EN Worlders Open Playtesting?

Mark · Aug 8, 2009

Elsewhere, a new adventure writer has announced his recent success -

Thondor said:
So . . . it depends. I'll elaborate.

6d6 fireball has just released its first adventure writing competition winning .pdf. (Of which I am the authour.) This adventure, the Sanctum of the Fiery Ladder, has just become available for free download as part of an open-playtest.

I was thinking of posting something along the lines of:

D&D 3.5 adventure open-playtest

As part of an ongoing adventure writing competition, the first monthly adventure has just been released for free as part of an open-playtest. The open-playtest is designed to help make this and future adventures even better.

You can download this adventure, the Sanctum of the Fiery Ladder, from 6d6 Fireball, here.

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Thanks for answering my questions. This is the first time I have a work being published. And I'd like to be able to talk about it.
If this is pushing the envelope I understand.

But I am curious, how many EN Worlders have been involved with open playtesting and what has been your expereince?

Wycen · Aug 8, 2009

I'm curious how open playtesting compares to say, a cooperative dungeon design?

Thondor · Aug 8, 2009

As the playtest of the adventure I wrote just began (And I'm pretty excited about it.) I don't have a great deal of insight in the whole matter.

So I too am curious about how many people have participated in open-playtesting, on both sides of the people doing the playtesting/having your stuff playtested divide.

As for Wycen's question, I would surmise that cooperative dungeon design differs primarily on the amount of material that is already established.

The adventure I wrote is a complete adventure. However as part of the open-playtest we are looking for means of improving it, clarifying descriptions, improving layout/formating, we also wanted to make sure that CRs are approppriate in actuall play and the pace of the adventure is workable.

Having never participated in a cooperative dungeon design I would guess that their is less pre-established material, and that participants would contribute more creative and detailed additions to the whole.

Mark · Aug 8, 2009

I think that might be true about the difference between the one and the other. One is a building exercise and the other is meant to find flaws.

I'm surprised we aren't seeing some posts from Paizo fans who have been testing PF for the last year or more. I would hope that they haven't all been driven away and are only posting at the Paizo boards now.

Thondor · Aug 10, 2009

Apparently all the pathfinder playtesters are all tired out by talking about it for so long

.

Unfortunately, the open playtest of the Sanctum of the Fiery Ladder has yet to generate any feedback :-S

.

Guillaume · Aug 10, 2009

Thondor said:
Apparently all the pathfinder playtesters are all tired out by talking about it for so long .

Unfortunately, the open playtest of the Sanctum of the Fiery Ladder has yet to generate any feedback.

As has been said above, an open playtest is commenting an a text submited by an author. It does not involve submiting new material per say, as would be the case of a cooperative work. The objectif of the playtest is to find flaws in mechanics or plot, identify elements that are unclear due to wording by the author.

As to playtesting of Sanctum of the Fiery Ladder, I just found out about it today. I'll read it over in the next couple of days, run a few of the encounters and submit my comments as per the web site's instructions. At least, you'll have one comment!

Thondor · Aug 10, 2009

Thanks Guillaume. Looking forward to hearing what you think, and how those encounters play out.

I found guessing at the CR for an 'average group' to be fairly difficult. Anybody have some thoughts on getting CR's right as a writer? Or from playtesting things?