"Playtesting Games Run At Conventions" Topic

I can't imagine not doing it now.

All the thought and effort put into scenario design and terrain layout on paper just doesn't matter, you have to put things on the tabletop and get somebody not in your head to move the figures around.

I play tested the game I ran Saturday twice and without that testing my game would have flopped.

You have good ideas, you have outstanding design skills: they won't survive the first die roll without external input.

IMHO

Absolutely!

Yet there's someone out there who's thinking… "I'll take that scenario from the book, enlarge the map, add more forces, and it'll work great at the con!"

That's exactly what I like about running convention games along with the interpersonal cooperation (or lack of) amongst the players.

DM

The best laid plans come acroppper when real players get involved.
I test and look at balance, but don't obsess over it since players are capable of seeing ways to fail you never imagined

I tested my game twice. The players decided to do the exact opposite of what the victory conditions suggested so the test games pretty much went down the crap hole.

It still ended up being a very exciting game.

I do not run proper games at conventions, I design games for a convention that meets the criteria defined by the peer group.

So far I have designed, saving sentinel Ryan ( which was renamed the steep Atlantic stream) being a game of landing parties assaulting a beach in 1704 WSS, and having to knock out a battery of guns and/or storm the fort / fend off a cavalry counterattack … it was played out with a set of home designed rules that featured an action strip that you filled in with actions that took so long to perform, and you could move what you didn't fill with other actions ( a fairly unique skirmish system… as you took bravery loss your action strip shortened so you could get less done until you rallied out of enemy fire.

The gladiator game ( so popular we still had players playing after the convention closed whilst we were trying to pack up.) GW had a chance to buy the rules, but they seemed to have no intent to publish it… so it was not a done deal.

Stalingrad skirmish, a system that looks a lot like combat commander boardgame but with a system that encouraged players to consider staying low as the firing mechanism considered how much of a team was visible over the walls and rubble, and it was again pretty unique as cards pretty much controlled all actions, acting as orders, events, and combat resolution as well as equipment and bonuses.

So none of these games are conventional two four or six player combatative games, they are simple convention games that are designed to run in the allotted time.

We always play test games before a con. However as others said above, the con gamers will sometimes do the strangest things.

Yes I agree, testing and tweaking is vital!

I don't see how you can't play test.

@John,
Saw your game Saturday. I noted smiling players. The testing obviously worked out. Congrats.

Pete Panzeri wrote a pamphlet some years ago on running games at conventions. One of the key points was playtest, playtest, playtest. I wish I could find my copy of it. It is worth reposting every so often.

VR
James Mattes

Thanks, religon. The key place play testing helped was terrain layout. I found out I had too much terrain (pieces too big, also) and it was bunched in places where the action should have happened but tanks couldn't go.

And the game went in a direction absolutely did not expect. Neat.

Like Maddaz, I usually write specific rules/scenarios for show games. Different audience, expectations, time pressures to normal games. Yes, I do playtest them.