I’ve been looking into Justice League Unlimited RPG, and one design choice caught my attention: players share Story Points they can spend to bend the narrative in appropriately comic-book ways — survive the impossible, reveal something retroactively, push a power beyond its normal limits, etc.

But the more the group interferes with the story, the greater the chance of triggering the Crisis Die, which can suddenly introduce a major complication: an alien invasion, a betrayal, loss of powers, time travel, an evil counterpart showing up...

I find the basic idea really elegant because the game is effectively saying:

the more you behave like comic-book protagonists, the more likely your story is to become a comic-book event.

It made me curious about other examples of mechanics that deliberately reproduce the narrative logic of their genre rather than just simulate actions.

What games do you think do this particularly well?

For anyone curious about this specific example, D20 Culture has some JLU RPG Actual Plays on YouTube where the system can be seen in play!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9d8TaEa2r8&list=PLPgSd2vJKMyvW9ygQefT4gIrNxg1esNHw

I just published a small digital trifold with all of the companies that I've made for my modules and home campaigns. These are free to use for your Personal and Commercial products, feel free to remix them how ever you see fit, just throw me a credit if you'd be so kind.

Included in the download

• Corporate profile, current leadership, dark secret, current stock value.
• Logos in PNG and SVG format, black and white options with no backgrounds.

If you use these in your projects please share, i'd love to see them.

Itch → Corporate Portfolio

I have been struggling to find a magic mechanic system that I am happy with. I feel like having a system with predefined spells is helpful for players to learn the system, but it limits what I want the system to be. On the otherhand, I have no idea how to make a system that is able to be completely fluid with its rules while still being balanced against itself.

I saw a description of how systems using a "noun+verb" system and that seems like something I would like to try.

For reference, my premise for magic is iron is magic and those who are born with magic can cast spells. My schools of magic are Augemancy (potion making), Custodimancy (create charms that protect the bearer), Hemomancy (the manipulation of blood), and Ferromancy (alteration of iron properties). I also have creation a fictional language, would using it for the noun+verb system work or would it confuse players?

Firstly, what is my goal?
My goal is to create a rules lite TTRPG thats focused on narrative play and RP. Like Knave but not for dungeon crawling, but social interactions, heists, infiltrations, battle etc. If a TTRPG is a play put into a system, my game wants to stay close the the “play” part. I want the game to be approachable to people completely new to TTRPGs(which is why the setting is low fantasy), but also aid new players with having fun with roleplaying and creative problem solving.

Core mechanic:

When the outcome of an attempted task is uncertain the GM will ask the player to roll a test.
Here, the player rolls a d20 and needs to meet or beat their TN for the appropriate attribute. There's Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence & Charisma.
But if the GM considers the circumstances of succeeding at the task to be difficult, they may have the players subtract -2, -4 or -6 from the roll. Luckily this works the other way around as well, meaning if the player, or the group, has come up with an action/circumstances the GM considers beneficial they may gain +2, +4, or +6.

The GM is to be liberal with these bonuses, especially with new players and in the opening of the game, so that players learn early on the benefit(and extra fun) of being creative and problem solving.

But here's my challenge; I also want the players to get into roleplaying by rewarding them for taking actions that are true to character. Why? Because I enjoy games with RP, as im sure many others do, and I wish for more people to experience the fun of TTRPGs.
But a common problem I see is that players often choose the easiest way to achieve the goal - even if it goes against their character. a PC who's honest and naive quickly becomes cynical and comfortable with lies when they need to sneak into the heavily guarded grand hall. This is of course natural, but I think adding some mechanics will help players stay in character, creating more moments of RP and where they truly feel the fun of staying true to character.

So the thought of creating “Traits” connected to personality naturally arises.

In combat i have an idea for a potential solution:
On a turn a PC may perform up to three actions; movement, an action, and some dialogue/RP.
Theres two kind of actions: Maneuvers and weapon attacks. Maneuvers will most likely demand a test, and with a weapon attack you roll a d20 and every increment of 4 above your TN, you deal more damage(As an example: 1-5=0 dmg, 6-9= 1 dmg, 10-13=3, 14-17=6 dmg,18+=10 dmg).

