Hello all,

I'd like to learn about successful strategies you've used to get good playtesting results from people you can't meet face-to-face.

I've fielded several offers of interest into my LARP system, Ends and Means. I exchange a few e-mails with the interested parties, get an idea for the kind of game they'd like to run, send them a draft of my rules... and I never hear from them again. I have wondered if I'm just SOL getting playtests from strangers who have no personal conection to me and my success.

Recently I've received a new expression of interest (thanks to IndigoDreamer pimping my stuff!) from a fellow in New Hampshire, but I don't want to repeat the same pattern. I want to manage this intelligently, so he can learn my system with a minimum of dfficulty and run a fun game, and so I can get useful feedback.

Has anyone here managed a similar situation -- helping cultivate a playtester or playtest group you've never met? What did you do to make it work?

Adam

In the process of playtesting Mob Justice I had a group in America who had very little playtesting experience. For me it is just a matter of telling them what is useful feedback and what is not, as well as a occasionally asking them to focus on a certain aspect of the game. Any group that just says 'this is rubbish' without giving feedback is probably not worth having. Their reports to you need to explain why they had trouble with certain aspects as well as highlighting the things they enjoyed.

Hope that helps
Cheers
Iain

Thanks, Iain. How did you recruit that group? How did you keep their interest high? Were you lucky enough to find a helpful group right away, or did you have to weed through a number of less-helpful offers?

There's some irony in that Sanctum is the first "Offical playtest" That I've run, but it's not the only playtest that I've been involved in.

A few years ago, I created a game called "Berries and Medicine"  I didn't think anything of it, and used it on my pre-school classes and a volunteer program or two.  I also didn't think anything about teaching it to other teachers or parents.  Recently, after publishing a small blurb of my very first 'play-test', I had a request to 'teach the game' to a volunteer who ran a children's group out of state.  I obliged and although the only 'playtest result' I got back was a phone call giving me a thanks and telling me how it went for them, it was a revealing experience.

I've had plenty of people who have asked to learn the game/system that never use it.  It happens when there is curiousity or even motivation but there isn't a player-base or means to actually follow-through.  There are an incrediable amount of games that 'try to start up' and simply dont', whether from numbers, or from lack of motivation.  It doesn't mean your system is flawed, uninteresting or that it's even your fault if a playtest doesnt' happen.

Sometimes it -is- that the system or game isn't what someone thought it to be, and even if they like it, it may be that it wasn't what they were looking for.  Or it could be that some people have a hard time doing things that isn't taught to them by someone else through actual play.
Unless you are willing to video-tape some of your playtest sessions,  people who want to playtest from afar come visit for a few games, or someone learns the game and teaches it to them, this isn't going to change for the last batch of people.

From my experiences, and having seen many LARPS and games in general fail to launch, It doesn't even always have to do with the game or the system, but by the person intending to run the game.

My hypothisis is that if someone is serious enough about wanting to try the game and actually have the base to do so, they will follow through.  There are just some people who pursue wishful thinking and then if it fails, go quiet so that they don't have to admit that they couldn't actually get a play-test going.  There are also times in which someone just doesn't want to take the time to do something new or teach people how to play.  If someone really wants to play something, and they are determined enough to get it done, then they will.

Unless someone specifically tells you the system isn't right for them, I wouldn't blame the system.
If someone does tell you the system isn't right for them, then it should be taken into consideration 'why' it isn't right for them so that you can consider if it is a conflict with your system or if it just really isn't a system meant for what they are trying to do.  (but you already know that!)

Ends and Means is pretty easy to understand through the flow-chart, and your book explains alot.  I really wouldn't worry. 

As a note, I realize that on our current playtest, I am being perhaps overly detailed, but there is a factor that I am taking into account when I'm doing that and because of that, I might just get 'more' detailed.

It is my intention not to just get feedback from the playtest and figure out the mechanics and fixes, but to promote Sanctum and encourage others to playtest or try it through the blog :)

Make sense?

I put out calls on the Forge and RPGnet as well as through the CGS site itself. As for vetting, I just asked the sort of games they had played before and then went through the process. If they show interest that is half the battle.
Cheers
Iain

Adam Cerling,

I have looked at the Ends and Means site twice, and been curious. I thought that the entire system was going to be on the website, but it turned out that only character creation and an overview were. (insert sad face here)

Here's what's preventing me from asking for the playtest rules:

If you and your friends are interested in starting a game or in just trying a one-shot, e-mail me. I will want to know what kind of setting you're interested in using, how many people are in your group, and when and where you'd be running your games. After each session, I'd like to hear your feedback on what's working well and what's not.

