Playtesting?

[Jon Crenshaw]

Hey,

Any idea when you might be in the playtesting stage?

Thanks,

Jon

[iago]

Not a clue.  Due to some of the festive developments in real life that have affected our delivery timetable with this one, we may not have a lot of time to do a playtesting period, either, but I won't be able to comment on that with anything like appropriate levels of detail until a few months out...

[johntfs]

If/when you do playtest it, will it be in person or over the internet?  I tend to play a lot of games on http://www.rpol.net since it has an easy user system and built-in dice rollers and such.

[iago]

That'll depend on the preferences of the playtest group.

[Mickey Finn]

Could always playtest it on the MUSH

[finarvyn]

Could always playtest it on the MUSH

That would require a lot of people to have access to alpha or beta rules sets. My guess is that security will be a tad tighter than that. 

[Bobbin]

you could always make a mush invite only. Then send the rules to those that are invited.

[Darrington]

It needs to be in person!  Not online.  It's just not the same otherwise!  Then again, I'm biased, and have very bad experiences with online roleplaying before meeting the in-person sort.

[Mickey Finn]

It depends on the on-line game.

[ToddM326]

does the playtesting include sample chapters of Cursor's Fury??? :-D

[finarvyn]

The whole playtesting process for DFRPG has me a bit befuddled.

Usually in a playtest there is a "beta" version which gets a shakedown, but it's sort of like this has already been done (since Rob and Fred scrapped the earlier FATE version and re-tooled the system already).

The game system will be similar mechanically to Spirit of the Century, but SOTC is nearly finished. It makes me wonder how much additional playtesting will be done for DFRPG. The magic systems will differ, but since the two games are linked mechanically if there is a percieved "problem" it will likely be too late to change it.

I know that I have a group dying to give DFRPG a try, and I can't wait for SOTC to come out so we can get a head start on DF.

[rdonoghue]

The two systems are going to be very similar for most core activities.  Climbing a wall, seducing your date and punching someone in the nose are handled in roughly the same way.  What we're going to need to test with Dresden (though I'll not say anything about when) is going to be drilling down on the things that specifically make it Dresden, which is to say, the length and breadth of the supernatural world (as well as the nature of mystery games).  We are, to be frank, obsessing over this.  Coming up with _a_ magic system is trivial, as those who have read the Fate rules can attest.  Coming up with one that reflects both the details and the spirit of the books in their own terms, rather than shoehorning them into some sort of game-structure is a bit more involved.

Especially with that shield bracelet.

Man, how I hate the shield bracelet.

I have dreams about it.

Bad ones.

-Rob D.

[finarvyn]

What we're going to need to test with Dresden (though I'll not say anything about when) is going to be drilling down on the things that specifically make it Dresden, which is to say, the length and breadth of the supernatural world (as well as the nature of mystery games).

I see what you're saying here, Rob.

My point was mostly that a traditional playtest is such that a group is given a rules system to try out and give a shake down. If there's a way to bend the rules, it would be best to find this out before it goes to press.

For DF, however, it's going to be more of a partial playtest because a large percentage of the core rules have been playtested for SOTC and don't need to be tweaked.  "Yeah, well the game is fine. How about the extras?"

Just different, that's all. 

[Samldanach]

Well, presumably, SotC got its own playtesting.  So, the bugs with the core system are, theoretically, already worked out.

And, the testing that scrapped the original version was alpha testing.  Completely in-house.  We haven't gotten a beta-ready rules set yet to test.

And, in my experience, playtesting is generally not intended to find big holes in the system.  Those should have been caught and closed in alpha testing.  Playtesting is intended to find weird broken combos, unclear rules, out-and-out mistakes, and, most particularly in this case, places where the rules and the setting don't meet up.

IOW, patience, grasshopper.