"How does one find playtesters?" Topic

Or more specifically, when a game is past the alpha testing stage and your own group has pushed it to its limits, how does one:

(a) find play-testers while;
(b) keeping their IP protected?

I'm actually at the point where the game is mostly designed (just working on card wording and exact victory conditions), and I'll soon be ready for the last step, which is writing the actual rulebook. But I really worry about sending my almost completed game out to a bunch of strangers when the time comes.

Thanks – J

Depends on your situation.

The right answer is a Non Disclosure Agreement. However depending on your situation and that of the potential playtesters, you may lack the resources to enforce such an agreement and the playtesters may have no recoverable assets if you did so.

In which case the answer is trust. Find some more people you trust. If you go to cons regularly, there are probably people there outside your tight circle that you know whether you could trust them or not.

I've also done playtesting for various items. The only time I had to sign a non-disclosure type agreement was for a commercial computer wargame. All the rest were a quick promise not to steal their stuff.

And once it's published, if it's any good it'll probably get plagiarised anyway. You can't copyright mechanics.

Unless you have something extremely innovative that you expect to big a big commercial success, I wouldn't worry too much about protecting your IP. I think it is very unlikely that someone will steal your rules ideas and put them into a set of rules and publish it before you do.

The difficulty I've found is actually getting people to playtest your rules. I'm sure you will have plenty of willing volunteers, but in my experience most people who offer to playtest don't actually do any playtesting. Some will read the rules and offer helpful comments, and if you are lucky, a few might actually play and provide feedback, but most just want to read the rules (maybe just because they like reading wargames rules, maybe to get ideas for their own rules, maybe to help decide if they will want to buy them on release).
When I was looking for playtesters for Sword & Spear, I offered the playtest rules for sale at half the price that the finished version of the rules would sell for (£3 compared to £6.00 GBP for the pdf). Anyone who bought the rules at this price could upgrade to the full set on release by paying the difference, or I would give them the full set at no extra cost if they playtested and provided feedback. In doing this I was ensuring that there was some commitment to the rules by the potential playtesters, and I didn't feel like I was just giving away the rules for free to anyone who asked. This worked, in that many of the early purchasers provided useful feedback, and some proved to be excellent playtesters.

Thanks for the input. Certainly a few points to ponder.

I'm currently working on victory conditions that are easy-to-remember while being multi-layered and faction-flavoured. Suffice it to say, I'm on the 4th version of the victory conditions now. Since I started writing this game, I've throw 30 pages in the garbage for every page I've kept – no joke.

Dear J

Depends.

First off are the people you are sending it to have the same basing parameters as your game requires. It not, it's not likely they will be doing much playtesting.

The issue of trust is a big one. Having gone through the playtesting dilemma myself my advice is to do it yourself in your own group. Got lots of letters and e mails that says. "Hi, my group does exactly the period, and we would be happy to play-test it for you if you send us a copy!" That's the last time I ever heard from them.

Do you intend to send out your stuff electronically? If you do I can guarantee it will not only never be playtested but that it will be stolen as well. Far too easy for someone to simply do a quick rewrite and then zip their own name on the top. If you send them out hard copies they won't retype it or scan the photos and illustrations.

In order to trust your baby to someone you have to know them personally. Listen to Major B. When Sam Mustafa was on the list he would agree as well.

Having gone through the playtesting dilemma myself my advice is to do it yourself in your own group.

The trouble is, you need people to be able to play the game from the rulebook, not after being taught how to play by the designer. Rules need to be playtested by a few different groups, including some that have had no prior contact with the game.

…I can guarantee … it will be stolen as well. Far too easy for someone to simply do a quick rewrite and then zip their own name on the top.

Have you ever heard of this actually happening ?

Marshall Mark

Several times. It has been documented here on TMP.

Can you give an example.

It's on this thread, Game Design

"Boldest Plagerist of the year. Original Poster Rjones69

Here it is

I've discovered two cases of individuals plagiarizing my work from my hererowars.com website, placing it on another website and presenting it as if it were their own material.

