Two Versions of Each Class

[Minigiant]

You know. With all the grumbling about "No powers to martial" and "At-will on wizards", I am surprised that there was no official playtest house rules for both simple and complex characters.

How can they playtest if the classes feel "right" if they only give one version of the class?

So I'm gonna try some house rules out and see which ones feel more "right".

A Simple and Complex version of Each class.

The Simple Versions get their at-will boosted
The Complex Versions get more of their daily resources and moved to 1st level.

 

[the Jester]

You do realize that this is only the first piece of the playtest, right?

The rest will come. Patience.

Don't houserule, it defeats the purpose of playtesting. You are supposed to TEST what they give you, not TWEAK it.

Give them a little time.

 

[Jinete]

You do realize that this is only the first piece of the playtest, right?

The rest will come. Patience.

Don't houserule, it defeats the purpose of playtesting. You are supposed to TEST what they give you, not TWEAK it.

Give them a little time.

I really hope WOTC add a checkbox to their playtest surveys saying "I have modified the presented rules and/or added my own house rules".

That way they can trash those reports and avoid them corrupting the useful feedback.

 

[Tovec]

Don't houserule, it defeats the purpose of playtesting. You are supposed to TEST what they give you, not TWEAK it.

I really hope WOTC add a checkbox to their playtest surveys saying "I have modified the presented rules and/or added my own house rules".

That way they can trash those reports and avoid them corrupting the useful feedback.

Or rather take a harder look at WHY those games were tweaked and houseruled. To see what worked and what didn't. Most playtesters, who are doing an excellent job, will try the game AS WRITTEN (or as close to it as they can) the first time. Then they'll start experimenting. That is how TESTING is done. Up until then they may as well have closed tests or limited tests at cons if they just want to try the rules exactly as written. The real test of the system occurs when unexpected and unanticipated results or experiences emerge from the rules.

I'm not saying that people should play a completely houseruled game with new races, classes, spells and whatnot. I am saying that a little fiddling with the core mechanic is exactly what the playtest should be about. Figuring out what variations work, which ones don't and why is EXACTLY the feedback I want to see going to WotC - if they like it or not.

I'm so tired of seeing all these posts saying "play the game this one specific way or else your comments are invalid". I haven't had a chance to playtest it yet and I assure you that when I get the chance I'll test it as written at first and then start playing around with it. I'll report if something works, if something else works better or why I did or did not like an aspect. Without ALL that feedback there is NO POINT of me giving ANY feedback.

 

[GSHamster]

Or rather take a harder look at WHY those games were tweaked and houseruled. To see what worked and what didn't. Most playtesters, who are doing an excellent job, will try the game AS WRITTEN (or as close to it as they can) the first time. Then they'll start experimenting. That is how TESTING is done. Up until then they may as well have closed tests or limited tests at cons if they just want to try the rules exactly as written. The real test of the system occurs when unexpected and unanticipated results or experiences emerge from the rules.

As far as I can see, the majority of people who are tweaking the rules are tweaking from the very beginning. "I didn't like the idea of X, so I changed it before we started playing."

 

[Rack]

We aren't designers here, we're testers. They aren't going to want more qualitative feedback than they can use in 10 lifetimes, just basic patterns of what people liked and didn't.

 

[Jinete]

I'm so tired of seeing all these posts saying "play the game this one specific way or else your comments are invalid". I haven't had a chance to playtest it yet and I assure you that when I get the chance I'll test it as written at first and then start playing around with it. I'll report if something works, if something else works better or why I did or did not like an aspect. Without ALL that feedback there is NO POINT of me giving ANY feedback.

Well I think I'll restrict my reports to what works, what doesn't work and why I did or did not like an aspect. After that I'll let the professional game designers come up with a different solution and then test that.

That is, if I get the chance to confer all of my impressions. I doubt that the people at WOTC have time or resources to read essays by playtesters explaining how their idea of how armor should work turned out.

 

[Tovec]

As far as I can see, the majority of people who are tweaking the rules are tweaking from the very beginning. "I didn't like the idea of X, so I changed it before we started playing."

To a certain extent I see this as both valid and invalid.

Invalid because I think you should test the current mechanic first. Just like Minigiant saying he is surprised that they didn't have two forms. It is only possibly invalid because he is just completely making something up instead of using the existing material. It is invalid as he is completely making new content or heavily modifying the existing material INSTEAD of removing or altering material already existing in the system.

A valid reason as I see it is when such choices are preference based instead. If Minigiant said that he was surprised that it didn't give him more complexity or that he dislikes at-wills or whatever then that is fine. But then, instead of making two different forms of the classes, he could just cut those elements and try the game. After, if he found it lacking he could try reintroducing them and everything would be fine. And if he cut them and the game still WORKED then he could report that too. How is that a bad or invalid choice?

I mean look at the stuff coming from the official wordboxes from WotC - like this for example: http://www.enworld.org/forum/news/3...es-first-round-public-d-d-next-playtests.html

They want you to try variation. They certainly have ideas on how to do it but I think so long as the "houserule" or variation is something they can use that it ultimately works for the playtest.

For example, I have seen several instances of people trying to fix HP. Some will work for the system and some won't. You don't get into a problem trying new HP recovery options by itself. The game is capable of having any number of different HP formations and figures as long as those figures are universally applied to the game. The problem is when these "houseruled" versions are suggested as the core mechanic with disregard of how others see and operate the game.

The system itself couldn't care less if you got full HP after a full rest. As much as I have seen playtests where they have gone back to town to get healed up I can equally see them not doing so and running the game equally well. They may not have been in the same shape and been unable to counter the same enemies but the system would still have gotten the playtest. In fact the results would have been MORE useful as they could have reported to WotC that if you remove X mechanic then Y happens. Or that removing full healing on a nights sleep makes things more difficult but still doable, which is very valid information. Especially when you realize that a lot of people don't like the current form of healing and are looking for an alternative. WotC knowing that an alternative could work is invaluable as far as playtesting goes.

Just my two cents. Sorry about hijaking the thread Minigiant, I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

 

[Sunseeker]

We aren't designers here, we're testers. They aren't going to want more qualitative feedback than they can use in 10 lifetimes, just basic patterns of what people liked and didn't.

What people like and what people don't like is what we've been yelling at them for the past 3 decades. WOTC needs to know first and foremost what WORKED in their playtest and what doesn't. Did things have too much HP? Too little? Were some spells too powerful? Is being able to at-will cast Magic Missle broken? If so, why? If your playtest ran a party of Wizards, did that unbalance the game significantly? Does 4 Clerics and 1 Rogue make things harder or easier?

That's what we need to be telling WOTC. It's not going to make a lick of difference to DDN if we tell them that the Wizard needs to be in a purple hat.

We shouldn't not tell them what we liked and what we didn't like, but the we should primarily be telling them what works and what doesn't. With our opinion being a side-issue.

I liked 3rd, I liked 4th, I liked SWSE and multiple other editions and games WOTC has produced, but I liked them because I felt they were good, solid games. Not because they used my favorite shade of puce.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I really hope WOTC add a checkbox to their playtest surveys saying "I have modified the presented rules and/or added my own house rules".

That way they can trash those reports and avoid them corrupting the useful feedback.

Well, that's a bit extreme.

It might be useful feedback if a playtester said "I wasn't happy with X mechanic for Y reason. I modified X mechanic in Z way, and it works better for W reason."

It's just as important, I think, to understand what people feel works in play as to figure out what doesn't work -- and more to the point, why. The challenge will be getting playtesters who actually fill out the "because" block rather than just saying "mechanic X suxxors".