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Problem #29: Playtesting
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This week, Kristian an Tracy follow on from last episode and talk about playtesting your game. When do you start? What does "fail faster" mean? What is most and least valuable about the process, when is it best to participate yourself, and when should you just shut up and watch? Everyone does it differently, but this is a look at the subject with no assumptions and fresh eyes as we try to justify our answers with real-world experience.
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Transcript
Introduction to Playtesting
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to the Designing Problems RPG Podcast, where we explore RPG development and all the intentional and unintentional problems we create along the way. I'm Christian Serrano. And I'm Tracy Sizemore. We're your hosts for this journey of discovery, and this week we're going to talk about problem number 29, playtesting.
00:00:43
Speaker
So if you just listened to, or if you had listened to last week's episode, it kind of feeds into this episode. Yes. Because what we're doing here is now we're checking with play testing.
00:00:57
Speaker
We're checking to see what happens when the rubber hits the road. Yes. The viability of your idea. Right. Like you,
Personal Challenges and Approaches to Playtesting
00:01:05
Speaker
you know, if you had your vision, you had your idea, you did everything the way you wanted it to be.
00:01:11
Speaker
Does it, does it execute that way? Right. It does it read that way? Does it feel that way? Um, and this is kind of scary for a lot of people. And I know Tracy, you've had some challenges with this where once you've put it in front of other people and you start getting that feedback,
00:01:30
Speaker
It can be like, oh, oh did I i you start second guessing? Did I do this right? Or you get you know some feedback that you're like, oh good. Yes, they got it. Right.
00:01:42
Speaker
Yeah. So I'm going to let you ramble on this a little bit. Like you do usually. I'm kidding. you Like I usually do. No, no. Actually, i really enjoy everything you have to say. So for me, um i'm I'm really looking forward to hearing what you have to say about this experience.
00:02:00
Speaker
And, uh, and I have some questions, some ideas and things that I've always i've wondered about play testing. I haven't really done. I've done usability testing yeah as a web designer, as which is similar. and I think about these things a lot.
00:02:13
Speaker
Um, but specifically play testing a setting and a campaign I've not done yet. So where, where do you want to start with this, uh, with this topic? I think what I want to say first is playtesting is one of those things that has these um ubiquitous tenets that seem to be buzzwords about it.
00:02:37
Speaker
Some of these things are I think are true. um But I always try to approach these kinds of things where we've we've made assumptions about what's right and what's wrong with fresh eyes so that at the very least, if we confirm or deny those assumptions, I've got a reason.
00:02:55
Speaker
that And I tell you why, right? For example, one of the things about playtesting
Importance of Early Playtesting and Failing Faster
00:03:04
Speaker
That a lot of people will say, and I think is true, um is you get much, much, much less from what your playtesters actually say about your game than what they do while they're playing your game.
00:03:17
Speaker
Right. you're going to get much more information and usable data On your game, watching play testers play.
00:03:28
Speaker
Yes. Rather than listening to what they say after. Right. That's still valuable. Right. Don't get me wrong. Or before. before. Like, oh, I want this, this, and that. it's like Especially before.
00:03:39
Speaker
Maybe watch you and then I'll decide or I'll learn really what you want, you know. But that's one of those yeah that's one of those things. And um you know I don't want to just say it because everybody says it.
00:03:52
Speaker
i want to give you why that's true. And so part of the exploration of this episode will be to explain why I feel that's true. um But anyway, so that i want I want to impress on everybody that I'm trying to go with this like I always do, with with fresh eyes, with the idea that I don't know all the answers, that it's not true for everybody, that, you know, ah yeah i even if I have strong opinions, I might be wrong, right?
00:04:21
Speaker
um But what what what do you think, Christian, is a good time to start playtesting your game? oh so again, not having had experience with this yet, um some of the things I've actually wondered about, well, first of all,
00:04:44
Speaker
in in In design in general, in the very broadest sense of design, as early as possible. I mean, I think so. Even if it's just a super rough sketch, let's say, yeah as an analogy, that you can put in front of somebody, but even before that, even understanding maybe a problem that you're trying to solve.
00:05:05
Speaker
In this case, I want to create a thing that maybe doesn't exist or that people, I think they might want, that want to share. I want to test a mechanic that's
Observing Players for Insights
00:05:13
Speaker
new for my base system. Right, exactly. yeah um So putting a sketch in front of them, you know, and and getting feedback on that sketch and then iterating on that and then putting some, you know, the bigger idea or something with more fidelity, so to speak, um I think can go a long way.
00:05:28
Speaker
um Because early on, before you get too deep into your setting, if you put the sketch out there, maybe it's a jumpstart, right? maybe it's Maybe it's a couple of arcane backgrounds. Right.
00:05:39
Speaker
If those aren't well received or even through iterations, you're, you know, it doesn't really quite land and it doesn't seem interesting or whatever. You haven't wasted too much time. You haven't spent too much time on the idea.
00:05:51
Speaker
This gets into the, into the big one, which is fail faster. Fail faster. Fail faster. um Shane is a huge proponent of it. I'm sure you have something to say about it, Christian. But the the faster you can fail, the quicker you can move on.
00:06:06
Speaker
Right. Yes. And that's –
00:06:10
Speaker
And I know that seems kind of counterintuitive to what we talked about last week with respect to you have your vision and you want to adhere to it and versus making something that's sellable or marketable. yep. yep But if it's not even playable or interesting, it doesn't matter whether it's your vision or whatever.
