Using postmortems to improve games

Who's had this happen? Everyone comes over, you play, everyone says "Thanks" and then goes home. You pat yourself on the back, and do it again next week. After a while, your game stagnates and dies or your players lose interest and want to play something else, and that's it for the campaign you were running. I've certainly had that happen, and from talking to other folks, I think it's pretty common.

The problem illustrated by the above scenario is two fold: 1) the players aren't giving the DM effective feedback on how to improve, and 2) the players aren't discussing among themselves how to more effectively play together. Remember that table top RPGs (even if they're played over G+ or Roll20) are social games, and everyone needs to be working together to achieve the result of fun being had. Working together, whether you're playing D&D, playing soccer or building software, requires regular feedback resulting in actionable info enabling continuous improvement.

So, how do we ensure we, as DMs, are making that happen? I like to do a short postmortem after every session, and a slightly bigger one after my group has hit certain milestones in the campaign. So, what's all this look like and what do we actually do?

The session postmortems are short, the idea being to just get some feedback about the adventure. Typically, I ask some questions and facilitate discussion. Remember the goal isn't to tell anyone anything, it's to get their opinions. If your players hit you with some weaksauce opinions like "It was good." then you'll need to dig deeper with more targeted questions.

Questions might look like this: (DM focused) "What did you all like about that session? What didn't you like? How could I have done better? (and more targeted) What did you think about how I set up that last combat? Did you think this NPC reacted reasonably to your actions? What do you think might happen now that you've done X?"

Milestone postmortems are a bit bigger, and I like to use them to get an idea of where the campaign is going, or to make design decisions. These might happen after a boss fight, or at the conclusion of a dungeon. My goal here is to find out how the players liked certain design or encounter elements, or how they feel the campaign is going. This is also a good place to ask what the players might want to do or explore next in the campaign.

Remember though the point isn't to get an answer and stop, but rather to get your players having an honest conversation about the game and their play together. If you're having trouble getting your players to give you honest feedback, the problem might not be them. Consider how you receive the feedback you do get. Do you argue or get defensive? If your players don't seem to want to tell you what they think, it might be because you don't take it well when they do. Keep your own reactions in mind as you seek to improve your game through this kind of discussion.