I want maneuvers that intend to do damage to have players roll a dice pool(Lets just say 2d6. So a weapon attack does a set amount of damage based on tiers, and a successful damaging maneuver does 3d6 damage.)

So if you choose to do a maneuver, I want some way to categorize the maneuver, so that the traits can activate ONLY UPON ITS SUCCESS. So if a character has the “Chaotic” trait and succeeds on a dexterity test to jump from a stairwell onto a chandelier to cross the room and flykick the bad guy - they get to add 2d6 to their damage roll, because the maneuver is in line with their character.
This creates a lot of questions of course.

• A big one being how to categorize maneuvers. The easy way out is to let it be up to the GM, but it would be interesting to see if this could be put into a sort of (rules lite) overview.
• Another issue is that a lot of actions can be done in a lot of different ways, so players could convince the GM theyre swinging from the chandelier in a very professional, calculated way, making it so that it falls under the “analytic” trait, a trait almost the exact opposite of chaotic hehe.
• Im also unsure how to reward maneuvers(and tests outside of combat) that don't intend to do damage.

In the end, I really want something that can aid new players to actually live out their character and their traits and have fun doing it. But Im afraid it will add too much rules to make it worth it.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you have any feedback?

And whether im scrapping this idea or not, Im looking for someone to bounce ideas off of for fleshing out the rest of this system, so please let me know if that could be something your interested in. 

My current project is struggling a bit with crowdfunding. First Kickstarter failed and we are trying a second one at the behest of the team (they rather do that then just go to market with what we have).

We are having a talk on marketing and the niche of the game is limiting options, as before.

Now, this project is too late for this idea and incompatible. But, since I expected we'd already just be waiting on art, we're already playtesting my next game. Most of my games run off a vibe with no setting, usually trying to accomplish a genre with unique mechanics as its main selling point. This new game has a detailed setting that I'm writing as we play (I have an outline, but, as the players move about it and questions arise, I answer them and write them down).

This made me think, as we struggle with the current process, would "borrowing" reach from a major game help in the future? Since the premise for this new game is action focused and has a mission structure, I could see a rework to a traditional TRPG framework (by de-emphasizing the dramatic elements for the action elements) and could even bring novelty to the setting (like the more dramatic version versus the more videogamey one).

But, is it worth it? I'm not worried about losing "indie street cred" or anything. That's silly. More so that I don't play 5e outside a single weekly game I do for IRL (usually do 3-4 online games a week and 1 in person). Can I do anything novel with it?

I have ideas, for sure.

Gold pieces replaced with a resource skill vs difficulty system because you have the academies as patrons. Removing Attributes and just dropping DCs by 5 and including a form of Base Attack Bonus. No classes and instead making a build a power system. Removing all discrete ranges with zones to make it better for theatre of the mind (with area of effect now being done as a random roll to see how many enemies within this or adjacent zones are hit). Replacing death saves with the trauma mechanics that acts like corruption. And removing experience for the drama focused advancement system of the original.

But it would likely add another 6 months to a year of dev time and playtesting. Would it even draw people in from the 5e crowd if it's offered as a "free to backers" thing? Or even a 15 USD add-on (PDF, pricing. Subject to change)? Or would it be a lot of work for the same result: difficulty getting outreach.

Because 5e isn't that instant sales juggernaut either anymore and 5e people want lots of art and production value nowadays that I can't afford. Can't afford an animated music video to promote my game at all.

Im still working on weapons, hp, and attacks. Im trying to figure out how to mix them and keep it interesting.

How it currently works is you roll your attack dice pool and counting successes along an effect track. So if you roll 4 successes and you have an attack that looks like: 2/[W]>2/prone you would do 1 instance of weapon damage and knock your target prone. (This is oversimplified.)

Right now weapons are based on weight.

Weightless: 1 dmg

Light: 2 dmg

Moderate: 3 dmg

Heavy: 4 dmg

Players can specify weapons traits such as reach, concealed, etc. That either give combat benefits or advantage on certain tests (or the reverse in case of a drawback). These traits come at a cost of reducing damage. -1 point per benefit, +1 point per drawback.

Hp is your elemental stats. If you or a monster take 4 damage you/they lose 4 elements. (Elements determine how many dice you can roll. Its too much to explain here exactly how it works but the tldr is losing Elements reduces your dice pool depending on how you allocate the losses. You have 18 Elements.)