00:06:27
Speaker
You know, like you got to figure out whether to keep going or whether to just move on to something else. Another idea you might have. Yes. um you know, if you look at, you know, some like tech companies, the the the ones that succeed typically are the people who have failed multiple times because they've learned from mistakes. Right.
00:06:54
Speaker
Right. And that, though they they learn from the mistakes. they They know what to do better, how to make the modifications, how to make the changes to whether it's the business, the idea, whatever it might be, the architecture, it's kind of similar.
00:07:05
Speaker
Right. So, so yeah. So to answer your question as soon as possible with the smallest piece of information as possible. I mean, I i think so. and and And when I say, when I'm talking about fail faster, I'm not talking about having the feelings of failure faster.
00:07:20
Speaker
No, no. That's not what I mean. Learning from the, from the yeah. Yeah. do do it Do something that's that's minimally viable and say, okay, Daryl would do this all the time when he was testing Space 1889, his new version of it, which is done by Strange Owl Games now. It's out there.
00:07:39
Speaker
Yeah. And um he would he would he would be like, okay, um I've got this idea for my main mechanic. What I want to do... and Don't worry about, I mean, this is a game.
00:07:51
Speaker
It's meant to be played, right? That's the idea here. We're meant to play the game. So go and play the game. Don't don't worry about how it reads yet. Don't worry about how you know the players are going to interpret what they read yet, necessarily.
00:08:06
Speaker
Worry about how it plays first, and then you can fine-tune how it reads. So Daryl would
Gathering Feedback and Iterative Design
00:08:11
Speaker
come in. It's like, here's the here's the deal. We've got five, you you know, you've got between one and five dice and blah, blah, blah. And when you roll them based on your skill level, right? And when you roll them, you get this, you succeed, you get this, you don't. We're going to try it and we're going to do some sort of, you know, quick encounter type thing so that you're playing a character and doing things and translating these actions into roles right away.
00:08:38
Speaker
right And it just has to be a sliver of ah of a of an encounter or something because Daryl wants to fail faster. Not because he wants it to fail, but because he wants to know how well it works before he messes with it anymore.
00:08:53
Speaker
Right. You know what I mean? And the thing is, like you mentioned earlier, observing people during play is the best way to test something. It is. Hearing them think out loud, hearing them react and seeing them react, watching their body language.
00:09:08
Speaker
All of that is is input into what changes you might need to make. Listen to them ask questions about this or that or whatever. Right. or something might come up that you notice that it doesn't give you quite an answer as to what to do next. And then that gives you the ability to ask questions.
00:09:24
Speaker
Hey, noticed that during this play, you seemed hesitant about x Y, z Can you tell me more about that? What were you thinking about, you know, during that, during that moment? like Did you not understand or were you having trouble doing the math in your head or, you know, was there a reservation in terms of what your options were? Did you not feel good about the choices you had?
00:09:44
Speaker
Yeah. You know, those kinds of things. Right. um And so that's, that's all incredibly valuable input that you can get. Now, not everybody has the luxury to go through that depth of, you know, questioning and whatever in terms of time.
00:09:57
Speaker
But if you can, if if you're able to do that, oh man, it's, it's really powerful. It is. And, and, you know, Daryl had a group that he, he could do this with. We would do it. He, he, he was apologetic, but we were just, no, you're,
00:10:13
Speaker
Whatever. Let's do it. You know, yeah especially because we get to play something, not because we're going to sit there and read some rules and try to understand what the, no, no, we're Daryl's going to run us through something and he's testing this mechanic.
00:10:25
Speaker
Maybe it won't work. Maybe it does work. Maybe some of it works. Maybe it some of it doesn't. Right. But Daryl is going to be able to take all that info, watching people play, watching them interact, listening to their questions and all that stuff and their feedback at the end and go away tweak it a little bit and bring it back to us and try it again.
00:10:46
Speaker
Right. Yeah. And once we get closer, then he can go away and start working on the rest of it, how it all fits together. Like this is new system stuff. This is very, very hard. to Yeah. Yeah. yeah Yeah. When you're, especially when you're dealing with a new system. Yeah. Absolutely. Throw it out there. Throw, you're throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks.
00:11:04
Speaker
Yeah. And the more experience you have, the more likely you're going to get it right the first time or the second time or the third time. Right. And and that's just the way it works. Yeah. When you're starting to do setting material versus narrative material, all that stuff, I still say earlier is better.
00:11:20
Speaker
And with Honklester, I did it as soon as I could. I created an adventure. Stupid adventure. I was nervous as hell about it. i was just like, well, there's only one way to find out if this is going to work.
00:11:35
Speaker
Right. I have to get it in front of players right away. And that's what I did. And I did it again and again and again and again. And sometimes those sessions were awful.
00:11:48
Speaker
Like I felt like they were awful. Daryl and the other people who were playing, they felt like, oh, no, this was this is fun, right? Like we're trying – we're not here to to make your experience bad, Tracy. We're not here to not have fun. We're here to have fun.
00:12:03
Speaker
Yeah. So even if it's imperfect, we're still going to have fun. Right. but Especially if you're making it a game for us. But for you, you're like, you know, because you spent time on these like mechanics or whatever it is.
00:12:14
Speaker
For me. And it's not executing and you're like. this is not what I wanted to happen. Right. Right. And and that's uber valuable information. I would never be able to know that unless I tried to put it in front of players.
