Playtester Central

[Orngog]

Hi all, This is a hub for all you good people who are willing to do the dirty work of trying out our suggestions! Of course we won't demand to much of you, the easiest way to do this is through a bit of the old Division Of Labour, and the first step for that is to build our team!

So if you're willing to put yourself (and any captive players, haha) forward for this glorious vanguard please drop a line below, preferably with a bit of information about what you're willing to commit to (in terms of regularity of playtests), what gangs etc you prefer to play with, and once we have a healthy cohort we can begin the glorious march towards a brighter future!

 

[JawRippa]

Simple suggestion, when we get to playtesting, we need to use Tabletop simulator. It is not perfect, but good enough for testing purposes. It even has Zone Mortalis "2D" tiles.

 

[Orngog]

Great idea, this could really help speed things up. I don't suppose we could make you Officer in Charge of Digits? It would be nice to have a person to turn to if people want to know how to get in to this.... I've been aware for a while, but even I could do with some instruction!

 

[JawRippa]

I don't think that explaining how to set up a Tabletop simulator game needs a a dedicated person. Its pretty simple, you need a copy of the game and access to steam workshop to download required mods (like models, maps, tokens, dice etc) which are free and get installed automatically. Best thing is that only 1 host needs to set up, and say, if a player or two join him, everything will be downloaded automatically for them.

If needed, I could write a short guide on how to set things up once we get to actual playtesting phase (also there are guides on youtube, for example ZoranTheBear has made an amazing video on how to set up a warhammer 40k game there).

 

[Orngog]

Just having a person in charge would really help with identifying issues, directing workflow etc. But that's what this thread is for I guess... But it would help if each team has one person who can keep abreast of the situation, so we can have top level meetings between departments.

 

[Defectivevoid]

hi all I am willing to play test for you. Ill rope in my flat mate into it too. i can do bi weekly if that helps? i tend to run with Van Saar thinking of doing Escher at some point. this all the info yuo need?

 

[Al_Weeks]

Happy to playtest as ever.

 

[Orngog]

@thanejaw where you at?

 

[thanejaw]

Following

@thanejaw where you at?

I'm playing out of the Hackney Area Tabletop Enthusiasts club in London and normally arbitrate the campaigns there. We started up the club again a few weeks ago and I'm involved in a smaller one in Walthamstow. There's about 6 of us who play on the regular

 

[Icedman]

I could probably help with some playtesting, whether myself or any captives I can rope in.

Orlock player from way back, but have some OG Van Saar as well as the Underhive Escher and Goliaths. Chaos Helots as well, whenever I get around to building them.

 

[Orngog]

Well we seem to have a strong crew here, moving forward it would be great if you could decide on a group leader between you- if anybody is up for the role, please state your interest below.

@thanejaw only a juve and already an Honored Tribesman! Good on you for donating, I'm sure it will be appreciated by the higher-ups as the site is no doubt seeing a lot of traffic at the moment.

 

[Orngog]

Hi folks, after some discussion it has been decided that @Al_Weeks will be taking up the role of Playtester General.

Hopefully we'll soon have something we'd like you all to take a look at, so look out for his announcement in the coming days.

 

[Al_Weeks]

Right, sorry for the silence here, I've just got back from Holiday.

However I have now had chance to create the playtest feedback form.

If anyone who is interested take a look at it and let me know if you have any ideas for improvement.

I've tried to keep it simple so as not to overwhelm both playtesters and myself.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_DtomkI8TH_QexUHJtp3b1P6dn4kffxO/view?usp=drivesdk

Have at it.

 

[thanejaw]

Right, sorry for the silence here, I've just got back from Holiday.

However I have now had chance to create the playtest feedback form.

If anyone who is interested take a look at it and let me know if you have any ideas for improvement.

I've tried to keep it simple so as not to overwhelm both playtesters and myself.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_DtomkI8TH_QexUHJtp3b1P6dn4kffxO/view?usp=drivesdk

Have at it.

Nice going - like the lay out but would this work better as a form rather than a word doc?

You could add filters to the types of rule (e.g. shooting, moment, general principals) You'd be able to download the results and filter the feedback dependent on the type of feedback etc. Etc.

 

[Al_Weeks]

Nice going - like the lay out but would this work better as a form rather than a word doc?

You could add filters to the types of rule (e.g. shooting, moment, general principals) You'd be able to download the results and filter the feedback dependent on the type of feedback etc. Etc.