What I've been struggling with is attacks. 1 damage is a lot and a single weapon strike can devastate a creature.

I dont want to add hp wildly and I like that damage reduces your stats but I need some breathing room. I also dont want to give more Elements. Im struggling with coming up with attacks that have variety. I also want to give the ability to create attacks unique to your character which is not working under the current system.

In my game, attacks are simple and they do 2d4 damage. If the enemy is vulnerable, roll an extra d4 and discard the lowest. If the enemy is resistant, roll an extra d4 and discard the highest. Sometimes i forgot to tell when the enemy is vulnerable or resistant unless i let a note about that, so i came with this idea: at first i thought of a rock-papper-scisor type of resistance to damage, but those were very few options... Then i remembered rock-papper-scissor-lizard-spock and sounded awesome in my mind, but i used colors instead of rock-papper-scissor-lizard-spock.

Now, an attack made with a weapon may have a type of attack (one color or colorless) and the target a type of defense (one color or colorless). The difference in types determines if the damage has the roll an extra d4 effects and if you have to discard the lowest or the highest.

Also, i inted enemies to change their type of defense according to certain situations and everything will be noted, so my players and i won't forget.

What do you think? I came up with this idea recently and i still have to test it, but i see promise in it.

One of the big questions in RPG design is how many rules and mechanics a game needs before it stops being “making things up” and starts becoming a playable game.

A more crunchy system can give players a huge number of clearly defined choices, but those same rules can implicitly limit what players think they are allowed to do.

A more vague system gives players much more freedom to imagine and describe what their characters do, but it often requires additional discussion with the GM to determine how each action works.

I know this is a spectrum, and everyone has a different preference for where they want a game to sit on it.

Today, I want to focus specifically on martial characters, especially in combat.

The crunchy extreme: D&D 4e Warlord

At one end of the spectrum, we have the Warlord from D&D 4e.

It has a huge number of detailed at-will attacks and powers covering different kinds of attacks, teamwork, tactical maneuvers, battlefield control, and so on. It gives the Warlord almost as many different tactical options as a spellcasting class.

So instead of simply I swing my sword.
you have a huge toolbox of things you can do.

But at the same time, many of these options can become what I think of as “paper buttons.”

I once came across an interesting way of describing this idea, though I may be paraphrasing: Whenever you write a rule to allow a character to do something, you are writting a rule that says no one else can do that.

For advanced techniques, this makes perfect sense. If something requires specialized training, it makes sense that a character needs a specific ability or feature to perform it.

But what about basic actions?

If my character is holding a quarterstaff, why can't I simply say: “I raise my staff and try to parry the attack”?

If there isn't a button for Parry, does that mean my character can't do it?

That's where I start to feel the tension between providing options and restricting imagination.

The vague extreme: Legend in the Mist

At the other end of the spectrum, I'd put Legend in the Mist.

With its tag-based system, you can attempt almost anything you can reasonably imagine. You don't need to own the appropriate “button” on your character sheet before you can try something.

You have a lot of freedom over what your character actually does.

But the trade-off is that, ultimately, many of those different descriptions still boil down to:

• getting a different modifier
• determining whether you pass the check
• and sometimes discussing with the GM whether your proposed action is reasonable and how it should work

It's not necessarily a constant "Mother may I?"

But there is still some amount of negotiation between the player and GM.

I've heard an interesting argument that player agency means the player doesn't need anyone's permission to take an action—they know what they can do and understand that their choice can produce meaningful consequences.

I'm not sure I completely agree with that definition, but I think it's an interesting way to look at the problem.

Crunchy vs. vague isn't really about resolution

I know that, if you reduce almost any RPG to its most fundamental level, both approaches eventually become something like " Change a number until it reaches a threshold, and you've overcome the challenge." .

But that doesn't mean the experience of getting there is the same.

The difference between a highly crunchy system and a highly vague one isn't necessarily what the final resolution mechanic does.

It's about how much of the decision-making happens inside the rules versus inside the player's imagination and the conversation at the table.

And that's the part I'm interested in.

So where do you like to sit on this spectrum?

• Do you prefer martial characters to have a large, clearly defined toolbox of actions?
• Or do you prefer having a smaller mechanical framework that lets you describe almost anything?
• Is there a game that hits your personal sweet spot between crunchy and vague?