00:12:28
Speaker
And I think you touched on something there because that's, that's something else that as a designer, regardless of what field you're designing for, like in, I'll use web design again as an example, um you know, not being emotionally invested necessarily in what you designed is important. I mean, it's like you know obviously you can have some pride. oh yeah. I'm pretty proud of how this came out, whatever. yeah But um when you get negative feedback, you're,
00:12:55
Speaker
or somebody you know didn't execute the way you thought it was or whatever it might be, looking at it with curiosity is yeah is critical. Don't look at it as like, oh, you know i I messed up or, oh, they don't know what they're doing. Look at it, like get curious, ask questions, try to understand what the problem was so that then you can design a better solution.
00:13:17
Speaker
And I think that is much easier to do the earlier you test. yeah Because if you if you sit there and like stew over it for months and months and then say, okay, i'm going to develop this whole system. This system is going to work with this narrative or this setting or blah, blah, blah. yeah And then you and you've you've worked on it and poured over it and blah, blah, blah. And now you finally bring it to the table and it all falls apart.
00:13:39
Speaker
You are already emotionally invested. Yep. You've worked way hard on this for months and realized that while your whole premise doesn't work in the first place. Right. Yeah.
00:13:49
Speaker
How much do you have to undo? How much do have to undo to bring it back to something that's workable? Right. right Whereas if you're starting earlier, if you're if you're just saying, okay, for a setting, for example, you start in this is this you know city or this is this area of a city or whatever. We're starting here.
00:14:08
Speaker
I'm going to do a small adventure that expands on this setting gradually. And that way, I haven't even built the rest of it yet.
00:14:18
Speaker
I don't know what else is out there yet. I know the premise of the setting. I know this little part of it. But until I start to play within that little playground, I really don't know what the rest of it is going to be yeah because it could break apart yeah in that little part of it. So I start with just a little part and say, let's have a little adventure doing this.
00:14:42
Speaker
Let's have another little disconnected adventure over here doing this just because I want to try this idea. yeah And after you go through that, then it's much easier to expand the world more confidently because they already know that this part works.
00:14:59
Speaker
You know, this little bit sort of at least worked the way you wanted it to. And now i now I'm confident enough that I can fix the problems and expand the setting at the same time.
00:15:10
Speaker
Right. You know, it's it's it's for me, it's the best way to work. Yeah. That assumes that I've got a group of people who are willing to, you know, do this with me.
00:15:22
Speaker
That's hard to come by for a lot of people. Right. But i think I think it's essential um in order to ensure that the experience is what you actually get.
00:15:34
Speaker
yeah The experience you intend is the experience you get. right And that's what playtesting is about. like right You want it to be this. You play it. It's not that. You go, oh my gosh, that is not what I expected. They did all kinds of twisting and turning and did stuff that I didn't ah intend.
00:15:52
Speaker
And maybe that's okay. Maybe I learned from that. Maybe I'm like, okay. then I should expand the setting in this way because that's how the players reacted. blah blah bla That's great. It's all super valuable information. Exactly. or you can say, oh, wow, that is not what I intended at all. Take it all back and say, okay, now I'm retooling. We're going to try this again.
00:16:09
Speaker
And then you you learn, not only do you learn about the setting as you go because the players are involved from the get-go, but you also...
00:16:20
Speaker
Are not alone in discovering where the setting is going to go. Right. Right. You're not sitting there all by yourself. Like, you know, it's a playable game because you started by playing the game. Yeah. Not by writing the game.
00:16:34
Speaker
and And it's easy to mistake that as like, well, it's not mine anymore. Now I'm i'm making it for them. But you you can still do that, but still make it yours. Yep. Right. Like there's that it's it's ah really about framing and perspective.
00:16:48
Speaker
um You know, like if you're trying to make something that's going to bring joy to others, you can still have your voice and your ideas and your, you know, your concepts in there. You don't have to, it doesn't mean sacrificing anything necessarily. No, I don't think so. I think it, I think it makes
Questioning Feedback for Deeper Understanding
00:17:04
Speaker
it better and it makes it better in a way that's satisfying not demoralizing.
00:17:09
Speaker
Right. Because you're discovering together. You're like, okay, you know, They went off in this direction. That's a fascinating direction. I would expand on that. Or i didn't think of that direction. That's okay. Let's, I'm curious now what that might be like. Let's do that. You know let's look into that. Clearly they're curious. I'm curious. And now all of a sudden we have a dialogue going, not, not out of game, but within the game where you see what they do, where we, what we came, what we talked about last week starts to, starts to make sense because you're just like, well,
00:17:44
Speaker
This is not just for me. It's not just my vision. It's making something accessible and the experience I want other people to have. Right. And it's not just about... what you think is right. It's about watching other players experience. It can't be a reaction of like, you're doing it wrong.
00:18:01
Speaker
Cause they're not, they're doing it the way it's like when you're, it's like usability testing. Well, the user's doing it wrong. Well, no, no, they're not. They're actually doing it the way ah user would do it.
00:18:12
Speaker
It's just not designed well enough to, you know, work the way you thought it was going to work. Yeah. So now let's change the design a little bit. And then, then, yeah, then, did and then, I mean, we get into this whole thing, but,
00:18:25
Speaker
um To move on just a smidge where you're talking about watching them react, watching them play, watching them ask questions. And then there's that feedback period at the end where they give you suggestions.
00:18:38
Speaker
This is one of those tenets of playtesting. It's rare that those suggestions are actually right. They can point out the problems all day long. That's what I was just going to say. There's a difference between... But the suggestions of how to fix them.
