Playtesting

Hi guys!

I decided to use my trip home this week to visit family as a perfect opportunity for playtesting, as my two younger siblings are both super into video games and would definitely be okay spending 3+ hours testing this weird bread thing I made.

See, my goal for Bready Or Not! was to create a game for those of us who are new to tabletop games and prefer adventures that are less gore-y, more story. I wanted it to be cute and simple, with lots of ways to play that can make it easier or more difficult depending on who is playing. And I also wanted to see how far I could stray my concept and aesthetic from the original DicePunk themes while relying on their mechanics as a base.

When I first played DicePunk in class (my first ever TTRPG), I really enjoyed it, but their "fast character creation" still took way too long for me as a beginner and the rules and mechanics were long and complicated. There's nothing inherently wrong with these things, they just needed to be modified for my target audience - so I did just that.

Day 1 - Character Creation and Rules

09/03/2022

For Day 1 of playtesting as a GM, I taught my siblings the rules of BON! and instructed them to create their own characters, purchase weapons, and prepare for battle. 

I realized almost immediately during this session of playtesting that I had made a huge mistake as a game dev that needed to be fixed: I made a lot of assumptions about the psyche of a player and their strategies in both battling and character creation, and these assumptions actually made certain aspects of my mechanics impossible.

Here's what I learned along the way and the changes I made:

• Attack rolls were lowered - originally 2d6+5, +15, +25, and +35 for each level, but when my siblings gave each Attribute the same AP during character creation instead of a higher Primary Attribute like I had foolishly assumed, they were unable to use any moves. This meant a change in the character sheet where the Attack Roll was listed.
• Specified that items can be passed between players in the SRD.
• Specified that the Satchel is just the objects you bring with you to a battle, not all of your items in total. You can own as many things as you want, but have to choose what to bring.
• A space to write your Crumbs was added to the character sheet to keep track of money.
• AP and YP were going to both be earned as Rewards from campaigns. This was changed - AP is earned as a reward, while YP depends on your Level.
• Added the option for extra Crumbs when starting for more hardcore games - you can roll a 1d6 x 100 for Crumbs instead of just 100 Crumbs, depending on the length and speed of gameplay.
• Levels that can use each weapon or armour piece were bolded to be easier to see.
• I had a table of contents already, but never numbered the pages. Rookie mistake.

Day 2 - Battling and Rewards

10/03/2022

For Day 2 of playtesting, I set up a small map with a few weak enemies and let my brothers fight some Molds.

• Originally, characters had to have at least 1 AP per Attribute when created. This was updated to 2 minimum to allow for Attack Rolls to work - otherwise characters would be permanently unable to attack. Again, I assumed that players would spend their AP a certain way.
• Specified further that AP cannot be rearranged once spent on Attributes.
• Considered adding a Knockout Threshold, but I opted to keep the dies-at-0 mechanic already in place to be closer to video games and simpler for players.
• I also considered adding a smaller amount of participation rewards for players whose characters died in battle, but I decided against it. I realized that the emotions I felt watching my brother's character get killed by a Mold could not affect my design, and that the solution to death in BON! was not supposed to be by handing out free AP, but the teamwork that was being neglected by the players. It was their job to adjust to this feature of the game, not mine to adjust the game to them.
• Specified that items picked up in battle can be taken once its over
• Specified that armour does not take damage (yay!), it just gets more useless as you go (boo!)
• Crumbs earned after a battle were lowered
• Certain weapons did not rely on a specific Attribute to do damage, but still needed one to use in the Attack Roll. It was clarified above their charts in the Bread Box weapons shop that the Attribute they use is the one associated with the Role they're recommended for.
• A lot of updates actually centred around my concept of a Satchel with limited space, and how to keep track of these items. I clarified in the SRD how to use the Satchel, that Items can stack, and equipped armour doesn't take up space. Then I changed the layout of the character sheet to add room for the Satchel and specific pieces of armour. You can compare my siblings' original character sheets to the newest version in the game and see where they crossed things out or added them as we went along and made changes: 

• Last but not least, I realized that even with me helping them, my siblings were still struggling with the concept of a TTRPG and how to go about playing. And I don’t really blame them, because TTRPGs are still new and confusing for me! After all, my mission was to make TTRPGs less daunting and more accessible to potential players. So to solve this, I created a sheet at the end of my SRD as a visual guide for how to go about turns in a tabletop game. It has very simple instructions for both the GM and players, referencing terms in the game they made need to familiarize themselves with in the SRD.

Overall, I think I learned a lot during this process about how to make tabletop games more accessible, and how to avoid making any assumptions about how players may want to go about their game. I’m really proud of Bready Or Not! And I think I succeeded in making a game that’s detailed, easy to follow, and flexible for all potential players.

 Thanks for reading my journey to create this game! Go download it yourself (for FREE!) and see what you think!

(And keep an eye out for the digital prototype, coming soon!)

                         - Teo :D

                        @teo.swf on Instagram

                       or email matteodegliangeli03@gmail.com