Plagiarizing copyrighted material by definition always shows a complete disregard for the rights of the copyright holder. However, it's one thing to take a copyrighted essay off my website, post it word-for-word on Facebook, and pretend that you wrote it. It's an entirely different level of unmitigated gall to not only plagiarize my copyrighted essay, but also to take the "Copyright Dr. Roy S. Jones, Jr, 2006-2015" notification at the bottom of my essay, remove my name from my copyright notification, and replace my name in the copyright with your own name!

And so ladies and gentlemen of the Academy, the award for "Boldest Plagiarist of the Year" goes to

link

I should probably get an MRI to make sure the plagiarist didn't also steal one of my kidneys. Hey, don't laugh: apparently what's mine is theirs! The new copyright notification on their Facebook post certainly says so!

Oh, and one bit of helpful advice to the plagiarist, to assist them in their cunning scheme: if you want to conceal the fact that you stole an essay written by Roy Jones, you might want to remove the two references to "Translation by Roy Jones" from that essay. Otherwise, some people might suspect that Roy Jones had something to do with it.

Sheesh!!!

On a more serious note, I am (to put it mildly) NOT PLEASED. For details of both the case above and the other bold and blatant case of plagiarism and copyright violation, go to link

But that's not an example of what we are talking about here. Of course plagiarism happens. But have there been any instances of playtesters taking the playtest rules they have been given and publishing them as their own?

I have done a fair bit of remote playtesting in my time, honestly, you can only do this effectively through your network of acquaintances, ideally people who have access to their own gaming groups. You have more chance of actually getting some feedback.

If you are going to treat the playtesters as enemies who are going to steal your bright ideas, then don't bother doing it in the first place.

You can ask on TMP for. People who want to be playtesters. You need to give a few details about what the rules are for. Then if people apply you can always ask if they have play tested for. You know like checking references at work. And get an NDA signed.

Get as many different views as possible. I do not play Napoleonic games, but have play tested 2 different sets of rules. If I can not break them then a guy who know what he is doing should not break them.

Be prepared for people to rip your rules apart.

Dear Martin Rapier

Ask Sam Mustapha

Otto

ummm.. What do you think playtesting is?

It's not reading them and commenting on them, it's actually setting up battles and playing them and comparing results to expectations of what you get from the rules and what you set up the game expecting. The best playtester ever was Wally Simon who played the rules with an eye to making them break. He would play a set and stretch and pound everything till it fell apart. Then he would write an analysis of the pieces, figure out what went wrong, and give you suggestions on how to fix what he found.

Playtesting is not playing a game and getting it to work, but making it fail.

But in any case, it is the evaluation of the event that's the key. If you want to know what an evaluation looks like, look at the stuff I put up on my 18th Century Imagination campaign on the 18th century board. The evaluation of the campaign and the evaluation of the battle go on for about 9 pages each, and THAT's the abbreviated ones. Most people can't write two paragraphs let alone the pages and pages necessary to provide a decent report to a GM to improve or iron out the bugs in his rules. Saying "I played a game by your rules- they were great!" is not an evaluation, or anything like a proper playtest.

Most gamers who want to be playtesters simply want a free copy of the rules, which they will read and toss in a few months. They won't try to plagiarize it, (that would be work!) but why should they do all the work for you? As I and Sam have said in different places and times, send them whatever you want, but don't expect to hear from them ever again. People can't write more than a few lines without extreme pain. You want detailed reports?

Most people can't write two paragraphs let alone the pages and pages necessary to provide a decent report to a GM to improve or iron out the bugs in his rules.

Part of that is how the playtests are set up and how the designer preps the players. This can and should include specific questions to be answered. It also involves playing to the testers' Point of View about such things.

For instance,getting players to complain about the game can be instructive, particularly if you know their game prejudices.

Good playtesting isn't simply a matter of doing it for 'several years' as some designers claim.

I playtested my own "Oh God! Anything But a Six Project" by using industrial engineering. I time studied each game. "productive" time was spent in moving figures, rolling dice, talking about the game. Non productive time was arguing, looking up rules, working through tables and modifiers, and sitting around doing nothing. Once I got it up to 80 and 90% of the former I decided I was on the right track.

In the recent Battle of Picknikov which I wrote about, it lasted for about five and a half hours, had 800+ figures between the two sides, and came to a definite conclusion.