Tabletop RPG Preferences Survey

General questions, debates, and rants about RPGs

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Dogbert
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Post by Dogbert »

Done.
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Chamomile
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Post by Chamomile »

radthemad4 wrote:Are there any professional players?
I don't know if there are, but there could be. However, they will necessarily be much more rare than professional GMs which, even if someone successfully makes the general idea acceptable and creates that market, I doubt would be that common in the first place. The difference here is that the GM has a lot of different skills he needs to have. He needs to be competent in making adventures, must know the rules of the game well enough to run it consistently, must be good enough at improvising in gaps in the written rules or his memory of them to keep the game from grinding to a halt at edge cases, must either be able to create a setting of his own or understand an existing one, must be able to show up on time regularly, and so on. Attempting to boil down the skills needed for a good GM and you're likely to get at least three or four if you avoid anything tautological.

Players, on the other hand? A good player shows up on time and roleplays well. That's basically it, and showing up reliably is a skill that has a pretty hard cap on it. You can't show up on time more often than 100% of the time and it is not that hard to get into the high 90s such that you're at the point of diminishing returns for getting any better at it. This means that the only skill a player has to be good at is roleplaying. Optimization isn't a skill that other players or the GM want you to have (in fact, a well-made game is measured by how well it is resistant to optimized play, because it is bad when there is a large gap in power between PCs), so they won't pay you for it. So all you have is roleplay, being able to integrate your character into the story in such a way that is compelling to the GM and other players, most likely by shaping the story in such a way as to emphasize their own creations. Someone who strikes up in-character conversations that gives other PCs a chance to roleplay, or who engages with the GM's plot and setting and helps everyone else get immersed. Someone who makes their character to be compatible with the general themes and vibe of the rest of the party and the GM's plot hook/setting rather than adding on yet another disparate concept to compromise between. Players who do this kind of thing are valuable.

That's the only skill the player role can particularly be good at, though, so they need to be extremely good at it in order to stand out. A GM can stand out by not having any notable deficiencies in the large number of skills they're expected to manage. A player can only stand out by being really good at one skill.

There's also supply and demand. Players have significantly fewer responsibilities, and GMs don't usually get especially more respect, so players tend to drastically outnumber GMs, since the only people who GM are either the guys drawing the short straw or the ones who have a genuine passion for running a game and/or want to carve out a tiny fiefdom and make players dance like puppets. And that second kind are basically mimics, in that they look like the thing in demand but their actual goal is to devour the unwary.
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Post by deaddmwalking »

I am reminded of 'Gamer Temps' in Knights of the Dinner Table. The group will sometimes hire a temp to handle their character when they are unable to attend the game. The idea seems to be that the paid player SHOULD better represent the issues of the player than the other players at the table. In one example where the player allowed the rest of the table to run her character, she unloaded all of her equipment and essentially ran naked through the dungeon setting off every trap. Unsurprisingly, she did not survive.
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Post by Meikle641 »

I will be closing the surveys on November 13th and I'll be posting the results by the 20th at latest. In other news, we hit our first professional milestone!

While I may have missed my desired Halloween deadline by a day, I want to present the first release from Heartbreaker Press: Red Dawn, by Virgil Clemens.

I figure I might send coupons to anybody that submitted an email address, as well, if people are interested.
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Post by Dogbert »

Done.
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Post by Meikle641 »

Sorry for the delay, everyone. Had a busy week or so, then I had to edit out any emails at the ends of files. I'll be releasing the survey summaries of all the survey's I'd posted, rather than the detailed data I'm sure you were all craving, but this give the gist of it even if not all the text answers are listed.

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Post by Meikle641 »

To any of you that gave valid emails on the Heartbreaker Press survey last year, rewards were sent to any valid emails given. Enjoy.

I'll be sending followup emails to those that didn't have a DTRPG account attached to the supplied address.

To the people that gave fake/insulting addresses rather than just skipping the question? Why did you even bother? The Den, interestingly, was the only site to do that.
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Post by MGuy »

Meikle641 wrote:To any of you that gave valid emails on the Heartbreaker Press survey last year, rewards were sent to any valid emails given. Enjoy.

I'll be sending followup emails to those that didn't have a DTRPG account attached to the supplied address.

To the people that gave fake/insulting addresses rather than just skipping the question? Why did you even bother? The Den, interestingly, was the only site to do that.
I'd wager there are people who lurk on this site that actually don't like it.
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Post by Starmaker »

Meikle641 wrote:I'll be sending followup emails to those that didn't have a DTRPG account attached to the supplied address.
...You can just give a bunch of emails to DTRPG and they'll tell you whether these people have an account on the site or not?
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Post by erik »

Starmaker wrote:
Meikle641 wrote:I'll be sending followup emails to those that didn't have a DTRPG account attached to the supplied address.
...You can just give a bunch of emails to DTRPG and they'll tell you whether these people have an account on the site or not?
I don't honestly remember if I did this survey, but that seems a fair indicator for why people would not share emails. As for why insulting emails, probably because we are collectively hilarious.

Why leave blank what could be used for an insult?

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Post by Meikle641 »

Starmaker wrote:
Meikle641 wrote:I'll be sending followup emails to those that didn't have a DTRPG account attached to the supplied address.
...You can just give a bunch of emails to DTRPG and they'll tell you whether these people have an account on the site or not?
It's not any different than calling an address only to find it doesn't connect, for one reason or another. They have a feature to send promotional copies, special discounts, etc by email or customer ID.

In the case of the latter, for instance, I could send a special discount to any customer that hasn't bought x product from me, but has bought h, j and Z.
Last edited by Meikle641 on Tue Jul 25, 2017 5:39 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Meikle641
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Post by Meikle641 »

erik wrote:
Starmaker wrote:
Meikle641 wrote:I'll be sending followup emails to those that didn't have a DTRPG account attached to the supplied address.
...You can just give a bunch of emails to DTRPG and they'll tell you whether these people have an account on the site or not?
I don't honestly remember if I did this survey, but that seems a fair indicator for why people would not share emails. As for why insulting emails, probably because we are collectively hilarious.
" Are you interested in using our services? Please list what email address would you like to be contacted at. We will not sell your contact or personal information. "

I used it for a promotional email which made several announcements and gave a discount on a purchase. Since I couldn't make a blanket discount code under my current restrictions, as as I could see, I used the emails to do it directly, as described in the post above. Nothing sinister there.
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Post by Starmaker »

Meikle641 wrote:
Starmaker wrote:...You can just give a bunch of emails to DTRPG and they'll tell you whether these people have an account on the site or not?
It's not any different than calling an address only to find it doesn't connect, for one reason or another.
No. No. No. The email I gave to you is for you to contact me, it's not for you to contact third parties (netflix, adam&eve, furaffinity, drivethrurpg) and see whether they know me.

The proper response to "does this person have an account with you?" is "fuck off, we won't tell" (corollary: the proper response to trying to register an account when one already exists at a given email is "okay, done, now check your email for confirmation" and mail an alert).

Fucking drivethrurpg fucking leaks customer data.
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Post by Meikle641 »

In order to give a discount to specific people I need to enter an email to deliver it to. The site simply checks if the address is registered as an account or not. There is no "leak", nothing has been sold off. Nothing is signed up to sites unwillingly, or mailing lists. It's literally just checking whether the destination is valid or not.

The spoiler shows the process.
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Last edited by Meikle641 on Mon Jul 31, 2017 2:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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