Are You Still Playtesting?

[CleverNickName]

I have a confession.

I'm just not as excited as I was at first about the playtest. Now that I've seen the playtesting material and I've turned in my survey, I find I have little motivation to continue playtesting. I know it isn't necessarily the case, but I can't shake the feeling that Wizards of the Coast isn't really interested in more feedback now that the surveys are back. And it's hard to be excited about something when you feel like you are being ignored.

But it's not just that. The more time I spend looking at the rules, the more rickety and buggy they seem to me. And therefore, the less I like them. If I were to fill out the survey today, right now, it would be a lot different from the one I filled out a few weeks ago.

And I hate to admit it, but the discussion threads on the Internet have really taken their toll as well. The endless (endless!) banter about the "definition of hit points" was just the tip of the iceberg. All the fights about healing? The lengthy expositions on at-will powers and how awesome/awful they are? People heatedly arguing with each other, to the point of insult, over how many weapons a Ranger fights with? Really?

It was fun while it lasted, and I was happy to give my feedback. But I'm done with D&D NExt, at least until the next playtest begins. My group and I will spend the summer gaming with our favorite (albeit out-of-print) rules.

How about you? Are you still playtesting the new edition? Why or why not? How is it going?

 

[Dragoslav]

I'm just not as excited as I was at first about the playtest. Now that I've seen the playtesting material and I've turned in my survey, I find I have little motivation to continue playtesting.

There isn't an extrinsic motivator anymore, really. If you've tried the playtest and sent in your survey, then you've basically accomplished the goal of this portion, and any further playtesting can't accomplish anything more for the time being... It's like software/video game testing: At this point, any further testing you do is most likely going to be invalidated by the next build anyway, and it's even worse in this case because it's not like you're getting a new build every week or even two-three weeks.

I wouldn't mind wrapping up the campaign that my friends and I started, but they got bored with it during the second session, 2/3 of us don't really have time for it at the present time, anyway. Like you, I, too, have become really disillusioned from the carousel of arguments on this board. Without anything new to actually discuss or consider, it's all purely academic at this point...

 

[slobo777]

I had to give my feedback without proper playtesting

My group is still interested though, so I think there might be value for us in pulling out the playtest material in a couple of weeks to get a more informed opinion. For us, not for WotC.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Scheduling difficulties mean that I've only played or run in a couple of game sessions this year; I haven't run D&D of any stripe. Neither will the next game I run be D&D.

If I did have time to run D&D, it wouldn't be a playtest game.

If I had so much time I could run a real campaign and another game on the side, I still wouldn't run this playtest, because it isn't worth running. Ideally, I'd like to have a hack at it at some point, if they release rules of sufficient quality and quantity to permit me to do my thing.

 

[Stormonu]

I've stopped playtesting for now. I'm waiting for the portion of the rules where we can (hopefully) make our own PCs and then I'll try again. I'm just not feeling any real wonder with the pregen characters.

 

[Pour]

I was going to playtest, but decided to playtest 13th Age instead.

 

[Greg K]

I have not playtested it and, at the moment, have no desire to do it. To date the only things that sound decent are:
1. Backgrounds and Themes
2. Clerics are closer to Specialty Priests.
3. Spellcasters get some "at- wills
4. Starting hit points
5. *Maybe* the flatter math.

Potential deal breakers
1. Ability scores more important than skills
2. Hit Points as threshold
3. the current rules for healing from rest.
4. Plans to remove cleric healing from spells.

I have no interest in running the Caves of Chaos. I own a copy of the original module and didn't like it then. Dislike it now.

 

[Mengu]

Playtested, found it boring, moved onto other things. I'll give it another read with the next iteration, but unless it includes a better playtest adventure and some options for "my play style", I'm not really interested in being bored again.

 

[Morrus]

We only just started playtesting last week. We've had one session. Not everyone had the chance to start doing so immediately, and it's only been a month. I'm glad there's nothing new to playtest yet, because we won't finish Caves of Chaos for a month or so.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Our groups' schedule is all out of whack this summer, meaning we'll probably only get in two sesssions total. That's a lot of hours on an all-day session, but not very convenient for responding quickly to a test. If the next session corresponds to a good time to test, we'll take advantage accordingly.

Edit: I'd like for the timing to work out so that we can respond meaningfully to surveys, but playtesting is still handy in giving us a solid basis for discussion, even if we can't meet the survey windows.