00:18:51
Speaker
Right. I... hadn't and So many parallels. um Very specifically, I try not to take suggestions from users or from players or whatever.
00:19:04
Speaker
What I ask is you know the the five whys, right? Asking why five times. Yeah. I think I mentioned this on the Discord and we've had a brief conversation about it. The idea behind that of asking why is like, well, why do you think, or why do you want it to do that?
00:19:21
Speaker
Okay, well, why is that, you know, blah, blah, blah. And you keep digging deeper to the point where you actually get to the problem. Yeah. Because that's what you want to pay attention. You don't want their solution because their solution, a solution, but it might be fixing a symptom of a problem.
00:19:39
Speaker
Yeah. The actual problem. Or it might introduce another problem. Or might introduce another one. Yeah, very true. Yeah. when you When you're watching playtesting, in the context of GMs and players, do you GM while you're doing this or do you so do you serve as like a third party watching from the outside?
00:19:57
Speaker
ah i GM. And that's another kind of thing I want to bring up is that I've seen some people who aren't who feel like they're not very good GMs who want to design games and they they design the games, but they're not they don't feel confident enough to GM games.
00:20:13
Speaker
I get confused by that because... um I don't know how I would do it if I otherwise, don't understand how I would do it.
00:20:24
Speaker
Here's why I was asking because um I love watching and not saying anything, watching silently. And I would also like to watch a GM running the game to see if there are blind spots that I might've had, you know, cause I'm, I have my assumptions. I know the setting, I know the game, I know the adventure.
00:20:46
Speaker
But the players aren't the only people interacting with the product. There's also the GM who has to read it, understand it, and execute it as a game and manage the players and and so on.
00:20:56
Speaker
Oh, yeah. yeah um The other thing that's cool, but the reason why i like to watch Silently is because um if you're interacting, you're influencing.
00:21:11
Speaker
right you're You're answering the questions that they might have had if you weren't there. um And there's also opportunity in silence. People hate silence. right And so they'll fill it with talk because it's uncomfortable. Blather.
00:21:30
Speaker
Right. So what will happen is the person will will they'll have a question. You don't answer. you just You just observe. And let them know you're going to do this, by the way. Don't just you know be a jerk and be like, just stare at them.
00:21:42
Speaker
Let them know why you're doing this. But the idea is that they'll
GM's Role in Testing and Silent Observation
00:21:46
Speaker
start thinking out loud and talking and explaining or processing or whatever, or interacting with each other if it's a group. And then you start getting some reveals through that as well.
00:21:57
Speaker
um So i i i've I've been very curious about like, what if as designers, we did not GM the game, we gave the GM just what minimal information they need.
00:22:10
Speaker
Maybe it's an outline of of the of this of the adventure. here's the and Here's the player characters and here are the stat blocks for the creatures, right? And then just kind of sitting back and watching.
00:22:21
Speaker
I think that's super valuable, but I think i think it's more valuable later. Yeah. Because at some point... When it's closer to being finished. when it's When it's closer to the point where you've got some coherent written information that another person can follow, right? Yeah, right. Because at some point...
00:22:38
Speaker
Because it starts off with just ideas. Yeah. You just don't have that. You don't have anything to hand them. Yeah. That makes sense. When it gets to a point when you're ready to get something together in a way that's coherent.
00:22:49
Speaker
Right. Then, yeah, that's a great that's a great option. Right. Yeah. And I've certainly done it. I handed Hung Cluster off to Daryl during the I think it was during the pandemic where he did, he did the Venom adventure for us. I played, but I didn't just watch. I played because I'm like, I just want to sit there and watch. I want to play. Well, yeah. They can record it. Right. Or something like that. Right. But, but yeah. You're like sitting in the chair in the corner.
00:23:16
Speaker
the the the watching part I've done much later. right So when it's a when it's a product or close to a product, when I've got something that i feel like should be able to be followed by a GM, yeah yeah that's when I'll sit there and watch and do nothing.
00:23:32
Speaker
Right. Okay. Yeah. Because then they have to interact with just this product. Has it given you that kind of a feedback get that kind of feedback? Like when you watch them not saying anything?
00:23:42
Speaker
it it It is.
Designing for Usability and Accessibility
00:23:44
Speaker
It does. does. it's It's a painful process. It is painful. I'm not going to lie to you. When I have users in front of like you know a web design that I did or even existing web design because we want to find out what the problems are with the current site.
00:23:59
Speaker
And I'm sitting there and I'm just like... not saying a word. I'm just watching them and listening to them think out loud. And I'm just like, because you can't, yeah you can't say anything, you know, you can't say anything. but any And there's so much revealed when that happens. There is.
00:24:15
Speaker
and and yet you just have to have patience. Like you just have to be patient because a lot of times my experience, especially when I get to this point where I'm sitting there silently, if I keep silent, they'll figure it out.
00:24:28
Speaker
yeah That's what the whole point is. That's the point is. Yes, exactly. Exactly. that They'll figure it out. or if they don't figure out, now you know, now you know this is problematic. Yeah. yeah Now you know, or or you'll you'll come up, you'll you'll see it unfolding before you and you'll have, you'll have decided, is this my audience? Is this the, are these the players that I'm aiming for?
00:24:50
Speaker
this is what I'm looking for? If it is, if it's in anywhere near that, Right. Then you might have a revelation about how to solve the problem that they're running into that they don't even realize they're running into.
