Hello all,

I am a solo writer about to release a game called Industrial Age Fantasy. I just have to wait for my ISBN number registration to go through and attach them to the books. I started with no writing experience, no REAL design experience, and no money. Now I have finished a game.

This game was written, rewritten, changed, adapted, modified and more over 7 years before release. I founded a company called JWGames to help provide the art and concept designs for the book and eventually had working versions going into playtests. I loved playtesting each time, but achieving a balance was an immensely difficult process. The reason for this was simply -too many variables. Even now, I am sure that there will be revisions to tweak the numbers so that the right weapons can penetrate the right armors at the right levels.

Playtesting, for me became a huge amount of work in the book writing process. Sometimes, pages of notes from playtesting could bring about weeks of revisions with 12 hour work days or more.

After a while, I decided that playtesting and improving was no longer important to the development of the game. The public eye was going to be much more valuable. My friends and I were so familiar with the game and its changes that were weren't fresh enough to see it for what is was anymore. While we will continue our roleplaying in our own group, the book will sell as is.

Our version is stable and fun. There are lots of choices and the art is awesome.

If I may relate some valuable advice to others who are in the field of Playtesting (completely my own humble opinion, naturally):

1). If it doesn't affect efficiency or fun, don't change it. Weird rules don't need to be standardized if people enjoy them, exceptions don't need to be standardized if they don't change the final result. These modifications will take time and usually won't improve the product.

2). When you stop changing it, IT IS FINISHED. At some point, you are going to have to make some money for your efforts. Don't leave it too late. If you can begin selling your product early, then do it. Changes take time and usually don't guarantee an improvement. If your game system is already established and well-written, a small change could be like a pebble triggering an avalanche of work -for example, changing the way damage works forces you to re-balance all the weapons from scratch.

3). A perfect system isn't necessarily a fun one. I tried for ever to make every character class balanced. It became harder and harder for players to come up with powerful character designs and eventually, they were weakened because of it, skewing challenges in the monster's favor. If you have a playtester that finds a real killer skill-combo, that's because he's smart, not because your game is unbalanced. Consider letting it stay unless it destroys the game.

4). Don't do any arty stuff until all your text is finished. I mean 100% totally finished. I put nice borders into the book to try to get a feel for my game. and to give the book some weight and gravitas with my playtesters. FAIL. The playtest suggestions required rewrites of some sections. Every change of text caused me to rearrange illustrations. It consumed days of work.

Hello Masden

Welcome to the Forge! May we call you by your real name? (It's of course not mandatory, but appreciated here.)

Sounds like good news for you and your game! Also, thanks for sharing your tips, but I'm not sure in what context I should ground them, as I've no idea what your game is about. Could you please describe an excerpt from a cool session? Some fiction, some rules-use, what the people discussed, etc. That would really help!

Welcome to the forge! As someone who's just gotten started designing their first RPG I really admire someone who has put so much of their effort and time into designing a well-polished game. I'd love to hear more about your game-premise, mechanics, overall design goals? From the name of the game I'm assuming that it covers steampunkesque fantasy settings, but I certainly don't want to just assume that I know what your brainchild is about.