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6 months ago ::
Nov 22, 2012 - 9:18AM
#1
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Date Joined:
Dec 14, 2003
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Hello there folks!
Like most here, I'm a fellow playtester of Dungeons & Dragons Next. I don't usually post much, but I lurk a lot around these forums. Recently, I've been reading some things that I think should be debated by the community.
I'm talking about "theoretical" playtesters - playtesters who don't play the packages, but are reading and providing feedback all the same.
First of all, contrary to some opinions, I think such feedback can be as valid as any other. There are a lot of areas where people need not experience first hand to state that they like or do not like. In fact, many aspects of the game are entirely outside the area of "personal experience" and in the area of "personal preferences".
However, as in any "theory", there's always a "grey area" between it and practical experience. Many aspects of the game can only be revealed by playing it, and many aspects may be hard to perceive by merely reading the rules. As much as "theory" can help, "practical experience" is another thing entirely, and can often challenge perceptions based solely on theorical thoughts.
So, while I do not think the feedback theoretical playstesters should be dismissed as insignificant, such playtesters would do well to inform their designers that their experience may not be based in actual play.
My suggestion thus is that any "theoretical" playtester do his best at informing the designers that some or all of their opinions are not based in actual experience in the game.
The recent polls have been more inclusive of this kind of playtest - they ask whether you want to provide feedback in some areas, and allow answering "do not know, is not certain" to many important questions. I suggest that when answering a poll, such playtesters try their best to write texts where they make clear wich areas of the game they haven't actually experienced in "practice".
I know that there are some people so disheartned with the packages that they rather drop it altogether. However, this won't help neither Dungeons & Dragons nor 5e edition. If you care about Dungeons & Dragons, the best thing to do is to keep providing feedback, be it through their polls, be it through these forums or other sites; but let's make sure the designers are well informed about experiences, in order to help them make informed decisions.
Are you threatening me master jedi?  Dungeons & Dragons 4e Classic - The Dark Edition
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6 months ago ::
Nov 22, 2012 - 9:41AM
#2
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Date Joined:
Sep 30, 2006
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i actually believe that 'theoretical playtesting' is much more objective and unbiased than how you might feel after sitting down to a session of 'actual playtesting'
the people who post their theoretical feedback on these boards aren't your average gamers. we're people who can look at a rule or option and immediately get an idea of how good it is.
when you sit down to play a session with some friends. you open your opinions to the subjectifying nature of around the table play.
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6 months ago ::
Nov 22, 2012 - 10:00AM
#3
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Much to my dismay, I am one of those theoretical playtesters. (Well, I did do a little play by post. Good for some rules, like the old rapid shot, but not quite there for feel.) And I do mention that in surveys. When it comes to things such as spell balance or monsters, I flat out raise my hands and say, "don't know, I can't determine this without playing and I haven't."
When you're into game design you can predict a lot of things based on past experiences and intuition. You should also be able to know exactly when you can not predict something unless you play, and even more importantly, you should know when your personal emotions would get in the way. Like crying about the number of spell slots cuz you know you liked the number you got in 3.5. I knew right away I couldn't judge that by my first reaction. I didn't actually have a bad first reaction, but I knew I still had to sit on it for a few days just cuz.
What I think the Wilder Design Goals should be. Psionic Homebrew Mk2! Changed core, Focus Points, Psionic Potentials, stuff! Very basic core stuff. :P Homebrew Psionics blog posts archive: Spoiler:
Show
UPDATED Dec/18/2012: BAMN! Random update with a modest amount of hard rules for Animal Affinity, Telepathy, and Telekinesis. ADDED: Discipline Burn and more "soft" ideas.
Dec/13/2012: Small Psionics Homebrew Update, now that I'm done with Finals.
Really old.
Nov/02/2012:
I'm working on a homebrew Wilder, and so a homebrew Psionics system. Here's a 3 part post with info on where I am in the design process.
Part 1, Hard rules/example soulknife discipline: Link.
Part 2, Basic ideas/goals on basic numbers and classes: Link.