00:25:03
Speaker
Right. Because you're silent and won't i refuse to say anything. Right. And you're like, I know how to fix this. I know what to do. Right. I know where in the book i can i can I can put a sidebar or I know where in the book to to add a little sentence. So it dissuades this whole problem or not dissuades, but diffuses this whole problem. Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:25
Speaker
um it's it's You just have to be super patient because in in most cases, what I have found is they will figure it out. Right. just This is the way they do it at every table, in every city, in every game without the designer present. They figure it out.
00:25:42
Speaker
They figure it out. Yeah. And in some cases, there's nothing to do. Even if they do it wrong, there's nothing to do as a designer anymore. You just have to let them do it wrong.
00:25:53
Speaker
Yeah. Not wrong. Wrong is a bad word. No, yeah. what mean is their way. Their way. Right. It's their game. Yeah. i I follow a philosophy of um when it comes to design, um no wrong path.
00:26:07
Speaker
I forgot where I got that from. I didn't make that up, just to be clear. Yeah. But the idea is that, um yeah let's say we're talking about like navigating through a website.
00:26:18
Speaker
um You don't have to have just one way to get to a place. You can have multiple. You can put that link in multiple places. I feel the same way when it comes to content or or or playing game.
00:26:30
Speaker
um There's no wrong path. There's no wrong way to like of how to think about... Like I know some RPG books, this is where this rule is. It's in this one. Peg does this, right? And they do it well, though. Like they do it really well. Like this is where this rule is. This is the one place you only have to reference to access this rule.
00:26:50
Speaker
We don't have to like, you know, literate throughout the whole book in multiple places. Right. But I think there is some value of at least referencing and pointing people to You know, that's like that that section and Peg does that really well.
00:27:04
Speaker
Like they give they give signposts, you know, they'll mention that rule. They'll tell you what page to go to for details on it yeah and so on. um And so, again, no wrong paths. Right. It doesn't matter where where you're reading or whatever. If it's contextually relevant.
00:27:20
Speaker
you can point them to where they need to get access to that information or whatever it is they need and they get there. Yeah. yeah Good design. It's, it's, it's a, it's a moving target.
00:27:32
Speaker
I mean, yeah there is no right way because, um, one person will want it someplace. One person will want it another place. You know, it, it's, You have to make a call at some point with some of these things.
00:27:46
Speaker
And going back to the jamming part, i here's guys I encourage you. You don't have to, but I encourage you. to try to GM if you if you don't do that.
00:28:03
Speaker
GM. Because especially if you're designing a setting, it's invaluable for you to serve as a GM for your own product because then you'll start to realize, how am I interacting with the most? Well, here's the thing.
00:28:22
Speaker
is actually valuable if you feel like you're not a good GM. Mm-hmm. Because then you can then start designing the product to facilitate people who don't feel like they're good GMs. Exactly.
00:28:33
Speaker
how much how How is this best for me? What do I need? Yeah. What do I need? Right. That's how I design my books. Yes. Because I design them for what I want. Yes. As a GM.
00:28:44
Speaker
i have I have pain points with with how certain things are designed. And sometimes I'm like, God, I really wish they would just put this here. Like, why is this all the way in this page or whatever? Or why is this laid out like this? or you know and And I try to keep that in mind because I i think as, you know, so this is a problem I have when I run games.
00:29:04
Speaker
yeah Let me try to solve some of that for myself. Yeah. yeah And so even then, sometimes you're going to mess that up too. yeah like oh yeah There's other considerations. like for For example, if you have a certain number of pages that you've got to hit because you're actually doing a print run right and you want to have certain things in that book, but there's just no room for them.
00:29:25
Speaker
right Well, sometimes you just got a let them refer to another book. It sucks. yeah Right. But sometimes you do. it's it's It's one of those things like it's not perfect. It's not a perfect solution. No.
00:29:38
Speaker
But here we are. And, you know, if you're a licensee, let's say. Oh, yeah. That's another problem. We had a conversation about this on the Discord server um about how do – we might be talking about three different books that the person has to reference. Yeah. Yeah.
00:29:54
Speaker
right The core rules, a companion, and the setting book. And then maybe the plot point book. So maybe four, potentially. right who know Depending on how it's set up. um Structuring and writing to make that as easy as possible to reference is so hard and it's so important.
00:30:16
Speaker
It is. It is hard. Yeah. Because I had some changes I wanted to make to powers, for example. And I'm like, okay, well... you know I can't just list, of you know rewrite the powers. i mean, I could probably if I ask permission, but it might be easier for me to say, okay I'm just really adding modifiers.
00:30:34
Speaker
Let me just say as in Fantasy Companion with these additional modifiers. Yeah. Now, yeah, they got a cross-reference, but it's right there. They can just get what they need to. It's part of the license. It's something we have to live with, right? But at the same time, like Han Cluster, there were things that I was prepared to fight for in terms of they were not a part of the license. I would have had to ask, I had to ask extra permission for them, but I was like, this is really important. So I'm going to, um this is my priority. Number one, I've got to be able to do this.
00:31:10
Speaker
I've also got to be able to do this. This I don't have to do. and this it's a would be nice, but I would never ask for it because I don't need it. Right. And it's like, it's, ah I don't need to recreate things.
00:31:24
Speaker
how you How you spend your attribute points for a character Honklaust. I just have to say go to those Savage Rules books. don't have to. I don't care.
00:31:37
Speaker
right But there were certain things and I'm like, it has to be in this book. Otherwise, people
Complexities in RPG Design and Licensing Issues
00:31:41
Speaker
are just going to kill me. They're going to be cross-referencing and then it's going to be like, well, it's like this in Savage Worlds, but for HonCluster, it's different in this way and this way and this way and this way and this way. And it's just like, no, no.