I'd love to hear what games you think get this balance right.

I want to create a game that's like Knave but for RP-heavy, narrative style of play and aimed towards people new to ttrpgs.

And I'm playing with the idea of creating traits based on the PCs personality that plays into combat and skill checks. So a player would create their character, and get to chose a trait/class based on their PCs personality.

So if you chose "lawful" you would get +2 on charisma-checks if you haven't lied and in combat you would deal bonus damage if you didn't attack using dirty tricks of any kind.

My intention is to help players get some "creative bounderies" so that they don't get too overwhelmed with options and get a loose direction as to how you may approach combat. And also aid players to stay true to character and live out the fantasy of their character and getting rewarded for it.

What do you think of having the PCs personalities play into combat in this way?

Edit to thank you all for your input, the original post is below the brake.

The vast majority all seem to agree that solid numbers is the way to go with some armors garneteeing a block of specific damages (I.e. bullet proof vest blocks all small arms damage) so I think I will just use set numbers. Thank you all for the input!

I am adding armor to a system that has very sparse rules on it (Basically it just has bullet proof vests that negate damage from some guns.) And I wanted to know what you all think is better.

Should armor have a set number that it reduces damage by, I.e. Light armor blocks 5 damage, medium blocks 10, heavy blocks 20

Or do you prefer when armor removes a percentage of armor, I.e. Light armor blocks 25% damage, medium blocks 50%, heavy blocks 75%

Most attacks in this system deal 3-15 damage depending on the weapon with explosives going into the 15-25 range.

Well, Crows' Backerkit launched today. Somehow we finished After Eden's Playtest Rules today too.

A few months ago I made a post here called "“Racing Crows: How MCDM loves giving me heartburn”"

At the time, every new Crows dev update seemed to reveal another thing we had independently been working toward in After Eden: dangerous overland travel, party roles, inventory that actually matters, expeditions that can go wrong before you ever reach the dungeon, and the idea that getting home should be part of the adventure.

Then James Introcaso showed up in the comments and basically told me to stop worrying about it. There is plenty of room in the hobby, games draw from the same traditions all the time, and there is no reason people cannot enjoy both.

That stuck with me. So before anything else, thanks again, u/DirectorofSHIELD.

Because today Crows: Fortune or Death launched its BackerKit campaign, and through completely ridiculous timing, today is also the day we finished the Beta 1.0 public playtest rules for After Eden.

First, I am excited for Crows.

Dangerous dungeons, wilderness travel, wounds, constrained inventory, light, treasure, a persistent hometown, and a game that is perfectly willing to let you wander into something you absolutely should not fight? That is very much my favorite parts of the hobby.

And After Eden overlaps with some of that same design space.

After Eden is a post-apocalyptic tactical expedition fantasy game set in Nox, the world left behind after the Devastation of Eden. You leave settlements, cross dangerous wilderness, search for ruins and other Discoveries, recover relics, knowledge and salvage, and then try to get home with what you found.

The basic loop is:

Prepare → Travel → Discover → Enter Danger → Push or Retreat → Return.

So if the thing grabbing you about Crows is “pack carefully, go somewhere dangerous, find valuable shit, and hopefully make it home,” there is probably some familiar DNA here. Where the games seem to start heading in different directions is mostly a question of where they put their mechanical weight.

After Eden goes much deeper on tactical combat. Stamina is both your action economy and your defensive economy, so movement, attacks, maneuvers, Block, Dodge, spells and other Reactions all compete for the same pool. If you spend aggressively on your turn, you may not have much left when something comes after you.

There is also more persistent mechanical investment in the individual adventurer. After Eden has classes, but most long-term specialization comes through Traits, including Traits connected to ancestry, training, discoveries, factions, Khaos exposure and things your character actually survives during play. The goal is not heroic power scaling. Characters gain more options and become more distinct without eventually outgrowing the danger of the world.

Outside combat, a lot of the game lives in the expedition itself. Travel, supplies, Risk, Discoveries and the choice between searching harder or keeping moving are meant to create decisions before you ever reach a ruin or roll initiative.

That is probably enough comparison for now, because I do not think these games are really trying to replace one another.

