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In Playtesting

6/4/2009 AJ_Flowers: Robot Clash Playtest
I decided to run a playtest of the combat system/proto game idea that I tossed on to First Thoughts about a month ago.  Willow: I know I owe you a…
In Playtesting
Participants: AJ_Flowers.

6/3/2009 Ron Edwards: [Thy Vernal Chieftains] Passion and politics
Hello, Tim Koppang and I decided to give Thy Vernal Chieftains a whirl last night. It turned out that, curiously, I did not possess some of the items required to…
In Playtesting
Participants: Ron Edwards, Tim C Koppang, Paul Czege.

5/29/2009 opsneakie: [Night and Day] First 3 sessions, some initial thoughts and opinions
Okay, so I haven't posted anything to the Forge in a long time, not really having anything to post, but I've finally gotten around to running a test campaign of…
In Playtesting
Participants: opsneakie, Vulpinoid.

5/29/2009 davidberg: [Delve] story-gamers in my sandbox
I've been working on Delve throughout a 14-month, 28-session playtest with some of my best friends.  By now, they all know how to get what they want from Delve, and…
In Playtesting
Participants: davidberg, jenskot, Paul T.

5/28/2009 Jason Kottler: [Ultrablamtacular] Save Versus Suck
Well, the long-awaited (by me, at least) playtest session of Ultrablamtacular took place on the Friday before the long weekend. And...man, it was a kick in the designer-nads. I posted…
In Playtesting
Participants: Jason Kottler.

5/25/2009 Everspinner: [Apocalypse World] Car Mountain
(Check out the previous session if you want. This report focuses on the mechanics and is much lighter on the fiction, as I cannot write fiction worth the feel we…
In Playtesting
Participants: Everspinner, lumpley.

5/25/2009 Brimshack: Metagaming - a Rule and a Side-Effect
Okay, so as general rule I do not allow free tactical discussion during my games. The rule says that characters may say anything irrelevant to combat they want whenever they…
In Playtesting
Participants: Brimshack, Bercilac, Noon, Vulash, Ron Edwards, Vulpinoid, contracycle.

5/24/2009 Darcy Burgess: [Kagematsu] - Local Farmer warns Dragon attack imminent! Bleeds on town!
Hi, Waaaaaay back in the mists of time (ok, about two month ago, but it feels longer), I coaxed my wife (Kirsty) and one of my friends (Jason) to play…
In Playtesting
Participants: Darcy Burgess.

5/24/2009 jp_miller: How do you formalize feedback from playtesting?
Hi all, I'm preparing a game for playtesting and was just wondering how you manage your feedback. So the scenario is you playtest it yourself with a few friends (great,…
In Playtesting
Participants: jp_miller, davidberg, Lance D. Allen, Vordark.

5/20/2009 Michael Desing: [Mythweaver: Reckoning] Vault of the Goblin
While I was having great fun with my play test for Mount Brim, and I plan to continue building Mount Brim at some point, the last few weeks have been…
In Playtesting
Participants: Michael Desing.

5/10/2009 Eldrad: NOVEL RPG: Megalopolis Hero's Mag
Hero's Mag Using the freeform system as described in this earlier post. http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=24786.msg245893#msg245893 Two characters were Sapphire and Jade played by my two daughters. Sapphire is a mutant that can…
In Playtesting
Participants: Eldrad, Noon.

5/8/2009 Vordark: [Genesys] My First Play-Test Report(tm)
For reference, the system is here:  http://www.chaosphere.com/genesys/ While I have run a number of sessions using the Genesys core rules, I haven't until this week had the opportunity to focus…
In Playtesting
Participants: Vordark, JoyWriter, chance.thirteen.

5/6/2009 Certified: [Fractured Kingdom] Song of Silence
Currently the Fractured Kingdoms setting and design is still in development. However, I recently ran the first play test. I'll begin by posting the demo's set up and follow it…
In Playtesting
Participants: Certified.

4/30/2009 Gregor Hutton: [AD 316] It began with the killing of the witches
This week a new game club started up in Edinburgh in the Espionage bar/nightclub (Tuesday nights for anyone interested). We had a 3-hour playtest of the Roman version of 3:16,…
In Playtesting
Participants: Gregor Hutton, Akora, Valamir, brianbloodaxe.