00:31:57
Speaker
This is one of those what's right for the product things. And I really, truly, strongly believed That if I had that good argument for what was right for the product, that I would get the permission. What's right for the product, what's right for the for the user.
00:32:10
Speaker
Yes. What's right for the user, right? without Without doing what I don't need to do so that I'm not recreating the entire Savage Worlds core book and yeah in the Han cluster, right? I never get permission for that.
00:32:22
Speaker
Yeah. I don't need to. All I need is these particular things. Right. Right. Please yeah give them to me because otherwise it's just a horrible user experience for everybody.
00:32:33
Speaker
You know, and they understand that. yeah Right. But it's part of the license. It's a thing we have to navigate, especially for the Savage Rules license. So I had ah I had a similar situation where I was, I was doing the Foundry module for Savage Eberron.
00:32:45
Speaker
um And, and I got to the powers and because I was doing the reference thing, like, well, how do I do that? Because for one, I made the fantasy companion module a requirement to use the ah the airron Savage Ebron module.
00:32:59
Speaker
So meaning like the mount module will not load unless the fantasy companion is is in there. And so, you know, because I do a lot of referencing to it. And so that was important. um And same thing with the core rules.
00:33:13
Speaker
the The challenge though that I had was that because I had my additional modifiers, I'm like, well, how do i put powers on actors, on the characters, like the NPCs, for example, that are using these powers?
00:33:27
Speaker
But when the player or the user, the GM opens up that NPC and they pull up that power and all it says is, you know, were same as Savage Worlds, except these two modifiers.
00:33:40
Speaker
Yeah. That doesn't help. Yeah. so So I actually asked, you know, I asked Pinnacle and I said listen, here's what I'm wrestling with from a user experience. This is awful. And they're like, just go ahead and put it in. Just, just link to the original, you know, as long as it's required, just link to the, to the, you know,
00:33:56
Speaker
and give And give our, are you know, like this used with permission by Pinnacle. I had to put it disclaimer in there, right? Yeah. so um so So Pinnacle's pretty, they're pretty um ah giving in that regard.
00:34:12
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, what it's because Shane believes whatever's right for the product is what's what's what's right. Yeah. And if it's really necessary, he's at least going to listen to you.
00:34:23
Speaker
Right. and Right. And of course I went through channels. I went through Danny, who's a licensing manager and he went through Shane. I didn't go to Shane directly. I went through channels. Yeah. No, go through the channels. And, and, and I said, this is what I'm asking for. Exactly. I know it's a lot, but yeah, here's my reason. Here's why. yeah Danny was like, man, this is a lot. So I'm going to have to go ask the powers that be. I'm like, okay, you can ask the powers that be. And it took like a week and a half and they yeah they got back to me. but yeah And you might have to follow up, you know.
00:34:50
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But but yeah anyway, as regards to playtesting, that's all related to the user experience, right? Yes. Yeah. when you When you start to get into later playtesting, when you've got your thing ah written in a way that you can share with others, then you really do, if you can, whether it's just an adventure, maybe you don't.
00:35:16
Speaker
If it's a setting book, like Concluster, I needed to. yeah I needed to have another person read this thing, see if they could follow what I wrote, And give me feedback on it.
00:35:30
Speaker
Right.
User Experience in RPG Book Design
00:35:32
Speaker
have no idea whether random gamer is going to be able to understand what what I'm trying to do here. So I have have a an odd question. It's something I've wondered about. Again, putting on my web designer hat.
00:35:47
Speaker
that That's where a lot of my perspective is going to come from, in case you haven't noticed. But... but um Sometimes I think about the actual book, right? And the experience of using the book that I've just purchased.
00:36:01
Speaker
And this is across all RPGs. I'm not picking on anybody, but sometimes I get really, i struggle with certain decisions that are made in how something is presented in the book. It might be the font size. It might be how many columns they use, or it might be you know, the organization of the content, where things are placed in the book, you know, and so on.
00:36:23
Speaker
Um, so like one thing i think I've talked about this before is like, uh, and i I never liked the idea that the setting rules are somewhere in the middle of the book. I strongly prefer the idea that they would be at the beginning of the book.
00:36:38
Speaker
Because I think when you you've learned savage rules, you've got the core rules. The setting rules are, here's how this is different. Here's how the mechanics in this setting speak to the setting.
00:36:49
Speaker
Right? So I feel like that's a good... early thing to to understand and and you know read. I think it also helps with understanding how am I going to design a character I'm going to play? Okay, these are the setting rules that are in play. These are some of the changes that are being made.
00:37:04
Speaker
Here's some things I need to think about. Oh, this is why vigor might be important in this setting. You know, that kind of thing, right? or this is why these edge choices are important because the setting rule exists, you know?
00:37:17
Speaker
So sometimes I wonder... Has anybody done play testing in the sense of not the play experience, but the reading experience, like putting a book in front of them and then giving like, say tasks, for example, like you create, you want to create a character that is this archetype.
00:37:35
Speaker
How would you do that? And just watch them and listen. I'm sure they have. And see how they go through the book, how they read things, how they interpret what they read.
00:37:46
Speaker
where they're going to find, to think they find the thing that they're looking for. are they going to the right part? Is there a reason why they thought it would be in that part of the book? Or if you know if it's not there, why not? you know Those kinds of things. And I've i've i've often wondered if that's there's value in that. um But I also worry that, okay, is it is that is it too late to do something? Because when you when you have that layout, you're kind of done for the most part.
