The carrot is more effective than the stick. That’s especially true when running a game. In fact, failing to give your players enough carrots might cause them to lose interest and stop playing. But what makes a good carrot?

A carrot here may be any kind of rewarding or fulfilling experience. Accomplishing something in the game world, being paid, empowering your character, roleplaying a deep or meaningful scene, outsmarting someone, or winning fights could all be examples. Many things can be carrots, and not every potential carrot will be satisfying to every player.

Different players want different carrots. Learn what each of your players wants. You may think you’re offering good fun and lots of rewards when you’re actually just satisfying yourself and leaving your players’ desires unmet. Your players might slowly lose interest, unwilling to put in the time and effort of playing with you when you never give them what they want.

Fortunately, there’s a simple solution. Ask your players what they want in your game. Then, as you play, keep asking them—and ask whether you’re giving them what they want.

My friend Daniel has a really good ritual for the end of every session. He goes around the group, asking what people liked and disliked. Then he asks what people want to see next in the game. He takes notes.

It’s a simple ritual. Sometimes it takes five minutes, sometimes fifteen. It always feels worthwhile.

Sometimes our ‘wants’ are cool scenes that we think should happen. Sometimes they’re aspirational goals for our characters. Sometimes they reveal ways we feel dissatisfied, sometimes they’re our next course of action. They’re consistently a useful pointer; Daniel can bend the game towards giving us a taste of what we want, or plan ways to incorporate more of what we want in the future.

Our wants change! That’s okay too. By checking in at the end of every session, Daniel can keep up with us. He can make sure to offer us carrots that we like, and offer them often enough to keep us engaged.

I say ‘offer them often enough’ because that really is what this is about. The storyteller doesn’t have to give everyone a carrot every time you play. Monotony is boring. But a storyteller who wants their players to have fun and keep playing will irregularly offer carrots until their players are enjoying themselves and feeling invested. And the storyteller can only offer carrots—with few exceptions, players must engage to get them.

Now, maybe you don’t WANT to give your players a carrot. Maybe you think they did something wrong, or you think the narrative demands that you give them sticks instead. Or maybe you keep offering them what you think is a carrot, and your players don’t seem to like it.

If any of this is the case, remember: your opinion of what makes a carrot doesn’t matter. Your players’ opinions matter. Just because your group agreed that you have authorial power doesn’t mean you can ignore what they want. In fact, if you have authorial control you’re more responsible for offering your players the fun they want. What’s more, players who can’t find fun in your game won’t keep playing with you.

Carrots don’t always have to be simple and straightforwardly good. You can mix things up. Sometimes give your players a carrot with no strings attached. Sometimes give your players a carrot and—stealing old Apocalypse World terminology—smear your bloody fingerprints all over it. If the carrots you offer create deeper connections to your game’s world, for good AND for ill, so much the better.

But you have to engage with what the players find rewarding. You can’t just satisfy yourself and assume everyone else is having fun.

Another friend of mine is playing a campaign that she yearns to leave. The storyteller has not been offering rewards she or the other players find satisfying. They have slowly progressed through a long quest but they’ve received no treasure, their clue hunts always end with “your princess is in another castle,” and the scenes which receive most of the storyteller’s focus and thus game time are not the scenes my friend or her fellow players care about. The storyteller has not asked the players whether any of this is working for the group.

This game will not survive.

Could my friend solve this by speaking up? Yes. Will she, at the risk of upsetting her group’s social dynamic? No. She said it wasn’t worth the social cost.

As storyteller, you occupy a position of power. You can initiate this conversation. I recommend that you do so. It needn’t be an interrogation. It can even start small, at the end of your sessions. Try using something like my friend Daniel’s ritual, and when you ask “what do you want” be clear that the answer could be about the player, the player character, or both.

Good luck. I hope you have lots of carrots.