Playtesting - what methods do you use?

[Kalendraf]

Some of my group's players and myself have discussed the possibility of publishing some of our material at a future time, likely in pdf format. We understand there's a lot of work involved, that we'll face enormous hurdles, and that in the end we may only sell a few units. We're not looking to do it to get rich, so it boils down to being much more of a personal goal for us to be able to say, "We did it!"

One of our goals is to ensure that our creations are balanced. Though some items balance may be able to be determined by plain inspection, playtesting always seems to be worthwhile, especially when it comes to adventures or new monsters. I think I understand the basics of what is likely involved here, but I'm looking for feedback from experienced playtest groups. Do you use a set of iconic-type characters? How many times do you repeat an encounter or replay an adventure to ensure the results? Do you change party composition and/or size between test runs? What other methods do you use?

 

[Andre]

I think I understand the basics of what is likely involved here, but I'm looking for feedback from experienced playtest groups.

It depends on what you're testing, but here are a few basics we've encountered:

1. When testing new races, always create characters and run them through an actual adventure, with both combat and roleplaying encounters. If the race has an LA, make the character at least twice the level of the LA (so a +2 LA race should be minimum 4th level). This helps avoid the "paper tiger" syndrome of so many races. When we ran several new races through adventures, we generally found that the estimated LA's were too high, which is easy to do when following the standard guidelines. BTW - I've found that the short adventure published by AEG worked well for this. Dungeon adventures also work well.

2. Pretty obvious, but generally limit yourselves to Core books only, with very few exceptions. If your adventure only works if the party has access to a feat or spell from a non-Core book, some groups will have problems.

3. If it's an adventure, run a standard four character party through it and keep lots of notes of what happens. Did the players do something unexpected which derailed the adventure? Is there an item or spell that completely breaks the adventure? Does it have a mix of roleplaying and combat? Were any npc's especially memorable? Most of all - did the players have fun?

After each session, have a recap with the players to solicit feedback. This is an especially good way to garner extra ideas that you may not have thought of. As an example, my group is testing a module. We didn't like the hooks at the beginning (basically it was a railroad). We went along with them, but after the session ended we started throwing out all sorts of ideas building on the general situation. The writer got a ton of good (and not so good ) ideas in a short time.

4. If you're designing crunch, test, test, test! Start with the Core rules, then branch out into any other books you have (this is an exception to 2. above). Have the resident expert munchkin (every group has at least one) try to "break" the rules. Don't wait until it's published and reviewed to find out that your nifty little feat makes a character unbeatable or unplayable.

5. This is the most difficult part but, if at all possible, get at least one other group to test the material. Each group has its own tendencies and its easy to develop tunnel vision about new material. For instance, my group has never used the scry/buff/teleport technique. Same with abusing polymorph self. This makes a big difference in our experience with an adventure vs another group's.

Slightly off-topic, but consider thinking small when you start out. Sure you may have hundreds of pages of ideas but, as a consumer, I'm more likely to take a chance on something new if it's small, focused, and cheap. Mimicking Phil Reed's "Dozen" series might work well, at least while you're learning the ropes.

Good luck!

 

[diaglo]

i've been playtesting 1edADnD for over 25 years now.

darn thing still doesn't sit right with me for a true game.

i've been playtesting 2edADnD for over 15 years

and i've been playtesting the d02 fad for almost 5 years now.

 

[VoiceOfReason?]

They key to playtesting anything is thoroughness. If your product is as successful as you might hope, the chances that your campaign will be 'broken' is staggering. Hundreds if not thousands of PC's with hundreds if not thousands of concepts by hundreds if not thousands of players coming up with hundreds if not thousands of ideas that spring up at random will find something you missed.

Finding a munchkin (or three) is definitely good advice. Getting said munchkin(s) to play the game more than once will increase the benefit many times over. Once the munckin knows the game once through and knows what to expect, numbercrunching gets risen to a new eschelon. Your game will be broken in this stage, probably in many places. Keep in mind though that not all groups have munchkins and/or not all munchkins numbercrunch all of the time. In other words, after the munchkin brigade has stomped your game into the ground, try to fix it without raising the overall difficulty of any given adventure.