00:38:14
Speaker
Well, I mean, you could do it. You could. But that's a lot of work to overhaul it if it's not working out well, right? It's some work. It's some work. I mean, moving chapters around is not as, I mean, it's not great, but it's not as it's not as awful as as it sounds.
00:38:31
Speaker
the the I mean, we've we've certainly argued about the setting rule thing before, but you and I. Yeah, yeah, yeah. About where it goes in the book. Right. But um part of part of the, like, there's that expectation, like, okay, who's going to be using this?
00:38:47
Speaker
yeah Mostly Savage Worlds people. Savage Worlds people are going to know to look for setting rules in a certain place. Now, you could make an argument to move them, but is that going to be better or worse for Savage Worlds people? And and and it's you could you could put the book in front of them and say, well, do your thing. And i don't know how valuable it would be. I don't know.
00:39:08
Speaker
Yeah. I just don't know. I think it would be valuable just because I think we make assumptions. No, I understand. You know what I mean? And so and it would either it would do one of two things. It would either validate our assumptions or help us see the blind spots yeah that we've had all these times because we were making assumptions. Yeah.
00:39:29
Speaker
And if it even if it's just validating, oh, good. Okay, we're doing it right. Let's just keep doing that. Cool. You know. Yeah, I get it. You got to find somebody who's willing to do it. Yeah. You know.
00:39:39
Speaker
I'll do it. No. It's hard enough to find somebody will blind playtest your campaign. I'll tell you. that I was lucky to get JM to do that. Yeah. Honestly, i would I would love to put a book in front of somebody who's never even played Savage Worlds.
00:39:53
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. that like That to me would be extremely valuable because we do make a lot of assumptions, you know, like, but what if somebody just picked up Savage Worlds? Well, the thing is people do just pick up Savage Worlds. And they have all sorts of questions and we see them posting on the forums or. I think they would have questions no matter what.
00:40:13
Speaker
Or they put it aside because they read it and they're like, no, wasn't for me because I didn't understand it. You know, which we see. I've seen that on the forum, on various forums as well. Like, yeah, I picked up. I read it and and I didn't like all the poker references.
00:40:24
Speaker
You know, like, oh, okay. Yeah. I mean, you know I don't know. I don't know how valuable it is, especially especially because Savage World's a mature product. Yeah. So we've gone through many, many many it iterations of it.
00:40:37
Speaker
And they've changed things, organizations in the book based on, yes okay, suddenly we've moved hindrances to a new location. It's better that, I think it's better that way, but that's over time they've decided that.
00:40:50
Speaker
Right. Based on but they've observed what they've that time. Or what they've had to do themselves. Right. You know, i I make characters, I want the hindrances first or whatever it is. Right. Part of character creation. I don't know. i don't know. how I think it's valuable, but I don't know if it's the cost to benefit ratio yeah is worth that. Yeah. Yeah.
00:41:11
Speaker
doing that yeah More than once, if at all. you know Yeah. No, I mean, but especially because you're you're talking layout at that point. Unless it's a new system with a new setting and all everything's new and you're you're trying to go from scratch.
00:41:29
Speaker
Yeah. and maybe maybe it's it doesn't have to be in layout. Maybe it's the manuscript. Well, in your case, you're... And in Peg's case, they're writing layout versus a manuscript that you can just print off and put in, you know, you just have your chapters in your sections or whatever.
00:41:46
Speaker
But yeah, I think it's, I think it's, served sure. I'm just curious.
Balancing Play Experience with Theoretical Design
00:41:50
Speaker
I'd be really curious to watch something like that just to be like, Because like I said, i've I've had times where I pick up a book and I'm like, and it know I'm not not just Savage Rules or anything really. Board game manual, like instructions. like I'm just like who like, did anybody put this in front of somebody to see if it reads well? like Yeah, I hear you. I also understand that like, well, any choice you make is going to be a bad choice because- every Every piece of information is important. So if yeah if if it ends up in the latter half of the first half, you're going to have to put something else that was important in the latter half now.
00:42:26
Speaker
Maybe. Yeah. but I don't know. i Being in the latter half isn't bad. you know Is it where it's expected is the question. Yeah. I hear you. Yeah. I don't know.
00:42:38
Speaker
i don't know. and i'm raising more questions and than answers. so One thing I do want to mention before we stop is yeah just a hint of what we're what probably I think is going to come up in the next couple weeks, which is we're going to talk about the rules of the setting at some point. like yeah Rules matching setting.
00:43:00
Speaker
Setting matching rules. right and Probably going to get Daryl in here to talk about that. And One thing I want to say as part of the playtesting part of that is that balance, what's balanced doesn't necessarily equate to what's fun and vice versa.
00:43:18
Speaker
And Savage Worlds more than anything has taught me that, but I think that's true in any game. I mean, D&D prides themselves on being balanced and having sort of this, this whatever it is that matches player strength with with enemy strength, right? Oh, like a challenge rating kind thing? Challenge rating, right?
00:43:37
Speaker
Savage World doesn't do a challenge rating at all, really. what what what What's interesting about that is sometimes the mechanics will seem on paper like this should be ah ah intuitive and balanced thing.
00:43:52
Speaker
It makes sense to me. im On paper, it makes sense. yeah When you get it in front of players, all of a sudden it just goes awry. yeah People get confused. That doesn't make any sense. Or all of a sudden it seems much harder than it should be.
