I'm a playtester, how is it done?

[darjr]

I've been invited to run an adventure for a play test. Only problem is I've only a vague idea of how to go about it.

I imagine that I should make some comments about the adventure upon reading it and then take copious notes during play and then summarize those. Is that enough? What should I be looking for and focusing on?

I'm not really running the playtest myself, just the adventure. Still I want to do a good job and give useful feedback.

Playtesting is a bit of mystery for me.

 

[Stormonu]

(This was stuff I learned from the TSR writer's seminar back in '99)

When you run the module, take notes not only what the players actually do, but also note things they may have thought of doing (or any "obvious" plan of action that you happen to think of the author might have missed or not accounted for). After each encounter, you may want to ask the players directly if there was anything they found unclear and let them ask "what ifs" about the encounter, noting anything they present that may have made it more difficult or easier to handle if they had used those tactics.

When running the adventure, you might want to average a lot of things - character damage, monster damage, initiative rolls. These take out random factors in the playtest that may skew an otherwise well-laid out encounter because of exceptionally bad luck or exceptionally good luck. Be on the lookout, though, for spots where plain bad luck can ruin the adventure (a demon in a low-level adventure that has a 1% chance of dealing 100 points of damage or other oddities).

Don't "read into" the adventure; play it as presented. If you find something confusing or illogical, try to play it as close as presented and note what the problem is. If you see something that you think would be better handled another way, make note of it, but try to use what is presented as presented (or make copious notes about your change and why you changed it).

 

[kaomera]

I've been invited to run an adventure for a play test. Only problem is I've only a vague idea of how to go about it.

If you're not part of the ongoing playtest I'd assume that your session would be observed and that both you and the players (either individually or as a group) will be interviewed at least after the experience (and possibly before as well).

If not I think you're on the right track. If you can (in this case) I'd try and find out what aspects of the game they're most interested in opinions on. I helped playtest for Weapons of the Gods, and from my (limited) experience it seemed like the most generally useful info was: what's cool and should be emphasized, and what could be made more cool (with specific ideas).

 

[Starfox]

When running the adventure, you might want to average a lot of things - character damage, monster damage, initiative rolls. These take out random factors in the playtest that may skew an otherwise well-laid out encounter because of exceptionally bad luck or exceptionally good luck.

This does not exactly sound like stress-testing to me. Sure, if you only do a few playtests it might be good to reduce some randomness, or if you do very many, you can control certain variables. I can see a series of playtests where a group plays the scenario with averagized dice, then plays it several times over using random dice but with the same basic tactics, to see how robust the mechanical balance is. I can even see several groups doing this in parallel if you want a VERY controlled setting for a big tournament. But overall this is not what I'd want tested. If any of you have insights on the whys of less average testing, I'd be interested to hear.

What I'd want from a DM playtesting an adventure is to know what was hard to understand, what made a bad read, and which parts were hard to play out as expected. That is, focus more on language and story than on the crunchy bits.

From a player, I'd want evaluations of the hooks used, the background, the mood, and how the scenes played out - were they intriguing, challenging, and offered multiple approaches? This of course includes tactics, but also many other things.

But then again, I rate 100% storyteller as a player, so I may not want the same stuff everyone else does.

 

[Wicht]

Look for encounters that were too easy and make a note of this, including why it was too easy. Some encounters should be easy, but too many easy encounters and the game can get a little dull.

Look for encounters that were too hard and not them. Encounters that result in a TPK, consider running the combat a second time to see if the results are different. Writers need to know if they made something too difficult for the suggested play level.

Make a note of Player reaction to in-game hooks. Note reasons why certain hooks might not work well. Writers often provide hooks based on the experiences of their own gaming groups and some hooks may not work for everyone.

Give kudos in your notes to those areas that sparked player interest but also note encounters or areas which made the game seem to drag. Writers want to know what works and what doesn't.

 

[darjr]

Great insight folks, Thanks!

It's a smaller company so I think a really large playtest isn't in the works. I do think that the session and I are only a part of the whole test.

 

[Greg K]

I have only playtested games and supplements, but it looks like you got some good advice on how to do adventures.

 

[Saeviomagy]

1. Do as little prep as possible. Flick through the adventure once, and if anything seems like it might require more effort, take a note of it and move on. People buy adventures so they don't have to prep much.

2. When you run the game, note down any time that
a) you have to improvise because information is missing (or you can see that you might have had to do so if the players had taken an alternate course of action).
b) your players get confused, frustrated or bored.
c) the game slows down for any reason: you have to look up a monster, a rule, anything like that.

3. In general, try to think of any way in which the players might have 'broken' the adventure and whether the course of action leading to that is reasonable. For instance, don't worry about reporting that players might roll initiative as soon as they meet the questgiver and kill him/die UNLESS the questgiver looks like a bad guy the players might legitimately attack.