D&D 4E 4E Playtesting

[Cthulhudrew]

I expect ENWorld would take it down post-haste. As the (AFAIK) premiere fan site for D&D, ENWorld gets some pretty regular visits from WotC staffers and we sometimes get little nuggets of goodness from them. Respecting WotC and the NDAs may not be a legal issue, but it most certainly is a relationship issue.

While I don't really know what Morrus' relationship is with WotC these days (and certainly, ENWorld is much more than just the fansite it was when Eric started it up), but little leaked and anonymous snippets of info from playtesters was one of the big things back in the days of pre-3E, and it didn't seem to be a problem (though maybe Eric or one of the people who ran one of the other numerous Rumor sites at the time could attest otherwise).

I'm not trying to advocate the leaking, mind, I'm just noting that there does seem to be a marked difference between now and then in regards to the amount of information being bandied about, both leaks as well as Factual (such as the entire year long preview of 3E that ran in Dragon magazine).

From my perspective, at least, it's making me less interested in 4E than I was in 3E. All the little tidbits (some of which turned out to be false, or got changed), just fueled the hype and made me all the more excited. Now, I'm just sort of bleah about the change.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

Does anyone know if there is someone orchestrating the promotion and publicity for 4E as a full time job? I can't imagine WotC doesn't have a publicity team for this sort of thing.

One other thing that just occurred to me- at the advent of 3E, WotC hadn't yet been purchased by Hasbro (at least, not IIRC). Being under the auspices of that industry giant might have something to do with the seemingly stricter NDA this time around.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

After fully seeing the system, they're all too crushed to speak?

I suspect epochrpg is right, and people are still waiting for materials, specially since it seems they're still making all sorts of changes at this point.

I've heard from someone that the playtest is done in waves. They send groups out enough information to test one specific thing and ask that it be done and a questionnaire be filled out and returned back to WOTC a couple of weeks later.

I got the impression that the waves were things like: "Here is your pregenerated characters for this wave and here is a small adventure written specifically for this wave. Run your players through this adventure then answer the questions on these sheets. There is one for each player on their specific character."

The characters probably include a short description of their feats and abilities that are likely MUCH shorter than the full versions in the actual PHB. The adventure itself likely contains each rule as it's used.

I believe from everything I've read and one thing I've heard that playtesting is on wave 4 or 5 and there will likely be 2 or 3 more waves before it is done.

I think the reason you haven't seen any information is probably a number of reasons. My best guess is that they are shipping the rules out as paper copies only. This makes it harder to just copy things and put them on the internet.

Also, the playtesters are likely given a place to let loose and talk about 4th Ed so they don't feel the need to do so in public. It's likely there is a hidden message board on the WOTC website just for playtesters so they can talk to their hearts content. This cuts down on the "I'm so excited about this new thing, I just have to tell someone" phenomenon.

Also, it is likely that even the playtesters don't see the entirety of the game yet. There may be 5 different adventures per wave that are sent out. Only one of them might contain the rules for social encounters, since the rest might not have one. Or they might be sending out 5 different versions of the social encounter rules and have told the groups that they are testing to see which rules work best and their version may not be the final version and therefore revealing it would be pointless. It also means that if one rule is posted to the internet, WOTC can narrow it down to a small group of people who it might be.

Plus, as Dave has said, a large portion of the playtesters were hand chosen by Chris Tulach from RPGA members. They are people he knows and trusts. He sees them all a couple of times per year at the major cons and has the phone numbers of most or all of them(from even before they were playtesters). They know that any leak would make Chris Tulach look bad and therefore, they won't do it.

 

[Clavis]

This whole thread brings up the abuse of Non-Disclosure Agreements by corperate America.

C'mon, we're not talking about the Manhattan Project here. D&D is a game where people pretend to be elves and steal imaginary treasures. What could possibly be happening in game development that it would be worth wasting the time of the American legal system to punish those who dare to disclose the details of new character classes? Are the playtesters secretly fighting Al Qaeda? Will Great Chtulhu rise if people know how many hit points a 5th level Wizard will have in 4th edition?

 

[LightPhoenix]

This whole thread brings up the abuse of Non-Disclosure Agreements by corperate America.

