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benlehman at 09:49am on 09/05/2009
benlehman at 09:49am on 09/05/2009So I have working game designers living four blocks east of me, and another four blocks north of me. Consequentially, lots of talk about this stuff.
Here's a bit of advice I've been giving out recently:
Everyone who plays RPGs thinks that they're a game designer. Particularly, they think that they're a better game designer than you. Thus, when playtesting, your playtesters will not come to you and say "we had this problem playing your game." They will tend to come to you and say "you need to change rule X into rule Y," where rule Y is some rule that they've made up, taken from another game they like, made up based on the most recent theory post Vincent made to his blog (right now: "needs a rightward arrow!" whatever the fuck that means), etc.
If one of your playtesters is me, this will happen. I do this a lot.
The thing is, as someone who has the whole game and its vision in your head, you may go "man, rule Y totally sucks and doesn't work with anything." You'd be totally correct. But then there's a temptation to go "well, then, my playtester clearly doesn't know what he's talking about. I should ignore his advice." Or, alternatively, "Well, I guess I should adopt rule Y."
Don't do the first. DEFINITELY don't do the second.
The thing is, even though your playtester's systematic advice is totally worthless crap, it serves a really valuable function. If your playtester is not a hopeless trend-seeker or a design ideologue (which I've never actually encountered), then the reason that they're telling you that you have to change the rules is that they had a problem in play. In other words, there was a failure of your rules during their play, and that's why they want you to change the system. So the systematic advice is an indication of a systematic failure on the part of your game.
As a designer, don't get bogged down in arguing about the minutiae of rule Y. Rule Y is crap. Instead, realize that the rules suggestion is pointing to real failures of your system in play, and try to figure out (either by deduction or questioning the playtester) what those failures are. Then address that failure directly (or decide it doesn't need addressing.)
This will save a lot of time and frustration and help enormously in making a good game that isn't turned into an un-fun muddled mess of ten people's favorite rules.
P.S. Playtesters, this is for you: As a playtester, I know that it's impossible not to come up with a mechanical solution to whatever problems we had in play. We've been trained too well to patch mechanics on the fly. But here's a suggestion: Along with that, look critically at what actually happened in play.
First, present that to the designer: we had a failure point when a, b and c happened.
Then, speculate as to the possible causes: maybe it was rule q, or maybe it was a combination of s and t, or maybe bob was just having a bad day.
Finally, and segregated from the rest (where the designer can ignore them), give your mechanical suggestions: replace rules a and b with rules x and y, add rule z.
Here's a bit of advice I've been giving out recently:
Everyone who plays RPGs thinks that they're a game designer. Particularly, they think that they're a better game designer than you. Thus, when playtesting, your playtesters will not come to you and say "we had this problem playing your game." They will tend to come to you and say "you need to change rule X into rule Y," where rule Y is some rule that they've made up, taken from another game they like, made up based on the most recent theory post Vincent made to his blog (right now: "needs a rightward arrow!" whatever the fuck that means), etc.
If one of your playtesters is me, this will happen. I do this a lot.
The thing is, as someone who has the whole game and its vision in your head, you may go "man, rule Y totally sucks and doesn't work with anything." You'd be totally correct. But then there's a temptation to go "well, then, my playtester clearly doesn't know what he's talking about. I should ignore his advice." Or, alternatively, "Well, I guess I should adopt rule Y."
Don't do the first. DEFINITELY don't do the second.
The thing is, even though your playtester's systematic advice is totally worthless crap, it serves a really valuable function. If your playtester is not a hopeless trend-seeker or a design ideologue (which I've never actually encountered), then the reason that they're telling you that you have to change the rules is that they had a problem in play. In other words, there was a failure of your rules during their play, and that's why they want you to change the system. So the systematic advice is an indication of a systematic failure on the part of your game.
As a designer, don't get bogged down in arguing about the minutiae of rule Y. Rule Y is crap. Instead, realize that the rules suggestion is pointing to real failures of your system in play, and try to figure out (either by deduction or questioning the playtester) what those failures are. Then address that failure directly (or decide it doesn't need addressing.)
This will save a lot of time and frustration and help enormously in making a good game that isn't turned into an un-fun muddled mess of ten people's favorite rules.
P.S. Playtesters, this is for you: As a playtester, I know that it's impossible not to come up with a mechanical solution to whatever problems we had in play. We've been trained too well to patch mechanics on the fly. But here's a suggestion: Along with that, look critically at what actually happened in play.
First, present that to the designer: we had a failure point when a, b and c happened.
Then, speculate as to the possible causes: maybe it was rule q, or maybe it was a combination of s and t, or maybe bob was just having a bad day.
Finally, and segregated from the rest (where the designer can ignore them), give your mechanical suggestions: replace rules a and b with rules x and y, add rule z.
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