Community

May 6, 2012 -- 10:31AM, geoffa wrote:

I'm not sure I can move things quickly enough to help with this particular request, but I am curious about the process for becoming a playtester in general.  Is there an official application process, or some sort of legal mumbo jumbo where you agree to not give away the endings of unpublished adventures?  Are you expected to show up with a whole group of potential playtesters or just volunteer individually?  How frequently do playtest groups get called upon, and what amount/level of feedback are they expected to provide?  

I don't mean to distract the conversation from Cpptylorx's original question but maybe I could be more helpful next time someone makes a similar request.

There's no real "process" afaik. Nothing on paper anyways.

It is best if you can come as part of a full group, as the writer isn't likely to have the time and wherewithal to put you together with others around the world (there's no telling where people are coming from if they are individuals). If you don't have a group you already play with, you might put out feelers here to see if there are playtest groups that could use/want another player.

You're expected to provide a lot of feedback*, but the big things are was it fun, how long did stuff take, did the story make sense, did the combats have any broken bits (like everyone getting stuck in one location, not having the ability to take down a certain big bad unless X), and ancillary things like what level you played with, what types of characters, whether certain types of characters or builds made things easier/harder. You're also, in a sense, proofreading the adventure ... you might find something doesn't make sense because a paragraph got accidentally removed, etc.

As for giving stuff away, yeah, don't. You're a playtester, not a spoiler so naturally you'll be expected to keep things to yourself until the adventure is published. And after that, at least don't spoil without warning (hence spoiler tags here on the forum).

The "how often" I can only answer as a "depends". If you're a playtest group that works with a writer, it will depend on if the writer likes you, and writes another mod. If you're working with a Writing Director, ditto, though in their case they will definitely be working on more mods, but maybe won't ask you for a while depending on the type of mod, your group's character levels, etc.  

* "a lot" can also depend, but I don't think anyone is going to ask for a novel.