D&D 5E How do you play-test?

[Theo R Cwithin]

tl; dr:
I'd love to hear from those who do play-test, how do you do it?

How do DMs around here play-test their own encounters/adventures in general, when you're not tailoring to a specific table?
I'm most curious about "alpha" play-testing, i.e., when an interesting encounter idea pops into your head, and you just need to quickly "run the numbers" to make it workable before taking it to a table (even if only for further testing). A few possible questions to start:

• What sort of assumptions about parties do you make?
• Do you plan monster tactics round-by-round?
• Are there any resources, tools or tricks you use to aid in your play-testing (especially the numbers)?

This doesn't have to be a formal rubrik, obviously. Just looking for a few pointers to help develop my 5e intuition as a DM returning to the game.
Thanks!



(PS: I'd like to avoid the question of whether play-testing is necessary or helpful or stupid or deeply offensive to the spirit of the gaming gods or whatever. Thanks!)

 

[ninjayeti]

I run Fantasy Grounds offline if I want to test stuff out. Because it is heavily automated one person can run (then tweak and re-run, if necessary) an encounter much more quickly than with pen and paper.

If you are running map-based encounters, I think it is important to use maps when playtesting as well. Lots of stuff that sounds great in the abstract (say, polymorphing into a Giant Ape) turns out to be problematic when you try to do it on a map with 10' wide corridors and 20'x20' rooms. Again using a VTT makes this easier than having to break out the battlemat and minis.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I've done lots of playing in, and facilitated, lots of playtesting. I don't make any assumptions about players it party make up. Once you do that, you're gonna run into problems as soon as players deviate. And players WILL deviate.

I start with general guidelines around the system. In 5e, this means CR, but I'm pretty loose with it and use it as a general guideline only.

Honestly, most issues found with playtesting aren't balance issues, but missing loose ends you may not have accounted for when designing the scenario.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Honestly, most issues found with playtesting aren't balance issues, but missing loose ends you may not have accounted for when designing the scenario.

Yeah, players are notoriously unreliable at sticking to my plans. Is that what you're referring to "loose ends"? The forgotten immunities or teleports or summons and the like that the PCs might have up their sleeve? Or are you referring to stuff overlooked on the DM's side, like an exploitable quality of the terrain or something?

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

I run Fantasy Grounds offline if I want to test stuff out. Because it is heavily automated one person can run (then tweak and re-run, if necessary) an encounter much more quickly than with pen and paper.

Good call using a VTT.
When you run the encounter, are you aiming it at a particular party, or is there a default party composition you assume?

 

[Lanefan]

Honestly, most issues found with playtesting aren't balance issues, but missing loose ends you may not have accounted for when designing the scenario.

Exactly!

Ask yourself "what if" they do this, or "what if" they do that, and put yourself in the players/PCs' shoes while you do; and factor the answers in. Sometimes even just adding a few words or a single sentence can make all the difference.

This includes something as simple as if you tailor your 'boxed descriptions' to the PCs entering a room from one door, make sure to include amendments in case they come in the other door!

Then get some friends to roll up some random characters of suitable level and run it out for them. Then repeat with some different friends, ideally who prefer a different playstyle.

Even in some well-known published modules, it's often all too clear the writer(s) never even gave the what-if concept a second's thought. An example: in 4e's Keep on the Shadowfell the final encounter involves taking out someone who's halfway through summoning some huge monster - the scenario is set up such that the monster's tentacles are through the gate (there's even artwork in the module showing exactly this) and the rest of it will follow if the process isn't stopped. Seems simple, right.

However, no thought whatsoever is given to (1) what happens if the party attack the monster being summoned, instead of (or in addition to) attacking the summoners; nor (2) what happens if the party try to go through (or if one or more PCs get dragged through) the open gate; nor (3) to what happens if the PCs kill the summoners but then try to finish the process themselves in hopes of gaining a massive demonic monster as an ally! There's also (4), once the summoners are slain, how do the PCs close the gate - the assumption is that it'll close itself on the death of the summoners but this isn't actually stated anywhere even though it can be said in ten words..

Admittedly (2) and (3) are unlikely, though when I ran it PCs tried both; but to miss (1) and (4) are unforgivable.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Yeah, players are notoriously unreliable at sticking to my plans. Is that what you're referring to "loose ends"? The forgotten immunities or teleports or summons and the like that the PCs might have up their sleeve? Or are you referring to stuff overlooked on the DM's side, like an exploitable quality of the terrain or something?

Pretty much what Lanefan said. Players tend to choose the one path you didn't account for lol. So when you're playtesting, those are the things that come up often. What happens if the party decide to do something completely different?

 

[ccs]

I play & DM in 3 different groups. So if I come up with something scenario wise for one group that I think needs actual testing? I run it as a one-shot for one of the other two groups. And as I have current (or reasonably accurate) copies of all the character sheets I can test it on actual versions of the party I'm writing it for if I want.
Sometimes it requires further refinement. So I run it again with the other non-target group.

Between plenty of experience doing this stuff & running it through two different groups, if it still doesn't work? Then I scrap it.

 

[Prakriti]

For starters, I'd recommend comparing your encounters to the encounters in a published adventure. If you're designing a low-level dungeon, for example, then look at Sunless Citadel in Tales from the Yawning Portal. If your hardest encounter is harder than anything you see there, then you should probably tone it down.

 

[ninjayeti]

When you run the encounter, are you aiming it at a particular party, or is there a default party composition you assume?

I generally test for a party I am running. I am not sure you can safely assume a particular party composition as 5E - filling particular party roles seems less important than in earlier editions. I think the best you can do is try to figure out whether a particular ability or spell is going to be critical in the encounter and test with and without that ability. For example if you were doing an encounter with a horde of weak enemies, I'd test the the encounter with a caster that had fireball then same party where the caster had no AoE - if it is trivially easy with or a TPK without you may want to rethink the encounter.

If I were trying to make a representative party I would probably go with melee attacker, ranged attacker, offensive caster and healer/buffer. Not because that reflects most parties, but because it is going to give you as sense the issues that might crop up. E.g. melee fighter can't get into range, caster is too squishy to survive a big AoE, etc.