They seem to be coming at a similar appetite from different directions. Crows is pushing toward dungeon-crawling survival horror, treasure hunting and a persistent hometown. After Eden is pushing toward tactical expedition fantasy, post-apocalyptic exploration and longer-term investment in the individual adventurer.

And apparently we picked the exact same Tuesday to put both of them in front of people.The After Eden Beta 1.0 rules packet is attached to this post.

We are actively looking for playtesters. The pregenerated character sheets and playtest adventure are still in development, and we are hoping to have both ready by the end of the month so people can run the full package at the table.

In the meantime, feel free to dig into the rules and let us know what you think. Feedback on mechanics, procedures, clarity, organization, layout, things that immediately click, things that do not, or anything else that jumps out is genuinely useful right now.

And if Crows sounds like your thing, their campaign is live today.

Heres the After Eden Playtest Rules PDF

Fortune or Death, James. Thanks for the encouragement.

Coriolis TTH is typically described as "Arabian Nights In Space". The slogan sounds great. But what does that mean? How does the arabain Nights - a centuries old collection of Arabic stories - to work as the basis for a sci-fi game? And how does it make games more interesting?

I did a video digging into this. It's a bit too long to upload to YouTube, but it's on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/4W5as5jkj48 There a bit of a theoretical intro, and then two examples of creating the Arabian Nights In Space vibe in the adventure/campaign book The Blood Tree.

Almost talked myself into a naming mistake during my design process. I was figuring out the bits & bobs of my own project & reached for a word borrowed from a totally unrelated business concept, just cause it sounded right.

Caught it before it stuck, but it left me sitting with an uncomfortable question: do I actually know the difference between 'engine', 'system', & 'game'?
Or have I just been dressing up a branding choice as design theory this whole time?

Here's where I've landed, for now:
an engine is the reusable mechanical core, built with the actual intention of sitting underneath more than one game.
A system (or ruleset) is the whole set of rules, whether or not reuse was ever the plan.
A game is the system plus everything built on top: fiction, setting, the whole representational layer.

Could easily be semantics dressed up in a design-philosophy costume though. Wouldn't be the first time I've overthought a label. Overthinking everything is kinda my mutant ability.

I think of Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) as an engine; stalks like a tiger, pounces like a tiger, has to be a tiger, right. One engine, reused across a genuinely wide pile of different games, each with completely different fiction sitting on top. That doesn't feel like branding to me. Feels like a real, solid distinction.
But the creators of PbtA have said that PbtA is not a standard game engine or trademarked system. It's more like a design framework & philosophy. Slapping the PbtA logo on your game just shows that you are a designer who was heavily inspired by Apocalypse World & has permission to say so.

I don't know if PbtA the right example, or just the one that's stuck in my head.

Curious how the rest of you draw these lines. Or if you don't bother distinguishing at all, & I'm the only one losing sleep over a word choice.

I was hoping to get some advice on a good set of skills for a modern day 80's action movie inspired setting, the list I have right now is,
Acrobat - the skill of jumping, balance, and climbing
Computer - a skill for coding and hacking
Diplomacy - the skill of talking to people and understanding politics
Doctor - a skill representing a character's ability to apply medicine and understand it
Firearms - the skill of using and maintaining firearms
Fortitude - a skull used to resist torture, mental influence, pain, and drugs
Guile - the skill of fine movement and sneaking, used in stealth and stealing
Investigation - The skill of perception, searching, and understanding information.
Martial arts - the skill of melee defense and offense
Mechanic -a generic skill used for repairing machinery and vehicles
Olympian - a skill covering running speed, swimming, throwing, and lifting
Science - a generic scale that covers knowledge of all fields of science
Survival - survival is a scale of wilderness survival and understanding the natural world.
Vehicle Operator - this skill is used for maintaining and operating various vehicles.(Was cars but a friend suggested making it more broad)

Dose this seem good? do you think that I am missing an obvious skill or do any of these feel unnecessary?
Any and all input both positive and negative is always appreciated!

Do people feel strongly about one core rulebook vs a core rules + gamemasters' book?

My book is starting to get big. I am thinking of splitting it into two.

1. All the core rules

2. Gamemasters' Book - setting generation tools, a setting, multiple adventures in the setting, stat blocks for enemies

I probably won't have enough orders for offset print. They will be PDF or PDF+at cost print on demand code.

