Yesterday at Meetup of Doom I got a chance to playtest Becoming. It was an extremely productive and educational experience. It was probably the most successful playtest I’ve ever run, and I’d like to share what I learned with you.
Be Flexible, Be Receptive
Becoming came very close to doing exactly what I wanted it to do. My goal was for the game to create a mood of slow attrition for the Hero, a situation where the Hero has to constantly comprimise his values in order to succeed. It did that . . . mostly.
One of the more important things that the playtest pointed out to me was that I wasn’t incentivising the bargaining mechanic enough. There was no reason for the Hero to give up his dice; he could just sit on them for the whole game and win, regardless of what the Chorus did to him. Pretty big flaw, right? Luckily it was easy to fix, and we did so quickly and moved on.
When you’re playtesting, you have to be able to see the warts on your game, the ways it doesn’t quite work or doesn’t quite accomplish what you want it to. You have to be able to hear that when the players say it to you. And you have to be able to fix it and move on if you don’t want to scrap the playtest and try again later (which is an option, albiet not an ideal one).
Solicit feedback from the playtesters if you’re not sure how to fix something. Presumably you got them to play the game because, on some level, you value their opinions. Use that. They may come up with something you never thought of, and it might be totally awesome. Don’t be afraid of that.
Don’t Take Feedback Personally
There should be a caveat in that title: unless it’s good. If your players give you positive feedback on your game, if they love it and say it’s great, feel free to take that personally. You made that thing, you put a little bit of yourself in there; if someone else thinks it’s good, you should feel good about that as a consequence.
The reverse, however, is not true. If someone criticizes some element of your game, it doesn’t mean you suck or even that your game sucks. It just means that it needs a bit of work. No game is perfect, even after playtesting. The goal of playtesting is to get it as close to that mark as you can within whatever confines you’re working with, and the only way to do that is to take feedback for what it is: a way to improve your game. It’s not a personal attack (unless it is, in which case screw that guy, don’t let him playtest your stuff anymore).
Be a Neutral Party
When I playtested Becoming I gave all of the players a cheat sheet with the rules they needed on it, sat back, watched, and answered questions when I was needed. It worked astoundingly well. There was a little explanation required at the beginning but, for the most part, people got it quickly and the game just played. I observed and took notes, clarified rules when necessary, and talked to them about ways to improve the game when they came up.
I’ll admit that this isn’t possible with all games under all circumstances. It worked well with Becoming because it’s a pretty rules-light game without a traditional GM. Games that diverge from either of these will be harder to run this way. You’re not going to want to have each player read five or six pages of rules text before playing and you’re not going to want your GM to read a sixteen page adventure before the game gets started; that’s a fantastic way to shoot your game in the foot.
However, there are a lot of advantages to being a neutral observer rather than a participant when you can pull it off and, if you can’t, it wouldn’t hurt to be as neutral as possible in whatever role you need to fill. Ideally, at some point, you’re going to want someone else to fill that role too, so you’re going to have to think about doing this eventually anyway.
Have Fun
Yes, playtesting is stressful. Yes, you’re going to see your baby criticized and pulled apart. Remember that it’s a game: it’s supposed to be fun. Enjoy it. The more you let yourself enjoy it the more likely the playtesters will enjoy it, and if the playtesters aren’t enjoying it then you’ve got bigger problems. Chances are that there’s at least a little bit of fun to be had in your game though, so capitalize on that and amplify it where possible.
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