So you've seen us in a state of constant playtesting over on Twitch, and you want to get involved. Maybe you're a backer who's been following since the beginning; maybe you want to play instead of just watching, even if it's in early stages; maybe you just found out about the game and don't want to wait for the book to come out. Whatever the reason, we're about to do some offsite playtesting, so now's your chance!
The Aesir helpfully playtesting the new smash hit game Stab Baldr for Fun
First of all, an important note: all our playtesters are volunteers. We don't expect or demand anyone's time unless they want to give it. This open playtest period is the result of some wonderful folks volunteering to run a few extra games and sessions, but no one is obligated to participate. We'll still be doing our own testing as well.
So what does open playtesting mean? It means that we're going to be putting together a GM quickstart package with character generation and basic rules and handing it off to a few folks to run their own games and see how it goes.
As much as we spend time testing ourselves, there's no getting away from the fact that, well, we wrote the thing, so we know exactly how everything works and what to do in every situation. Our playtesters have been testing for a while, too, so even though they're fabulous, they're also more familiar with the game (and the logic processes that have gone into its many changes) than most new players would be. Everyone else in the world who isn't us needs to be able to understand and run the game from what we write about it, so open playtesting gives us a chance to get some data from outside our little creator bubble.
Of course, if you've been following Hero's Journey at all, you know we always have lists of what we need to get done. This time it's a more fun checklist, because it's pretty small and that means we get to start pretty soon! Things that we need to finish before open playtesting can begin:
We're anticipating that these should be complete in the next few weeks. For the most part, they're things that we need to make sure are handled enough for playtesting, but not necessarily fully finalized, so they'll move more quickly than the main checklists.
If you want to be a part of or run a playtest, here's what we're asking:
Let us know if you and/or your players would like to be featured as playtesters on the site here and if so, provide us images and titles
Let us know when/where you're playing, with how many people, in what format (online in Roll20? Discord? in person at a table with your d10s?) and with what deities and pantheons
Give us a general idea/quick sketch of the plot/content of the game you want to run
Update us via email or document on the progress of the game, things that were confusing or seem broken, and how the players enjoy and interact with it
If that sounds like something you'd be interested in, reach out to John directly and we'll go from there! We are likely to give Kickstarter backers precedence, since they're the ones giving us the chance to do all this in the first place, but we're happy to hear from anyone!