4/25/2009 MJGraham: [Defiance] How can I make sabotage fun?
In Defiance players roleplay insurrectionists who have their own fortes. The equivalent in D&D would be players roleplaying adventurers who have their own classes. There are five fortes that players…
In Playtesting
Participants: MJGraham, Noclue, Vordark, DWeird, Noon, LandonSuffered, JoyWriter.

4/24/2009 Willow: [Storming...] Vincent, Your Monster Creation Rules are Borked
So, in the errata, we've got these gems: 1) Give monsters more hit points. I haven’t figured out exactly how many more, but more. For 3 players, maybe 1 more…
In Playtesting
Participants: Willow, lumpley.

4/23/2009 e24ohm: 2d6 or 3d6 for simple dice system
Folks: I am new to the forum, and i like what I am seeing; however, i am trying to develop a simple dice system which uses 2d6 or 3d6, which…
In Playtesting
Participants: e24ohm, chance.thirteen.

4/20/2009 Brimshack: Botched Attacks and Botched Dialogues
Okay, I am 2 years into designing this RPG. As part of Game Testing, we have been running a campaign, literally just a campaign that happens to use this system.…
In Playtesting
Participants: Brimshack, ShallowThoughts, chance.thirteen, FredGarber.

4/17/2009 Vordark: Looking for play-testing tips and strategies
I announced my project in First Thoughts with an eye toward cultivating that wonderful fruit, "general feedback".  I also had some questions concerning how to maximize the benefit of play-testing…
In Playtesting
Participants: Vordark, Wolfen, Michael Desing.

4/16/2009 Graham Walmsley: [Apocalypse World] Apocalypse averted
We finished our four-session game of Apocalypse World last night. Our heroes flew to the headquarters of Panacea, one of the fronts. There were lots of zombies about. Panacea switched…
In Playtesting
Participants: Graham Walmsley, lumpley, GB Steve.

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Subsequent Topics
In Playtesting

6/8/2009 Abkajud: Is it Force if you get consent?
I've been thinking about the concept of "forced" control of characters, of a sort, akin to the effects of Diplomacy skill or what-not, but used on PCs instead of NPCs.…
In Playtesting
Participants: Abkajud, Vulpinoid, Ron Edwards, Brimshack, Vordark.

6/10/2009 Jason Kottler: [Ultrablamtacular] - Fixed Trust
A recent playtest revealed gigantic, cruise-ship sized holes in my game. One of the problems was with the subtle difference between Trust and Confidence. That, at least, has been resolved.…
In Playtesting
Participants: Jason Kottler.

6/11/2009 FlamingMoose: [Storming the Wizard's Tower] The Ice Age
[This is going to be an extremely long post because my groups has already completed three sessions of StWT. It's been a while since the first session, too, so my…
In Playtesting
Participants: FlamingMoose.

6/11/2009 Abkajud: Firewalling the Fiction [The Hellenes/Mask of the Emperor]
I've noticed that in most games I've played, you consult with Fortune once (one roll of the dice, one card drawn, etc.) and then return to narration. For example, I…
In Playtesting
Participants: Abkajud.

6/22/2009 lumpley: Psi*Run at a creepy-odd angle
A little while ago I ran Psi*Run for Meg, Julia, and Rob. We played it in 3 sessions. I was thinking that Psi*Run would be really good for survival horror,…
In Playtesting
Participants: lumpley, Marshall Burns, John Harper, RobNJ, Darcy Burgess, Meguey, jdfristrom, ophidian_flux.

6/23/2009 Abkajud: Informed Consent and Premise
I'm playtesting a Greek heroic adventure game, The Hellenes, and I've noticed that my players haven't read the rules. They remember everything I tell them out loud, in person, but…
In Playtesting
Participants: Abkajud, Ron Edwards, JoyWriter.

6/24/2009 Emily Care: [Kagematsu] Tea and Banditry
I ran Kagematsu at JiffyCon earlier this month. The players included 2 men and four women: Liz, Kim, Rachel, Jim, John and myself. Only one of them had heard of…
In Playtesting
Participants: Emily Care, Ron Edwards, Pauls Girl.

