A different question for authors at Goodman Games

[JediOre]

Hi All,

One of my friends has suggested I try my hand at writing an adventure.

My question is once I've got the thing into a working order, should I create the party for my friends to use as a trial run, or should I have them roll them up with guidlines on levels needed?

Also, should I have all five gamers go at it together, or should I try and have only one or two attempt this "beta" at a time.

Thanks for any and all input.

[bighara]

For the playtests that my brother & I have run, we usually have the players go ahead and make the PCs and run the whole group through it at once. It's a more robust test if the DM doesn't control what's brought to the table, and we generally don't hav etime for more than one playtest .

Typically, we offer some advice to the players about the types of PCs that would be most useful (i.e. a druid or ranger for a wilderness adventure, etc.). We do point buy and average PC wealth, letting them buy standard magic items from the DMG as well. Also, we limit the PCs to the core classes and races (PHB). No splats, no prestige classes, etc. Since the adventures are generally written for SRD material only, it's easier of the characters fit within that scope too.

Hope this helps.

[Mike_Ferguson]

Should I create the party for my friends to use as a trial run, or should I have them roll them up with guidlines on levels needed?

Depends on the party composition ... but JediOre's right on target.

When I playtest a potential DCC, I try to make sure that the party consists of all SRD character classes from the Player's Handbook - no skills/feats from any other book are allowed. I also try to make sure it's pretty well-rounded (one fighter, one rogue, one cleric, one wizard, etc. - not four paladins and a druid). If that's your party anyway ... then no need to change anything. Otherwise, have them roll up characters to your specifications, or just provide pre-gens instead.

Also, should I have all five gamers go at it together, or should I try and have only one or two attempt this "beta" at a time.?

Oh, no question - you should absolutely have all five take on the adventure at the same time. Having just one or two gamers playtest the adventure won't provide nearly the same amount of good feedback and ideas as you'll get with five gamers trying to work together in a group.

Good luck!

[Charke]

My players are vets and always bring strong characters to the table when I playtest. The death count for playtests has always been very low except one evening when I forced them to play characters drawn from works I have written. I needed some PC's in a hurry and just printed them out. It was surprising which characters worked out and which didn't.

For my last playtest, aboard a boat, a player was comming late so I whipped him up a character with max ranks in swim, tumble, profession (sailor), climb, use rope etc and that worked out really well for him, although he didn't like the spell selection. It can really help to design one of the characters because then you can provide at least on of the players with tools to make the adventure easier.

With that in mind, it's easier/better to design the adventure so that the Players can succeed with whatever they bring to the table.

A little off-track, I am a keen believer in the "destroyable dungeon". Everything in an adventure should have ac or hardness and hit points and determined players should be able to eventually carve through it - although this could take a long long time. For example - the door that is undamagable is the most frustrating thing in the world. Giving it a million hit points is exactly the same. If you plan for players to tear everything appart in frustration you will build a better game.

I just stumbled through an adventure where the corridors were filled with "special" webbing. It was fire proof, regenerated quickly, and restricted movement. It was very frustrating because I don't see anyway to defeat this problem. It was darksteel.

Mark Charke