thread: 2011-02-17 : Ben Lehman: Playtesting: Stop
On 2011-02-17, jaywalt wrote:
Ben, you have some good points here, but do people who've done playtesting really think it solves problems by itself? In my experience, it's not much different than just playing some "finished" game that has some problems. You still have to go out and actively fix the problems in some way, either at the group or rules level.
Generally, I don't sit down to playtest games; I sit down to play them and have fun, no matter the state they're in. If I don't expect them to be fun, I don't play those games! And sometimes the result is "this game isn't sufficiently fun yet; guess it still needs some work." And I feel the same way in that regard about my own games, other indie designer's games (even ones that are supposedly "finished"), and D&D4E.
And then, somebody has to take it upon themselves to figure out how to make the game fun before I can get excited about playing it again. That person can be me, some indie designer, some guys at Wizard (hey, Castle Ravenloft is hella fun! It's nice that they finally "fixed" 4E!), or whoever else.
