Plus I know that at least 3 of the Smite’s 4 nerdier players will be cracking the PHB and studyin’ the rules just for fun, ’cause that’s they way they roll.

By that token, still, any GM worth his salt will adjudicate rules with his own interpretation and flavor. Even more so anything not in the ‘core’ books. A player must always check with the GM for a rules decision. “But the Rules say this…” is always only advice to the GM, never a correction of the GM.

Smite: Nice effort. Hope your players come through for you — that kind of DM effort deserves to be rewarded.

The thing is, the “player” part of my survey is far from comprehensive and certainly the less important half for me. In particular this is true because I already know my players very well. I know what each prefers; I also know to not bash them around with too many pushy, guilt-inducing questions. Similarly, I’m not writing up anything for them detailing how many hours I am pledging to spend prepping for each session, etc. To a certain extent we’ve covered this part in our group with face-to-face discussions…

My four players could not be any more different in terms of attitude and outlook, and balancing their differing wants and needs is, to me, the major challenge of this upcoming campaign. The
“looking forward/hope to get out” questions are an unabashed play for positive affirmation: I might believe that I have a strong read on my players’ attitudes, but I nonetheless recognize the danger in operating on these sorts of assumptions rather than trying to ask directly. I’d like to hear, in their own words, what they are looking for.

The “personal growth” question is a key one to me, but it probably represents wishful thinking at best. I like to think that any really good book, movie, TV show, or video game has the power to move me personally and to allow me a way to grow in human experience, and I want to believe that this is true for a D&D campaign as well. It’s hard for me to gauge whether or not my players will appreciate any effort from me to push them out of their respective comfort zones in a play to achieve this, and before I make myself a bunch of bitter friends, its worth trying to find out if they’d rather just keep it safe and all escapist-like. “Hey, hey, give ‘em what they want” is the mantra of choice.

Player commitment is essential to know ahead of time. It allows the DM to know how long or involved to make each adventure. Some people like short missions of 2-3 encounters with closure after each session, while others enjoy long-running sagas or epic quests with no forseeable end. The sad fact that most of us are forming new commitments as we age leaves little or no time for recreational gaming and many try to fit in much more than they can actually handle. Knowing how long each session is likely to be and the attention spans of the players involved helps when crafting an appropriate adventure. I find it necessary in some of my D&D session to go over rules before play begins to ensure that the players understand how their characters work. Unlike the DM, players rarely crack the rulebook in between sessions. Many players also use abilities only after seeing how they are used by NPCs and monsters. This sometimes leads to players all taking the same feat or spell (or class) because it “works” and not as some sort of character development.

I like a survey with a “rank the options” approach that let’s me sort out how a particular player values 1)exciting, cinematic combat encounters, 2)bypassing a complex trap requiring a multi-step solution, 3)using diplomacy to make the monsters fight among themselves, 4)getting magical treasure, 5)getting intangible treasure, like political influence in the game world. Etc.

The typical player I know spends, on average, over two hours per feat choosing new character feats when earned! So, the 2-4 hours spent upfront (and offline!) on this campaign prep is not unreasonable.

The main subtext here is that if players mean it when they claim to want to have influence over the shape of the campaign, the best time to put money where the mouth is is up front. The related subtext is that this is obviously meant for intermediate-to-advanced gamers, not beginners, where expectations are much, much different.

Finally, point taken on the variable-truthiness in the answers. Hopefully, at least, a player should feel a bit more comfortable being honest about the dark aspects of his or her character than about his or her self.

I would love, of course, to do it in less length, so by all means propose something to cut, or one good question that better fulfills the purpose of one of more existing ones!

Commendable effort here, but probably too long for the attention span of the average D&D gamer. If I was going to hand something like this to my players, I would make it clear that it was not essential to answer all four parts of every single question - otherwise the surveys would probably never get completed or returned to me.