Part 3, Direction/ideas I want to take with specific disciplines: Link.:3
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6 months ago ::
Nov 22, 2012 - 10:15AM
#4
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Date Joined:
Nov 11, 2011
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Keep in mind that the conceptors ARE DOING theoretical stuff as they calculate everything on sheets of paper (mostly a computer these days, but meh!).
So I say this : any theoretical playtesters are welcome to comment but they need to back their stuff up with numbers and thoughts, not only giving an opinion.
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6 months ago ::
Nov 22, 2012 - 10:38AM
#5
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Date Joined:
May 11, 2006
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Having been one of the people who brought it up elsewhere, I want to elaborate a bit on my original concern.
I wasn't necessarily taking issue with someone offering feedback without actually playing. There is value there. If its objective and thought out. Rather, I was noting that some people who continue to post, and respond to the surveys, could very well be disgruntled, agenda-driven grousers whose tantrums carry the same weight as someone genuinely trying to improve the game through the process as intended.
Especially compounded by the fact that I get the distinct impression some people don't get the process. They seem to think that the "changes" made between packets are somehow a direction the game is purposefully heading in. That's just absurd. The devs have made it clear that they are attempting to find breaking points or boundaries along the way. That the best method is to push the corners of game and see what happens. Swinging starting HPs from one extreme to the other, for example.
When someone bemoans, "Ugh! The changes to this new packet are taking the game I love in a terrible direction. I can't believe they are ruining this game! The horror! I refuse to stand for this! I'm out!", they miss the point completely.
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6 months ago ::
Nov 22, 2012 - 10:48AM
#6
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Date Joined:
May 11, 2006
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i actually believe that 'theoretical playtesting' is much more objective and unbiased than how you might feel after sitting down to a session of 'actual playtesting'
Subjective. In some cases, yes. In others, no.
the people who post their theoretical feedback on these boards aren't your average gamers.
Some are. Some aren't. Some are less than average. But, based on the next line, I get the sense you are speaking more personally than "the people" would imply.
we're people who can look at a rule or option and immediately get an idea of how good it is.
And when someone else, of equal or greater experience, disagrees with your untested opinion? What happens to your clearly high self-worth, then?
when you sit down to play a session with some friends. you open your opinions to the subjectifying nature of around the table play.
So by virtue of sitting down to play, I cannot be objective? Your valuation of others is clearly dwarfed by your sense of self.
Equally, I could argue: When you break out your spreadsheet, and do your number-crunching in a vacuum, you sometimes forget that people don't play this game on a calculator...
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6 months ago ::
Nov 22, 2012 - 11:10AM
#7
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Date Joined:
Nov 11, 2011
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Equally, I could argue: When you break out your spreadsheet, and do your number-crunching in a vacuum, you sometimes forget that people don't play this game on a calculator...
This is not the first time I see this argument and each and every time I see it, I can't think of nothing but this : Those kind of people will still enjoy the game if the calculator is right, so it is barely an argument.
I do not mean to cause any harm, neither do I want to sound offensive. This is simply not an argument against those who want the game to be mathematically "perfect" simply because you will still enjoy the game if it's being "fixed".
Heck! I'm not even a math person and I could say that I am between the optimized and RP players! Therefore I should agree with you, but I still can't think of this as being an argument for not doing it right.
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6 months ago ::
Nov 22, 2012 - 11:28AM
#8
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Date Joined:
May 27, 2012
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Nobody likes to be marginalized, including those who consider the game to be so far off the mark as to be unplayable. I'm also afraid that mathematical concerns might not be given full weight if they cannot be re-produced consistently during what limited playtyime is available.
Hypothetically, imagine that I consider the Dis/Advantage mechanic to be so horrendous as to make the game unplayable. (Which it is, because I've dealt with it in the past and I would never do that to my players again, but let's keep it hypothetical for now.) My options, in that case, are between not playtesting at all, or house-ruling to make it playable. Which feedback is more valuable:
"Dis/Advantage is such a terrible game mechanic that I cannot fairly judge the rest of the system."
or
"Dis/Advantage is such a terrible game mechanic that we had to house-rule it in order to make the system playable, and thus our playtest experience does not reflect the game rules."
?
The metagame is not the game.