Joe,

You have a very good point about my wording on the site. It doesn't need to be that strong. I will revise it.

Meanwhile, I would be glad to e-mail you a copy of the draft!

I'm intimidated by the thought of just posting the whole draft up on the web, though I'll consider it. The thought summons up a host of fears regarding the loss of control of my work. I'm sure it's a topic that's been debated around here before; I'll search around.

Adam,

I'm probably a useful data point, since I volunteered to playtest Ends and Means, then pulled out.

The background, for everyone else, was this: I'd registered to run a one-shot Terry Pratchett LARP at a con. I asked for the Ends and Means rules, intending to use them, and liked them.

Closer to the time, I started thinking about exactly how my game would work. By now, I'd abandoned Pratchett, and the game was a Meat Loaf LARP. At first, it seemed easy: all the Ends and Means were Meat Loaf quotes (Ends: I'm gonna love her for both of us; Like a bat out of hell, I'll be gone before the morning comes. Means: I was a Varsity tackle and a hell of a block; I'd lie for you and that's the truth). And I really liked that.

The rules themselves, though, were causing me problems. Firstly, there was the job of working out how Ends And Means would work in a one-shot. The Weight Reserve doesn't really play a part, for example, so you can get rid of that. In fact, with pregenerated characters, you need hardly explain about weight at all. And everything becomes simpler.

But the conflict resolution was difficult. Con players wouldn't want a complex ruleset: I had to simplify the rules down to either a few paragraphs on a character sheet or a short introductory GM speech. But the rules were complicated: you add together the weights of your End and Mean and whoever's highest wins, OK; and then you can steal the scene with a certain number of tokens, sure; but then you can command the scene too; and then there's major and minor stakes.

It was too complex, I felt, for a one-shot. At first, I tried simplifying the rules: getting rid of Commanding the Scene; changing the cost of Stealing The Scene to one Plot Token; coping with Major Stakes by saying "If you want to kill someone or control them or anything strange, call a GM".

But I felt, with the rules changed, it wouldn't be a useful playtest. I cobbled together some homemade rules, instead, and they worked fine.

So, to summarise, the problem wasn't the way I was handled as a potential playtester: it was that the rules didn't fit for my one-shot. I really liked Ends And Means, but it seemed geared for campaign play.

As a practical suggestion, have you considered sharing a simplified version of the rules, for one-shots, on your site? That would give website visitors something to read; and might get you some one-shot playtests; and might alleviate your fears about sharing the full text.

You might also consider a grabby, one-shot scenario for Ends And Means: something a GM could pick up and play. Something with a strong theme: murder mystery or Mafia or even, for the World of Darkness market, a Days Of Judgement-ish theme. I'd still like to run Ends And Means and, if there was an easy way of running a one-shot, I'd probably do it.

Hope that's of some use.

Graham

I'll second Joe suggestion about putting the playtest document on your website. I've been wanted to take a look at the current rules for some time now, but there's no downlad. "Huh," I think. "Well, there's this thing about sending an email to get the rules. I should do that." Then I close the page and do something else, and forget about emailing for the rules.

If you can get play-tests without giving away publically what you are planning to sell, then you should go for it.

As for one-shots, I'm with Graham that it would be nice to have a modified version of ends and means that was meant specifically for one shots.  Ends and Means loses a great deal of punch when you're using the full version.  As another thought, have you considered adding a section in Ends and Means that specifically addresses how to handle one-shots and the best way to do it?

Sara McAtee
[glow=orange,2,300](Currently Play-Testing Ends and Means while Play-Testing Sanctum: The Fallout)[/glow]

Andrew wrote:
I'll second Joe suggestion about putting the playtest document on your website. I've been wanted to take a look at the current rules for some time now, but there's no downlad. "Huh," I think. "Well, there's this thing about sending an email to get the rules. I should do that." Then I close the page and do something else, and forget about emailing for the rules.

Adam wrote:
If the Forge is all about "Actual Play," then I'd like to read about its underpinnings: "Actual Support." What did you do, with your game, to help people run a successful playtest, when you could not be there in person to help?

Thank you, Malcolm! This is exactly the kind of thing I'd like to read about.

Could you expand a little more on how you provided "a strong framework for what you want[ed] to get out of the playtest as a whole" when you were playtesting Cold City? Even if your examples are game-specific, I'm interested in the form your framework took.

