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Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Playtesters and Changes

This is Steven Petrick Posting.

One of the fun things about getting playtest reports is that some playtesters assume the mere fact that you have asked for their input gives them ca rte Blanche to have anything in the module being tested changed to reflect their personal point of view. Never mind if it is not the viewpoint of the designer, or that other playtesters do not agree with them, they have spoken and thus it must be.

We cannot do Star Fleet Battles (or Federation Commander, or Federation and Empire, or any other games efficiently without the help of the playtesters, and we try to listen to what they have to say. We generally are not going to make a change based on just one person's opinion (unless he makes a really good case) but will take what a person asks to others for their input as well. We do this to try to avoid mistakes as much as we can.

Two recent examples. One playtester insisted that some weapons on a given ship were wrong. Based on just his say-so we did not make a change. Eventually he came back with a reasoned statement why he had to be correct. This was such a compelling statement that it literally did become obvious that a mistake in the design of the ship had been made, and it was corrected.

In another case, a playtester insisted over and over that something had to be, but finally issued a flat statement that the reason he wanted what he wanted was, in fact, based on a non-operable rule. The playtester and the designer had been talking past each other (playtester using a non-relevant rule, designer using the relevant rule), and neither knew why the other was so adamant until the playtester submitted his detailed rationale of why X had to be Y. No change was made in this case, but it highlights why, other than obvious things (like misspelled words or a weapon with an obvious LS firing arc being listed as RS or etc.) changes are not made without a good reason being presented.