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6 months ago ::
Nov 22, 2012 - 11:45AM
#9
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Date Joined:
Feb 22, 2012
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Having been one of the people who brought it up elsewhere, I want to elaborate a bit on my original concern.
I wasn't necessarily taking issue with someone offering feedback without actually playing. There is value there. If its objective and thought out. Rather, I was noting that some people who continue to post, and respond to the surveys, could very well be disgruntled, agenda-driven grousers whose tantrums carry the same weight as someone genuinely trying to improve the game through the process as intended.
Especially compounded by the fact that I get the distinct impression some people don't get the process. They seem to think that the "changes" made between packets are somehow a direction the game is purposefully heading in. That's just absurd. The devs have made it clear that they are attempting to find breaking points or boundaries along the way. That the best method is to push the corners of game and see what happens. Swinging starting HPs from one extreme to the other, for example.
When someone bemoans, "Ugh! The changes to this new packet are taking the game I love in a terrible direction. I can't believe they are ruining this game! The horror! I refuse to stand for this! I'm out!", they miss the point completely.
It would have been very VERY important that the developers mention this in the actual playtest packets, not spread all over the wizards website and tossed in randomly in videos. The very fact that we learned that TWF was suppose to be the untrained version shoudl have been mentioned from day one not weeks later. Almost gives the hint like the designers actually thought it would work for a trained version and then had to come up with a reason. (Not saying that was the case). Thing is Wizards lost a lot of face with 4th edition and are paying for it now as many people don't trust anything they do or say or for them to actually realize a horrible mistake. If we were playtesting 4th edition I'm sure a lot more people would be willing to give WotC the benefit of the doubt, the problem is that we are playtesting 5th edition and have already gone down the route of 4th edition. To my knowledge in reality the people working on 5th by and large had nothing to with 4th so this is a clear result of looking at the company as one individual instead of the many individuals it is composed of. But given this environment, the designers need to be more clear about things they are doing and why.
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6 months ago ::
Nov 22, 2012 - 12:02PM
#10
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Date Joined:
Feb 22, 2012
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Disadvantage is one of those things that is clearly unplayable without actually playing the game. This is provable as everyone objected to TWF...why? because you got disadvantage. Was there anyone on the board that actually liked TWF? I honestly don't remember anyone. Disadvantage has mathematical issues, this is a fact. These issues are largely negated by the fact you get bonuses in D&D, so for minor things or for things that you really should fail at Disadvantage can work to a point.
SKill Mastery is another one. The potential to get +10 to a skill makes skill checks for the rogue virtually uneeded, he might as well always suceed. Rolling 3d10 and taking the highest result will almost always give you an 8 or higher. Once again you don't have to actually play the game to know that one character getting +8 to a skill while everyone else doesn't is going to be an issue.
The fighters starting bonus of +3 to attack is a huge problem with bounded acuracy. It makes no sense to start at +3 in a game that has a limit as to how high it goes. Same for skills.
Monsters are another thing that is easy to look at and know they aren't going to work. I've played games where monsters hit hard, and I simply don't like it. I don't have to playtest Next to know this, I've already played the idea a thousand times before. The real issue is when the monsters actually win initiative and actually hit on the first round. This could send anyone out of the game besides the fighter.
The fighters use of parry is problematic. This is knowable from previous D&D games with damage reduction given to a player character. Further if the Player holds back his expertise dice to use parry, am I as a DM now obligated to attack the fighter or let the player have wasted his Expertise dice for the round? What if I want to attack the wizard now instead? 30 Damage Reduction is far to high in a game where most of the current monsters don't do that much damage. I think this is another place where it is clear you don't have to play to know there is going to be issues.
So maybe the issue is for people who have only ever played D&D. Personally I've played 3.0, 3.5, 4th, Pathfinder, Shadowrun, Big Eyes Small Mouth, Vampire, Rifts, Palladim's super heroes game, D20 Modern (various encarnations), StarWars D20 (The game where jedi are so powerful everyone wants to play a jedi!) and i have many other game systems that I haven't played. I've also been playing RPGs and Magic the Gathering for a good amount of time. I've taken statistics classes and calculus classes. I think I am qualified to give my opinion without actually playing the game, as there is hardly anything new in the game.
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