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I started playtesting the day the craze began and my group is still waiting on more information before we really do anything since its more or less them not being happy with the pregen chars until they see how to go about making their own characters. I've gotten two survey requests, but nothing else. Is there anything else yet? My group doesn't really understand that playtest means we don't get all the books and stuff and then go about having fun, but I can't get folks to start until they know more. So... just seeing if there are updates to the books or at least more explanation on things than there was the day of the first downloads.

I'm going to have to check my gmail, I guess. The surveys and even the initial download announcement always end up in my bulk mail. I'd love it if more is coming in the way of materials, but my guess is that we're a month out.

As far as getting your players more interested to do playtesting, you can extrapolate some possible changes to the pregen characters, such as maybe racial changes, picking different weapons or swapping out spells, armor, etc., and it may help to get hold of the original Keep on the Borderlands adventure module to flesh the setting out a bit (fairly easy to convert the old stats over to Next). I would say, get together with the understanding to play around with it and change things. There's also a brief blog post somewhere that will come up if you google it (slyflourish.com maybe?) that puts some flesh on the bones of the Keep itself. By making it more sandbox with a central home base (there are several possible quests to go on that lead adventurers to the Caves of Chaos) maybe you can interest them in the adventure enough to get them to test out the rules. Hype up the rumors of cult activity and an unusual inter-racial humanoid conspiracy perhaps. There are also spying and prisoner-rescue type missions.

Also, looking up resources on how to run a more old school game might help. Because the Caves do harken back to the old school, and there is a correspondingly different play style that can bring the best out of it. It may feel sparse as written compared to newer published modules, but that doesn't mean the Caves have to be boring. Depending on where the PCs go first, they can end up toe to toe with an ogre or worse (something they might better talk to or run from or risk being killed outright). This alone can be both jarring and fun for those who are used to 4e's premium on play balance. If you run with it as DM and think of it in terms of how you're going to challenge your player's wits and maybe, just maybe let them survive, it's a lot of fun...

Jul 18, 2012 -- 1:29PM, babyj wrote:

I am wondering the same thing. I think anyways..

I participated immediately in the playtest, and about a week from the day I could download it, I had the first e-mail about a survey hit my inbox (which I completed successfully). Today, I got an email asking for feedback on which spells I think are essential for Cleric and Wizard; are those the two survey requests to which you are referring? (the second of which appears to be out of nowhere..and makes me wonder as well if there is an updated packet available that I should have, or if the feedback is actually supposed to pertain to the same v.1 playtest packet)

I was wondering the same thing, myself... if there's any new or additional material.

When I got the 2nd survey recently, the questions about the high-level spells made me do a double-take.  I looked for an update to the playtest packet but found nothing... so I just assumed that the questionnaire is asking "what spells do you want most?" rather than asking for feedback on the way those spells work in the playtest. 

Honestly, I'd like the playtest to go a little faster.  The pace seems pretty glacial and is still at the bare-bones stage IMO.  And these most recent questions on spells make me think they're more concerned about image and what people think is "iconic" rather than true analysis / comments on WHY certain spells are needed and which ones work best mechanically, etc.  Just my impression, though.

I was kinda hoping for more by now.