6/24/2009 Tim C Koppang: [S/lay W/Me] The Lion, the Wretch, and the Woman
Ron and I gave one of his three (four?) ongoing projects a playtest last night.  As our regular Tuesday night group has dwindled to just the two of us, it…
In Playtesting
Participants: Tim C Koppang, Ron Edwards, Gregor Hutton, Rod Anderson, Patrice.

6/25/2009 Ron Edwards: [Mars Colony] Just a little lying, this once
Hello, 1. I know they've always been around, but lately it seems to me as if a number of game designers have been turning their attention to, for lack of…
In Playtesting
Participants: Ron Edwards, Ben Lehman, Tim C Koppang, Willow, Dev.

6/29/2009 Paul Czege: [S/Lay w/Me] the Lover and the liquids
Danielle and I playtested S/Lay w/Me last week. She was the adventurer and I was the situation and the Lover. I was holding off posting about it until we'd played…
In Playtesting
Participants: Paul Czege, Pauls Girl, Ron Edwards, MacLeod.

7/1/2009 Abkajud: [The Hellenes] mental/social wounds and player agency
[cross-posted at story-games.com] Since one design led right into another, I have a lot of holdovers from [i]Mask[/i] lurking in [i]The Hellenes[/i]. Case in point, here's an excerpt from my…
In Playtesting
Participants: Abkajud, Vulpinoid, Ron Edwards, JoyWriter.

7/1/2009 brianbloodaxe: [Oxygen] First playtest of my SF RPG
Seeing as Gregor's AD 316 playtest finished up I snatched up the group and subjected then to the musings of my own game last night. My GMing skills were a…
In Playtesting
Participants: brianbloodaxe, Gregor Hutton, mindwanders.

7/2/2009 Ron Edwards: [S/Lay w/Me] The back-story and earliest playtesting
Hello, Beginnings It started with Sean (Calithena) asking me to contribute to the magazine Fight On!, which I definitely wanted to do but kept getting screwed on time. Certain events…
In Playtesting
Participants: Ron Edwards, Tim C Koppang.

7/8/2009 Ron Edwards: [Showdown] Mayhem and trauma, start your engines
Tim and I continue with the twosies!* Seth sent me a copy of Showdown a bit ago based on the Mars Colony thread. Here's his Showdown development and playtest page…
In Playtesting
Participants: Ron Edwards, GreatWolf, Tim C Koppang, MacLeod.

7/14/2009 JoyWriter: [Rustbelt] Lory Plaza
[i]Lory Plaza, Glory plaza it used to be called, but only Reverend Peters calls it that now. You can hear him sometimes on his PA speakers, mixed in with his…
In Playtesting
Participants: JoyWriter, Marshall Burns.

7/22/2009 Doplegager: (Path of Journeys) Sandbox and Litterbox
[b]A little Background[/b] I'm doing revisions of the Path of Journeys, one of the Ashcan Front games from 2007. The original impetus for the game was a combination of A)…
In Playtesting
Participants: Doplegager, Adam Dray, Ron Edwards, Paul Czege.

7/24/2009 Marshall Burns: [Hex Rangers] Strange Fruit revisited
[i]Hex Rangers[/i] is my design that was formerly titled [i]Witch Trails[/i]. It’s a game of investigating and exterminating the paranormal in the American frontier. A couple weeks ago, I ran…
In Playtesting
Participants: Marshall Burns, Patrice, Simon C, DWeird, Mike Sugarbaker, davidberg, Noon, JoyWriter, Emmadexter1970, contracycle, charles ferguson, northerain.

7/27/2009 Simon C: [The Heartbreaker War] Fictional Causes
Here's the pitch for my project "The Hearbreaker War": The Heartbreaker War is a campaign setting and character creation system designed to work with any fantasy RPG system.  You play…
In Playtesting
Participants: Simon C, Noclue, Lance D. Allen.

7/27/2009 Melinglor: [Spectre of the Beast] What's a little piracy among peaceful peoples?
You know, I have been very, very stupid. I've been working on game design for a couple of years now, and I have completely ignored the Forge as a mine…
In Playtesting
Participants: Melinglor.

7/29/2009 Doplegager: (Path of Looting and Slaying) Elfs snuck into my fantasy parody...
In another playtesting thread, I've talked about about a poor playtest experience I had last week, with a focus on failure on the social level but touching on ways to…
In Playtesting
Participants: Doplegager, JoyWriter.

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