The Bardic Inquiry

Questions help us communicate and understand each other and we can use them to improve the engagement of our players in our roleplaying games. By asking the right type questions of our players, we can establish a scene more quickly or drive a narrative forward. The type of question we ask depends on the reason for the question and the kind of information we want.

TL;DR

• Players engage with roleplaying games differently, but if we ask the right questions, we can improve their engagement.
• There are six types of questions that work well in roleplaying games: open, closed, leading, inverted, redirect, and affective.
• We should use questions that will elicit the type of response we would like whether that is clarifying or learning about the world, tempting players into quick action, or learning about the emotions of a character or checking in with players.

What is player engagement in roleplaying games?

As with most things in this wonderful world, players like to engage with roleplaying games differently.

There are players who engage by sitting back and listening to the story as if it were an audio drama, players who jump at the opportunity to ask questions about a scene or take action, and all manner of players in-between.

Measuring this engagement can be difficult, but if players keep showing up (and are not awkwardly silent when you ask for feedback after a game), then they are probably engaging with the roleplaying game.

However, even throughout a session this engagement ebbs and flows as a player’s attention span deviates. Our brains all work a little differently, thus we all have different attention spans, especially in this age of communication as seen in a study comparing people using physical and digital tools to code information conducted by Elena Medvedskaya.

So how do we bring players’ attention back to the roleplaying game and improve engagement?

Easy.

Just ask the right questions.

What are the types of questions to use in roleplaying games?

Our brains are predisposed to contemplate and answer questions (which is an underlying mechanism in sales), but as players in a roleplaying game, we require the right kind of question to be asked so we can drive the game forward.

Here are six types of questions you can use to improve player engagement in a roleplaying game:

• Closed: Questions which have a binary answer, “yes” or “no”.
  “Do you light the toilet on fire?”
• Open: Questions which allow for players to provide more detail and explanation.
  “What is your old school friend like these days?”
• Leading: Questions which encourage a specific response from players.
  “Are you looking to intimidate the information out of them or something else?”
• Inverted: Questions which provide a result and ask the player to explain how they ended up there.
  “How did the keys end up in your pocket?”
• Redirect: Questions which invite other players to add to, modify, or interject another player’s response or action.
  “Saskia, what does Gruul do about Hancho using his private bathroom?”
• Affective: Questions which require the players to communicate the emotions or thoughts of their character.
  “Tim, how does Hancho feel about what went down with his mother before?”

At this point, you may be thinking when and where you might use these types of questions. However, remembering these six types of questions and when to use them during a session can be difficult, especially when your cognitive load is already filled with encounters, NPC actions, and location descriptions.

To chunk this information and make it easier for us to remember during a session, we can group these questions together based on the outcome or information we require.

When do you use questions in roleplaying games?

Whenever we set a scene in a roleplaying game, we are aware of its purpose, and whenever we ask a question, we are expecting a specific type of response.

In a roleplaying game, I ask questions for the following uses:

• To invite player action and input or clarify information during a scene.
• To tempt players into specific actions or spur the group into making a decision.
• To encourage roleplay through the expression of character emotions, thoughts, and opinions, or to check in with a low-activity player without demanding too much.

We can use this handy graphic to organise the six question types into three categories based on their function:

The six question types before neatly fit into the three functional categories. If you want to:

• Clarify or learn about a character or the world then you can ask open questions to elicit detail or closed questions to clarify established facts.
• Tempt players or incite quick action then you can ask leading questions to prime them for a tense situation or an inverted questions to have them roleplay or explain what happened.
• Learn about a character’s state or adjust the pace then you can ask affective questions to learn about a character’s emotions and thoughts on the scene or redirect questions to gently check-in with a player or have them comment on the actions of another character.

It is worth mentioning that these questions can apply to other situations and even overlap on their function. When you are asking a question, be sure to understand the reason you are asking it to ensure you improve player engagement and drive the roleplaying game forward.

You can read more about how you can use questions to start a roleplaying game session here.