"How Often Do You Playtest?" Topic

That is, how often do you get involved in playtesting new rulesets before they are published?

* never
* all the time
* maybe once a year
etc.

Once every few years

Though there are times a lot more on a specific set of rules

Every few years.

All the time

Every other year

Often…and other times!

I play test for convention games, so at least a couple times a year. Play tested for Enfilade today.

Every now and then.

I'm a big man at Osprey, I am.

Nah, I just helped Dan playtest a few of his Osprey games.

Most games I play could be described as play test. 😬 Someone is either tinkering with the rules and trying something out – even rules we have used for more than 20 years.

Constant … usually there are several project live at any one time.

Phil

Constantly.

Once. And that will do.

Almost never.

constantly
John

Playtesting our own stuff? All the time.

For other people, less so, particularly these days.

Sometimes it seems like thats the only gaming I do :)

once a year

All the time

As often as I have new concepts and systems that I am working on.

Sometimes. Mostly our clubs own rules. Would that count?

I run tons of playtests pretty much constantly.

Would like to going forward.

All the time, whenever I can.

Several times per year.

I playtest my own games constantly. New rule sets coming out I simply can't be bothered with. They are almost completely dreck and show signs of having never been playtested.

My own games are rigorously playtested by me and the group. I don't mean a read through, I mean a rigorous playtest to destruction. That is, I don't play the rules to see if they can be made to work, any game can do that. I mean playtest them so that they can't be broken or loopholed out or wrecked by negative players.

I also playtest them by rigorous Industrial Engineer standards. They have to have a productive time of 85% or better to avoid being trashed. They aren't ready to use until that is gotten up to 95% and the playtesting is done. I use a stopwatch, or a clock hanging on the wall and I not down how much productive and unproductive time there is and that which causes the unproductive time is written out of the rules or attended to.

Productive time is when players are making decisions, moving troops, rolling dice, discussing strategies, adjudicating combats, and devising ploys. Non productive time is looking up rules, fiddling with record keeping, and most of all arguing over points of the game.