Another aspect: DM the material in different styles. Be the TPKDM. Be the nice guy that doesn't let the PC's die. Be Monty Haul and add extra loot to the encounters. Be the 'poverty mission' DM. Try it all, others will.

If you plan on publishing more modules/campaigns past your first, there's one surefire method to get people to buy more of your products. Make it stick out in their mind. People like stuff that's memorable. Powerful stuff is memorable, but interesting stuff is moreso. Unique designs, effects, upkeep costs, drawbacks, prerequisites, and abilities will pique someone's interest.
As often as not, I try to keep the uniqueness cosmetic only. A race statistically identical to Air Genasi that has insectoid wings and live in a massive airless cavern beneath the earth? A Murlynd's Spoon that looks like a straw? A +2 wine bottle that acts like a club? Don't overdo it though. Eventually the players will get jaded of the constant newness and just call the wine bottle a club.
Using this method though, you can keep the feeling of uniqueness in your story without adding all kinds of custom rules that may or may not break the game.

 

[Kalendraf]

First of all, thanks for the feedback so far!

1. When testing new races

This is one area we haven't really considered yet.

2. Pretty obvious, but generally limit yourselves to Core books only, with very few exceptions. If your adventure only works if the party has access to a feat or spell from a non-Core book, some groups will have problems.

Yup. That was an assumption we had as well.

3. If it's an adventure, run a standard four character party through it and keep lots of notes of what happens. Did the players do something unexpected which derailed the adventure? Is there an item or spell that completely breaks the adventure? Does it have a mix of roleplaying and combat? Were any npc's especially memorable? Most of all - did the players have fun?

This is clearly an area where I'm personally most interested. I've DM'ed for over 20 years now and have written hundreds of adventures. Many of them include some very interesting aspects (at least the players have said as much) and I would dearly like to add the necessary touches to publish them. However, I do realize there's a pretty narrow market for adventures.

Regarding the 4 character party, I'm assuming you mean Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, Wizard. That is our assumption as well. However, we were not sure if that covers the widely-used "Recommended for 4 to 6 characters" concept. We were figuring it may require running it at least twice to test it with 4 characters as well as with 6 characters. Conveniently, adding more characters would also allow us to test things with some of the other classes.

After each session, have a recap with the players to solicit feedback. This is an especially good way to garner extra ideas that you may not have thought of. As an example, my group is testing a module. We didn't like the hooks at the beginning (basically it was a railroad). We went along with them, but after the session ended we started throwing out all sorts of ideas building on the general situation. The writer got a ton of good (and not so good ) ideas in a short time.

I sometimes do this sort of thing after party has run thru an adventure. I've gotten some good feedback along the way. Many nasty ideas have come out of this type of discussion: "We're just lucky the baddie didn't try to xxxxxx!" Just wait until next time gang. BWAHAHA!

4. If you're designing crunch, test, test, test! Start with the Core rules, then branch out into any other books you have (this is an exception to 2. above). Have the resident expert munchkin (every group has at least one) try to "break" the rules. Don't wait until it's published and reviewed to find out that your nifty little feat makes a character unbeatable or unplayable.

This is something we are definitely considering, as we're looking into some expanding and/or providing alternate rules for some stuff in the core rules. Going to be critical that we ensure they are balanced.

5. This is the most difficult part but, if at all possible, get at least one other group to test the material. Each group has its own tendencies and its easy to develop tunnel vision about new material. For instance, my group has never used the scry/buff/teleport technique. Same with abusing polymorph self. This makes a big difference in our experience with an adventure vs another group's.

I may have a 2nd group I can pull in for this. I definitely see the reasoning for it.

Slightly off-topic, but consider thinking small when you start out. Sure you may have hundreds of pages of ideas but, as a consumer, I'm more likely to take a chance on something new if it's small, focused, and cheap. Mimicking Phil Reed's "Dozen" series might work well, at least while you're learning the ropes.

That is exactly what I had in mind. We're just a small group and there's no real way we could pull off something like a 100+ page sourcebook given our time or resources. On the other hand, I think we can pull off some shorter crunch-filled pdf's, and some interesting adventures that are generic enough to work in most campaign settings.