>I guess I ought to mention that this is my first playtest >going through the Pyramid/newsgroups system. The >last time I had a whole book playtested was 1993 or >1994 -- Mage -- and that was handled by a >considerably smaller playtest community that was far >more intimate and family-like. The few things I read >seemed more interested in tearing the book down than >in building it up.
>
>I am so tempted to let the lead playtested do all the >interaction with the newsgroup, but I promised I would >stick my nose in from time to time...
As a playtester who has taken the time to read the manuscript, post a variety of comments that were certainly intended to be helpful, and participating in other discussions based on other comments, I'm less than enthused in continuing if the author doesn't intend to read the forum.
As I see it the feedback so far in the 500+ messages currently posted can be loosely grouped into 4 categories.
1)This isn't what was expected. Several of us were expecting less of a focus on weres. This may not be a problem at all, I assume the author and SJG have a good idea of what the goal of this book is.
2)Their is too much focus on werewolves. Seems to be a general consensus on this topic. Easy to fix if desired.
3)Complaints about the mechanics. Numerous GURPS books have tried to tackle this subject, all using different mechanics. If you didn't expect feedback on this I'm very surprised. However if you were to read the feedback you'll see it varies a great deal and IMHO there are plenty of good suggestions from mild tweaks to radical overhauls. This is an area where author participation would really help steer the playtest.
4)Suggestions for topics that weren't covered. As this is something you specifically asked for I hope you aren't complaining about it.
I'm sorry you have had such a bad reaction to the playtest so far but I think you'll find that in general the playtesters will genuinely try to give you constructive feedback. Aside from a few posts at the very start I haven't seen many posts that were negative in tone. Even then I think the problem was more that playtesters were epecting a book with less focus on Were creatures than a huge problem with the quality of the book. Obviously we're not going to post about the parts of the book we like, only the parts we think can be improved. So if that's a problem I don't know what to tell you.
>
>I am so tempted to let the lead playtested do all the >interaction with the newsgroup, but I promised I would >stick my nose in from time to time...
As a playtester who has taken the time to read the manuscript, post a variety of comments that were certainly intended to be helpful, and participating in other discussions based on other comments, I'm less than enthused in continuing if the author doesn't intend to read the forum.
As I see it the feedback so far in the 500+ messages currently posted can be loosely grouped into 4 categories.
1)This isn't what was expected. Several of us were expecting less of a focus on weres. This may not be a problem at all, I assume the author and SJG have a good idea of what the goal of this book is.
2)Their is too much focus on werewolves. Seems to be a general consensus on this topic. Easy to fix if desired.
3)Complaints about the mechanics. Numerous GURPS books have tried to tackle this subject, all using different mechanics. If you didn't expect feedback on this I'm very surprised. However if you were to read the feedback you'll see it varies a great deal and IMHO there are plenty of good suggestions from mild tweaks to radical overhauls. This is an area where author participation would really help steer the playtest.
4)Suggestions for topics that weren't covered. As this is something you specifically asked for I hope you aren't complaining about it.
I'm sorry you have had such a bad reaction to the playtest so far but I think you'll find that in general the playtesters will genuinely try to give you constructive feedback. Aside from a few posts at the very start I haven't seen many posts that were negative in tone. Even then I think the problem was more that playtesters were epecting a book with less focus on Were creatures than a huge problem with the quality of the book. Obviously we're not going to post about the parts of the book we like, only the parts we think can be improved. So if that's a problem I don't know what to tell you.