Hi Adam,

I've pasted excerpts from my very first posts to the playtest mailing list back in late 2005. They do refer to a very early version of the game, which changed a lot as playtesting progressed. Playtesting for Cold City taught me an awful lot about gaining feedback and refining a game, a valuable experience all round.

The best kind of feedback, I think, is in the form of actual play notes. So, I'll be setting up a section of the 'files' area here where GMs can post their AP notes. This is probably the most valuable part of the entire playtesting effort.

More immediate thoughts should be posted direct to the list: questions, musings and critique. For this kind of thing, reasoning behind your thoughts would be great: why did you not like something, why did you like something, why do you feel that particular elements are cumbersome and so on.

As for what is required from playtesting, here's a few initial thoughts:

Basic questions can be asked on this list or brief feedback notes given. However, the ideal format would be uploading a word doc or RTF file with detailed actual play notes contained in it.

The areas for an AP note to cover should involve at least the following:

An outline of the game itself, what it involved, what the adventure was like and so on.

Player and GM opinions of the game and setting.

How did character creation work out? Was it found to be easy, challenging, too detailed, too lightweight, etc.

How did the system work in play? Do the rules facilitiate the kind of play that the game tries to adopt? How does Trust function in the game, do Consequences work, how does the system as a whole work (combat, ability use, etc)?

What were the outcomes of the session? Was there player and GM satisfaction at the results, how did people feel about the reward mechanic in the form of Consequences?

How have characters advanced in terms of abilities, trust, hatreds, stereotypes and so forth? What has the character evolution been like? Have players been satisfied with this?

These are broad outlines and the more detail that can be packed into AP notes the better. I'm not looking for 'War & Peace' length, being concise and to the point would be great.

Looking forward to hearing how it goes and if you have any points at all to raise, that's what this list is for!


Cheers
Malcolm

Hey Adam,

Hope you don't mind if I use your topic to ask for a little additional advice in the same vein; You've fielded playtest offers that didn't pan out. I'm not even getting that far with my own efforts. If you or anyone else would be willing to share a little bit on how to get those offers in the first place, I'd be incredibly interested. If you feel that this is detracting from your thread, say so and I'll just follow along with answers to your original question, as that's something I'm interested in as well.

Malcolm,

Your list of guiding questions helps prompt similar questions out of my subconscious. So far I've got one promising lead on a remote playtest: I will have to write up a similar list to get them thinking. If I can get follow-through on others, I'll proceed with the mailing-list approach.

You say you learned "an awful lot about gaining feedback and refining a game." What lessons about gaining feedback stand out to you?

Lance,

I wish I had some sage advice for you, but I think I owe my offers to these two factors:

First, there isn't nearly as much variety in American LARPs as there is in tabletop RPGs. There's lots of room for a system to fill an empty niche, and I think there's a segment of LARPers who have been waiting for "indie-style" mechanics far too long. So I think it's easier to get an American LARPer's attention than a tabletop gamer's.

Second, I've got personal notoriety among the Mind's Eye Theater (MET, White Wolf) crowd. I published a freeware program called Grapevine that was used by thousands of players and GMs during MET's heyday. I benefit from that reputation when I market my system as "from the author of Grapevine."

If I didn't have those advantages, I imagine I'd rely on quid pro quo with other designers: you playtest my game, I'll playtest yours.

"was" is a modest term.

Almost very White-Wolf LARP I know of still uses it; it's 'the standard'.

I've already said this, but I'll say it again too.  The reason that I think you lack the play-tests you want, is because you are marketing in a very 'under the radar' method.  It's true that you don't have your book ready for sale, etc.  But advertising your product when you need something isn't always a bad thing.

Playtesting Ends and Means really seems more like an afterthought when reading your webpage; maybe you should create an entire page dedicated to playtesting, how to do it, what you want from it, and why you want it, instead of just a brief paragraph.  (Although the new page is Much better than the older one, it still seems like it's something people 'can do' rather than you wanting them to do it)

Just my half-cent.

Adam wrote:
Malcolm,

Your list of guiding questions helps prompt similar questions out of my subconscious. So far I've got one promising lead on a remote playtest: I will have to write up a similar list to get them thinking. If I can get follow-through on others, I'll proceed with the mailing-list approach.

You say you learned "an awful lot about gaining feedback and refining a game." What lessons about gaining feedback stand out to you?