Help Playtest Our Newest Scenario “Extremophilia”

Alphonse

 

Want to help us playtest our newest scenario and help us create a more terrifying and realistic game?

Here are the guidelines:

We will send the playtest manuscript on or around Thursday, July 6, 2017.

PRODUCT: “Extremophilia,” a scenario by Shane Ivey. It will probably take one session to play.

DEADLINE: Please send your report NO LATER THAN Monday, August 1, 2017.

REPORT FORMAT: A single text document. Word, Pages, and Rich Text Format are fine. PLEASE DO NOT send it as a PDF.

GROUND RULES AND GUIDELINES

1. The playtest manuscript is confidential and under copyright. Do not distribute it to anyone else by email, photocopy or upload.

2. Please refrain from commenting on it publicly. THE PLAYTEST MANUSCRIPT IS NOT A REVIEW COPY. It is an early draft and it may change substantially before it sees print. (Exception: Cursory public comments to the effect of “I’m playtesting this and it looks great!” are always fine. But if you’d rather say “…and it looks like crap!”, well, please tell me so privately so we have a chance to make it better before we release it.)

3. Please do NOT list typos, misspellings and grammatical foul-ups. This is an unedited early draft. We’ll take care of all that stuff later. A lot of the text is likely to change after playtesting so it’s no use pointing those things out now.

And here is what we need:

1. Read these guidelines in detail. Follow them carefully when you receive the playtest manuscript.

2. Read the playtest manuscript first as a prospective GM and take notes as you go. What about it particularly sparks your interest and imagination? What about it leaves you confused or wishing you had more information? Which rules elements are clear and useful? Which rules elements are confusing, contradictory or unnecessary?

3. Please prepare all notes in a single, separate file. Please do NOT just add them to the manuscript or embed them as notes in the original document. Review REPORT FORMAT, above.

4. Next, sit down with your game group for one or two game sessions. Introduce them to the setting and to what kinds of characters they’ll play, and their pregenerated characters if any. Then play the game.

5. Play the scenario as written. Playtesting does us no good if you don’t playtest what we send you.

6. Take notes on the players’ comments as you go. Where are they interested, engaged, impressed? Where are they confused, bored, frustrated? What do they like? What do they dislike? Please add those notes to the single, separate playtest report file.

7. On the first page of your report, please provide the following information:

• Your name as you want it to appear in the playtesting credits.
• Your email address.
• The names of your players as you want them to appear in the playtesting credits.

If all of this sounds exciting to you, FOLLOW THIS LINK TO THE GOOGLE DOC and sign up! You’ll be hearing from Shane Ivey shortly thereafter.
Simeon Cogswell is a freelance designer, layout artist, and PR guy in the RPG and board game industry.

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