C'mon, we're not talking about the Manhattan Project here. D&D is a game where people pretend to be elves and steal imaginary treasures. What could possibly be happening in game development that it would be worth wasting the time of the American legal system to punish those who dare to disclose the details of new character classes? Are the playtesters secretly fighting Al Qaeda? Will Great Chtulhu rise if people know how many hit points a 5th level Wizard will have in 4th edition?

The problem with that argument is that it is the ideal situation. In real life, people will get bent out of shape at the smallest things, and a perceived outcry of dismay from large groups of the community would hurt the bottom line. We have next to no information on 4E yet, and there are already people proclaiming that they won't be buying 4E. Imagine if half of ENW decided to do that... it would be tremendously hurtful to WotC and the industry as a whole.

It would be wonderful if we lived in a utopian society where money doesn't matter. But, the people at WotC, who are working on something they love, still have to pay bills and feed families. If an NDA helps that, then it's worth it.

 

[BASHMAN]

I wouldn't be surprised if there were pre-gen characters. During 3e playtesting, we had versions of the iconics at every level in order to test them against monsters.

I'm not a 4e playtester, by the way, although I wish I was!

I was just going to in jest-- imply that you were because of your "I'm almost positive they aren't doing that, part". But this post... totally confirms that you ARE a 4e playtester, since the NDA makes playtesters say that they are not....

I'm watching you, mr. cat...

Perhaps all the testers are our own beloved admins-- thus easy to control the flow of information-- or lack thereof.

[/silly conspiracy theory]

 

[The_Baldman]

and remember at D&D eXPerience (DDXP) you can play hours and hours of 4th edition stuff run by Wotc staff members and playtesters. Once that hits this website and the web in general will be flooded my 4th edition information and it will be a lot more solid then I am sure it is right now.

So you want to be one of the first to see 4th edition and comment on it? Come to DDXP next February and get access not only to the game but those that make it. No show comes remotely close to it.

Dave C
RPGA Senior GM of said show
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=rpga/ddxp/hotel
http://www.consupport.com

 

[Cthulhudrew]

Are the playtesters secretly fighting Al Qaeda?

Maybe this is what the recent Congressional Appropriations controversy is really about?

 

[BASHMAN]

This would be fairly difficult from a logistical standpoint, but with the details of the rules apparently still in somewhat of a flux from week to week, it isn't really that unlikely.

So, if a group were to decide to break their NDA by anonymously leaking information, they would have no way of knowing that they weren't the only group with access to that specific iteration of the rules. It would then be a fairly trivial manner for Wizards to examine the leaked data and determine which group that iteration was sent to, leaving them able to press charges for contract infringement.

This is the same technique that the NSA and CIA uses for counter-espionage to find moles.

Of course, they could sue those playtesters for breach, but would never win-- because:

1. There is no proof that it was them who drove out to an internet cafe in some major US city and posted the information annonymously to a wiki. For all wotc knows it could be net-trolls lucky guess. All they have is the circumstantial evidence.

2. Even if they could prove that the group did it-- they could NEVER prove which member of the group did the posting. Since all but 1 member of the group is innocent, all would have to be let off the hook. Innocent before being proven guilty and all that...

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I have what might be a controversial theory about that; the huge playtesting of 3e was part of the marketing for the game, more so than part of the rules design for the game.

WotC wanted the word out there that D&D was back with a vengeance, and pave the way for the changes of 3e. To do that, they utilised a huge playtest program to get the word out and get people used to the changes.

Of course, the playtesting also had impact on the game design, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the primary force behind the massive 3e playtest was marketing. This time, the need for such a massive playtest for marketing purposes isn't there.

Please note that I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, it's just a thought I've had a couple of times.

/M

That's possible. There was another theory that said the current lack of hard information might also be a marketing strategy. They just give us vague tidbits and some flavor text to get us excited and discussing possibilities. Okay, sometimes it is a bit annoying (beware of "fun" and "cool" these days), but I read so much interesting and enlightening posts since the announcement, have thought about so many more things, and so much more than I did in the months or even years before, that I am willing to believe that. It's certainly a positive side effect. Maybe the same would have happened if we got more hard rules, but maybe not? An existing rules makes all thinking about possible implementations void, but this way.

To add a conspiracy theory to it: In truth, D&D 4 is far from finished. The designers just have the few ideas they posted and nearly no mechanical implementatios, and are now looking at our ideas we post online and steal them to create the real ruleset.