by Emiliano García-Page Sánchez

So you’re writing a tabletop RPG, and you’re going to run a playtest with a couple of friends. What do your playtest materials need to look like?

I’ve already covered the three phases of prototyping, so let’s look at those recommendations and dig deeper.

At this point, I replace the low-quality materials with something better, but still simple. For tokens, I’ll use plastic poker chips, for example. The point is to move away from scrap, but still avoid investing serious cost. Your game is still going to go through a lot of changes.

I’ll also format my rules into a form that’s easier to read, with headers and some form of organization. This isn’t anywhere near the final version with cool fonts and fancy art, but it’s at least formatted in a way that other people will understand, and I fill out any “(NEED TO FILL THIS OUT LATER)” sections.

So, point #1: your playtest materials do not have to be final. Don’t worry about finding exactly the right tokens to represent health; coins will do fine.

Why not try to make the game look as good as possible? Two main reasons: 1) The playtest may well reveal that your entire mechanic is a bad fit for the game, requiring you to dump those perfect tokens you spent so much time finding. 2) Polished materials create the impression that those materials are final. Your playtesters will be much less likely to tell you that a mechanic doesn’t work if they see how much time and effort you put into its representation.

That said, you want materials that are easy to use in play. During your own personal testing, you probably used things like sticky notes and whatever was at hand to mark things, but those may be harder for your playtesters to use during a game than, say, blank cards or plastic poker chips. You want your playtest to move swiftly, so it’s worth upgrading from playtest materials that were convenient for you but won’t be as convenient for a handful of people around a table. In other words, you want materials that don’t distract your playtesters.

When it comes to your rules, of course it’s impossible to give you a single, clear rule that tells you when your rules are good enough for playtesters. Here are a few guidelines, though:

1. Have you included all the rules needed just for the playtest? That is, are there any rules still in your head that need to be written down? Add them. On the other hand, don’t worry about a rule for every possible situation; just include the ones you’re likely to encounter in the playtest session.
2. Are there any parts of the rules you intended to fill out at some point (often marked with “FILL THIS OUT LATER!!!!!”)? Fill those out now. Don’t worry about making them perfect, but either add them or remove them from this draft.
3. Review the document thoroughly for spelling and grammar issues. One missed word in a rule can color a playtester’s perception of the game (because the playtester may think something’s possible when it’s not, or vice versa) and cause confusion that will unnecessarily eat up playtest time. You don’t have to write perfectly to publish a game, but unclear language will draw attention to itself, and away from the reasons you’re playtesting.
4. Add page numbers. Your players will be flipping back and forth between pages during the test, asking where certain rules or explanations are, and without page numbers this will eat up time.

How do you run a playtest and gather useful feedback? I’ll explore those topics in the next few posts.

‘Schedule’ by pittaya

Let me introduce you to Sonja. Sonja wrote a cool little tabletop RPG. She wants to playtest it, running it with a few people to get a feel for the game, but her attempts to scheduled a game have so far met with failure.

She came up with a two-pronged, systematic approach.

First, she identified a handful of friends–face-to-face and online–who she thinks would be good playtesters. She messaged them directly, describing the game in a couple of sentences and asking if they’d be willing to playtest. No firm date yet; just a yes/no question. A couple of them responded affirmatively.

Then she wrote a broad, public post on her favorite social media platforms, asking if anyone would be interested in playtesting. This was a little different than the first message; she described the game in a little more detail, keeping an upbeat tone. After all, she didn’t know the people who’d read this as well, so she needed to provide more context. A few people commented expressing interest.

Note that she hadn’t scheduled anything yet. Instead, she focused on building a list of people who were eager to playtest.

Then she went to Doodle and created a scheduling poll. Doodle’s great because you can list a bunch of potential dates and times, and get folks to vote on which works for them, but you can use whatever alternative is easiest for you. She set up a bunch of time slots when she personally was free.

Then Sonja wrote a separate post, just for those who responded affirmatively to her first two posts, pointing them to the Doodle. About half of them actually filled it out, and she ended up with one time slot with three people.

Boom! She had enough people to run her playtest and a time slot.

Why do it this way? I’ve tried to start the process by scheduling the playtest session, but people didn’t get that interested, and I didn’t get enough responses to schedule anything. If you engage people about the game first, that smaller group is much more likely to work with you to schedule a session.

‘Talking on the offshore’ by ePi.Longo

This is part of a series of blog posts where I confront issues relating to tabletop RPG game design.

First off, you may be asking: Do I need play testers? Can’t I play my game with a few friends, then just post it online?

Of course, yes, you can just publish it. And if you’ve got a simple, quick game, that might be appropriate.

But the game won’t be as good as it can be. You’re not everyone. Your friends probably have similar interests to you. You need other perspectives to find holes in your design that you can’t even see.

So how do you find play testers?

There’s no magic bullet. But one way is to run games online for strangers.

Post on your favorite social media network, offering to run games. If you have a lot of followers, you might be able to ask for players for your in-development games. If not, offer to run popular games like D&D.

Then, once you’ve run a couple of sessions with these players, ask them if they’d be willing to play a session of a game you’re writing. Run a game with them.

Now, ideally, you can find a group that will run your game without you even being there. Unfortunately, very few people are willing to run a game that’s still in development. Try asking your players if one of them is willing to do so, but if they’re not, that’s just the reality of indie tabletop RPG development.

At least you’ve found playtesters and received their feedback!

How do you run a playtest and gather that feedback? I’ll be covering those topics in future posts.

‘Writing Pencil’ by home thods

This is an ongoing series of posts where I look at tabletop RPG design pretty darned exhaustively.

Let’s say you’ve got an idea for an RPG, and you’ve written down some notes and rules. Let’s further say that you want to release this to the public.

Before you do, you’ll want to show it to at least somebody else to know what makes sense. You should playtest it, too, but let’s say you know one or two people to whom you can show an RPG, and can read it and get back to you with reasonably useful feedback.

We’ve now helpfully established the goal of the first draft: This is the version that you will show to other people.

So, what is the minimum content needed for a first draft of an RPG?

I think you need three things:

You need your core mechanics. This is further composed of four things:

1. What do players do in the game?
2. What do player-characters do in the game?
3. When do you break from the fiction and use a randomizer (like dice or cards)?
4. How do you interpret the randomizer’s results back into the fiction?

You also need to explain character creation. Assuming players play characters, they need to know how to build one.

You also need decent spelling and grammar. I’m not trying to be your grammar teacher here; this grows naturally out of your goal. Other people will be reading your work. If you know you’re poor at spelling and grammar, you know they’ll have a tough time even understanding your sentences, much less the game you’re trying to explain to them. If this is a problem for you, find a friend who can fix this before you pass your first draft off to other people.

That’s it. Note what I’m not including:

• Setting
• Sample of play
• Introductory adventure
• Optional rules
• How to level up

Those are all useful things to include, but they’re not necessary for your first readers to grasp the essentials of your game. Focus on the basics.