Thanks for the feedback. It's a 'word form' at the moment. If you can share an example.of what you mean by a form I'd be grateful (for my own education)

I tried to keep things generic for now, but I can certainly add in topics from drop down boxes etc.
Probably based around the discussion topics on the forum or the rule book sections.

Thanks for the feedback

 

[thanejaw]

Thanks for the feedback. It's a 'word form' at the moment. If you can share an example.of what you mean by a form I'd be grateful (for my own education)

I tried to keep things generic for now, but I can certainly add in topics from drop down boxes etc.
Probably based around the discussion topics on the forum or the rule book sections.

Thanks for the feedback

hey there - this is one I used for a campaign.

HATE Necromunda Campaign Results

docs.google.com

The results of which were summarised here

HATE Necromunda Campaign Results (Responses)

Form Responses 1 Timestamp,Which Cycle is this?,Nord or Sud,Your Gang,Your Opponents Gang,Who won?,Did a territory change hands?,Which territory changed hands?,Your Gang,Your Opponents Gang,Who Won?,Did a territory change hands?,Which Territory?,How many fighters did you take Out of Action (e.g....

docs.google.com

This one was fairly basic, but I customised it so that i had one form for 2 campaigns I was running. I used lots of drop downs, but you'll see there a free type in the final column which people used to talk about the cool shit which happened in that game.



My recommendation would be to have a separate page for each aspect of the rules which is being looked at (e.g. movement has one tab, shooting another etc.) - although if you want to have it generic - it might be easier to just have 1 form.

Mandatory - did you change any of these rules (Y/N)

Title - Free type for the rule being amended (Mandatory if Y)

Impact on the game (either positive/ neutral/ negative or a scale of 1 -5) (Mandatory if Y)

Free type for the rule/ rules being trialied for specific feedback (Mandatory if Y)

 

[Al_Weeks]

hey there - this is one I used for a campaign.

HATE Necromunda Campaign Results

docs.google.com

The results of which were summarised here

HATE Necromunda Campaign Results (Responses)

Form Responses 1 Timestamp,Which Cycle is this?,Nord or Sud,Your Gang,Your Opponents Gang,Who won?,Did a territory change hands?,Which territory changed hands?,Your Gang,Your Opponents Gang,Who Won?,Did a territory change hands?,Which Territory?,How many fighters did you take Out of Action (e.g....

docs.google.com

This one was fairly basic, but I customised it so that i had one form for 2 campaigns I was running. I used lots of drop downs, but you'll see there a free type in the final column which people used to talk about the cool shit which happened in that game.



My recommendation would be to have a separate page for each aspect of the rules which is being looked at (e.g. movement has one tab, shooting another etc.) - although if you want to have it generic - it might be easier to just have 1 form.

Mandatory - did you change any of these rules (Y/N)

Title - Free type for the rule being amended (Mandatory if Y)

Impact on the game (either positive/ neutral/ negative or a scale of 1 -5) (Mandatory if Y)

Free type for the rule/ rules being trialied for specific feedback (Mandatory if Y)

Awesome thanks for all this, I'll look through it in detail when I get the chance.

 

[TopsyKretts]

We are about to start making decisions to compile rules now. I wondered how playtesting is part of this process. Do we make an initial YCE test version and playtest that? Or do we playtest in decision phase before compiling rules?

 

[Al_Weeks]

We are about to start making decisions to compile rules now. I wondered how playtesting is part of this process. Do we make an initial YCE test version and playtest that? Or do we playtest in decision phase before compiling rules?

I think we can do a lot by making an initial alpha version, because I think that there are a lot of the minor clarifications and quality of life changes that are not so controversial that we may as well just put in.

For the more contentious or radical changes we should probably take an approach on how we structure the alpha rules.

The two choices are as I see it where there is a choice between multiple potential changes.

1) Take a conservative approach and have the alpha test include the more modest potential change, initial playtesting should then identify if that is a good changes or if the more radical change is needed (with respect to all the other changes, nothing is tested in isolation so to speak).

Or

2) Go radical first and initial playtesting will identify if that is too much.

It's not a hard and fast rule, but just a guideline approach we can decide to take when compling the alpha version of the rules.

Obviously lots of other things will inform us whether for each individual area of the rules will have modest or radical changes to start with.

 

[Icedman]

Should an alpha doc include only the "conservative" changes, with a list (separate doc?) of planned playtest targets?

Basically, "we need to test these changes to Movement" => take the Alpha rules, lay over the specific Movement changes we want to check, then report back on that...