00:44:07
Speaker
The math works out, but the experience of doesn't feel like the math. but the experience of it doesn't feel like the math Right. or Or the clues in how the encounter should be dealt with aren't obvious enough, maybe.
00:44:19
Speaker
Right. Whether it's run away or, you know, do this weird thing or whatever it might be. Right. Right. But on, on it could be just the target number. Like it's on on paper, the target number could feel completely right.
00:44:32
Speaker
Right. In practice, it could feel way too hard. Yeah. and what I want to impress on people is listen to the play experience Not the theory.
00:44:46
Speaker
Right. Because Savage Worlds is rife with this. Yes. Where you so you look at it on paper and you go, oh, it's too easy. ah that Why is that only a minus two?
00:44:59
Speaker
You know, come on. you know Or why is this blah? Why is this blah? And then you start to play it and you start to realize, oh, it's because this is funner this way. And it actually is funner.
00:45:10
Speaker
In a certain way, more balanced. Yeah. Because then it is in in in just ah from just a math standpoint. Right. And playtesting, my belief is go with what works in play, not with what works on paper.
00:45:28
Speaker
Agreed. Yeah. And be willing to change it based on that. I think, too, it's important to think about whether the point of the game or an encounter or whatever it might be is for the players to win or for the story that comes out of it.
00:45:50
Speaker
Mm-hmm. You know what i mean? Yeah. Because sometimes the story is more interesting than whether or not you win as a player. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes the encounter, the purpose of it is story and not to necessarily overcome the encounter, but just to survive it.
00:46:07
Speaker
Yep. So, yeah, that it it sets up stuff for later. But yeah, there's all that, all that. And this is, again, part of the experience that you're trying to achieve, that you may not know how to achieve until you get it in front of players and see how it works. Right.
00:46:24
Speaker
Right. And this is why we fail faster, because you go in, you try it, you do it, you realize, well, that's not going to work. That's going to save me months of work. Yep. Now I've got solid ideas about what I need to do to make this work.
00:46:37
Speaker
Right. Rather than the three months I would have thought about it in my head all by myself alone in my room where i'm not having any fun. Yeah. Or just even going down the wrong path altogether. Yeah. Exactly. Oh, God. gladn Dodge that bullet.
00:46:50
Speaker
Yeah. so Oh, yeah. Yeah. You're going to have plenty of bullets to dodge later. Oh, yeah. But that that's one of them. It's like the the the faster you can get it to them, the less ego you have about it.
00:47:03
Speaker
Yeah. The more likely you're going to get where you want to go faster. And without as much pain. Yeah.
00:47:11
Speaker
Whether it's financial or otherwise. And again, you know, some
Conclusion and Community Engagement
00:47:15
Speaker
of this, it could be, you know, play test the edge, play test an arcane background. Even if it's a whole archetype, you know, play test that.
00:47:22
Speaker
yeah Or let's say you're doing adventure cards. Just get an index card and write down the, you know, whatever mechanic it is. Oh yeah. And use those index cards, you know, throw it out there to see, see how it plays. See if it reads well, see if it plays well.
00:47:35
Speaker
Yeah. Whatever be. I did little printouts of cards, stuck them in sleeves with real cards behind them. yeah and then i handed those out yeah we've we've you know we've all done this right yeah yeah it's important it's important but do it before you do put them in layout and design and print them because you know that's for sure yeah yeah maybe maybe even your design doesn't work well because it's the contrast isn't good enough or something you know yeah because i've seen that too where it's like oh yeah yeah we've seen plenty of board games where we're just like can't even read that
00:48:07
Speaker
I can't really read that very well. That's a choice. That's too bad. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. This is hard. and And I've also looked at books that are but have editing mistakes. And and now, as as somebody who's doing this, I'm much more forgiving because is hard. Same.
00:48:28
Speaker
Same. Way hard. It doesn't matter how many times you look through it or how many times somebody else looks through it. There's going to be typos. It doesn't matter. Yeah. it's And I marvel at the ones that don't have them. Marvel. Does that really, that's, I'm going to say that's like the unicorn. It doesn't exist. Well, it probably doesn't exist. Yeah. but if I, when I look at like fantasy flights, like Lord of the Rings card game, and I look at the cards, there are certainly mistakes on those cards. yeah But the frequency of mistakes is so low. So rare. Yeah. So low. Yeah. That I'm just like, wow, they just get this grammar right every time. it's It just blows me away. We're humans.
00:49:05
Speaker
Humans are making things. There's going be mistakes. It's okay. Indeed. Anyway, there it is. Yeah. There it is. So, are you done?
00:49:17
Speaker
I'm done. Yeah. Okay. Thanks for asking. Thanks for playtesting that. and Sure. You betcha. You know what I did is I looked at you. Yeah. I saw an expression and I said, you know what? He might not be done.
00:49:29
Speaker
i was I was actually trying to think if there was anything left because and ah usually you ask. So i was like, is it but do I have anything left? But no, I don't. We're good. Okay. See? Playtesting at its best right there. Taking the reaction as it's happening.
00:49:43
Speaker
Yes. Thank you for listening to the Designing Problems podcast. We want this to be more than a podcast. We want it to be a community. So if you'd like to engage directly with us, share your creative triumphs, your roadblocks, or simply interact with a cool group of supportive people, we have our own Discord server.
00:49:59
Speaker
Please come by, join the discussion, and share some inspiration. Until next time, keep designing your problems because you're bound to solve a few along the way.