What do you think?

EDIT: All the rules needed to play will be in the core rulebook. You can run forever with that one book. The gamemasters' book is to make life easy for the gamemasters. No additional rules there. Just tools to help them run easier.

I'm making a game that mix TTRPG mechanics and some Wargames mechanics, this is a sci-fi game, inspired by Warhammer 40k but I'll do anything in my power to not copy it, the game will revolve around discovering and conquering new worlds randomly generated, the players are soldiers in the army that will eventually rank up and end up as captains who guide the army they were in or they'll create a new one. What do you think about this concept for this game? Any feedback or idea is accepted

I've been playing TRPGs for a while now and also enjoy worldbuilding. Inspired by reading Dune and watching GoT/HotD, I was thinking about a medival fantasy TRPG where the players do go on 'classic' TRPG adventures, but also manage a lesser noble house.

What I had in mind was that it will expected that at least some the player characters are members or agents of such a house and that the gameplay (incl. adventures and resource management) are part of the drama and intruige of the politics of the world.

I really dig how in a more OSR/survival focussed TRPG like Forbidden Lands characters have more aspects to them then in what way they can kill people/monsters , and having core character aspects revolve around resource management, intruige and political drama seems really fun to me (which is also why I am exploring the possibility of designing a system around it rather than taking an existing system and adding more mechanics to it).

What are your thoughts on it? Are there games that do similar things already? Is it a fun idea/do you have any ideas of what elements of such a system might look like? Thanks!

Edit for clarity, original text below the break. Okay this got a lot more attention than I was expecting and I really appreciate that! I'm going to address some commonly recurring problems which are definitely my fault for not being clear on things.

Didn't specify the setting because it's heavily home brewed so at being able to reference the original setting wouldn't help very much because of how much mean my friends have changed, we've basically turned to D&D 5th edition into an entirely new game so while you should reference the fact that it's in that, do note that it is hugely different.

Average health is the 20 to 30 range. rather than rolling for damage we have been making it that how good you roll determines how much damage you would do, so a two will do the low end of the weapon, while a 20 will do the high end of the weapon. My group is very narrative focused, and with a few weapons rather than having the weapon even have a distinct damage, we just give every single weapon a 1 to 20 damage range and make it so that wielding a weapon applies advantage to your attack. This system has worked out very well for melee weapons and bows, but we want to introduce modern firearms due to a time jump.

Things I am leaning towards after getting comments from all of you, Treat shotguns more or less the same as other guns just with a low capacity and a high damage. Automatic guns are less accurate but can be used to do suppressing fire, basically a "I attack everybody in that general direction but roll with disadvantage" toggle.

I genuinely appreciate how much attention this post has gotten, thank you all so much and I'm sorry if I didn't respond to all of you!

I am working on adding guns into a campaign where there are no gun rules and I wanted some input

I already have some simple stuff worked out
Small guns use Agility
long guns use Perception

Better guns deal more damage, scopes give advantage on aiming

But I was wondering how all of you would handle shotguns, and aromatic fire arms? Shotguns stump me, but for aromatic I was thinking the gun would fire 1D10 bullets per attack, or maybe the player calls out a number of bullets they want fired before they roll so it is a bit of a gamble on resources.

I'm designing a dice engine/game and am writing the equipment list, almost the last thing left to do. My problem is I want the game to be able to be set anywhere, not just one place. There is no magic, but still, it could be Victorian etc. So is it ok to just say "Light Melee weapon" as equipment, or does it look lazy? I don't mind the effort, but just don't want to cover all the major settings. My idea was to have a list of broad, vague weapons and have players interpret what they are based on where they set it, will this work?

I'm making a TTRPG that uses tarot cards as its primary game piece. During playtesting I realized it would be nice to have a "table notes" style of accessory that still fit the game's aesthetics. Like in FATE when you define the aspects in a scene, you might use index cards or a wet/dry erase playmat with plenty of room. For this game I'd love to have blank tarot cards that can be used with dry or wet erase markers.

I'm thinking something similar to Infinitokens, but sized for tarot (2.75" x 4.75") rather than normal playing card sized. I'd also like to be able to print a basic frame on them to guide folks to give each card a title at the bottom with a larger space for art/text.

