D&D 5E Playtest Fatigue?

[Morrus]

I've heard a few comments recently about folks who have stopped playtesting. It's not that they don't like D&D (or even D&D Next) but they are at the point where they're now just happy to wait for the actual book. Then, of course, you have folks who pore over every playtest package and debate the minutia.

Are you still playtesting?

 

[darjr]

I was using encounters to playtest. Our night grew to two tables. But I might be done.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I was a playtester but I stopped

The DM who ran D&DN for our group for a short while feels the same way. He just wants the books to come out, and will analyze them at that point. (Our general opinion, and his, is negative.)

Playtests are disruptive if you already have a campaign going, and the results are almost meaningless without metrics, which WotC is not providing. Playtests for balancing purposes need to be repetitive and frankly boring; in addition to playing games, playtesters should be creating scenarios where PCs of different classes are taking on a group of monsters, running the exact same scenarios repeatedly, even if it's a one-person game.

The ghoul versus party situation was a shocker to me, not because I'm surprised at poorly-designed rules, but because those should have been fixed one playtest after the ghoul was introduced. WotC acted as if it was completely surprised that the rules were bad.

I also get the impression that WotC isn't listening to me, either because they're settling on certain things or because my opinion is drowned out by a larger number of happy fans (the ones who don't like the way the game is going have probably stopped responding to surveys), but either way this doesn't make me enthusiastic about playtesting.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I ran a playtest for several months following the first or second packet... the whole Caves of Chaos adventure. But as I ran it I was putting the adventure into a campaign context (an extension off of the 4E Nentir Vale campaign I ran for 3 years.) And my players and I discovered that the campaign identity for us trumped the desire to test the rules. The story was more important. As a result, I just went back and started a new longer-term 4E campaign rather than continue testing.

All the respect in the world for those folks who continue to be good with testing mechanics in and around playing. Wish I had it in me.

 

[keterys]

I've done playtests with two groups. One group hit playtest fatigue - I think it didn't help that group did the first and earliest playtests when things were the roughest. The other group just changes what games they're playing every few months, so we're back to playing space pirates for a while.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

We were running two 4e campaigns congruently. One of those campaigns(the one I run) was put "on hold" temporarily to run a playtest of 5e, which became a weekly playtest "just until we were done the adventure". The adventure is over this weekend and I'm fairly certain I don't want to go back to running my 4e game. I'm likely going to start a new campaign using 5e rules and run either Dragonspear Castle or Against the Giants converted to 5e.

The second campaign ended a couple of weeks ago and the DM of that campaign decided to start a new one using D&D Next instead.

Though, I'm not sure we count as playtesting that much anymore. We are essentially just playing D&D Next.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I hit playtest fatigue early. Now I just chime in based on WotC's articles.

 

[Gundark]

For us it was some frustration about changing characters or certain aspects (that spell doesn't work like that anymore!) of the character. I'm overall more positive towards next than negative and it's thus far looking like this might be a good edition. I'm starting up an Iron Kingdoms game here soon so that'll be taking time away from playtesting. I am feeling a bit like "wake me when it's out"

 

[jinat]

The reason i stopped is as (Psi)SeveredHead stated - i dont think WoTC listens - to a minority dissatisfied voice.

What number of playtesters do you think are players for whom the D&D Next playtest is there first foray into roleplaying.

What number of playertesters are not coming from previous editions of the game but other games like White-Wolf games or the Indie Rpg scene ?

If these two demographics are not represented in any great numbers I believe we will just be getting another d20 variant, 3.x/4th edition mix match.

 

[Warbringer]

We hit fatigue after the March/April release and didn't want to give up our biweekly meet even just occasionally to test some new rules. We now just theorycraft when we get the packets and have incorporated some of the terminology into our homebrew.

If I can get my hands on a copy of Dragonspear, might run a whole mini-campaign up to Xmas