna reference all those little easter eggs.
While for you, designing a campaign can be a huge creative undertaking, for your players it may just be something they do for a couple of hours a week to unwind. They are less invested in it than you, they think about it less than you - and as such, they may not have loads of feedback for you when you ask.
This is totally fine - it doesn't mean that they're not enjoying it, just that they're not dissecting everything to the nth degree. You've gotta be cool with this. Take whatever feedback you do receive and use that, but don't sweat it if there isn't much - it doesn't mean you're doing a bad job or running bad sessions. More often than not, it will mean the exact opposite.
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