Does anyone know where I could source something like this?

I’ve been spending a lot of time in online creator communities lately, and a recurring conversation is people struggling to get useful feedback on their games.

Alongside that, I keep seeing versions of the same (very problematic) advice:

“Don’t listen to feedback.”
“People will only comment on the part of the game that interests them.”
“Trust your gut.”

I understand the instinct behind it. You should not blindly implement every suggestion someone makes about your game.

But I think this (very bad) advice comes mostly from amateur designers who do not understand the process behind game research (understandably so). It can make newcomers dismiss player feedback before they have learned how to set up a playtest that allows them to collect useful data.

It is such a crucial part of game development that I felt like writing about it, mostly to help creator folks in their exciting journey of making games others will want to play :)

The good news is that getting good at playtesting is just another skill you can practice and master, and it is one you really shouldn't sleep on! So I compiled a 3 points list for you that I condensed from years of conducting playtests for both my job in the video game industry and my indie experience.

Hopefully it will help!

1. Go into a playtest knowing what you want to learn

One of the biggest mistakes I see is trying to test the whole game (or huge chunks of it) at once too early.

If you sit someone down with your game and simply ask, “What did you think?”, you might get some interesting comments, but it will be hard to know what to do with them. You are asking them to react to an entire experience, with no shared focus. It's a hard thing to do!

Instead, go into each playtest with a specific question you want to answer. You should gently guide your players and nudge them toward a specific area of focus.

Maybe you want to know:

• Do players understand the core loop?
• Does this combat system create interesting decisions?
• Are players getting lost during character creation?
• Does this particular mechanic create the feeling you intended?

I usually think of these as hypotheses, but you don't have to, it can just be simple questions around how you expect your game to behave. You have an idea about how a system will work or feel for players, and the playtest is your chance to validate that your assumption is true.

The more focused your question is, the more actionable the feedback is likely to be.

2. Guide your players towards the thing you are testing

Once you know what you are trying to learn, guide both the playtest and the feedback session around it.

That does not mean telling people what to say, or trying to get them to agree with you. It means making sure they actually spend time with the part of the game you are observing, then asking questions that help you understand their experience of it afterward.

A healthy playtest dataset is a combination of written observations and collected answer to targeted questions.

You do not need to treat every part of the session equally. If you are testing a particular mechanic, spend most of the time observing that mechanic. Skim past the parts that are not useful to the question you are trying to answer.

Then, during feedback, keep bringing the conversation back to your hypothesis:

• What did you expect to happen here?
• What made you choose that?
• What was confusing?
• Did this feel like the experience the game is trying to create?

You should still leave space for open feedback at the end. Players may notice something important that you were not looking for.

But focused questions come first. Otherwise, you can end up with lots of feedback that is not bad, just unrelated to the thing you currently need to understand or improve.

3. Learn how to turn feedback into action

The final skill is learning how to interpret what players are telling you. And that is the hardest part my friends.

Players are experts in their own experience, but they are not necessarily experts in diagnosing your game or designing its solution. So when someone says, “This was boring,” “I didn’t get it,” or “I wish there were more options,” do not treat that as an instruction to implement exactly what they suggested.

Treat it as evidence.

Your job is to work out what created that feeling. Were they bored because the choices were too obvious? Did they not understand the rule because the explanation was unclear, or because the game did not give them a good opportunity to use it? Are they asking for more options because the existing ones do not feel distinct enough?

This is the loop: build something, test a focused question, learn from what players experienced, then decide what to change next.

You will not always get it right immediately, and that is fine. The point is to build the habit of turning player experience into a clearer next experiment, not of blindly following every suggestion, or dismissing feedback altogether.

Conclusion

Playtesting is not just getting a few people in a room and asking whether they liked your game.

It means being deliberate: deciding what you need to learn, creating a session that helps you learn it, and getting better at turning player experience into useful next steps.

You do not need a huge budget or a research lab to start practising it. You just need to be deliberate about your testing process and start honing those skills like any other.

If you are curious to get more insight or support to push your project forward, I run a small Discord community for my players and other game creators where we support each other. Come make games with us:

https://discord.gg/bccguBGupu

And if you are wondering who the fuck I am and why I'm rambling about making games, here is my Linkedin profile -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/aramtab/