Quote:
Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty
Example: Let's say the average playtest needs 20 people and right now we get an average of 60 applications per playtest. (Those certainly aren't the exact numbers, but it's close enough to reality for a simple example.) That means 40 people who need to be considered, vetted, and ultimately turned down. That's not an insignificant amount of work for no added playtest value.
|
Just to jump in here, I was Lead Playtester for Tactical Shooting (and High Tech, but it's TS I want to discuss).
I asked for responses from people that covered several criteria, including whether they had a current GURPS game they could actually test rules with, and if they were an actual shooter or not. There were others.
I then put all that into a table and used "Relative Priority Notation" to come up with a score of how desirable each candidate was. There were a few who had tons of previous and credited playtest experience, had been actual tactical operators (or instructed them!), had an ongoing and relevant campaign, etc. We also then selected a few who had no previous experience (break 'em in), some who had zero shooting experience and had never held a gun, but they had an ongoing campaign that could test stuff, so that 'simple to play' had weight along with 'reasonable reflection of reality.' there were other criteria, and they were discussed with the authors and staff, who of course got the final word. I was merely a facilitator.
Suffice it to say that having several dozen potential applicants made this vetting process worth the time. Having a HUNDRED of these, or more...yeesh.
So it's very worthwhile to have some sort of self selection going on around to keep the pool large enough to be varied, but small enough to be siftable.